Exam 3 Flashcards
Major Functions of the Circulatory System
- transportation-nutrients, oxygen, hormones, waste products
- wound care-protect body from losing blood
- immune function
- heat regulation
AV Valves
-one way; pressure in atria causes change; will shut when pressure builds up in ventricle (tricuspid and mitral-left)
Chordae Tendinae and Papillary Muslces
- chordae tendinae: attached to AV valves
- papillary muscles: continuous with wall contract when muscle contracts
- chordae and papillary tug on AV valve to keep flaps on ventricular side so no flopping back when ventricle builds up lots of pressure-never open valve
Semilunar Valve
- toward top of valve
- pulmonary: deoxygenated to lungs
- aortic: oxygenated to body; thicker/rigid stronger on their own
Septum
- divides left side from right side
- prevents blood from mixing
- conductive: electrical signals/AP’s will pass through
Fibrous Skeleton
- divides atria from ventricles
- all valves embedded in this
- not conductive: absorbs AP’s and electrically insulated atria from ventricles
Pericardium
- outer two layers
- protective
- doesn’t touch heart but lines outside
Epicardium
- outer layer of heart that touches heart
- protective
- coronary blood vessels that supply blood to heart
Pericardial Space
- fluid filled
- heart moves a lot and this allows lubrication to stop friction and provides a space to move in
Myocardium
- muscular layer after epicardium
- force generating; think in Atria, thick in ventricle
Endocardium
-innermost layer that smoothly transitions from the inside of the heart to the blood vessels to try to keep smooth blood flow and prevent turbulation that would slow blood flow
Cardiac Muscle Structure
- branching and connected more strongly
- provides support because great force is generated
- muscle fibers share AP’s because of gap junctions-don’t rely on external signal
Cardiac Muscle Function
-generates force-when they contract space gets smaller and develops pressure to move blood through body
AP’s in Cardiac Muscle
- uses calcium ions in addition to sodium and potassium
- calcium increases the length of the action potential
- age is the only thing that can change this which will increase it more
- contract simultaneously and summation of this like in skeletal muscle would destroy the heart-too much force than the structure could maintain so this is solved by longer AP’s (long absolute refractory period-no new AP)
- have a maximum beat per minute because of this long AP which sets the maximum heart rate
Path of Electrical Activity in Heart
- SA Node
- AV Node
- AV Bundle
- Left and Right Bundle Branches
- Purkinje Fibers
SA Node
- in right atrium
- AP starts here spontaneously and is released through gap junctions and both sides beat simultaneously because the septum is conductive but not to ventricles
AV Node
- embedded in fibrous skeleton
- only point where AP not absorbed by fibrous skeleton
- tunnel between atrium and ventricle and starts AP on pathway to AV bundle
AV Bundle
- axon/insulated wire
- transitions AP down pathway to L&R bundle branches
- working way toward apex of heart
Purkinje Fibers
- raw nerve endings that release AP out into ventricular muscle that start at apex
- want contraction to start at apex because SL valves are at the top and want contraction to start at bottom and create wave of pressure toward SL valve. Builds up pressure to area with valves so it’s most efficient way to maximally use pressure
SA Node Depolarization Mechanism
- funny channels are always open but the rate of flow chan change; resting heart rate is different from exercising because of how open these channels are
- funny current: spontaneous leakage; ungated and always open to some extent; depolarize muscle fiber by allowing Na+ to continually leak in
- voltage gated calcium channel waiting for a certain voltage (threshold) to open and then an influx of calcium ions will rush in; combo of these two events makes AP (Na+ and Ca2+)
Regulation of Cardiac Rate
- autonomic innervation of SA node is primary modifier of heart rate
- sympathetic nerve endings in the atria and ventricles can increase strength of cardiac contraction
Sympathetic Effect
- SA node: increases funny current and thus heart rate
- AV node: increases conduction rate; receives AP and passes to ventricles/AV bundle a little faster; goal is to make sure atria and ventricles are in synchrony with each other; AV node keeps up to make sure ventricles contract at same rate
- atrial and ventricular muscle: increase in contraction strength
Parasympathetic Effect
- SA node: decrease funny current and thus heart rate
- AV node: decrease conduction rate
- no effect on atrial and ventricular muscle because you have a baseline of contraction you don’t want to go below
Bradycardia
- slow heart rate at rest below 60 bpm
- not necessarily bad
- fewer number of AP’s per time
Tachycardia
- fast heart rate at rest above 100 bpm
- clinically unhealthy
- less time between AP’s so more per unit time
- what’s changing is the time taken to get to threshold is shortening
Fibrillation
-heart contracting not in synchrony; not cohesive; all pressures cancel out, space doesn’t get smaller; no pressure generated to open valve
Atrial Fibrillation
- missing a little extra blood in ventricles so not as much is pumped out but still enough to be alive
- would typically notice during exercise but ventricles can still function normally
- only real problem is turbulence which can cause blood clots
Ventricular Fibrillation
- can’t open semilunar valves which means can’t move blood around body so it’s fatal
- why we have defibrillators: generates AP and forces fibers to all act at same time like they should
How can electrical signals from the heart be accurately measured from the skin?
