Thanks, Acknowledgments and References

Main thanks go to Robert Anderson, who led me into this field during the writing of our joint paper on left ventricular anatomy (see section on LV anatomy). His help. support and encouragement has been unstinting.

I am also indebted to (in alphabetical order) Philip Kilner, Paul Lunkenheimer and Morten Smerup for their constructive criticism and factual input to this exercise. I realise that I cannot presume to have their understanding of the detail of myocardial structure, its supportive matrix or of its shear and strain. Hence I have restricted this exercise to the gross anatomy.

The beautiful dissection of the myocardial grain in a porcine heart, seen first on page 3, is the work of Paul Lunkenheimer.

MacIver & Townsend used a geometric approach in Heart in 2008 (94:446-449)