Physiology 2130 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Heart Valve, Pulmonary Valve, Tricuspid Valve
Document Summary
The heart is one of the most remarkable organs in the body. It begins beating long before you are born and will not stop until you die. Your heart, which is about the size of your fist, sits in your chest cavity between your lungs. During the course of an average life it will beat roughly 2. 5 billion times. You also have roughly 160,000km (100,000 miles) of blood vessels that transport blood directly to almost every cell in your body. The heart essentially consists of two side-by-side pumps: the right atrium and ventricle, which pumps blood to the lungs, and the left atrium and ventricle, which pumps blood to the rest of the body. Now that you have a good understanding of the basic features of the heart, we will look at how the heart fulfills its role as a central pump within the circulatory system.