DEVELOPMENT OF

HEART -I
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
At the end of this session students should be able to
• Explain the establishment of the cardiogenic region and consequent
positioning and development of the heart tube.
• Describe the mechanism of cardiac looping and correlate with
congenital anomalies.
• Describe in detail the contribution of bulbus cordis and sinus venosus
to the development of the heart.
• The cardiovascular system in the first major system to function in the
embryo.
• The primordial heart and vascular system appear in the middle of the
3rd week because the rapidly growing embryo can no longer satisfy its
nutritional and oxygen requirements by diffusion alone.
• The cardivascular system is derived mainly from
• Splanchnic mesoderm which forms the primordium of the heart .
• Paraxial and lateral mesoderm near the otic placodes.
• Neural crest cells from the region between the otic vesicles and the caudal
limits of the third pair of somites.
• Pharyngeal mesoderm
ESTABLISHMENT OF CARDIGENIC
FIELD
• Cardiac progenitor cells lying in the epiblast, migrate through the
primitive streak and position themselves rostral to the oropharyngeal
membrane and neural folds.
• This migration occurs in a craniocaudal sequence.
• They form a horse-shoe shaped cluster of cells known as the primary
heart filled (PHF).
• The cardiac progenitor cells reside in the spalanchnic layer of the
lateral plate mesoderm.
• Cells of PHF will form the atria, left