Welcome to The Atlas of Human Cardiac Anatomy; an interactive educational site created and maintained by the Visible Heart® Laboratory at the University of Minnesota in collaboration with Medtronic, Inc. This site features images created from the Visible Heart® project, a novel educational tool which allows for viewing functional human cardiac anatomy from within.

We have created a library of short Video clips to allow you to visualize the beating human heart, all the valve actions, the contractions of atria and ventricles, and the architecture of the heart as it beats. The video clips include those from 14 human hearts that we have reanimated to date, as well as still images from additional human hearts that were perfusion fixed; that is, they were preserved so to maintain their shape at the end stages of filling.

These experimental procedures and research protocols were reviewed and approved by the University of Minnesota Institutional Review Board. Human hearts for this project were obtained both as generous gifts from LifeSource Upper Midwest Organ Procurement Organization, Inc, St. Paul, Minnesota and the Anatomy Bequest Program of the University of Minnesota. This research is made possible due to the generous gifts of individuals whose hearts have been donated for research purposes. Their final act of generosity will enhance understanding of the inner workings of the human heart and contribute to lifesaving advances in cardiac medicine.