[Spectrum of biventricular aortic connection and double outlet chamber of the right ventricle produced experimentally in the chicken heart by hypothermia (34.5 degrees C)].

In this experimental work, fertilized chicken eggs were subjected to hypothermia (34.5 degrees) as to inhibit the incorporation of the aortic infundibulum into the left ventricle. This produced a spectrum of biventricular connection of the aorta including double outlet right ventricle (DORV), a cardiopathy seen naturally in man and in chicken. It represents the persistence in the postnatal heart of the spectrum of embryonic aortic dextroposition, a fact which allowed us to establish a precise anatomoembryologic correlation. Pathogenetically, the failure in the connection of the aortic infundibulum with the left ventricle is due to inhibition, in different degrees, of the leftward morphogenetic movement of the infundibular segment, an embryologic process which is discussed in relation to different theories on the origin of DORV. The role played by cell death in normal and pathologic morphogenesis, is emphasized and some methodological aspects on experimental teratogeneses are mentioned.