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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.
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.
The cardiac conduction system (CCS, also called the electrical conduction system of the heart) [1] transmits the signals generated by the sinoatrial node – the heart's pacemaker, to cause the heart muscle to contract, and pump blood through the body's circulatory system.
In the heart's conduction system electrical activity that originates from the sinoatrial node (SAN) is propagated via the His-Purkinje network, the fastest conduction pathway within the heart. The electrical signal travels from the sinoatrial node, which stimulates the atria to contract, to the atrioventricular node (AVN) , which slows down ...
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.
Wiggers diagram of the cardiac cycle, with isometric contraction marked at upper left. In cardiac physiology, isometric contraction is an event occurring in early systole during which the ventricles contract with no corresponding volume change (isometrically). This short-lasting portion of the cardiac cycle takes place while all heart valves are
An increase in sympathetic stimulation to the heart increases contractility and heart rate. An increase in contractility tends to increase stroke volume and thus a secondary increase in preload. An increase in preload results in an increased force of contraction by Starling's law of the heart; this does not require a change in contractility.
This can lead to sustained or tetanic contraction. In the heart, contractions must be spaced to maintain a rhythm. Unlike in muscle, repolarization occurs at a slow rate (100 ms). This prevents the heart from undergoing sustained contractions because it forces the refractory period and cardiac action potential firing to be of the same length of ...