[A. N. Bakoulev Scientific Center for Cardiovascular Surgery].

Objective: to assess dynamics of diastolic function for detection of development of diastolic dysfunction (DD) and it's causes, to evaluate the effect of DD on prognosis in the postoperative period in patients with acquired heart diseases.

Materials And Methods: We included in this study 112 patients with aortic and mitral valve diseases (90 men, 22 women, median age 51 [35; 57] years). All patients underwent echocardiography (echo), tissue Doppler, speckle tracking echo prior to surgery, in the early postoperative period (8-14 days) and in 12-36 months after surgery.

[Opportunities Provided by Stress Echocardiography and Stress Speckle tracking for the Evaluation of Myocardial Reserve Among Patients With Heart Defects].

Heart failure risk factors research as well as studies of myocardial dysfunction to identify subclinical heart disease are important problems that can be solved with stress echocardiography and new methods of myocardial function analysis. Key factors defining the prognosis of patients with valvular diseases are heart remodeling and myocardial contractility. Heart remodeling types have been studied in detail by the present time.

Experimental Study of Kinematic Activity of Left Ventricular Myocardium.

A method of invasive and non-invasive examination of epicardial motion was tested on domestic pigs (n=15). The invasive study employed a contact kinematic sensor of the epicardial wall motion, which determined the amplitude, velocity, and angular parameters of examined epicardial region. A non-invasive assessment of the epicardial kinematics based on echocardiographic 2D Velocity Vector Imaging and ECG recoding used to determine the heart electrical axis.

[The use of novel technologies for assessment of myocardial function in clinical practice].

Key factors defining the prognosis of patients with heart failure (HF) are cardiac remodeling and myocardial contractility. New methods of visualization of myocardial motion gave impulse to research in the area of heart physiology and pathology. However in clinical practice these methods are still rarely used.

[Glutamatergic excitation of cortical neurons depending on site of origin on the neuronal membrane and cholinergic regulation under hypothermic condition].

In sensorimotor cortical slices of guinea pig in the course of cooling of incubating fluid from 34 to 21-22 delta C it was shown that hypothermia does not influence on the evoked spike reactions to iontophoretic application of glutamate to the soma, but glutamate action on the dendritic locus causes the shot latency somatic spike response during hypothermic increasing of the rate of spontaneous activity and long latency spike response--during hypothermic fall of activity. While the cooling rate of spontaneous activity in the slow firing neurons was mainly increasing and in the high firing neurons (above 4 spikes per second)--decreasing. The changes in spontaneous activity began at 30 degrees C along with the decreased spike reactions to iontophoretic applications of acetylcholine and efficacy of dendro-somatic propagation.

[The Use of Novel Technologies for Assessment of Myocardial Function in Clinical Practice].

Key factors defining the prognosis of patients with heart failure (HF) are cardiac remodeling and myocardial contractility. New methods of visualization of myocardial motion gave impulse to research in the area of heart physiology and pathology. However in clinical practice these methods are still rarely used.

[The assessment of mechanical heart valves stenosis in adults after aortic valve replacement: the advantage of full-flow design of mechanical valve].

The analysis of transprosthetic hemodynamics in adults after aortic valve replacement in the Bakoulev Center for Cardiovascular Surgery in 2007-2010 demonstrated the hemodynamic advantage of the concept of new full-flow mechanical aortic valve prosthesis "CorBeat". Having the same size of internal orifice and tissue annulus diameters, the values of transprosthetic parameters (peak and mean gradients, blood flow velocities) through "CorBeat" were close to physiological values of transvalvular native aortic parameters and had a tendency to be not dependent on the size of prosthesis (p = 0.63).

[The temperature regulation of the spontaneous activity frequency and the concomitant changes of the cortical neurons' spike amplitude].

In the sensorimotor cortical slices of guinea pigs, the rate of neurons' spike activity increased at 27-29 and 34-36 degrees C. The change of the firing rate was accompanied by a drop in the spike amplitude at the temperature below 27 and above 34 degrees C. Usually after cooling to 24 degrees C the spike amplitude fully restored when the temperature increased to 32-34 degrees C.

Endogenous Na/K-ATPase inhibitors in patients with preeclampsia.

Although preeclampsia (PE) is a major cause of maternal and fetal mortality, its pathogenesis is not fully understood. Digitalis-like cardiotonic steroids (CTS) are believed to be involved in the pathophysiology of PE, as illustrated by clinical observations that DIGIBIND, a digoxin antibody which binds CTS, lowers blood pressure in PE. Recently we reported that plasma levels of marinobufagenin (MBG), a vasoconstrictor CTS, are increased fourfold in patients with severe PE.