2015 ACVIM Forum Research Abstract Program

Ocular timolol safely and reliably reduces heart rate in cats, generates reproducible changes in echocardiographic parameters, may facilitate diastolic assessment, and may rapidly elucidate a cat's response to beta blockade. The helical ventricular myocardial band is the anatomic basis of left ventricular (LV) fiber architecture and has helped to redefine cardiac motion and function. Recently, the evaluation of myocardial motion can be quantified by means of non-invasive advanced echocardiography (speckle-tracking echocardiography-STE), which provides deformation (strain) and deformation rates (strain rate) in the longitudinal, circumferential and radial planes. LV twisting motion along the long axis is another important key feature in LV systolic function.