Heart Chambers & Anatomy
This thin-walled upper chamber receives deoxygenated blood returning to the heart from the systemic circulation via the vena cavae.
What is the right atrium?
Located between the right atrium and right ventricle, this atrioventricular valve has three cusps.
What is the tricuspid valve?
These large veins return deoxygenated blood from the upper and lower body directly into the right atrium.
What are the superior and inferior vena cavae?
Immediately after blood passes through the tricuspid valve, it enters this chamber.
What is the right ventricle?
On a standard EKG tracing, this specific wave represents atrial depolarization.
What is the P wave?
This thick, muscular wall separates the left and right ventricles, preventing oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor blood from mixing.
What is the interventricular septum?
Known as the natural pacemaker of the heart, this node initiates the electrical impulse that drives normal sinus rhythm.
What is the sinoatrial (SA) node?
Unlike most vessels of their type, these specific blood vessels carry oxygenated blood from the lungs back to the left atrium.
What are the pulmonary veins?
After being oxygenated in the alveolar capillaries of the lungs, blood enters these vessels next on its path back to the heart.
What are the pulmonary veins?
On an EKG, the QRS complex represents this major electrical event in the cardiac cycle.
What is ventricular depolarization?
Having the thickest myocardium of all four chambers, this heart structure must generate enough pressure to pump blood through the entire systemic circuit.
What is the left ventricle?
This valve prevents the backflow of oxygenated blood from the aorta into the left ventricle during diastole.
What is the aortic semilunar valve?
This major artery exits the right ventricle and divides into two main branches to take blood to the lungs.
What is the pulmonary trunk (or pulmonary artery)?
Blood leaving the left atrium must pass through this valve to enter the left ventricle.
What is the bicuspid valve (or mitral valve)?
The "lub-dub" cardiac sounds heard through a stethoscope are caused by the closure of these heart structures.
What are the heart valves (lub = AV valves closing; dub = semilunar valves closing)?
These tendinous cords attach the AV valve cusps to the papillary muscles, preventing valve prolapse during ventricular contraction.
What are the chordae tendineae?
Located in the interatrial septum, this node delays the electrical signal briefly to allow the atria to fully contract and fill the ventricles.
What is the atrioventricular (AV) node?
These specialized arteries branch off the base of the aorta to supply oxygen-rich blood directly to the heart muscle tissue itself.
What are the coronary arteries?
Place these three structures in the correct order of blood flow: Aorta, Left Ventricle, Aortic Valve.
What is Left Ventricle -->Aortic Valve --> Aorta?
This stage of the cardiac cycle refers to the phase where the heart muscle relaxes and the chambers fill with blood.
What is diastole?
This double-walled fibrous sac encloses the heart, providing protection and reducing friction as the heart beats.
What is the pericardium?
These specialized conduction fibers rapidly distribute the electrical impulse throughout the ventricular myocardium, triggering coordinated contraction.
What are Purkinje fibers?
This functional loop of the circulatory system carries deoxygenated blood from the right side of the heart to the lungs for gas exchange and back to the left side.
What is the pulmonary circulation (or pulmonary circuit)?
Trace the complete pathway of a single drop of blood starting at the Inferior Vena Cava and ending as it exits to the body via the Aorta
What is Right Atrium --> Tricuspid Valve --> Right Ventricle --> Pulmonary Valve --> Pulmonary Artery --> Lungs --> Pulmonary Veins --> Left Atrium --> Bicuspid/Mitral Valve --> Left Ventricle --> Aortic Valve --> Aorta?
A blockage in one of the coronary arteries that leads to myocardial tissue necrosis is clinically referred to by this term.
What is a Myocardial Infarction (MI) (or heart attack)?