Cardiovascular imaging is routinely used to investigate cardiac structure and function as well as for the evaluation of cardiac remodeling in cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). For a complete understanding of the relationship between structural remodeling and cardiac dysfunction in CVDs, multi-scale imaging approaches are necessary to achieve a detailed description of ventricular architecture along with cardiac function. Recently, synchrotron-based X-ray phase-contrast imaging (SR X-PCI) has emerged as a powerful imaging technique for the investigation of cardiac structure ex-vivo.

SR X-PCI provides an opportunity to non-destructively study intact both human and animal explanted tissues with resolutions down to the submicron level (> 1 um), allowing the investigation of cardiac anatomy and tissue micro-structure in 3D and non-destructively, and assess alterations in different CVDs.

In this project, we have used SR X-PCI to image whole hearts of different rodent models of pulmonary hypertension (PHT) using a multiscale protocol. The aim of this TFG is to quantify the structural changes (myocytes orientation, fibrosis, cellular hypertrophy, etc.) using machine/deep learning-based methods, in the right and left ventricles, both in control and failing hearts of several rodent models of PHT. This project will be done  in collaboration with the Swiss synchrotron.

References

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[2] Dejea, H. et al. Comprehensive Analysis of Animal Models of Cardiovascular Disease using Multiscale X-Ray Phase Contrast Tomography. Sci Rep-uk 9, 6996–6996 (2019).

[3] Dejea, H. et al. Microstructural analysis of cardiac endomyocardial biopsies with synchrotron radiation-based X-ray phase contrast imaging. FIMH 10263 LNCS, (2017).

[4] Gonzalez-Tendero, A. et al. Whole heart detailed and quantitative anatomy, myofibre structure and vasculature from X-ray phase-contrast synchrotron radiation-based micro computed tomography. European Hear J - Cardiovasc Imaging 18, 732–741 (2017).