Fig. 1.

Recordings by Kitabatake et al. [4] of transmitral blood flow velocities by pulsed Doppler echocardiography in a healthy individual and in three patients: In the healthy individual the highest velocity is in early diastole, whereas the patients with hypertension and myocardial infarction have highest velocity in late diastole. Each of the three patients have reduced deceleration rate of early mitral velocity. Note that the polarity of velocities is opposite to current standards