Computer heart model recalls Da Vinci146;s sketches

Five centuries after Leonardo da Vinci's intricate drawings transformed understanding of the human heart...

Five centuries after Leonardo da Vinci8217;s intricate drawings transformed understanding of the human heart, a new computer model promises to do the same for modern-day cardiac care, experts say.

The model 8212; so realistic its four chambers beat in the same asymmetrical rhythm on screen as does a real heart in the human body 8212; is the work of three British doctors who say the creation will improve both training and care during surgery.

The three-dimensional model8217;s intricate details coupled with life-like animation that doctors can easily manipulate make the cyber heart unique, said Sue Wright, an anesthesiologist at the Heart Hospital in London who helped design the heart.

8220;We can slice it, spin it around and look at it from any angle. We have reproduced the timing of the human heart beat to within 20 milliseconds,8221; she said. The new model will lead to better care, said Robert Anderson, a heart structure expert at University College London.

The Italian master8217;s drawings showed the heart was a muscle with four chambers, he noted. They also suggested that arteries could clog up over a lifetime, posing a risk to health.

8220;At the time, da Vinci8217;s sketches opened up a new approach to the understanding of cardiac structure,8221; said Anderson, also a visiting professor at the Medical University of South Carolina. 8220;The new model is just as important, since it sets a new paradigm for understanding cardiac structure.8221; The pharmaceutical industry is also eyeing virtual models of the human body as a quicker and more cost-effective way to predict how developmental drugs may work in different parts of the body.

The three doctors at the Heart Hospital in London say they designed their virtual heart because they felt current two-dimensional models were not accurate enough.

Story continues below this ad

These limitations make it harder to teach students how to perform a complicated ultrasound scan of the heart that entails guiding a probe down through the throat to the stomach.

8220;We were trying to teach people the anatomy of the heart using inaccurate models,8221; Wright said.