-simultaneous contraction of a strong muscle generates large enough electrical signal sent out into the contractile water to be measured on the surface of the skin
P-wave
-represents atrial contraction-electrical signal has been sent out; can’t tell how strong just that there was one
QRS Complex
-represents ventricular contraction
T-wave
- represents ventricular repolarization
- moving ions back where they came from is strong enough signal that we can see
Electrical Signal Traveling
- SA node generates impulse; atrial excitation begins
- impulse delayed at AV node: pause for conduction between atria and ventricle allows atria to top off ventricle; no pause there would be simultaneous contraction down bundle branches and would nullify atrial effect
- impulse pass to apex and ventricular excitation begins
- ventricular excitation complete
Order of Events During Cardiac Cycle
- atria begin filling passively because there is nowhere else for blood to go
- ventricles begin filling because of the increased pressure in the atria opens the AV valve and blood passively flows in 85-90%
- atria contract to push last 15-10% into ventricles because funny channels are leaky enough to send out the AP-spontaneous and set amount of time to fill
- ventricles contract and AV valves shut because AV node sends out impulse down to purkinje fibers at apex to push contraction and generate pressure
- atria relax (happens at same time ventricles contract)
- ventricles relax
End Systolic Volume
- minimum volume of blood in heart
- after contraction (systole)
End Diastolic Volume
- refilling during relaxation (diastole)
- maximum volume for this cardiac cycle
Stroke Volume
- amount of blood successfully pumped out of ventricle in a single beat
- calculated by subtracting ESV from EDV
Why is the local blood pressure in and around the heart important?
- need pressure gradient to open valves
- without pressure nothing moves
What would happen if cardiac blood pressure was constant? Does this ever happen?
- wouldn’t be any blood flow
- happens in ventricular fibrillation
What is the pressure of blood entering the atria? Why?
- close to 0
- veins are thin and flexible and expand when blood enters them-no push back so don’t pressurize blood
What is the pressure of blood in the aorta? Why?
- 120/80; highest because arteries are pressurized, narrow and more rigid so they push against blood and cause a pressure
- blood flows into the aorta and ventricle is contracting and aorta stretches out but blood is being pushed into a space that already has a high pressure so it snaps back when the pressure in the ventricle is lower than that in the aorta
- this elastic recoil sends blood in both directions which is what shuts the SL valve and we depend on it to push blood out into body
- cardiac cycles overlap and as the next is happening you have to fight against previous stroke volume in aorta and the high pressure needed to open SL valve
Ventricular Pressure-Volume Loop
- A: ESV, lowest volume and pressure
- B: EDV, maximum volume; end of relaxation
- B-C: isovolumetric contraction phase; ventricular contraction; huge increase in pressure with no change in volume because valves aren’t open yet-have to equalize and exceed pressure in aorta before they open
- C: semilunar valves open; pressure in ventricle exceeds pressure in aorta; volume starts to decrease
- C-D: blood flow out of ventricle into aorta-ejection of blood; stroke volume
- D: semilunar valve closes because of elastic recoil of aorta creating a back pressure or afterload; aortic pressure exceeds ventricular pressure; no more volume change
- D-A: isovolumetric relaxation phase; ventricular relaxation; huge decrease in pressure
Pressure and Volume
- not directly related to each other
- pressure due to muscle contraction not volume
- volume change means a valve is open
Ventricular Ejection Fraction
- SV/EDV
- 80/120 so 57%
- how much we successfully moved compared to; how much we could move
- don’t need that much blood flow at rest so it’s as efficient as it needs to be
Flow of Blood in Heart
-vena cava–>RA–>RV–>pulmonary artery (deoxygenated)–>lungs–>pulmonary vein–>LA–>LV–>aorta–>body
Cardiac Output
- amount of blood pumped out of one ventricle in a minute
- CO=heart rate x stroke volume
- heart rate and stroke volume are independent of each other
- average cardiac output is 5.5 liters per minute
- average total blood volume a person has is 5.5 liters
- takes about 1 minute for a red blood cell to travel through the body at rest
Three Factors That Effect Stroke Volume
- EDV/preload (stretch on muscle fibers before contraction)
- TPR
- Contractility
TPR
- total peripheral resistance
- impedes blood flow outside of heart
- combined value of all resistance in body impeding blood flow out of the arteries
- indirectly effects SV
- resistance backs up toward SLV in aorta which makes already high pressure in aorta rise; pressure in ventricle must rise even higher to open SLV which will then mean less pressure is available to actually move blood out thus decreasing SV
- increase in TPR means increase in afterload which is the physical force against the SLV keeping it closed or back pressure
Contractility
- how much pressure you will potentially be able to generate based on certain circumstances
- influenced by extrinsic and intrinsic factors
- extrinsic: ANS-sympathetic drive increases contraction strength in the atria and ventricles
- intrinsic: The Law of the Heart=length tension relationship: EDV increases, contractility increases because of optimum overlap of actin and myosin give greatest force
- the longer the sarcomere, the stronger the force it can generate which means more pressure so more SV
High Blood Pressure Effect on Ventricular Pressure Volume Loop
- no reason to change EDV-atria not affected; same venous return
- change in TPR which means that point C or the point where the SLV opens is affected; will take more pressure to overcome increased pressure in aorta which means there will be a change in D
- stroke volume decreases: aorta changed pressure but ventricle hasn’t so you need more pressure to open SLV; have certain amount of force we can use and once we do that’s it and valve closes