Structural Investigations: Reconstructing Individual Hearts with Para-Cellular Resolution
Dr Rebecca Burton, Dr Ramón Casero and Mr Carlos Afonso
In collaboration with the Oxford-based group of Dr Jürgen Schneider, the group has made significant inroads on combining advances in non-invasive imaging (such as magnetic resonance imaging) with whole-heart histological reconstruction. These data-sets are integrated jointly with the group of Dr Vicente Grau at Oxford, to build computational models of individual cardiac structure and function. These are used in collaboration with several members of the Oxford Computing Laboratory to conduct combined theoretical and experimental investigations into normal and disturbed cardiac function. The challenge of going ‘micro-to-macro’ can be illustrated by the fact that a single histology dataset for a heart thirty times smaller than that of a human contains ~1.5 TB (terrabyte) of information, so that novel tools had to be developed for image analysis, data integration, and reduction to computationally tractable models. The latter are then used with Chaste, an open source numerical library, to conduct cardiac modelling studies.
Ongoing work is focussed at applying these models to cardiac mechano-electric coupling research, closing the loop from functional investigations to individualised heart reconstruction and modelling of previously observed functional behaviour. In addition, we are moving towards fast and high-resolution structure imaging in cardiac tissue samples during contraction and relaxation.
Recent papers:
- Bub G, Camelliti P, Bollensdorff C, Stuckey D, Picton G, Burton RAB, Clarke K & Kohl P. Measurement and analysis of sarcomere length in rat cardiomycoytes in situ and in vitro. American Journal of Physiology 2010/298:H1616-H1625 (AJP).
- Bishop MJ, Plank G, Burton RA, Schneider JE, Gavaghan DJ, Grau V & Kohl P. Development of an anatomically-detailed MRI-derived rabbit ventricular model and assessment of its impact on simulation of electrophysiological function. American Journal of Physiology 2010/298:H699-H718 (AJP).
- Plank G, Burton RAB, Hales P, Bishop M, Mansoori T, Bernabeu M, Garny A, Prassl AJ, Bollensdorf C, Mason F, Rodriguez B, Grau V, Schneider J, Gavaghan D & Kohl P. Generation of histo-anatomically representative models of the individual heart: tools and application. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 2009/367(1896):2257-2292 (DOI).
