Heartbeat - Animation

The heart is a four-chambered organ with four main vessels, which either bring blood to or carry blood away from the heart. The four chambers of the heart are the right atrium, the right ventricle, the left atrium, and the left ventricle. The great vessels of the heart include the superior and inferior vena cava, which bring blood from the body to the right atrium, the pulmonary artery, which transports blood from the right ventricle to the lungs. The last of the great vessels is the aorta, the body's largest artery, which transports oxygen-rich blood from the left ventricle to the rest of the body. If we remove some of the tough fibrous coating of the heart and great vessels, you can get a better look at the heart beating. If you look carefully, you can see a series of one-way valves that keep the blood flowing in one direction. If we inject dye into the superior vena cava, you can watch it pass through the heart as it goes through the cardiac cycle. The blood first enters the heart into the right atrium. Blood passes from the right atrium through the tricuspid valve and into the right ventricle. When the right ventricle contracts, the muscular force pushes blood through the pulmonary semilunar valve into the pulmonary artery. The blood then travels to the lungs, where it receives oxygen. Next, it drains out of the lungs via the pulmonary veins, and travels to the left atrium. From the left atrium, the blood is forced through the mitral valve into the critically important left ventricle. The left ventricle is the major muscular pump that sends the blood out to the body systems. When the left ventricle contracts, it forces the blood through the aortic semilunar valves and into the aorta. From here, the aorta and its branches carry blood to all the tissues of the body.

Heart formation - Animation

The embryo's heart is the first organ that forms. It is derived from two primitive heart tubes. Between days 18 to 30, the primitive heart tubes fuse together, bend and twist to form a simple version of the heart. About half way through this process, the heart starts to beat. At 2 months, the heart bears a close resemblance to what it will look like after the baby's born. The resemblance is only superficial since the inside of the heart is different in both form and function. In a newborn's heart, oxygen-poor blood from the body enters the right atrium, goes to the right ventricle where it is pumped to the lungs to become rich with oxygen. From the lungs, the blood flows back to the heart filling the left atrium then enters the left ventricle. The left ventricle pumps the oxygen rich blood through the aorta, which carries it to the rest of the newborn's body. The fetal heart has the same basic components as the newborn heart, but there are a couple important differences. Because the placenta is providing all of the oxygen the fetus requires, its lungs are not needed to perform this task. Much of the fetus' blood is detoured away from the lungs through two openings or connections: the foramen ovale, which connects the right and left atria, and the ductus arteriosus, which connects the aorta and the pulmonary artery. These two important connections will remain open up until the time of birth. Within thirty minutes after the baby's first breath, the ductus arteriosus will completely close, and the flap of the foramen ovale will shut off like a valve. This happens because of an increase in pressure on the left side of the heart, and a decrease on the right side. These changes in the heart anatomy cause the blood to flow to the lungs, which will take over their lifelong job of supplying oxygen to the body.

Heart bypass surgery - Animation

Heart bypass surgery begins with an incision made in the chest, with the breastbone cut exposing the heart. Next, a portion of the saphenous vein is harvested from the inside of the leg. Pieces of this great vein will be used to bypass the blocked arteries in the heart. The venous graft is sewn to the aorta and to the affected coronary artery past the blocked site. The internal mammary artery from the chest may also be used to bypass a clogged artery. Several arteries may be bypassed depending on the condition of the heart.

Heartburn - Animation

Eating spicy foods, such as pizza, may cause a person to feel heartburn. Although the name may imply the heart, heartburn has nothing to do with the heart itself. Heartburn is pain felt in the chest by a burning sensation in the esophagus, which is located close to where the heart is. Here you can see the pizza passing from the mouth to the esophagus and on to the stomach. At junction between the stomach and esophagus is the lower esophageal sphincter. This muscular sphincter acts as a valve that normally keeps food and stomach acid in the stomach and prevents the stomach's contents from regurgitating back into the esophagus. However, certain foods may affect the lower esophageal sphincter, making it less effective. That's how heartburn begins. The stomach produces hydrochloric acid to digest food. The stomach has a mucous lining that protects it from hydrochloric acid, but the esophagus does not. So, when food and stomach acid regurgitate back into the esophagus, a burning feeling is felt near the heart. This feeling is known as heartburn. Antacids may be used to relieve heartburn by making stomach juices less acidic, therefore reducing the burning feeling felt in the esophagus. If heartburn becomes frequent or prolonged, medical intervention may be necessary to correct the problem.

