Background In bright blood imaging, partial volume averaging of small moving intracavitary structures and surrounding bright blood often degrades the depiction of such morphology. Therefore, structures including papillary muscles, trabeculations, and intracardiac masses are better visualized with dark blood (DB) techniques. DB imaging also provides better image contrast for low signal structure...

• Cardiac MRI must assess morphology, function, blood supply, and tissue status • Cardiac MRI scans must be gated to the heart cycle • Gated scans also typically require some form of respiratory correction • Morphology and function are often assessed simultaneously with a cine scan • Blood supply to the heart is assessed by monitoring the passage of contrast agent through the myocardium • Myoca...

We investigated the effects of early ovarian hormone deprivation on the heart and the role of physical training in this condition using different approaches: cardiac autonomic tone, contractility, morphology and function, and cardiac fibrosis. Female Wistar rats (n = 48) were assigned into two groups: ovariectomized (Ovx; 10-wk-old) and control rats (Sham; 10-wk-old). Each group was further div...

The zebrafish (Danio rerio) has become an attractive vertebrate model for studying developmental processes, and is emerging as a model system for studying the mechanisms by which xenobiotic compounds perturb normal development. Embryos treated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) shortly after fertilization exhibit a range of adverse effects on the heart: an early reduction in cardia...

The mouse heart is a target of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) during fetal development, and microarray analysis demonstrates significant changes in expression of cardiac genes involved in extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling. We tested the hypothesis that developmental TCDD exposure would disrupt cardiac ECM expression and be associated with changes in cardiac morphology in adultho...

BACKGROUND Sedentary aging leads to adverse changes in vascular function and cardiac performance. We published improvements in vascular function with moderate intensity physical activity (PA) in continuous bouts. Whether moderate intensity PA also impacts cardiac structure and cardiovascular performance of the aging left ventricle (LV) is unknown. METHODS We recruited and analyzed results fro...

Background Noninvasively evaluate the cardiac remodeling and the effect of statins on cardiac remodeling are important for understanding this physiopathologic process. Therefore, we try to use the cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) to observe the progression of cardiac morphology and function in Apolipoprotein E-deficient (ApoE-/-) mice fed with normal and high-fat diet separately, and evaluate t...

The morphology of the reptilian heart results in the mixing of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood (cardiac shunts). In birds and mammals cardiac shunts are detrimental, but in reptiles this condition is often considered a derived trait, conveying important physiological functions and favored by natural selection. Alternative views are advanced suggesting that, in reptiles, cardiac shunts represe...