THE EFFECT OF ETHANOL, NICOTINE, AND CAFFEINE SOLUTIONS ON CHANGE IN HEART RATE IN ORGANISM DAPHNIA MAGNA

Abstract

The rate of contraction in cardiac muscle cells relies heavily on the conditions of the environment that the muscle cell is being exposed to. Several studies analyze how stimulants and depressants alter the heart rate of animals, but these studies lack experimentation on hearts that have a similar physical structure to humans (Hille, 2001). Our study focuses on the crustacean, Daphnia Magna,as a model to determine the effects that ethanol, nicotine, and caffeine solutions have on an organism’s heart rate, an indication of the firing of action potentials within cardiac muscle cells. We proposed that caffeine and nicotine will increase the heartbeat of the organism, while ethanol will decrease it because the caffeine and nicotine are stimulants that agitate the neuroreceptors causing the stimulation of action potentials, whereas the ethanol is an inhibitor that blocks the firing of neuroreceptors. We determined the heart rate of five different Daphnia Magnapre-exposure and post-exposure to a solution of either caffeine, nicotine, or ethanol, five times per solution, while the heart rate was recorded in intervals of six and the beats per minute were calculated to make comparisons between the effects. We expect that this study will be useful to scientist in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine looking to replace damaged tissues of heart attack victims.