The relations between ultrastructure and function have been examined in the canine left ventricle under known hemodynamic conditions. Left ventricles of normal dogs were fixed acutely by rapid perfusions of the coronary arteries in either diastole or systole, and also following acute ventricular distension, or potentiation of contraction. Sarcomere lengths at the midwall of the left ventricle a...

The relations between ultrastructure and function have been examined in the canine left ventricle under known hemodynamic conditions. Left ventricles of normal dogs were fixed acutely by rapid perfusions of the coronary arteries in either diastole or systole, and also following acute ventricular distension, or potentiation of contraction. Sarcomere lengths at the midwall of the left ventricle a...

The echocardiographic motion of the aortic root reflects, in part, left atrial filling and emptying. Patients with mitral valve obstruction were studied to determine whether clinically important alterations in patterns of left atrial emptying would alter motion of the posterior aortic wall. Patients with mitral stenosis had a characteristic pattern of slowing of left atrial emptying in early di...

Cross-sectional echocardiography (CSE) was performed on 19 patients with mitral stenosis (MS). Nine patients (group 1) had little or no mitral valve (MV) calcification; ten patients (group 2) had heavy MV calcification. An opening snap was present in each of the patients in group 1. Of the group 2 patients, five (group 2A) had an opening snap and five (group 2B) did not. CSE in the long axis re...

The left ventricular (LV) incomplete relaxation (IR) has been reported to play an important role in the pathophysiology of the congestive heart failure such as causing higher diastolic pressure and/or impeding the coronary perfusion during diastole. Therefore, using open chest canine preparations (n = 4), we examined 1) whether the minute external vibration during diastole could release IR and ...

PURPOSE To compare the effectiveness and reproducibility of a new black-blood sequence vs. a conventional bright-blood gradient-echo T2* sequence for myocardial iron overload measurement in thalassemia. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twenty thalassemia patients were studied. Black-blood sequence images were acquired in diastole after a double inversion recovery (DIR) preparation pulse. Bright-blood se...

Free-breathing cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging has short examination time with high reproducibility. Detection of the end-diastole and the end-systole frames of the free-breathing cardiac magnetic resonance, supplemented by visual identification, is time consuming and laborious. We propose a novel method for automatic identification of both the end-diastole and the end-systole frames, ...

Brefeldin A (BFA) causes a block in the secretory system of eukaryotic cells. In the scaly green flagellate Scherffelia dubia, BFA also interfered with the function of the contractile vacuoles (CVs). The CV is an osmoregulatory organelle which periodically expels fluid from the cell in many freshwater protists. Fusion of the CV membrane with the plasma membrane is apparently blocked by BFA in S...

The echocardiographic motion of the aortic root reflects, in part, left atrial filling and emptying. Patients with mitral valve obstruction were studied to determine whether clinically important alterations in patterns of left atrial emptying would alter motion of the posterior aortic wall. Patients with mitral stenosis had a characteristic pattern of slowing of left atrial emptying in early di...