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Intro to the Heart

The heart pumps blood, all around but you can really subdivide the whole heart into two halves and think of it as a double pump. One part pumps oxygen-poor blood to the lungs to deposit carbon dioxide, pick up oxygen and go to the other side where it’s going to pump the freshly oxygenated blood to the rest of the body until it arrives back to the first part to deposit the carbon dioxide.  This double-circuit circulation is the way the heart works in all mammals and prevents deoxygenated and oxygenated blood from mixing.

For the picture above: The left blue side is the right side, the left is the right.  These blue vessels go to the lungs, and go to enter the left side heart, where the oxygen rich blood (the standard is to display that in red) is going to go to the rest of the body.  Gases are exchanged and then the oxygen-poor-blood comes back to the right side.  So that’s your overall plan.

For the picture above, starting with the top left view, we could see the heart is located inside the chest.  You see the ribs surround it and the heart is behind the sternum there.  There’s more of it located on the left side than right side.  The heart is contained in the portion of the chest known as the mediastinum.  The mediastinum is the “middle” section of the chest cavity.   The picture on the top right shows it in place with the lungs that lie on either side of the heart.  You could see there’s a cut out in the lungs to allow the heart to fit.  The bottom left picture is the location of the heart if the thorax were sliced so you could get a better idea of its location.  It is here that you could see mediastinum does not include the lungs.  The bottom right is a view from a cadaver.

Representative colors of Arteries and Veins

Note that arteries, which carry blood away from the heart, are indicated in red (for oxygen-rich blood) and that veins, which carry blood toward the heart, are indicated in blue (for oxygen-poor blood).

However, there is an exception here.  Note the color of the pulmonary trunk, which is an artery carrying oxygen-poor blood, and of the pulmonary veins, which are veins carrying oxygen-rich blood.  So in other words, just because a blood vessel is going away from the heart because it’s an artery, doesn’t mean it’s full of oxygen.  The pulmonary trunk carries oxygen poor blood away from the heart and straight into the lungs to be replenished with oxygen, that’s why it’s blue.  The pulmonary vein carrying blood toward the heart is red because it is coming immediately after being filled with oxygen from the lungs.

Cool mnemonic to not confuse the bicuspid/tricuspid valves. Just relate them to the lobes of the lungs.

The left atrioventricular valve is the BIcuspid valve (aka mitral valve).  Just like how the left lung has TWO lobes (bi).

The right atrioventricular valve is the TRIcuspid valve.  Just like how the right lung has THREE lobes (tri).


Use this Table of Contents to go to the next article

Painting by Michael Reedy
The Basics. Start here. This is your Foundation.
  • Intro to human anatomy
  • The building blocks of cells

Epithelial and Connective Tissue

  • Basics of Epithelial Tissue
  • Eight types of Epithelial Tissue
  • Detailed Features of Epithelia
  • Connective Tissue Basics
  • Three Types of Membrane

Skin, Hair, Nails, Sweat Glands

  • Integumentary System Part 1
  • Integumentary System Part 2

The Skeletal System

  • Cartilage and Bones
  • Geography of the Skull
  • Special parts of the skull
  • The Vertebral Column
  • Thoracic Cage, Ribs, Fontanelles

The Muscular System

  • Muscles of the Head
  • Muscles of the Neck and Vertebral Column
  • Muscles of the thorax for breathing and the pelvic floor (The Diaphragm)
  • Muscles of the Abdominal Wall
  • Muscles of the Forearm

The Central Nervous System

  • Fundamentals of the Nervous System and Nervous Tissue
  • CNS: Intro to Brain and Ventricles, Medulla Oblongata, Pons, Mid-Brain and Cerebellum
  • Central Nervous System: Spinal Cord
  • The Diencephalon
  • The Cerebral Hemispheres
  • Functional Areas of The Cerebral Cortex
  • Cerebral White Matter and Gray Matter and Basal Ganglia
  • The Limbic System and the Reticular Formation
  • Protection for the Brain: Meninges, CSF, Blood-Brain Barrier
  • Disorders of the Central Nervous System

The Peripheral Nervous System

  • Peripheral Nervous System: Cranial Nerves
  • Peripheral Nervous System: Spinal Nerves and Plexuses
  • Innervation of the skin: Dermatomes

The Autonomic Nervous System

  • The Autonomic Nervous System (Includes sympathetic and parasymphathetic systems)
  • Visceral Sensory Neurons and Referred Pain

Special Senses

  • Chemical Sense: Taste (Gustation)
  • Chemical Sense: Smell (Olfaction)
  • The Eye and Vision

YOU ARE HERE AT THE CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM

The Cardiovascular System

  • Intro to the Heart
  • Blood Flow of the Heart (Circulation Flow)
  • Myocardium
  • Conducting System of the Heart (Nervous Impulse Flow)
  • The Four Corners of the Heart
  • Layers of the Pericardium, Heart Wall and Spiral Arrangement
  • Function of the Atrioventricular and Semilunar Valves
  • Blood Components, Hemoglobin, Type/Rh Factor, Agglutination
  • Blood Vessels

Specialized Systems

  • The Endocrine System (Pituitary, Thyroid, Pancreas, Adrenal, Gonads, etc)
  • The Lymphatic System (Spleen, Thymus, Lymphatic vessels, nodes etc)
  • The Respiratory System (Lungs, Alveoli, Bronchi, Trachea, Larynx, Nasal cavities, etc)
  • The Immune System
  • The Urinary System: Kidneys
  • The Urinary System: Ureter and Urinary Bladder

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