The Heart and the Cardiac Cycle

I want to make sure that you realize that the anatomy of the heart is something that we will cover in lab, not in lecture. However, some details about the heart itself, as well as information on the way that the heart moves blood through it (the cardiac cycle) and is stimulated to contract will be covered.

The general outline for this week is as follows:

The heart itself

	the location of the heart in the body
	the membranes that surround the heart
	the heart tissue (which is mainly cardiac muscle)

Heart Circuits (pulmonary and systemic)

Cardiac Cycle

Understanding Figure 15.17

Cardiac Conduction System-- how the heart is activated electrically (which we also went over in lab, and discussed the ECG trace)

Regulation of heart rate (certainly only an introduction to this topic)

CVS.jpg (51785 bytes) This week, you will be using another of the Marieb A.D.A.M. CD chapters that came with your book: the cardiovascular system. The sections of the CD program that you are going to need for this week are marked in yellow in this image.

There are some nice sites on the web that show you heart anatomy, which is something you are learning for lab. A great site is one from Gateway Community College in the Phoenix area of Arizona. This site shows you images of sheep hearts, just like you worked on in lab.