HEB Colloquium: "The role of physical activity in shaping ape and human hearts"

Date: 

Thursday, October 21, 2021, 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Location: 

BioLabs 1080

Speaker: Dr. Robert Shave, School of Health & Exercise Sciences, University of British Columbia

Outline: Cardiac structural and functional remodeling in response to athletic training is a well-described phenomenon in human athletes. Using auscultation, percussion and palpation physicians as early as the 1890s demonstrated increased cardiac dimensions and athletic bradycardia. Subsequently, imaging technologies have enabled the detailed characterization of the human athlete’s heart.  However, few of these studies consider the evolutionary history of man or how physical activity may have shaped the derived cardiac phenotype. Using data collected as part of the International Primate Heart Project Rob will highlight marked differences in ventricular structure and function across the great ape species and discuss what these may mean in relation to physical activity and cardiovascular health.

RSVP to Mallory McCoy (mmccoy@fas.harvard.edu) to attend. Building open to Harvard affiliates only.