The walls of the human heart develop slower than other mammals, according to a new study published in Journal of the Royal Society Interface Focus.
Researchers developed the first comprehensive model of human heart development using observations of living fetal hearts. Human hearts have walls that are a disorganized jumble of tissue until late in pregnancy, despite having the shape of a fully functioning heart.
During the study, they saw four clearly defined chambers in the fetal heart from the eighth week of pregnancy and they did not find organized muscle tissue until the 20th week.
Developing a simulation of the fetal heart is critical in helping researchers understand normal heart development in the womb. This simulation could eventually open up new ways of detecting and dealing with some functional abnormalities in early pregnancies.
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