Heart

-In most animal transport systems, the heart is the organ that moves the blood around the body.
-In mammals, the heart is a complex, four-chambered muscular organ that sits in the chest protected by the ribs and sternum.
- In an average lifetime, the heart beats about 3 000 000 000 (3 × 10°) times and will pump over 200 million litres of blood

THE STRUCTURE OF THE HEART

-The human heart, like other mammalian hearts, is not a single muscular pump but two pumps, joined and working in time together.
-The right side of the heart receives blood from the body and pumps it to the lungs.
-The left side of the heart receives blood from the lungs and pumps it to the body.
-The blood in each side of the heart does not mix with the blood from the other side.
-The two sides are separated by a thick, muscular septum.
The heart is made of a unique type of muscle. known as cardiac muscle, which has special properties
- it can carry on contracting regularly without resting or getting fatigued.
-Cardiac muscle has a good blood supply
- the coronary arteries bring oxygenated blood to the tissue
-. It also contains lots of myoglobin, a respiratory pigment which has a stronger affinity for oxygen than haemoglobin.
-This myoglobin stores oxygen for the respiration needed to keep the heart contracting regularly.

1 The inferior vena cava collects deoxygenated blood from the lower parts of the body,
-while the superior vena cava receives deoxygenated blood from the head, neck, arms and chest.
-Deoxygenated blood is delivered to the right atrium.

2 The right atrium receives the blood from the great veins.
- As it fills with blood, the pressure builds up and opens the tricuspid valve, so the right ventricle starts to fill with blood too.
- When the atrium is full it contracts, forcing more blood into the ventricle.
-The atrium has thin muscular walls because it receives blood at low pressure from the inferior vena cava and the superior vena cava and it needs to exert relatively little pressure to move the
blood into the ventricle.
- One- way semilunar valves at the entrance to the atrium stop a backflow of blood into the veins.

3 The tricuspid valve consists of three flaps and is also known as an atrioventricular valve because it separates an atrium from a ventricle.
- The valve allows blood to pass from the atrium to the ventricle, but not in the other direction.
-The tough tendinous cords, also known as valve tendons or heartstrings, make sure the valves are not turned inside out by the pressure exerted when the ventricles
contract.

4 The right ventricle is filled with blood under some pressure when the right atrium contracts, then the ventricle contracts.
-Its muscular walls produce the pressure needed to force blood out of the heart into the pulmonary arteries.
- These carry the deoxygenated blood to the capillaries in the lungs.
- As the ventricle starts to contract, the tricuspid valve closes to prevent blood flowing into the atrium.
-Semilunar valves, like those in veins, prevent the blood flowing back from the arteries into the ventricle.

5 The blood returns from the lungs to the left side of the heart in the pulmonary veins.
- The blood is at relatively low pressure after passing through the extensive capillaries of the lungs.
-The blood returns to the left atrium, another thin-walled chamber that performs the same function as the right atrium.
-It contracts to force blood into the left ventricle.
- Backflow is prevented by another atrioventricular valve known as the bicuspid valve, which has only two flaps.

6 As the left atrium contracts, the bicuspid valve opens and the left ventricle is filled with blood under pressure.
- As the left ventricle starts to contract the bicuspid valve closes to prevent backflow of blood to the left atrium.
- The left ventricle pumps the blood out of the heart and into the aorta, the major artery of the body.
-This carries blood away from the heart at even higher pressure than the major arteries that branch off from it.
-The muscular wall of the left side of the heart is much thicker than that of the right.
- The right side pumps blood to the lungs which are relatively close to the heart.
-The delicate capillaries of the lungs need blood delivered at relatively low pressure.
-The left side must produce sufficient force to move the blood under pressure to all the extremities of the body and overcome the elastic recoil of the arteries.
- Semilunar valves prevent the blood flowing back from the aorta into the ventricle.
-The septum is a thick wall of muscle and connective tissue between the two sides of the heart. -It prevents the oxygenated blood mixing with the deoxygenated blood.

HOW YOUR HEART WORKS

-The beating of your heart produces the sounds that are your heartbeat.
-The sounds are not made by the contracting of the heart muscle but by the heart valves closing.
-The two sounds of a heartbeat are often described as 'lub-dub'.
-The first sound ("lub') comes when the ventricles contract and the blood is forced against the atrioventricular valves.
- The second sound ('dub') comes when the ventricles relax and a backflow of blood hits the semilunar valves in the pulmonary artery and aorta.
-The rate of your heartbeat shows how frequently your heart is contracting.

THE CARDIAC CYCLE

-Your heart is continuously contracting then relaxing.
- The contraction of the heart is called systole.
- Systole can be divided into atrial systole, when the atria contract together forcing blood into the ventricles, and ventricular systole, when the ventricles
contract.
- Ventricular systole happens about 0.13 seconds after atrial systole, and forces blood out of the ventricles into the pulmonary artery and the aorta.
-Between contractions the heart relaxes and fills with blood.
-This relaxation stage is called diastole.
- One cycle of systole and diastole makes up a single heartbeat, which lasts about 0.8 seconds in humans.
This is known as the cardiac cycle