Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have developed a novel approach to assess fruit fly heart aging and disease, which could ultimately inform human cardiovascular research. Led by Girish Melkani, PhD, the team utilized high-speed video microscopy and artificial intelligence to analyze fruit fly hearts, providing calculated statistics such as diastolic and systolic diameters, fractional shortening, and ejection fraction. This machine learning method minimizes human error and can process hundreds of hearts at once, allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of how environmental or genetic factors affect heart aging or pathology. The fruit fly model has already been instrumental in understanding the pathophysiological bases for several human cardiovascular diseases, which remain a leading cause of death and disability in the United States. Melkani envisions adapting this technology to study cardiac mutation models and other small animal models, such as zebrafish and mice, with potential applications in human heart models.
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