Want to know if you are at risk for both atrial fibrillation and cardiomyopathy? Researchers at the Smithsonian Heart Research Institute at the West Daseine Medical Center in the United States have found that people with a round heart shaped like a baseball are more likely to develop these two heart diseases in the future than people with a longer, more traditional heart shape. The related paper was published on March 29th in the journal "Medicine" under the journal "Cell". Researchers use deep learning and advanced imaging analysis to study the genetics of heart structure. The results showed that people with a circular heart were 31% more likely to develop atrial fibrillation and 24% more likely to develop cardiomyopathy. The researchers identified this risk after analyzing cardiac magnetic resonance images of 38897 healthy people from the British Biobank. Using the same database, researchers used computational models to identify the genetic markers associated with these heart diseases. Through genetic research on the circular heart, they identified four genes associated with cardiomyopathy: PLN, ANGPT1, PDZRN3, and HLADR/DQ. The first three of these genes are also more associated with the risk of developing atrial fibrillation. Experts at the Smithsonian Heart Institute say that a person's heart shape changes over time, often becoming more rounded, especially after major events such as heart attacks. Christine M. Albert, one of the study authors and director of the Department of Cardiology at the Smithsonian Heart Institute, said that changes in the shape of the heart may be the first sign of disease. Understanding how the heart changes in the face of disease, coupled with existing more reliable and intuitive imaging support, is a key step in preventing two common heart diseases. (Liao Xinshe)