Abdullah Alabdulgader

By Abdullah Abdulrhman Al Abdulgader

Human Consciousness is one of most elusive issues in the scientific history. Its nature created major historical debate started thousands of years ago and still ongoing. Despite the explosive developments in the last 6 decades to explore its nature, the knowledge about it is still deficient. The important advances in the twentieth and 21st centuries in understanding cerebral cortex dynamics fortified by the dominant materialistic philosophical approach of the era dictated its impact on consciousness science, which is understood as sole human brain function. This chapter is a call for holistic perception of human consciousness incorporating the ancient wisdom of the human civilizations with the massive current advances in different disciplines of applied sciences. The description of René Descartes in the 17th century of the Cartesian dualism is timely to revisit with new holistic perspective, in view of the major advances of our understanding of heart brain communications, astrophysical resonances with, human heart and central nervous system frequencies, and signaling between humans and their large environment. Neural and psychological correlates of human consciousness which dominate the consciousness research nowadays should undergo revolutionary conceptual understanding to perceive consciousness as a massive universal event expanding from human genes to galaxies with cerebral cortex as major player.

Part of the book: Cerebral and Cerebellar Cortex

By Abdullah Alabdulgader

Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a serious health problem affecting all nations of world. Its impact is increasing with increasing individual age. Ventricular dyssynchrony is well known to contribute to pathophysiological deterioration in more than one-third of CHF subjects. The therapeutic choices of CHF witnessed long decades of stagnant periods and a relative paucity of effective treatment. The discovery of the electrical therapy that is capable of reversing ventricular dyssynchrony, in the form of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT), is a true revolution in the timeline of CHF management. Despite the early enthusiasm associated with CRT implantations started in 2001, we know from the last two decades’ experience that non-responders constitute to nearly 40% of all CRT patients. This chapter is devoted to reviewing the past, present and future of CRT with special attention on better intelligent detection of the electrical substrate responsive to CRT as well as optimizing the choice of CRT subjects using the latest knowledge in electrocardiographic and state-of-art imagining technologies. Novel future directions are discussed with new scientific philosophies capable of optimizing CRT. Promising new implants techniques such as endocardial pacing of the left ventricle, His bundle pacing as well as His-optimized cardiac resynchronization therapy are discussed.

Part of the book: Cardiac Rhythm Management