Let’s imagine that organs can be perfectly grown in a lab and installed into a body without any chance of rejection or other complications usually associated with organ transplant.
You, a perfectly healthy adult human, go to the doctor and have them put a second heart in your chest that is connected to the circulatory system with your original heart.
What would be the effects of this? Could it even be done in this hypothetical situation at all?
AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It’s better, which is why we already do.
Mammals have a double circulatory system, with the left and right ventricles effectively acting as separate hearts that happen to be physically connected.
deranger@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Citation needed. The junctions in cardiac cells make electrical signals propagate through them all, so acting independently isn’t something that’s normal. There’s two loops, but one pump. It’s a single system.
AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Even if they were physically separated you’d want them to pump in sync, to maximize the pressure. So having them share electrical signals is just the optimal setup for two hearts.
FistingEnthusiast@lemmynsfw.com 3 days ago
You’re being needlessly pedantic
The reality is that they’re two hearts
If they were to be carefully separated, but with the SA & AV nodes still connected somehow (ignoring the fact that the Perkinje fibres and bundle of hiss can also act as pacemakers), you’d have two separate hearts doing their thing