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Vasoconstriction is the narrowing of the blood vessels resulting from contraction of the muscular wall of the vessels, in particular the large arteries and small arterioles. The process is the opposite of vasodilation, the widening of blood vessels. The process is particularly important in controlling hemorrhage and reducing acute blood loss.
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 ...
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.
“The heart will pump what it receives”- Starling’s law of the heart. The Frank–Starling mechanism describes the ability of the heart to change its force of contraction (and, hence, stroke volume) in response to changes in venous return. In other words, if the end-diastolic volume increases, there is a corresponding increase in stroke ...
Venous return (VR) is the flow of blood back to the heart. Under steady-state conditions, venous return must equal cardiac output (Q), when averaged over time because the cardiovascular system is essentially a closed loop. Otherwise, blood would accumulate in either the systemic or pulmonary circulations.
Heart rate; Conduction velocity; Preload; Afterload; Contractility; By this model, if myocardial performance changes while preload, afterload, heart rate, and conduction velocity are all held constant, then the change in performance must be due to a change in contractility. However, changes in contractility alone generally do not occur.
Positive Bowditch effect causes an increase in cardiac output due to the increased force of contraction of heart muscles. [7]This phenomenon is usually absent or even reversed (negative Bowditch effect) in heart failure and other diseases of heart, such as cardiomyopathy and coronary artery disease.
Intercalated discs support synchronized contraction of cardiac tissue in a wave-like pattern so that the heart can work like a pump. [1] They occur at the Z line of the sarcomere and can be visualized easily when observing a longitudinal section of the tissue.