The aim of the study was to characterize the impact of short-lived total coronary occlusions in closed-chest pigs on radial wall thickening within the "at-risk" myocardial segment by using gray-scale M-mode echocardiography. Twelve pigs underwent a series of 20-second total circumflex coronary artery occlusions with an angioplasty balloon. Myocardial thickening/thinning indexes were continuously monitored before ischemia, during ischemia, and on reperfusion by high-resolution M-mode recordings of the posterior wall obtained from parasternal views. The timing of regional events was compared with global systolic time intervals derived from the color Doppler myocardial imaging velocity data. Each occlusion induced a rapid decrease in end-systolic thickening (epsilon(ES)), closely paralleled by an increase in postsystolic thickening in the ischemic segment. After 20 seconds of ischemia, epsilon(ES) decreased by -86% and postsystolic thickening increased by +100%, whereas maximal thickening decreased only by -34% in comparison with preocclusion values. All wall thickening parameters returned to baseline after 15 seconds of reperfusion. During acute total ischemia in a closed-chest animal model, the changes in regional myocardial function were best characterized by the combined analysis of systolic and postsystolic thickening abnormalities and by their respective timings relative to global cardiac events markers.