The reanimation allows for visualization of the unique functional anatomies within each heart, explains the University of Minnesota's Paul Iaizzo.

Chris Newmarker

Watch enough Frankenstein movies, and you'll probably get excited about the idea of reanimated hearts. But such reanimation is much more than cool: it provides valuable insights for medical device designers, explains Paul Iaizzo, PhD, principal investigator at the University of Minnesota's Visible Heart Lab.

Since 1999, the Visible Heart Lab has reanimated 70 human hearts donated for research. Studying and visually recording cardiac device placement and performance within various reanimated human hearts enables visualization of the unique functional anatomies within each heart. "We can also perform comparative imaging studies employing multiple imaging modalities: e.g., videoscopes, fiber scopes, high speed cameras, echcardiography, and/or fluoroscopy," Iaizzo says. 

(See Iaizzo discuss his work, and how it could promote device innovation, at MD&M Minneapolis, September 21-22, 2016.)

Iaizzo shared a paper he has written that, among other things, further elaborates on the benefits. They include: 

Iaizzo also noted that cardiac devices' future involves beating heart procedures such as transcatheter-delivered valves, repairs, closure systems, and pacemakers. Such procedures will likely utilize simultaneous multiple imaging modalities--methods the Visible Heart Lab is already using with reanimated hearts. 

The lab has a free online Atlas of Human Cardiac Anatomy with more than 5000 image and movies. It's also posted some footage from reanimated human hearts on YouTube. 

Here's a mechanical aortic valve inside a reanimated heart: 

And this is the right ventricular inflow tract:

This is a mitral valve:

Here's a tricuspid valve:

And this is a right ventricular outflow tract:

(See Iaizzo discuss his work, and how it could promote device innovation, at MD&M Minneapolis, September 21-22, 2016.)

Chris Newmarker is senior editor of Qmed. Follow him on Twitter at @newmarker.

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