Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced that engineers at the institute, along with others elsewhere, have collaborated to develop a bionic “heart” designed to offer a more realistic model for testing artificial valves and other devices.

According to a report from MIT News, the device is a real biological heart which had its tough muscle tissue replaced with a soft robotic matrix of artificial heart muscles. The artificial muscles are designed to mimic the pattern of the heart’s natural muscle fibers.

Resembling bubble wrap, the “bubbles” on the muscles can be inflated remotely, causing them to squeeze and twist the inner heart, mimicking the way the real heart beats and pumps blood, which is by squeezing and twisting.

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