Physiology I Flashcards
Relative concentrations of Na+, K+, and Ca2+ at resting potential levels (is the concentration of each higher inside or outside the cell?).
- more Na+ outside
- more Ca2+ outside
- more K+ inside
What does the Right Coronary Artery supply? What percentage of coronary artery thrombosis occurs here?
- supplies the RV, posterior wall of LV (including the papillary muscle of mitral valve), posterior 1/3 of the IVS, and the SA and AV nodes; 30-40% of thrombosis
- (thrombosis occurs in LAD > RCA > LCX)
What does the Left Anterior Descending Artery supply? What about the Left Circumflex Artery? What percentage of coronary artery thrombosis occurs in each?
- LAD: supplies the anterior wall of LV, anterior 2/3 of the IVS, apex; 40-50% of thrombosis
- LCX: supplies the lateral wall of LV; 15-20% of thrombosis
- (thrombosis occurs in LAD > RCA > LCX)
What path does the conducting system take from start to finish?
- SA node –> internodal pathways –> AV node –> bundle of His –> AV bundle –> bundle branches –> Purkinje fibers
What is the resting potential of a cardiac contractile cell? How does this compare to that of a normal skeletal muscle cell? What is the threshold needed to generate an action potential?
- cardiac cell: -90 mV
- this is more polarized than skeletal muscle (-85 mV)
- threshold for action potential = -75 mV
What are the relative (high/low) pressures, resistances, and volumes of arteries, veins, and capillaries?
- arteries: high pressure, low volume (called the stressed volume), low resistance
- veins: low pressure, high volume (called the unstressed volume), low resistance
- capillaries: pressure changes from high to low, low volume, high resistance
What are the four determinants of stroke volume?
- preload, afterload, inotropic state, and heart-rate
In an ECG, at which points do the conducting pathway signals occur?
- all of the conducting signals occur in the PR interval
What ECG leads are positive? Which are neutral? Negative?
- positive: I, II, and aVL
- neutral: aVF
- negative: III and aVR
How long is the PR interval? The QRS interval? The QT interval?
- PR: 0.2 seconds
- QRS: 0.12 seconds
- QT (contains the QRS): 0.4 seconds
What direction does cardiac depolarization occur? What about cardiac repolarization?
- depolarization: endocardium to epicardium
- repolarization: epicardium to endocardium
Why is Troponin-T a better plasma marker of cardiac injury than CK-MB? What is CK-MB used for?
- while both rise rapidly between 4 - 6 hours after injury, troponin-T stays elevated for 7 - 10 days while CK-MB returns to normal after 2 days
- therefore, CK-MB is a good indicator of a re-infarct occurring within 10 days because troponin levels will already still be high
- (CK-MB is the gold standard, but troponin can detect an infarct for a longer period of time)
What is cardiac output? What is venous return?
- cardiac output: the rate of blood pumped from either ventricle into the arteries (LV equals RV in the steady state)
- venous return: the rate of blood returned to either atria via the veins (LA equals RA in the steady state)
- in the steady state, cardiac output equals venous return
Explain the path of blood flow starting at the left atrium.
- leaves LA through the mitral/bicuspid valve into the LV
- leaves LV through the aortic valve into the aorta, the systemic arteries, the organs, the systemic veins, and then the vena cava
- into the RA and then into the RV through the tricuspid valve
- leaves the RV through the pulmonary valve into the pulmonary arteries, the lungs, and then the pulmonary veins
- returns to the LA
At rest, what percentage of cardiac output supplies the kidneys, GIT, skeletal muscle, brain, skin, and coronary arteries?
- kidneys: 25%
- GIT: 25%
- skeletal muscle: 25%
- cerebral system (circle of Willis): 15%
- skin: 5%
- coronary system: 5%
How can the distribution of cardiac output to certain systems be changed?
- total cardiac output can be increased or decreased (this will increase or decrease the supply to all systems)
- selective arteriolar resistances can be increased or decreased (this can selectively increase or decrease supply to a certain system and will also result in a decrease or increase of the other systems)
What is the basic structure of an artery? An arteriole? A capillary? A vein?
- artery: very thick-walled, lots of elastic tissue
- arteriole: extensive smooth muscle
- capillary: single layer of endothelial cells
- vein: thin-walled, less elastic tissue
- (the smooth muscle of arterioles and the venous system is innervated by sympathetic fibers)
Which vessels have the greatest resistance? Which have the greatest capacitance?
- the arterioles have the greatest resistance because of their extensive smooth muscle (this is why the largest drop in pressure occurs between the arteries and the capillaries)
- the venous system has the greatest capacitance because of the thin walls and less elastic tissue (this means they can hold large amount of blood)