Acta Physiol 2014, 210, 257–276 INVITED REVIEW Comparative cardiovascular physiology: future trends, opportunities and challenges W. W. Burggren,1 V. M. Christoffels,2 D. A. Crossley II,1 S. Enok,3 A. P. Farrell,4 M. S. Hedrick,1 J. W. Hicks,5 B. Jensen,2,3 A. F. M. Moorman,2 C. A. Mueller,1 N. Skovgaard,3 E. W. Taylor6 and T. Wang3 1 Developmental Integrative Biology Cluster, Department of Biological Sciences, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA 2 Department of Anatomy, Embryology & Physiology, Academic Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 3 Zoophysiology, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark 4 Department of Zoology and Faculty of Land and Food Systems, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada 5 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA 6 School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK Received 13 June 2013, Abstract revision requested 16 July 2013, The inaugural Kjell Johansen Lecture in the Zoophysiology Department of revision received 27 August 2013, Aarhus University (Aarhus, Denmark) afforded the opportunity for a accepted 12 September 2013 Correspondence: W. Burggren, focused workshop comprising comparative cardiovascular physiologists to Department of Biological Sciences, ponder some of the key unanswered questions in the field. Discussions were University of North Texas, 1155 centred around three themes. The first considered function of the vertebrate Union Circle #311190, Denton, heart in its various forms in extant vertebrates, with particular focus on the TX 76203-5015, USA. role of intracardiac shunts, the trabecular (‘spongy’) nature of the ventricle E-mail:
[email protected] in many vertebrates, coronary blood supply and the building plan of the heart as revealed by molecular approaches.