Researchers find our inner reptile hearts

Public release date: 14-Sep-2012
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Contact: Professor Tobias Wang
tobias.wang@biology.au.dk
45-51-37-77-37
Aarhus University

Since the early 1900s, scientists have been wondering how birds and mammals could have developed almost identical conduction systems independently of each other when their common ancestor was a cold-blooded reptile with a sponge-like inner heart that has virtually no conduction bundles.

The studies show that it is simply the spongy inner tissue in the foetal heart that gets stretched out to become a fine network of conductive tissue in adult birds and mammals. And this knowledge can be put to use in the future.

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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/au-rfo091412.php

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