Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The standard model used to understand the cardiac action potential is that of the ventricular myocyte. Outlined below are the five phases of the ventricular myocyte action potential, with reference also to the SAN action potential. Figure 2a: Ventricular action potential (left) and sinoatrial node action potential (right) waveforms.
The action potential of a ventricular myocyte. In electrocardiography, the ventricular cardiomyocyte membrane potential is about −90 mV at rest, [1] which is close to the potassium reversal potential. When an action potential is generated, the membrane potential rises above this level in five distinct phases. [1]
The bundle branches were separately described by Retzer and Braeunig as early as 1904, but their physiological function remained unclear and their role in the electrical conduction system of the heart remained unknown until Sunao Tawara published his monograph on Das Reizleitungssystem des Säugetierherzens (English: The Conduction System of the Mammalian Heart) in 1906. [4]
As the left posterior fascicle is shorter and broader than the right, impulses reach the papillary muscles just prior to depolarization, and therefore contraction, of the left ventricle myocardium. This allows pre-tensioning of the chordae tendinae, increasing the resistance to flow through the mitral valve during left ventricular contraction. [5]
During the ventricular contraction portion of the cardiac cycle, the Purkinje fibers carry the contraction impulse from both the left and right bundle branch to the myocardium of the ventricles. [5] This causes the muscle tissue of the ventricles to contract.
Depolarization is essential to the function of many cells, communication between cells, and the overall physiology of an organism. Action potential in a neuron, showing depolarization, in which the cell's internal charge becomes less negative (more positive), and repolarization, where the internal charge returns to a more negative value.
Electrical waves track a systole (a contraction) of the heart. The end-point of the P wave depolarization is the start-point of the atrial stage of systole. The ventricular stage of systole begins at the R peak of the QRS wave complex; the T wave indicates the end of ventricular contraction, after which ventricular relaxation (ventricular diastole) begins.
Ventricular relaxation, or diastole, follows repolarization of the ventricles and is represented by the T wave of the ECG. It too is divided into two distinct phases and lasts approximately 430 ms. [1] During the early phase of ventricular diastole, as the ventricular muscle relaxes, pressure on the remaining blood within the ventricle begins ...