Figure 2

Pivoted lattice model, not to scale, offering an illustration of the reorientations of populations of sheetlets and shear layers of the midwall from diastole (left) to systole (right). Myocytes run approximately circumferentially through the mid wall. Reorientating laminae accommodate systolic cross-myocyte shortening, in spite of their individual thickening, and translate it to enhanced wall thickening. In the midwall, laminar reorientations are driven by the contraction of the more longitudinally orientated myocytes of more epicardial and endocardial layers.