ABSTRACT
There are numerous forms of cardiovascular disease, and there are animal models for the vast majority of these diseases, with thousands of published papers describing studies performed on animal models. Many of the naturally occurring congenital cardiovascular malformations found in humans have been identified in one or more species of animals. The development of sophisticated genetic testing has made the identification of the causative gene(s) for specific defects more practical, and this has led to the creation of specific transgenic animal (rodent) models (Gross 2009). The relative ease with which specifically engineered models can be created has resulted in an explosion of their use in cardiovascular research (Gross 2009); however, there are clearly significant differences between rodent and human hearts.
