How does a heartbeat occur?

Lectures in connection with Research Day:

Date: Wednesday 22 April, 18:30-20:00

Location: Aalborg Zoo Auditorium at the main entrance.

Price: Free - but tickets must be reserved at [email protected].as there is a limited number of seats

Speakers: 

Peter Agger: Associate Professor, medical specialist, PhD, dr.med.

Henrik Lauridsen: Associate Professor, MSc in Biology, PhD.

How does a heartbeat occur?

Although science has been interested in the function of the heart for centuries, we still don't have a clear answer to this question.

The confusion becomes total when examining the gigantic hearts of the largest animals that have ever lived on the planet: elephants and whales. The basic structure of these hearts is well known, and significantly different from the human heart. Given what we think we know about the human heart, they shouldn't work, but they do.

Peter Agger and Henrik Lauridsen combine their knowledge as a doctor and biologist, respectively, and have studied the hearts of many species of large mammals in Denmark over the years with modern scanning techniques in search of an explanation for this phenomenon.

Are big hearts capable of something special, or do we need to revise our perception of how our own hearts work?