A groundbreaking development by researchers introduces a biorobotic heart designed as a tool to help understand and potentially treat heart disease.


Revolutionary Heart Simulator

On January 10, experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology presented a heart simulator made by combining a biological heart and a silicone robotic pump. It beats like a real one with focus on a valve on the left side of the heart.

In studying heart conditions, clinicians, medical students, and trainees used to undergo rigorous testing in heart simulators and animal subjects. However, existing heart simulators do not fully capture the complexity of an actual heart and only have a short shelf-life of two to four hours. Meanwhile, animal studies are expensive and time consuming, only to provide findings that may not always translate to humans.

The new biorobotic heart can fill these gaps as a less expensive approach with a shelf life of several months. Led by MIT biomedical engineer Ellen Roche, the researchers focused on mitral regurgitation, a condition where a leaky heart valve results in backward flow of the blood.

Roche and her colleagues replaced the heart muscle of a pig with a silicone-made soft robotic pump system actuated by air. The system twists and squeezes the heart like a real muscle when inflated. It also pumps artificial blood through a mock circulation system and simulates the beat of a biological heart.

Then the researchers damaged the mitral valve in the biorobotic heart to show the characteristics of a leaky heart valve. The damage was corrected by cardiac surgeons using three different techniques: implanting a device to help valve leaflet closing, replacing the valve with a prosthetic valve, and anchoring the flailing valve leaflet tissue with artificial chords.

All these procedures were successful when applied to the biorobotic heart. The system is not only compatible with current imaging technologies used in the clinics, but it also allows the researchers to gather real-time data during surgery. Since the artificial blood used is clear, it enables direct visualization of the procedure.

These findings demonstrated the potential of the biorobotic heart as a new heart model. In the future, the research team plans to optimize the existing biorobotic heart system by shortening the production time and by lengthening its shelf life even more.


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What is Mitral Regurgitation?

The flow of blood from the left atrium to the left ventricle is controlled by the flaps of the mitral valve, which are also called valve leaflets or cusps. Sometimes, these valves do not close tightly enough or have altered size and shape, resulting in leakage of blood in the wrong direction. This leak is referred to as mitral regurgitation or mitral valve insufficiency.

Mitral regurgitation is considered as the most common form of heart valve disease which affects about 24.4 million people worldwide. It is usually mild and developed slowly without showing symptoms for many years in some people.

Fatigue is a common but nonspecific symptom of mitral regurgitation. Other symptoms include shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, swollen feet or ankles, and feelings of fluttering heartbeat.

A damaged mitral valve might need to be repaired even if the patient does not show any symptoms. Before considering valve replacement, healthcare providers might recommend mitral valve repair which aims to save existing valves and save heart function.

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