Heart attack - Animation

You feel a tight band of pain around your chest. The pain moves from your chest to your arms, shoulder, and neck. What could your pain mean? Could it be a heart attack. . . could it be the big one?Heart attacks are caused by interruption of blood supply to part of the heart. If the blood flow is blocked, your heart is starved of oxygen and heart cells die. A hard substance called plaque can build up in the walls of your coronary arteries. This plaque is made up of cholesterol and other cells. A heart attack can occur as a result of plaque buildup or the rupture of one of these plaques. We're not sure why heart attacks occur when they do. You may have a heart attack when you are resting or asleep, or after a sudden increase in physical activity, when you are outside in cold weather, or after a sudden, severe emotional or physical stress, including an illness. So, how is a heart attack treated?If you go to the hospital for a suspected heart attack, a doctor or nurse will listen to your chest with a stethoscope. You will have a blood test to look for heart damage. A coronary angiography test can show your doctor how well blood is moving through your heart. If blood moves slowly, or not at all through your coronary arteries, you have either a narrowed, or blocked artery. Other tests can look at the valves and chambers of your heart and check for abnormal heart rhythms. If you've had a heart attack, doctors can do an emergency procedure called angioplasty. This surgery or procedure can open narrowed or blocked blood vessels. Usually they'll place a small, metal mesh tube, called a stent, in your artery to help keep it open. You may also receive drugs to break up the clot in your artery. Sometimes, doctors will do heart bypass surgery to get blood flowing to your heart muscle again. After you are treated in the hospital for a heart attack, you may need to take medicines to thin your blood, to protect your heart, or to improve your cholesterol levels. You may need to take these medicines for the rest of your life. Most people who have had a heart attack also need cardiac rehabilitation. This will help you slowly increase your exercise level and learn how to follow a healthy lifestyle. After you have a heart attack, your chance of another is higher. How well you do after a heart attack depends on the damage to your heart and where the damage is, and what steps you take to prevent another one. If your heart can no longer pump blood to your body as well as it used to, you may have heart failure and will need lifelong treatment. Usually a person who has had a heart attack can slowly go back to normal activities, but you will need to take steps to prevent another heart attack.

Heart failure - Animation

If you cough a lot, often feel weak, have lost your appetite, and need to urinate a lot at night, you might have symptoms of heart failure. Heart failure is a long-term condition that usually comes on slowly. However, it can develop suddenly, for instance, after a heart attack. You have heart failure when your heart does not pump blood out of your heart very well, or when your heart muscles are stiff and do not easily fill up with blood. When you have heart failure, your heart cannot pump enough oxygen-rich blood to the rest of your body, especially when you exercise or move around a lot. As the heart loses the ability to pump blood, blood backs up in other parts of your body, including your lungs, liver, gastrointestinal tract, and your arms and legs. The most common cause of heart failure is coronary artery disease, the narrowing of the blood vessels that supply blood and oxygen to your heart. So, how do you know if you have heart failure?Get to your doctor. You may have trouble breathing, an irregular heartbeat, swollen legs, neck veins that stick out, and sounds from fluid built up in your lungs. Your doctor will check for these and other signs of heart failure. A test called an echocardiogram is often the best test to diagnose your heart failure. Your doctor can also use this test to find out why you have heart failure, and then monitor your condition going forward every three to six months. Your doctor will talk to you about knowing your body and symptoms that mean your heart failure is getting worse. You will need to learn to watch for changes in your heart rate, pulse, blood pressure, and weight. You will also need to limit salt in your diet, stop drinking alcohol, quit smoking if you need to, exercise, lose weight if you need to, and get enough rest. Your doctor will probably ask you to take medicines to treat your heart failure. These medicines can treat your symptoms, prevent your heart failure from getting worse, and help you live longer. If you have heart failure, taking your medicines, changing your lifestyle, and treating the condition that caused heart failure can go a long way toward improving your health. But heart failure is a chronic, or long-term, illness, which means it may get worse over time. Make sure you call your doctor if you start coughing more, have sudden weight gain or swelling, or feel week. Have someone take you to the emergency room right away if you have trouble with fainting, a fast and irregular heartbeat, or feel severe crushing chest pain.

What makes your heart beat? - Animation

The cardiac conduction system is a group of specialized cardiac muscle cells in the walls of the heart that send signals to the heart muscle causing it to contract. The main components of the cardiac conduction system are the SA node, AV node, bundle of His, bundle branches, and Purkinje fibers. The SA node (anatomical pacemaker) starts the sequence by causing the atrial muscles to contract. From there, the signal travels to the AV node, through the bundle of His, down the bundle branches, and through the Purkinje fibers, causing the ventricles to contract. This signal creates an electrical current that can be seen on a graph called an electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG). Doctors use an EKG to monitor the cardiac conduction system's electrical activity in the heart.

