First Google Earth video of the human heart gives viewers a look inside healthy and diseased organs

The world’s first atlas of the human heart offers a Google Earth-like view of the inside of the organ, scientists say.

The amazing technology allows viewers to see healthy and diseased hearts in “unprecedented detail”.

Experts hope that the technology will be “invaluable” in improving understanding of cardiovascular disease and “accelerating” medical treatment in this area.

“The atlas we have created is like Google Earth for the human heart,” said lead study author Professor Peter Lee, from UCL’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.

“This will allow us to view the entire organ at a global scale, and then zoom in to ground level to view cardiovascular features in unprecedented detail.

“Being able to image an entire organ in this way reveals details and connections that weren’t visible before.”

The study, published in the Journal of Radiology, provides a map of the human heart that captures the organ’s entire anatomy with an accuracy of 20 micrometres – half the width of a human hair.

In certain areas, imaging down to the cellular level is being carried out.

It shows two whole adult hearts in 3D: one healthy and one diseased.

The research team hopes that this technology will “facilitate research into both healthy and diseased hearts that has not previously been possible.”

“Understanding the anatomy and connections” could improve treatment options for arrhythmias (abnormal heart rhythms) and create more realistic models for surgical training, the researchers added.

Professor Lee said: “One of the great advantages of this technique is that it provides a complete 3D image of the organ, which is about 25 times better than a clinical CT scanner.”

“In addition, we can zoom in on selected areas down to the cellular level, allowing us to see the same details as we see under a microscope, but 250 times more accurately, without having to cut into the sample.”

Professor Andrew Cook, a cardiac anatomist at the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, University of London, and author of the study, added: “With today’s technology it is very difficult to accurately interpret the anatomical structures underlying pathologies such as arrhythmias.”

“Therefore, there is great potential for new treatments to emerge using the imaging techniques we have demonstrated here.

“We believe our findings will help researchers understand the development of heart rhythm abnormalities and the effectiveness of ablation strategies to treat them.”

“For example, we now have a way to determine differences in the thickness of the tissue and fat layer between the outer surface of the heart and the protective sac that surrounds it, which could have implications for treating arrhythmias.”

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide.

Ischemic heart disease, which weakens the heart due to reduced blood flow, accounted for 8.9 million deaths worldwide in 2019, or 16% of all deaths, a figure that has increased by more than 2 million since 2000.

Clinicians typically use imaging techniques such as ultrasound, CT and MRI to diagnose cardiovascular disease, but these techniques do not provide detailed structural information about what is happening inside the organ.

To achieve this, organs need to be sliced ​​into thin sections and scanned, severely limiting the field of view.

In recent years, a type of particle accelerator called a synchrotron has been used to develop new imaging techniques that overcome these limitations.

Although synchrotron studies of whole fetuses and small animal hearts have been published, these have always been at a scale much smaller than the major adult organs.

This is the only place in the world where whole adult organs can be imaged with such high contrast.

Paul TafforelloEuropean Synchrotron Radiation Facility

In the study, scientists from UCL and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) used an X-ray technique called hierarchical phase-contrast tomography (HiP-CT) to image two entire adult hearts at a scale of 20 micrometres, providing a comprehensive, detailed 3D picture of the entire organ.

Detailed imaging of the cardiac conduction system, which generates and transmits the electrical signals that drive the pumping action of the heart muscle, is one example of how this research will impact cardiovascular medicine, the authors say.

The two hearts were imaged at the ESRF in Grenoble, France, which is home to the world’s most bright X-ray source.

One case was from a 63-year-old man with no history of heart disease, and the other was from an 87-year-old woman with a history of ischemic heart disease, high blood pressure, and atrial fibrillation.

It is not possible to image the heart of a living person this way because the radiation dose is too high.

Mega Data

“When I first saw the heart with HiP-CT, I was amazed to see how clearly the soft tissues, which are invisible in conventional X-ray images, were visible,” said Dr Joseph Brunet, lead study author from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University of London and visiting scientist at ESRF.

“This is possible because of the way phase-contrast x-rays interact with these tissues and the high energy that ESRF can generate to penetrate entire organs.”

However, this solution is not without challenges.

Imaging each heart generated 10 terabytes of data, one million times more than a standard CT scan.

Study author Paul Tafforeau from ESRF, who invented the HiP-CT technique, said: “The ESRF beamline facility is currently the only place in the world where we can image whole adult human organs with such high contrast, and we are still far from the limits of the technology.”

“The main limiting factor is the processing of the very large data generated by HiP-CT.”

An exhibition of the Cardiac Atlas and the technology behind it will be free to the public at ‘The Wonders’ at London’s Bloomsbury Theatre on 19 July as part of the UCL Engineering Festival.