Fig. 1

Global strain analysis via Qstrain and representative left ventricular (LV) strain curves from one experiment. a Short axis endocardial and epicardial contouring; b circumferential strain measured with Qstrain, the lower end of the scale bar is equal to zero and it is not represented in the original window from MEDIS; c circumferential strain measured at end-systole time-to-peak; d longitudinal axis endocardial contouring; e longitudinal strain measured with Qstrain, the lower end of the scale bar is equal to zero and it is not represented in the original window from MEDIS; f longitudinal strain measured at end-systole time-to-peak; g global longitudinal strain (GLS), h global circumferential strain (GCS), and i global radial strain (GRS) representative curves from one animal measured during Baseline, Dobutamine (Dob) and Verapamil (Ver) (mean values of all segments)