NORMAL HEART
This is a model of the normal heart and lungs. It shows the left and right ventricles, the left and right atria, the aorta and vena cava superior and inferior and the pulmonary trunk and pulmonary arteries and the pulmonary veins. Also both lungs are shown. Blood that has travelled through the body enters the right atrium via the vena cava superior and inferior. It then travels to the right ventricle, passing the tricuspid valve. It is then pumped into the pulmonary trunk (passing the pulmonary valve), that divides into left and right pulmonary arteries, towards the lungs. In the lungs, oxygen is bound to the blood; it becomes oxygen-rich. Subsequently, the oxygen-rich blood enters the left atrium. Passing the mitral valve, the blood enters the left ventricle. The left ventricle pumps the blood into the aorta (passing the aortic valve), upon which it travels to all the organs and tissues in the body, providing them from oxygen. Once it has done so, it travels back to the right atrium.
The model depicts blood flow through the heart. It shows how deoxygenated blood enters the right atrium (blue arrows), travels through the right ventricle and is pumped to the lungs, where it becomes oxygenated. Then, it travels through the pulmonary veins into the left atrium (pink arrows), goes through the left ventricle and is pumped into the aorta, from where it will travel to all corners of the body, to supply tissues with oxygen.
This model depicts major parts of the cardiac conduction system. The main components of the cardiac conduction system are the SA node, AV node, bundle of His, bundle branches, and Purkinje fibers. Note that not every detail of the conduction system is displayed, since the modle is based on a 3D print.
The conduction system of the heart consists of cardiac muscle cells and conducting fibers (not nervous tissue) that are specialized for initiating impulses and conducting them rapidly through the heart. They initiate the normal cardiac cycle and coordinate the contractions of cardiac chambers. The conducting system provides the heart its automatic rhythmic beat. For the heart to pump efficiently and the systemic and pumonary circulations to operate in synchrony, the events in the cardiac cycle must be coordinated.
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"Normal heart" by Anna Sieben, UMCG and Monique R.M. Jongbloed, LUMC, license: CC BY-NC-SA
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