Heartbeat - Animation

The heart is a four-chambered organ with four main vessels, which either bring blood to or carry blood away from the heart. The four chambers of the heart are the right atrium, the right ventricle, the left atrium, and the left ventricle. The great vessels of the heart include the superior and inferior vena cava, which bring blood from the body to the right atrium, the pulmonary artery, which transports blood from the right ventricle to the lungs. The last of the great vessels is the aorta, the body's largest artery, which transports oxygen-rich blood from the left ventricle to the rest of the body. If we remove some of the tough fibrous coating of the heart and great vessels, you can get a better look at the heart beating. If you look carefully, you can see a series of one-way valves that keep the blood flowing in one direction. If we inject dye into the superior vena cava, you can watch it pass through the heart as it goes through the cardiac cycle. The blood first enters the heart into the right atrium. Blood passes from the right atrium through the tricuspid valve and into the right ventricle. When the right ventricle contracts, the muscular force pushes blood through the pulmonary semilunar valve into the pulmonary artery. The blood then travels to the lungs, where it receives oxygen. Next, it drains out of the lungs via the pulmonary veins, and travels to the left atrium. From the left atrium, the blood is forced through the mitral valve into the critically important left ventricle. The left ventricle is the major muscular pump that sends the blood out to the body systems. When the left ventricle contracts, it forces the blood through the aortic semilunar valves and into the aorta. From here, the aorta and its branches carry blood to all the tissues of the body.

Heart formation - Animation

The embryo's heart is the first organ that forms. It is derived from two primitive heart tubes. Between days 18 to 30, the primitive heart tubes fuse together, bend and twist to form a simple version of the heart. About half way through this process, the heart starts to beat. At 2 months, the heart bears a close resemblance to what it will look like after the baby's born. The resemblance is only superficial since the inside of the heart is different in both form and function. In a newborn's heart, oxygen-poor blood from the body enters the right atrium, goes to the right ventricle where it is pumped to the lungs to become rich with oxygen. From the lungs, the blood flows back to the heart filling the left atrium then enters the left ventricle. The left ventricle pumps the oxygen rich blood through the aorta, which carries it to the rest of the newborn's body. The fetal heart has the same basic components as the newborn heart, but there are a couple important differences. Because the placenta is providing all of the oxygen the fetus requires, its lungs are not needed to perform this task. Much of the fetus' blood is detoured away from the lungs through two openings or connections: the foramen ovale, which connects the right and left atria, and the ductus arteriosus, which connects the aorta and the pulmonary artery. These two important connections will remain open up until the time of birth. Within thirty minutes after the baby's first breath, the ductus arteriosus will completely close, and the flap of the foramen ovale will shut off like a valve. This happens because of an increase in pressure on the left side of the heart, and a decrease on the right side. These changes in the heart anatomy cause the blood to flow to the lungs, which will take over their lifelong job of supplying oxygen to the body.

Heart bypass surgery - Animation

Heart bypass surgery begins with an incision made in the chest, with the breastbone cut exposing the heart. Next, a portion of the saphenous vein is harvested from the inside of the leg. Pieces of this great vein will be used to bypass the blocked arteries in the heart. The venous graft is sewn to the aorta and to the affected coronary artery past the blocked site. The internal mammary artery from the chest may also be used to bypass a clogged artery. Several arteries may be bypassed depending on the condition of the heart.

Heartburn - Animation

Eating spicy foods, such as pizza, may cause a person to feel heartburn. Although the name may imply the heart, heartburn has nothing to do with the heart itself. Heartburn is pain felt in the chest by a burning sensation in the esophagus, which is located close to where the heart is. Here you can see the pizza passing from the mouth to the esophagus and on to the stomach. At junction between the stomach and esophagus is the lower esophageal sphincter. This muscular sphincter acts as a valve that normally keeps food and stomach acid in the stomach and prevents the stomach's contents from regurgitating back into the esophagus. However, certain foods may affect the lower esophageal sphincter, making it less effective. That's how heartburn begins. The stomach produces hydrochloric acid to digest food. The stomach has a mucous lining that protects it from hydrochloric acid, but the esophagus does not. So, when food and stomach acid regurgitate back into the esophagus, a burning feeling is felt near the heart. This feeling is known as heartburn. Antacids may be used to relieve heartburn by making stomach juices less acidic, therefore reducing the burning feeling felt in the esophagus. If heartburn becomes frequent or prolonged, medical intervention may be necessary to correct the problem.

