Effect of chronic left ventricular unloading on myocardial remodeling: Multimodal assessment of two heterotopic heart transplantation techniques

Partial and complete unloading affected the remodeling of non-failing hearts in a rodent model to different extents on myocardial atrophy, fibrosis, glucose metabolism, and mechanical work. Cardiac atrophy is the prominent change after mechanical unloading, which exaggerates the proportion of total collagen that is responsible for diastolic dysfunction.