Welcome to visibleheart.com, an interactive educational site creation
jointly developed and maintained
by the University of Minnesota and Medtronic, Inc.
This site is a showcase for the Visible Heart®
project, a novel educational tool for observing how a real heart
works from within. You can see a beating heart, all the valve
movements, the contractions of atria and ventricles, and the architecture
of the heart as it beats. The Video Library
features video clips and sample views from various anatomical sites within
the heart.
The Visible Heart® allows for visualization
of the inner workings and anatomical features of a beating heart
through the use of a clear blood-like solution and an isolated
heart apparatus. The Visible Heart® preparation employed to produce such images as these on this website is subject to U.S. Patent No. 7,045,279. To view these images,
visit the continually updated video library
section of this site or follow the Visible Heart® throughout
the world by clicking on the conferences section. You can also
learn about the history of this project
and the process by which these high-resolution
images were created in the background section. However,
the creation of internal images is only one facet of this multidisciplinary
project. The Visible Heart® lab has published in peer-reviewed
scientific journals on the merits of using an isolated large mammalian
isolated heart maintained with a clear perfusate. The preparation
can function in working or Langendorff modes for research in cardiac
anesthesiology, cardiology, electrophysiology, and cardiac surgery.
Additionally, this large mammalian isolated working heart also
serves as a model for evaluating therapies targeted at improving
cardiac performance following acute
myocardial infarction, bypass and/or transplant procedures. After
reviewing the contents of the site, send us your comments
and/or requests for special educational programs where
such images and associated functional data could be utilized,
contact us to see if we can help.
