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Trial Lecture – time and place
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Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Professor Michelle Williams, University of Edinburgh, UK
- Second opponent: Professor Declan O'Regan, Imperial College London, UK
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor II Mona Kristiansen Beyer, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Professor Stig Müller, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Associate Professor Siri Lagethon Heck, University of Oslo
Summary
This thesis shows that myocardial motion and deformation are related to established indicators of cardiac health in older adults with little overt cardiovascular disease. It further demonstrates how multiple mechanical measures can be combined to give a more integrated picture of cardiac function.
Cross-sectional associations between myocardial mechanical measures, derived from cardiac magnetic resonance feature-tracking (CMR-FT), and established indicators of cardiac health were investigated in a selected sample of 69-year-olds from a community-based cohort. Indicators of cardiac health included cardiac troponin T for myocardial injury, late gadolinium enhancement for focal myocardial scars, extracellular volume for diffuse fibrosis, left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) for pump function, and left ventricular mass index (LVMI) for structural remodelling. Statistical and machine-learning models were applied, with explainable AI used to interpret joint models.
Myocardial injury and scars were associated with worse strain, a measure of deformation, and lower contraction synchrony, while diffuse fibrosis showed non-linear associations with strain. Joint analysis revealed distinct mechanical patterns associated with LVEF and LVMI.
Overall, the findings provide biological context for CMR-FT-derived myocardial mechanics, show that measures beyond the widely used global longitudinal strain (GLS) contain biologically relevant information, and demonstrate that data-driven integration of multiple mechanical measures can yield interpretable mechanical signatures of cardiac function.
Additional information
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