Mechanisms of change, cellular responses of the fish heart to physiological stress

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A powerful heart is essential to supporting life. Interesting, the vertebrate heart is able to change both its form and function to meet the changing requirements of the animal. For example, exercise training will cause the heart to increase in size and pump more blood per beat. This change to the heart increases the rate at which blood can be delivered to the tissues and enables a higher rate of physical activity. The heart can also undergo maladaptive changes following cardiac injury or disease. Here, scar tissue forms in the heart and the amount of muscle decreases resulting in a weakened heart with impaired function. While the above adaptive and maladaptive changes have been well described at the organ level, there is less known of the cellular pathways responsible for initiating and regulating them.