AI tracks a beating heart's function over time

The heart is a specialized muscle that contracts rhythmically around its closed chambers to propel blood. However, this pumping function fluctuates throughout the day as the circulating blood flow adapts to the body's ever-changing metabolic demands1. Understanding the variations in cardiac pump activity with each heartbeat might have relevance for explaining the intricacies of heart function in health and disease. However, the tools for scrutinizing such changes remain imprecise. Writing in Nature, Ouyang et al.2 report the development of a computational platform that uses an artificial-intelligence (AI) approach to assess cardiac ultrasound video and to provide continuous, beat-by-beat measurement of cardiac pump function.