A three dimensional sat-nav for the heart

Mechanical modulation of cardiac structure-function relations in the nano-to-micro domain

The heart is amazingly complex, yet astonishingly robust in its response to changing conditions, from exercise to aging, disease and even transplantation to another body. This ability to adapt over milliseconds to years is based on cell level self-regulatory mechanisms. Exploration of these regulatory mechanisms requires a better understanding of how the individual heart muscle cells correctly anticipate the power they will need to work on the next heartbeat. In this Senior Fellowship Professor Peter Kohl and colleagues at Imperial College London will combine detailed three-dimensional mapping of single heart cells (with a resolution that is equivalent to the ‘street-view’ of global mapping systems) and link that to a description of rhythmic deformation that each cell undergoes on every beat of the heart. They will analyse how this affects the physical environment in terms of blood and molecule distributions (like a tidal wave that can be sensed even in cities such as London) and characterise how all of this is affected by heart disease. This work will develop a 3D sat-nav for the ‘inner cities’ of the heart, together with emergency maps that will allow us to prevent and treat heart disease in the future.