A High-Res 3D Video of the Embryonic Heartbeat

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the University of Houston, TX, adapted an imaging technique called optical coherence tomography to capture 3D video of the mammalian heart as it forms. They used the method to image a mouse embryo just 8.5 days past conception and about a day after it starts to form. In the remarkable video a normal heartbeat is visible. Normally optical coherence tomography is used for clinical imaging of the retina. Having such a high-resolution, non-invasive way to image the developing heart could perhaps help doctors treat congenital heart disorders in human babies."

Comments

That's VERY impressive.

[jeffb (2.718)]

You can get arbitrarily good images of fixed (dead) embryos, but live imaging using any method is damn tough, and live 3D imaging at this resolution is, as far as I know, unprecedented. Motion makes it nearly impossible to do MR or CT 3D imaging. You can gate against the cardiac cycle to image a single animal, but nobody can yet gate against a fetal heartbeat in a mouse. I'm not even sure if that would be enough, because the maternal heartbeat contributes significant motion, too.

One of our doctoral students did a 3D atlas of the embryonic mouse using MR microscopy. These were fixed specimens, but they're isotropic (the same spatial resolution in all three dimensions), and nobody's come close to matching our resolution as far as I know. Part of her work was looking at cardiac septal defects, which you pretty much have to study in embryos, because they aren't compatible with live birth.

One drawback of OCT is that it fails if you have to go through much tissue. Mice are tiny enough to make this work possible, but I don't think there's any way you could do it in humans, short of inserting a source/detector into the uterus, which kind of spoils the whole "non-invasive" feature.

Re:Cool tech.

[ChromeAeonium]

The only real problem(beyond the usual high start up costs of new technology) will be the inevitable co-opting of this imagery for a new round of weepy anti-abortion ads. "Oh Noes!, Lookat the wittle heart..."

Yes. Showing people biological facts with new technology. How terrible pro-lifers must be.

Re:I don't think so...

[ChromeAeonium]

Statistically, rape is a minority case, so in the vast majority of cases, they are correct. I mean, whether or not the behavior was moral of course can be debated, but the point is it was still the parents' conscious willing decisions.

Re:Cool tech.

[amilo100]

A fetus is nothing special. Because a human is nothing special. It is very arrogant to think that we're oh-so-special. We're not. Life in itself is nothing special.

I see human life as special. This may be because I am human and therefore extremely subjective.

I am sure that when an alien race lands on earth they will be a lot more objective than us.

Re:I don't think so...

[rantingkitten]

I am a PhD student of Neurobiology and I consider abortion murder.

Since you think abortion is murder because the fetus has a nervous system, you must consider killing anything else with a nervous system -- including worms and insects -- to be morally equivalent to the killing of a human. Is that a stance you're willing to take, or would you like to adjust your criteria?

Maybe you should find a more compelling reason to call something "murder".

• "Murder" is specifically the taking of a human life -- not an animal life, a plant life, the life of a fungus, or anything else. It must be human. Merely "being alive" affords you no special status on this planet, as we're perfectly content to slaughter all kinds of life wholesale. But we draw the line at humans.
• There is only one thing that distinguishes humans from any other life form. Most of them are far superior to us in physical abilities; they can run faster, jump higher, shred with claws, cut with teeth, fly, breathe underwater, have a variety of senses and appendages we don't have, and so forth. But we have one thing no other life form seems to have -- our ability to rationalise, abstract, conceptualise.. in short, our ability to think. Other forms of life can certainly think to some degree but there is something unique about our abilities.
• This one important, uniquely human feature requires a functional human brain.
• If it does not have a functional human brain, whatever else it might be, it is not human.
• A human brain requires billions or trillions of interconnected neurons in order to function.
• Large-scale neuron linkup does not occur in humans until the sixth or seventh month of gestation.

A "nervous system" is utterly irrelevent -- we kill millions of living things with nervous systems daily, and whatever else that may be, we do not consider it to be murder. The hamburger you had for lunch came from an animal that had a nervous system, and one quite a bit more advanced than any week-old fetus anyway.

Nervous systems, heartbeats, lungs -- these things do not make one human. There is one, and only one thing that humans have that no other animal has. How can you consider a fetus to be fully human when it lacks the one basic characteristic of humanity?

Re:Individual rights.

[khayman80]

As an example, I'll use homosexuality. According to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, it's wrong. But why?

Because people are fundamentally herd animals, and fear anyone who's different. This prejudice affects everyone, even the people who wrote those "holy books."

I honestly didn't know the answer. Why would God care if someone found sexual pleasure in a unique way? He wants us to be happy, right? I didn't find out until after I had married and had a child. ... I had *no idea* being a father could be so rewarding. But most homosexuals will never experience this joy, let alone know it exists.

Neither will single people, couples who can't have kids, or couples who choose not to conceive. But they're not all sinners because of their choices (depending on the religion in question and the method of contraception.) Also, homosexuals can have children through surrogates and should certainly be able to adopt children.

In a similar manner, someone afflicted with homosexual desires, often simply can't understand why they would resist temptation.

Because God creates people with homosexual tendencies (even though He wants us to all have children) just to watch them squirm. If they manage to suppress the desires He gave them, they don't burn for all eternity. Hey, this sounds plausible and reasonable. Where do I sign up?

The first time I met a homosexual, it was immediately apparent to me that they were undergoing an epic internal struggle, the least of which concerned their sexuality. Yet, to them, this condition has persisted for so long it felt "normal" And without the ability to defer judgment to another's experience, they saw no reason to change. Without any understanding that things could be better, they thought of my position as merely trying to take away what little happiness they did posses.

The first time I met a Christian, it was immediately apparent to me that they were undergoing an epic internal struggle, the least of which concerned their theology. Yet, to them, this condition has persisted for so long it felt "normal" And without the ability to defer judgment to another's experience, they saw no reason to change. Without any understanding that things could be better, they thought of my position as merely trying to take away what little happiness they did posses.

I'm just kidding. I don't really believe that. But it was silly of me to justify a position with such a subjective anecdote, wasn't it? Maybe calling homosexual desires "afflictions" makes you tend to see more of an internal struggle than can be traced back to the fact that gays live in a world that hates and harms them for no good reason?

Having actually seen someone die unexpectedly, it is very clear to me that all human life is valued by God. Until that happened, the abortion issue for me had been largely a philosophical exercise. It wasn't until I witnessed the death of a human being that my mind changed dramatically. But I realize that most reading this have not had that experience.

Maybe it's very clear to you how that conclusion follows from witnessing an unexpected death. And maybe all the atheists in the world just haven't seen anyone die unexpectedly. (I wonder what the odds of this are?)

Or maybe grief affects everyone differently, and doesn't imply anything about any deity.

In fact, most of us will never have all of the experiences which shaped the Torah or the Bible. We simply have to trust that these tenets of morality were written down and copied throughout the ages because enough people recognized the value and truth in them.

You simply have to trust them. I prefer to think for myself.