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A slow heart rate of 60 or less beats per minute is defined as bradycardia. A fast heart rate of more than 100 beats per minute is defined as tachycardia. An arrhythmia is defined as one that is not physiological such as the lowered heart rate that a trained athlete may naturally have developed; the resting heart rates may be less than 60 bpm.
Cardiac physiology or heart function is the study of healthy, unimpaired function of the heart: involving blood flow; myocardium structure; the electrical conduction system of the heart; the cardiac cycle and cardiac output and how these interact and depend on one another.
The heart is a muscular organ situated in the mediastinum.It consists of four chambers, four valves, two main arteries (the coronary arteries), and the conduction system. The left and right sides of the heart have different functions: the right side receives de-oxygenated blood through the superior and inferior venae cavae and pumps blood to the lungs through the pulmonary artery, and the left ...
This rate can be altered, however, by nerves that work to either increase heart rate (sympathetic nerves) or decrease it (parasympathetic nerves), as the body's oxygen demands change. Ultimately, muscle contraction revolves around a charged atom (ion) , calcium (Ca 2+ ) , [ 3 ] which is responsible for converting the electrical energy of the ...
These calcium ions bind to and open more calcium channels (called ryanodine receptors) located on the sarcoplasmic reticulum within the cell, allowing the flow of calcium out of the SR. These calcium ions are responsible for the contraction of the heart. Calcium also activates chloride channels called I to2, which allow Cl − to enter the cell ...
The sodium-calcium exchanger ionic pump works to pump calcium out of the intracellular space, thus effectively relaxing the cell. The sodium/potassium pump restores ion concentrations of sodium and potassium ions by pumping sodium out of the cell and pumping (exchanging) potassium into the cell. Restoring these ion concentrations is vital ...
Heart attack. A heart attack results from a sudden plaque rupture and formation of a thrombus (blood clot) that completely blocks blood flow to a portion of the heart, leading to tissue death . CAD can also result in heart failure or arrhythmias. Heart failure is caused by chronic oxygen deprivation due to reduced blood flow, which weakens the ...
In a healthy heart all activities and rests during each individual cardiac cycle, or heartbeat, are initiated and orchestrated by signals of the heart's electrical conduction system, which is the "wiring" of the heart that carries electrical impulses throughout the body of cardiomyocytes, the specialized muscle cells of the heart.