Doc 0000173515

The provided image is a digitally rendered graphic, not a scanned document page. It features a stylized representation of a vault door on the left, with various mechanical components and glowing blue accents. To the right of the vault, large, stylized white text reads "THE BLACK VAULT" against a dark, textured background. Below this title, white text details that the document was obtained from "The Black Vault," an online database of declassified government documents, specifically mentioning the "MKULTRA/Mind Control Collection" and providing a URL: "http://mkultra.theblackvault.com". There are no photographs, handwritten annotations, official stamps, forms, diagrams, tables, redacted content, or visual evidence of experimental procedures present. .· ~. NEViS NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (202) 962-4155 WASHINGTON, 0 .C. 20546 TEI.S: ( 202) 963-6925 FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY p.M. February 27, 1970 (ALSO RELEASED BY STANFORD UNIVERSITY. MEDICAL CENTER, S~FORD, CALIF.) - ~- RELEASE NO: 70-32 ~-- EXTERNAL MONITOR CHECKS 'HEART FUNCTIONS j _..l Scientists from the Stanford University School of Medicine and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Ames Research Center successfully tested a new application of sonar (often called ultrasound) that can pry out secrets about the functioning of the human heart. The new use of sonar, reported today at the meeting of the American College of Cardiology, New Orleans, can provide fundamentals of the heartbeat and blood circulation heretofore unobtainable without passing a catheter (a long thin tube) into one of the heart chambers. That procedure, known as cardiac catheterization, requires many hours and the patient is usually hospitalized. Additional laborious procedures involve the taking of X-rays and blood samplings. ,I -more- -2- By contrast, ultrasound studies of the heart can be done by a well-trained person in the physician's office or at the patient's bedside in a. matter of minutes. The technique can be applied as a screening procedure for patients with known or suspected heart disease. And it can be used to monitor precisely the heart's healing process in patients recovering from open heart surgery or from a heart ~ttack. -Unlike standard monitoring devices, sonar measures pre cisely the amount of blood which is pumped out of the heart at each contraction of the heart muscle. It also measures the heart size and the backward flow of blood which indicates that the patient has a defective heart valve. The Stanford and NASA Ames (I-1ountain View, Calif.) researchers conducted sonar studies in 51 patients undergoing standard catheterization. Their findings, obtained by ultrasound, correlated "reasonably well" with the degree of heart disease detected by the standard method, they reported. The work began as. a result of. interest by NASA in ultra sonics as one of several techniques for using external instru mentation for medical research during manned space flights, and coincided with interest in ultrasonics at Stanford. -more- -3- The new use of sonar described by Dr. Richard L. \'laS Popp, a postdoctoral fellow in cardiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and Dr. Donald C. Harrison, associate professor and chief of cardiology at Stanford. Horl<ing with them on the project is Dr. ultrasonics at Stanford. -more- -3- The new use of sonar described by Dr. Richard L. \'laS Popp, a postdoctoral fellow in cardiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and Dr. Donald C. Harrison, associate professor and chief of cardiology at Stanford. Horl<ing with them on the project is Dr. Harold Sandler, chief of the Biomedical Research Branch of the Ames Center . .... The Stanford work is supported by grants from NASA Ames, the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association. NASA is seeking devices to collect and record information on human heart action during space flights, according to Dr. Harrison, the principal investigator. Now that the use of sonar in heart monitoring has proved its value, work will begin to build ultrasound devices small enough to be carried in orbiting space laboratories. In addition, scientists \'Jill study the use of computers for storage, retrieval and instant interpretation of ultrasound recordings received on Earth. The instrumentation work i'rill be done by researchers at NASA's Ames. Testing of the ne\'l devices in human patients will' be conducted by Dr. Harrison and his associates at Stanford. The sonar recordings on heart patients in the recent Stanford study were made by using a commercially available machine vlhich emits and receives high-frequency sound waves. -more- ... -4- As sonic impulses were bounced against front and rear walls of heart, they were recorded and converted into ~he electrical signals which were on a television screen. display~d From the patterns of ultrasonic echoes, taken when the heart is relaxed and when it contracts the researchers developed a formula enabling them to calculate precisely the volume of .. ~ blood ejected by the heart, and also determine the presence of abnormalities. Dr. Harrison said that from a medical standpoint the technique is promising and warrants further investigation to refine it "because it is painless, simple and safer, and less costly to the patient than present methods." Ultrasound is also being used at Stanford to detect heart changes that lead to early rejection in heart transplant patients. -end- The document contains official letterhead with the NASA logo and contact information. There is a large handwritten annotation in blue ink at the top right, the content of which is illegible. Another handwritten note in a different ink appears below the main body of text, with the words " -more- " typed on the page. Below that, there is a small form with fields for "Approved for Release" and "Date", along with a number enclosed in a circle. The document also includes a date stamp and a handwritten date in the form of "2/25/70". There are no images of people, locations, equipment, diagrams, schematics, or tables. This page is a typed document containing text only. There are no photographs, handwritten annotations, official stamps, forms, diagrams, charts, tables, or redactions. The visual appearance is that of a standard typewritten page with paragraph formatting. The text discusses ultrasound and sonar studies of the heart, their application in medical research, and their relevance to NASA's interest in instrumentation for manned space flights. The page appears to be a standard typed document with no photographs, handwritten annotations, signatures, stamps, forms, diagrams, or tables. There are no visual elements indicating experimental procedures, equipment, or facilities. The content is exclusively text describing research projects related to sonar technology for medical monitoring, particularly in space exploration. There are no visible redactions or obscured content. The page contains typed text with several handwritten annotations that appear to be non-English symbols and a number. There are no photographs, stamps, forms, diagrams, tables, or redacted content. The visual elements are limited to the typewritten words and the handwritten markings at the top of the page.