Determinants of Intra-cardiac Kinetic Energy

What do we know about the kinetic energy of intra-cardiac blood flow during the two phases of the cardiac cycle? Virtually nothing. That’s what Steding-Ehrenborg et al seek to change in a new study we explore in this podcast. Listen as Associate Editor Fabio Recchia (Temple University Lewis Katz School of Medicine, and Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy) interviews lead author Katarina Steding-Ehrenborg (Lund University) and content expert Martin Ugander (Karolinska University Hospital) about how the authors used state-of-the-art cardiac magnetic resonance imaging with 4-dimensional phase-contrast sequences to compare kinetic energy in atrial and ventricular chambers in both healthy volunteers and elite endurance athletes. What are the differences in the filling mechanisms between the two chambers of the heart, and how does this affect cardiac pump function? What does high, or low, intra-cardiac blood flow kinetic energy really mean? Listen as we unpack the details of this intriguing, ground-breaking new work.

Katarina Steding-Ehrenborg, Per Martin Arvidsson, Johannes Toger, Mattias Rydberg, Einar Heiberg, Marcus Carlsson, Hakan Arheden Determinants of kinetic energy of blood flow in the four-chambered heart in athletes and sedentary controls Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol, published January 1, 2016. DOI: 10.1152/ajpheart.00544.2015.