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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Bob Anderson
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© Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. The atrial septum is probe patent in some 30% of the population, and is prone to have overt defects. Atrial septation is the coming together of several myocardial structures and mesenchymal tissues of intracardiac and extracardiac origin that must change identity to myocardium. We propose that the propensity for malformation of the atrial septum reflects this complicated morphogenesis. The morphogenesis of the atrial septum initiates from a ridge of mesenchyme, only a few hundred micrometres long, in the roof of the undivided atrial cavity. By growth of the myocardial primary septum, the mesenchymal ridge will be approximated to, and ultimately fuse, with the mesenchyme of the atrioventricular cushions. This fusion also takes in the so-called vestibular spine, and serves to close the primary atrial foramen. Interatrial communication is maintained by the development of perforations in the myocardial septum that will coalesce to produce the secondary foramen. Late in gestation, an infolding of the right atrial roof, previously identified as the secondary septum, will come to form the roof of the secondary foramen. Muscularisation of the mesenchymal ridge and vestibular spine serves to reinforce the attachment of the primary muscular septum to the atrioventricular insulating plane, with the muscularised components, and the cranial infolding, then producing the rims of the oval fossa as seen in the postnatal heart. We show that other lesions that produce the potential for interatrial shunting are outside the confines of the atrial septum, and hence are best considered as interatrial communications, rather than 'atrial septal defects'.
Author(s): Jensen B, Spicer DE, Sheppard MN, Anderson RH
Publication type: Review
Publication status: Published
Journal: Heart
Year: 2017
Volume: 103
Issue: 6
Pages: 456-462
Print publication date: 01/03/2017
Online publication date: 27/02/2017
Acceptance date: 24/11/2016
ISSN (print): 1355-6037
ISSN (electronic): 1468-201X
Publisher: BMJ Publishing Group
URL: https://doi.org/10.1136/heartjnl-2016-310660
DOI: 10.1136/heartjnl-2016-310660
