Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In a healthy heart, blood flows one way through the heart due to heart valves, which prevent backflow. [4] The heart is enclosed in a protective sac, the pericardium, which also contains a small amount of fluid. The wall of the heart is made up of three layers: epicardium, myocardium, and endocardium. [8]
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 ...
As heart development continues, this tube undergoes remodeling to eventually form the four-chambered heart. The endocardial cushions are a subset of cells found in the developing heart tube that will give rise to the heart's primitive valves and septa , critical to the proper formation of a four-chambered heart.
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.
Illustration depicting the layers of the heart wall including the innermost endocardium. The endocardium (pl.: endocardia) is the innermost layer of tissue that lines the chambers of the heart. Its cells are embryologically and biologically similar to the endothelial cells that line blood vessels. The endocardium also provides protection to the ...
In vertebrates, the circulatory system is a system of organs that includes the heart, blood vessels, and blood which is circulated throughout the body. [1] [2] It includes the cardiovascular system, or vascular system, that consists of the heart and blood vessels (from Greek kardia meaning heart, and Latin vascula meaning vessels).
Heart failure is caused by chronic oxygen deprivation due to reduced blood flow, which weakens the heart over time. Arrhythmias are caused by inadequate blood supply to the heart that interferes with the heart's electric impulse. The coronary arteries can constrict as a response to various stimuli, mostly chemical. This is known as a coronary ...
The heart wall is a three-layered structure with a thick layer of myocardium sandwiched between the inner endocardium and the outer epicardium (also known as the visceral pericardium). The inner endocardium lines the cardiac chambers, covers the cardiac valves , and joins with the endothelium that lines the blood vessels that connect to the heart.