title: Left atrial physiology and pathophysiology: Role of deformation imaging.
abstract: The left atrium (LA) acts as a modulator of left ventricular (LV) filling. Although there is considerable evidence to support the use of LA maximum and minimum volumes for disease prediction, theoretical considerations and a growing body of literature suggest to focus on the quantification of the three basic LA functions: (1) Reservoir function: collection of pulmonary venous return during LV systole; (2) Conduit function: passage of blood to the left ventricle during early LV diastole; and (3) Contractile booster pump function (augmentation of ventricular filling during late LV diastole. Tremendous advances in our ability to non-invasively characterize all three elements of atrial function include speckle tracking echocardiography (STE), and more recently cardiovascular magnetic resonance myocardial feature tracking (CMR-FT). Corresponding imaging biomarkers are increasingly recognized to have incremental roles in determining prognosis and risk stratification in cardiac dysfunction of different origins. The current editorial introduces the role of STE and CMR-FT for the functional assessment of LA deformation as determined by strain and strain rate imaging and provides an outlook of how this exciting field may develop in the future.
authors.affiliation: Johannes Tammo Kowallick, Joachim Lotz, Gerd Hasenfuß, Andreas Schuster, DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site Göttingen, D-37075 Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Johannes Tammo
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Kowallick
authors.affiliation: Johannes Tammo Kowallick, Joachim Lotz, Gerd Hasenfuß, Andreas Schuster, DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site Göttingen, D-37075 Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lotz
authors.affiliation: Johannes Tammo Kowallick, Joachim Lotz, Gerd Hasenfuß, Andreas Schuster, DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site Göttingen, D-37075 Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Gerd
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hasenfuß
authors.affiliation: Johannes Tammo Kowallick, Joachim Lotz, Gerd Hasenfuß, Andreas Schuster, DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site Göttingen, D-37075 Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schuster
keywords: Cardiovascular magnetic resonance; Diastolic dysfunction; Echocardiography; Feature tracking; Left atrium; Pathophysiology; Physiology; Speckle tracking; Strain; Strain rate