Anatomical structures determining blood flow in the heart left ventricle

The presence of twisted helical flow patterns in the cardiac cavities during ventricular filling and ejection was supposed. This work was intended in order to show that the intraventricular trabeculation plays the determining role in such a flow formation and to find some analytical approaches for its analysis. The morphometric study of human left-ventricular and aortic corrosion casts and dynamic measurement of the aorta by MRI-technique were performed. The data were analysed by means of the ''Mathematica'' program. Two groups of trabecules were identified that refer to the inlet and outlet of the ventricular blood flow. The first group consists of trabecules of the free left-ventricular wall. The second group consists of long trabecules going along the anterior left-ventricular wall and intracavital lines of the papillary muscles. Both are twisted clockwise and converge in the flow direction. Each group of trabecules is oriented towards the mitral or aortic valve orifices, correspondingly. It was concluded that the helical trabecular organization acts as flow directing paddles that change their mutual orientation during the cardiac cycle evolution. The reorientation of the flow takes place due to sequential contraction of the ventricular structures. The formalization of trabecular orientation will allow one to calculate improved models of implantable substitutes and auxiliary devices for cardio-vascular surgery.