Hundreds of thousands of people in the UK live with heart failure, often as a result of a heart attack.

Because it is not possible for humans to regenerate their damaged, scarred heart muscle, people either have to live with the condition or may require a heart transplant.
Cave fish clues

For this study, funded by the British Heart Foundation, Dr Mathilda Mommersteeg and her team at the University of Oxford studied two types of Mexican tetra fish - river-dwellers that are able to self-heal their heart tissue, and cave-dwellers that cannot.

The cave fish, who once lived in the rivers of Northern Mexico, were washed into caves by floodwaters about 1.5 million years ago and evolved, losing their sight and colour because of living in perpetual darkness.

Comparing the two types of tetra fish, researchers found two genes - lrrc10 and caveolin - were much more active in the river fish following heart injury.

Having discovered this, they switched off the lrrc10 gene in a different species of fish with self-healing abilities, the zebrafish.

With this gene no longer working properly, the zebrafish became unable to fully repair its heart without scarring.

Scar tissue stops the heart muscle from contracting properly and reduces the heart's ability to pump blood around the body.

Both of these genes are present in humans, and lrrc10 is known to be linked to a heart condition called dilated cardiomyopathy.