Seeing inside my own heartbeat Experiencing science from the subject’s chair By Asya Sezgin , Features Writer | November 24, 2025 A research team member demonstrates the vacuum box used for study. Bridget Lord Before last week, I had never seen my own heart beating. I had never felt my blood shift downward in a single wave. I had never been inside a vacuum machine designed to make people dizzy. But that’s exactly what happens when you participate in one of UMass Boston’s most unusual and innovative cardiovascular studies. In October, I took part in a project designed and led by João L. Marôco, a researcher in the School for the Environment who studies how the heart and blood vessels respond to sudden pressure changes. When I agreed to participate in this cardiovascular research study, I wasn’t expecting to end up in what looked like a magician’s box with half my body sealed inside a giant vacuum bag while the research team monitored my heart, arteries and blood pressure in real time. I thought I’d be asked to walk on a treadmill and be connected to cables — not get partially suctioned by a vacuum attachment. But the experience turned out to be one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever done at UMass Boston — part biology lesson and part sci-fi experiment, carried out by a team of researchers who somehow managed to make me feel comfortable while my legs were being vacuum-sealed. The purpose of the study is actually very simple when Marôco explains it. “We’re just trying to understand the relationship between the heart and the vessels,” he told me, “and see how the heart responds when pressure changes.” In the most basic terms, the team wants to recreate a controlled version of what happens right before someone feels dizzy or faints. When the vacuum pulls blood toward your legs, it forces the heart to work harder against a smaller blood return. As Marôcoput it, “If you’re gardening, and you take a garden hose and you squeeze the hose… there is a harder time for the water to come out.” The vessels narrow, and the heart has to push harder; the team watches how people’s bodies deal with that stress. They’re also looking at differences between young men and women and how aging changes these responses. Marôco explained, “As we age… that likelihood for someone to experience dizziness increases, and we don’t really know what explains that.” The team hopes to find a simple explanation that can help people in real situations. To understand what actually happens during these pressure changes, the team collects a set of detailed measurements while you’re inside the vacuum box. The first one is heart function which they measure using ultrasound. “It’s the same technology used to look at babies in the mother’s womb,” Marôco told me, except this time it’s aimed straight at your chest. With a little gel and a probe, they can watch “how much blood the heart is pumping, how well it’s relaxing between beats, and how strong it’s contracting.” At the same time, they’re tracking blood pressure through both a regular arm cuff and a finger cuff that gives a beat-to-beat reading of every heartbeat’s pressure. Then there’s the small sensor they place on your neck which picks up pressure waveforms from the carotid artery. “That sensor gets pressure waveforms, and what we get from that is metrics of arterial or blood vessel stress,” Marôco said. It sounds extremely technical, but in practice, it just means they’re reading how stressed or relaxed your vessels become when blood is shifting away from the center of your body. A research lab led by João L. Marôco, center. ( Bridget Lord ) With all these measurements happening at once, the team can see the entire chain reaction in real time — from the heart to the vessels to the pressure changes that can lead to dizziness. The strangest part of the study is the box itself. “We created a control condition of low blood pressure using this device that looks like a magician box,” Marôco said. You step inside, lie down and someone seals a thick bag around your waist so your lower body is completely enclosed. Once the seal is tight, they connect the bag to what is basically a high-powered vacuum. “We just connect it to a vacuum cleaner or a shop vacuum,” Marôco said, laughing. When it turns on, the suction gently pulls blood away from your heart toward your legs, creating the same internal shift you’d experience when standing up too fast. “Your body fluids that are close to your heart start to kind of move toward the lower limbs and the feet,” Marôco said. The longer the suction runs, and the stronger it gets, the more your blood pools downward, and the harder your heart must work to keep you stable. They start with very mild suction and gradually increase it, stopping immediately if you get dizzy or lightheaded. As odd as the setup looks from the outside, from the inside it feels like a slow, heavy pull; it serves as a safe and controlled way to recreate the exact conditions before a fainting episode. One of the most surprising parts of the study is how something as simple as squeezing your hand might help prevent fainting. After explaining the whole vacuum setup, Marôco told me that a major goal of the project is to see whether a quick hand-grip contraction can stabilize blood pressure long enough to stop someone from passing out. “If we squeeze the grip, can that help maintain pressure and avoid fainting and passing out?” he asked. “That’s kind of what we’re trying to test with that hand-grip exercise.” The idea sounds almost too simple, but the physiology behind it is real. When you contract the muscles in your hand and forearm, your blood vessels tighten and your nervous system activates which can increase blood pressure just enough to protect you in those first few dangerous seconds. For people who get dizzy when they stand up, faint more often or are at a higher risk for falls, a few seconds can make all the difference. “If it can maintain pressure slightly longer so the person can take a seat, and not fall,” Marôco said, “that would be really great.” It’s a small intervention with a potentially huge impact, and this study is trying to prove whether that simple squeeze could truly keep someone safe. The research is still ongoing, and the team running it is a small, friendly, coordinated and welcoming group. “It’s a small team, but everyone is doing their part, and we try to create a positive environment,” Marôco said. That team includes students Megan Borges and Joe Scangas, who bring an energy that makes the entire experience feel calm, cheerful and supportive. They balance professionalism with curiosity, staying focused during measurements but using every break to talk, laugh and make sure participants feel comfortable. Marôco emphasized that they are still actively recruiting. For students who are curious about research or simply want to understand their own cardiovascular system better, the invitation is straightforward: “You can see your heart, you can see your blood vessels…it’s very innovative research and cutting-edge.” 0 Source: https://umassmedia.com/40101/story-carousel/seeing-inside-my-own-heartbeat/