An Examination Of The Heart – From The Micro To The Macro Level

An Examination of the Heart – From the Micro to the Macro Level Your Name Your Institution of Affiliation April 3, 2018 1 The heart is perhaps the most crucial of all organs in the body. It pumps blood throughout the body, which then supplies all the necessary nutrients and resources to keep the body’s functioning. 2 Generally, blood enters the heart through two major veins, which are the superior and inferior vena cava. To start off with, the oxygen-poor blood, which comes from the parts of the body is emptied into the right atrium of the heart. Through a series of contractions, the blood from the right atrium passes through the tricuspid valve and flows into the right ventricle that is below it. As it fills with blood, the tricuspid valve shuts down while the pulmonic valve opens up in order to allow the next contraction to push the blood forward into the pulmonary artery and towards the lungs where it is oxygenated. After the lungs, the blood passes through the pulmonary veins that that transfers the blood into the left atrium of the heart. Another series of contractions then transfers the blood into the left ventricle, which flows through the tricuspid valve. Afterwards, this blood then goes through the aorta to be distributed to every part of the body, thus completing the cycle. 3 For the average adult, a healthy heart sound is produced via the sequence of closing the atrioventricular valve and the semilunar valves during each heartbeat. These heart sound are called the lub (first heart sound – S¬1) and dup (second heart sound – S2), respectively. Counting these sequence, would then tell us about the number of heartbeat (lub and dup) per minute. According to the Laskowski (2015), the healthy heart rate for an adult is...