Defining Coronary Flow Patterns: Comprehensive Automation of Transthoracic Doppler Coronary Blood Flow.

The coronary microcirculation (CM) plays a critical role in the regulation of blood flow and nutrient exchange to support the viability of the heart. In many disease states, the CM becomes structurally and functionally impaired, and transthoracic Doppler echocardiography can be used as a non-invasive surrogate to assess CM disease. Analysis of Doppler echocardiography is prone to user bias and can be laborious, especially if additional parameters are collected.

Coronary Microvascular Remodeling in Type 2 Diabetes: Synonymous With Early Aging?

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is suggested to cause an "early vascular aging" phenomenon that is associated with vascular dysfunction, remodeling, and adverse alterations in vascular stiffness. Given that both T2DM and aging are prominent risk factors for cardiovascular disease, the aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that coronary resistance microvessel (CRM) remodeling and impairments in flow occur in the compound setting of T2DM and aging. Normal heterozygous Db/db controls and homozygous db/db mice were aged to 16 (young) or 36 (aged) weeks for all experiments and passive pressure myography and echocardiography were used to assess vascular mechanics, and structure.