Revisiting the development of the atrioventricular conduction axis

The precise steps involved in development of the atrioventricular conduction axis remain incompletely understood, despite over a century of anatomical and histological studies. Recent advances in imaging, and access to human embryonic and fetal heart specimens, offer new insights into this process.

This study aimed to clarify the morphological remodeling and insulation of the atrioventricular conduction axis during late embryonic and early fetal human heart development, with emphasis on the fate of nodoventricular and fasciculo-ventricular pathways.

Serial histological sections and micro-computed tomographic datasets encompassing Carnegie stage 17 through 23, until the end of the fetal period, including a newborn (42 weeks of development), from the Human Developmental Biology Resource, and additional fetal heart archives, were analyzed. Reproducibility was assessed by blinded interobserver evaluation.

The atrioventricular conduction axis arises, in part, from a drape of trabecular cardiomyocytes on the septal crest, which remodels into the branching and non-branching bundles. It also includes the so-called "primary ring." During fetal development, expansion of the atrioventricular junctions, producing the inferior pyramidal space, centralizes the compact atrioventricular node, and disrupts most nodoventricular pathways. Fasciculo-ventricular connections, in contrast, largely persist, with some myocardial connections remaining throughout gestation. Part of the primary ring becomes the retro-aortic node.

Remodeling of the atrioventricular conduction axis is characterized by dynamic reorganization and selective insulation of specialized cardiomyocytes. Persistence of fasciculo-ventricular pathways, and loss of nodoventricular connections, has obvious implications for the understanding of the postnatal anatomy of the conduction system anatomy and its arrhythmogenic substrates.