Engineers create hybrid robotic heart replica for medical research

MIT researchers have created a robotic replica of the heart's right ventricle, which mimics the blood-pumping action of live human hearts.

It combines real heart tissue with synthetic artificial muscles that allow scientists to control the ventricle's contraction while observing the structure of the natural valves and intricate parts of the real heart. 

It can be tuned to mimic health or diseased hearts, with conditions such as right ventricular dysfunction, pulmonary hypertension, and myocardial infarction. The heart was also used to test cardiac devices, such as mechanical valves—scientists were able to observe how the ventricle's pumping changed in response. 

“The right ventricle is particularly susceptible to dysfunction in intensive care unit settings, especially in patients on mechanical ventilation,” says Manisha Singh, a postdoc at MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES). “The RRV simulator can be used in the future to study the effects of mechanical ventilation on the right ventricle and to develop strategies to prevent right heart failure in these vulnerable patients.”

The right ventricle is one of the four chambers of the heart, and the daintiest—unlike the left ventricle, which pumps blood all over the body, the right just pumps it to the lungs. It's a "ballerina" in comparison, says Ellen Roche, a co-author on the work, and associate head for research in the mechanical engineering department at MIT. “The right ventricle pumps deoxygenated blood to the lungs, so it doesn’t have to pump as hard,” Roche notes. “It’s a thinner muscle, with more complex architecture and motion.”

That's historically made it difficult for clinicians to analyse. “Conventional tools often fail to capture the intricate mechanics and dynamics of the right ventricle, leading to potential misdiagnoses and inadequate treatment strategies,” Singh says. 

In a new study, the team built its robotic right ventricle around a pig heart and filled it with a transparent, blood-like liquid to assess how accurately it mimicked a real heart. “We’re reanimating the heart, in some sense, and in a way that we can study and potentially treat its dysfunction,” Roche says.