Cardiovascular System - Fetal Shunts

Introduction

Fetal circulation

Fetal circulation differs from the adult predominantly due to the presence of 3 vascular shunts located within the heart and in the vasculature.

Foramen ovale - in the heart, between the right and left atrium.
Ductus venosus - in the liver circulation, between the umbilical vein and IVC
Ductus arteriosus - in the outflow tract, between the pulmonary artery and descending aorta.

Historic Embryology - Cardiovascular
1902 Vena cava inferior \| 1905 Brain Blood Vessels \| 1909 Cervical Veins \| 1909 Dorsal aorta and umbilical veins \| 1912 Heart \| 1912 Human Heart \| 1914 Earliest Blood-Vessels \| 1915 Congenital Cardiac Disease \| 1915 Dura Venous Sinuses \| 1916 Blood cell origin \| 1916 Pars Membranacea Septi \| 1919 Lower Limb Arteries \| 1921 Human Brain Vascular \| 1921 Spleen \| 1922 Aortic-Arch System \| 1922 Pig Forelimb Arteries \| 1922 Chicken Pulmonary \| 1923 Head Subcutaneous Plexus \| 1923 Ductus Venosus \| 1925 Venous Development \| 1927 Stage 11 Heart \| 1928 Heart Blood Flow \| 1935 Aorta \| 1935 Venous valves \| 1938 Pars Membranacea Septi \| 1938 Foramen Ovale \| 1939 Atrio-Ventricular Valves \| 1940 Vena cava inferior \| 1940 Early Hematopoiesis \| 1941 Blood Formation \| 1942 Truncus and Conus Partitioning \| Ziegler Heart Models \| 1951 Heart Movie \| 1954 Week 9 Heart \| 1957 Cranial venous system \| 1959 Brain Arterial Anastomoses \| Historic Embryology Papers \| 2012 ECHO Meeting \| 2016 Cardiac Review \| Historic Disclaimer

Endothelial cell lineages of the heart. ^[1] "During early gastrulation, vertebrate embryos begin to produce endothelial cells (ECs) from the mesoderm. ECs first form primitive vascular plexus de novo and later differentiate into arterial, venous, capillary, and lymphatic ECs. In the heart, the five distinct EC types (endocardial, coronary arterial, venous, capillary, and lymphatic) have distinct phenotypes. For example, coronary ECs establish a typical vessel network throughout the myocardium, whereas endocardial ECs form a large epithelial sheet with no angiogenic sprouting into the myocardium. Neither coronary arteries, veins, and capillaries, nor lymphatic vessels fuse with the endocardium or open to the heart chamber. The developmental stage during which the specific phenotype of each cardiac EC type is determined remains unclear. The mechanisms involved in EC commitment and diversity can however be more precisely defined by tracking the migratory patterns and lineage decisions of the precursors of cardiac ECs."

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