Welcome to The Atlas of Human Cardiac Anatomy; a free to use, publicly accessible 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 over 50 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 Organ and Tissue Donation, 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.
Use Statement
The videos and images on the Atlas of Human Cardiac Anatomy are free to download and use
for educational purposes. In return, we request that you maintain the
"University of Minnesota/© Medtronic" watermark on the video/image, and include this citation:
Atlas of Human Cardiac Anatomy, University of Minnesota/© Medtronic (www.vhlab.umn.edu/atlas)
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