Figure 2

Left ventricular (LV) volume profiles of control and diabetic rats obtained from MRI reconstruction of LV slices collected throughout the complete cardiac cycle Graphical representation of LV volumes corresponding to ten equally incremented phases of the rat cardiac cycle is provided. The LV volumes for control (open circles) and diabetic (filled circles) rats were computed from the corresponding MRI scans as described in methods. End-diastole and end-systole correspond to phase 1 and phase 6, respectively, in both the control and diabetic group. LV volumes in all but phases 4 and 5 were significantly different (*, P < 0.05) between groups. Note that the actual cardiac cycle duration was 216.7 ± 28.7 ms in control and 242.5 ± 15.0 ms in diabetic rats, with an insignificant difference (P > 0.05). Hence the cardiac cycle was divided into phases 1 through 10 as discussed in the methods section.