Are COVID-19-linked arrhythmias caused by viral damage to the heart’s pacemaker cells? The SARS-CoV-2 virus can infect specialized pacemaker cells that maintain the heart’s rhythmic beat, setting off a self-destruction process within the cells, according to a preclinical study co-led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian and NYU Grossman School of Medicine. The findings offer a possible explanation for the heart arrhythmias that are commonly observed in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. In the study, reported on March 8, 2022, in Circulation Research, the researchers used an animal model as well as human stem cell-derived pacemaker cells to show that...