Figure 7. To validate our hypothesis that the overall myofibre and collagen fibres dominate the tissue-level mechanical response, we prepared specimens with a preferred fibre orientation at 45 deg with respect to the specimen axis.

A, the resulting mechanical response demonstrated an isotropic response. This finding lends support to our hypothesis that for RVFW myocardium it is the in-plane fibre architecture that dominates the local mechanical response.