2: Cardiovascular System I: Introduction and Heart

Cardiovascular System I: Introduction and Heart

• Course Learning Objectives: Recall the networks that facilitate gas and nutrient exchange throughout the body by tracing blood flow and identifying related cardiovascular structures.
• Lecture Learning Objectives:
  • Describe basic features of the cardiovascular system, including primary functions and differences between pulmonary and systemic systems.
  • Trace pathways of blood in pulmonary and systemic circulation, noting oxygen levels.
  • Describe the location and orientation of the heart.
  • Visually identify heart chambers, sulci, and great vessels on the external heart.
  • Link great vessels and chambers to where they receive and send blood.
  • Recognize the blood supply to the heart (vessel names, origins, destinations, and supplied structures).
  • Recall layers of the heart wall and their attributes.
  • Visually identify internal heart structures.
  • Describe function and structure of the heart's skeleton.
  • Recall composition and function of the pericardium.

Circulation

• Pulmonary circulation: Transports oxygen-poor blood from the heart to the lungs, then returns oxygen-rich blood to the heart.
• Systemic circulation: Transports oxygen-rich blood from the heart to the body, then returns oxygen-poor blood to the heart.

Regulation of Blood Pressure

• Insufficient blood pressure can prevent adequate profusion from capillaries.
• Oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor blood do not mix to maintain oxygen concentration for tissue health.

Vessels

• Arteries: Thick-walled, elastic tissue, and smooth muscle, delivering oxygenated blood to tissues.
• Arterioles: Smallest branches of arteries; control blood flow based on stimuli.
• Capillaries: Single layer of endothelial cells; exchange nutrients, water, and gasses with tissues.
• Venules: Formed from merging capillaries, site of white blood cell movement.
• Veins: Thin-walled; returns blood to the heart.

The Heart

• Location and orientation: Located slightly left of the midline, behind the sternum, and between the second and fifth intercostal spaces. Slightly rotated, with the right border anterior and the left border more posterior. The apex is a conical end on the left side projecting anteroinferiorly.
• Heart chambers, great vessels, external structures, blood supply, internal structures, skeleton, pericardium: Detailed information will need to be extracted from the text provided.

Chambers of the Heart

• Information about the heart's chambers (right atrium, right ventricle, left atrium, left ventricle).

Great Vessels

• Details about oxygenated and deoxygenated blood flow through the vessels (superior and inferior vena cava, pulmonary artery, pulmonary trunk, pulmonary veins, ascending aorta, aortic arch).

Flow of Blood-Great Vessels and Chambers

• Blood flow from body to the right atrium via venae cavae
• Blood flow from right atrium to right ventricle
• Blood flow from right ventricle to the lungs via pulmonary trunk and pulmonary arteries
• Blood flow into left atrium from lungs via pulmonary veins, and from left atrium to the left ventricle
• Blood flow from left ventricle to the body via aorta

External Heart Anatomy: Structures and Sulci

• Sulci (e.g., coronary sulcus, anterior interventricular sulcus) house vessels supplying the heart.

Blood Supply to the Heart

• Coronary arteries branch from the base of the aorta to supply oxygenated blood to the heart tissues.
• Venous blood drains into the right atrium.

Arterial Supply to the Heart

• Left coronary artery (and its branches)
• Right coronary artery (and its branches)

Venous Drainage of the Heart

• Great cardiac vein
• Small cardiac vein
• Middle cardiac vein
• Coronary sinus

Internal Heart

• Endocardium, Myocardium, Epicardium.

Common Atrial Structures

• Openings to great vessels, Atrioventricular valve, Interatrial septum, Fossa ovale.

Common Ventricular Structures

• Atrioventricular valves (AV), Chordae tendineae, Papillary muscles, Semilunar valves, Interventricular septum, Trabeculae carneae

Heart Valves

• Right atrioventricular valve (tricuspid)
• Pulmonary semilunar valve
• Left atrioventricular valve (bicuspid/mitral)
• Aortic semilunar valve

Skeleton of the Heart

• Provides structural support for the valves.
• Provides attachments for valve cusps.
• Encloses the heart's myocardium.
• Offers electrical insulation

Pericardium

• Fibrous and serous membranes surrounding the heart that restrict movement and prevent overfilling.
• Detailed information on structure, function, and layers is needed from the text.