Comparative Anatomy Of Human And Animal Hearts A Structural, Functional, And Evolutionary Perspective – A Complete Review Saikat Chakraborty, Kulvir Singh, Ajitpal Singh

The vertebrate heart is a critical organ with structural homologies and species-specific features for fulfilling an assortment of circulatory and metabolic demands. In the current review, the comparative anatomy of the human and animal heart, including ventricular trabeculation, valve structure, coronary circulation, and orientation of the heart, is reported. Combining existing literature, this article reveals how these differences affect cardiac physiology, susceptibility to disease, and their significance in medicine. In mammals, pigs and humans exhibit strong cardiac homologies in their powerful hearts, making pigs viable for xenotransplantation and cardiac research. Rodents, with high heart rates and heavy trabeculation, have been extensively employed in genetic and cardiac pharmacology studies. In birds, well adapted to flight, there are thin-walled but highly effective hearts to facilitate high metabolic levels. Evolutionary transition of the two-chambered fish heart to four-chambered mammalian and avian hearts is an instance of enhanced specialisation for oxygen efficacy and body circulation. Contrastive cardiac anatomy is of strong clinical relevance in the context of bioprosthetic valve substitution, ischemic cardiomyopathy research, and tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Pig aortic valves have wide usage in cardiac surgery among humans, while zebrafish models serve to study the heart in terms of regeneration. Moreover, insights from reptilian hypoxia tolerance provide promise for stroke and myocardial infarction therapies. This review highlights cross-species cardiac comparisons as pivotal for the development of human cardiovascular medicine, enhancing surgical practices, drug development, and therapeutic research.