• Question: Would a baby (3 months or so) be able to survive to a heart attack?

    Asked by Andreajalo to Cristina, Gemma, Loan, Michael, Praveen on 17 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Cristina Villa del Campo

      Cristina Villa del Campo answered on 17 Nov 2015:

      Hi Andreajalo,

      Thanks for your question. It’s an interesting one! So I think it is very rare for a baby to suffer a heart attack like adults do so we don’t really have any evidence for that. But! I have an interesting fact for you. We have seen in mouse babies that if we cut a tip of the heart or make them have an artificial heart attack their hearts are able to regenerate! We don’t know why babies can do that and adults can’t but we are all studying this very intensely because it is key to regenerate the adult heart. So even though I can’t prove it I think it is possible that a baby’s heart could regenerate as well like the mouse baby.

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