Heart attack - Animation

You feel a tight band of pain around your chest. The pain moves from your chest to your arms, shoulder, and neck. What could your pain mean? Could it be a heart attack. . . could it be the big one?Heart attacks are caused by interruption of blood supply to part of the heart. If the blood flow is blocked, your heart is starved of oxygen and heart cells die. A hard substance called plaque can build up in the walls of your coronary arteries. This plaque is made up of cholesterol and other cells. A heart attack can occur as a result of plaque buildup or the rupture of one of these plaques. We're not sure why heart attacks occur when they do. You may have a heart attack when you are resting or asleep, or after a sudden increase in physical activity, when you are outside in cold weather, or after a sudden, severe emotional or physical stress, including an illness. So, how is a heart attack treated?If you go to the hospital for a suspected heart attack, a doctor or nurse will listen to your chest with a stethoscope. You will have a blood test to look for heart damage. A coronary angiography test can show your doctor how well blood is moving through your heart. If blood moves slowly, or not at all through your coronary arteries, you have either a narrowed, or blocked artery. Other tests can look at the valves and chambers of your heart and check for abnormal heart rhythms. If you've had a heart attack, doctors can do an emergency procedure called angioplasty. This surgery or procedure can open narrowed or blocked blood vessels. Usually they'll place a small, metal mesh tube, called a stent, in your artery to help keep it open. You may also receive drugs to break up the clot in your artery. Sometimes, doctors will do heart bypass surgery to get blood flowing to your heart muscle again. After you are treated in the hospital for a heart attack, you may need to take medicines to thin your blood, to protect your heart, or to improve your cholesterol levels. You may need to take these medicines for the rest of your life. Most people who have had a heart attack also need cardiac rehabilitation. This will help you slowly increase your exercise level and learn how to follow a healthy lifestyle. After you have a heart attack, your chance of another is higher. How well you do after a heart attack depends on the damage to your heart and where the damage is, and what steps you take to prevent another one. If your heart can no longer pump blood to your body as well as it used to, you may have heart failure and will need lifelong treatment. Usually a person who has had a heart attack can slowly go back to normal activities, but you will need to take steps to prevent another heart attack.

Heart failure - Animation

If you cough a lot, often feel weak, have lost your appetite, and need to urinate a lot at night, you might have symptoms of heart failure. Heart failure is a long-term condition that usually comes on slowly. However, it can develop suddenly, for instance, after a heart attack. You have heart failure when your heart does not pump blood out of your heart very well, or when your heart muscles are stiff and do not easily fill up with blood. When you have heart failure, your heart cannot pump enough oxygen-rich blood to the rest of your body, especially when you exercise or move around a lot. As the heart loses the ability to pump blood, blood backs up in other parts of your body, including your lungs, liver, gastrointestinal tract, and your arms and legs. The most common cause of heart failure is coronary artery disease, the narrowing of the blood vessels that supply blood and oxygen to your heart. So, how do you know if you have heart failure?Get to your doctor. You may have trouble breathing, an irregular heartbeat, swollen legs, neck veins that stick out, and sounds from fluid built up in your lungs. Your doctor will check for these and other signs of heart failure. A test called an echocardiogram is often the best test to diagnose your heart failure. Your doctor can also use this test to find out why you have heart failure, and then monitor your condition going forward every three to six months. Your doctor will talk to you about knowing your body and symptoms that mean your heart failure is getting worse. You will need to learn to watch for changes in your heart rate, pulse, blood pressure, and weight. You will also need to limit salt in your diet, stop drinking alcohol, quit smoking if you need to, exercise, lose weight if you need to, and get enough rest. Your doctor will probably ask you to take medicines to treat your heart failure. These medicines can treat your symptoms, prevent your heart failure from getting worse, and help you live longer. If you have heart failure, taking your medicines, changing your lifestyle, and treating the condition that caused heart failure can go a long way toward improving your health. But heart failure is a chronic, or long-term, illness, which means it may get worse over time. Make sure you call your doctor if you start coughing more, have sudden weight gain or swelling, or feel week. Have someone take you to the emergency room right away if you have trouble with fainting, a fast and irregular heartbeat, or feel severe crushing chest pain.

What makes your heart beat? - Animation

The cardiac conduction system is a group of specialized cardiac muscle cells in the walls of the heart that send signals to the heart muscle causing it to contract. The main components of the cardiac conduction system are the SA node, AV node, bundle of His, bundle branches, and Purkinje fibers. The SA node (anatomical pacemaker) starts the sequence by causing the atrial muscles to contract. From there, the signal travels to the AV node, through the bundle of His, down the bundle branches, and through the Purkinje fibers, causing the ventricles to contract. This signal creates an electrical current that can be seen on a graph called an electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG). Doctors use an EKG to monitor the cardiac conduction system's electrical activity in the heart.