Anatomy of the heart
Email
PrintThe AmeriHeart is an extreme example of the heart anatomy. But it is such a useful tool. How better to see the heart, learn what each part of the heart does and remember the importance of taking good care of your heart, than to walk through a GIANT anatomically correct heart? It has a lasting impression. Let me walk you through it.
The AmeriHeart by BellinHeart.
This heart is lying on its side. The doorway is an entrance to the right atrium. There are three main coronary arteries on your heart, that supply the heart muscle with the blood and oxygen it needs to pump. The picture above shows you the right coronary artery (RCA, on front of picture) and also the left anterior descending (LAD, not labeled but shown coming from the top of the heart to the peak at the right).
Now this lets you see how we walk through the heart. We enter through the right atrium, which is the bottom left room by the green arrow. There are four different chambers in your heart: 2 atrium (top, smaller rooms) and two ventricles (lower part of the heart and bigger rooms). What is important to learn, is that the right side of the heart receives all the blood that has been used (as in used the oxygen from the blood) by the body. Blood comes back to the heart to get to the lungs and then be circulated again. So the blood comes to your heart by way of your veins, starts in the right atrium, then goes through a doorway (or valve) called the tricuspid valve, and enters the right ventricle. The right ventricle is responsible for pumping the blood to your lungs to get oxygen. Once it has done that, it can go back to the heart, but this time on the Left side.
The right and left sides of the heart are completely separated by a wall called the septum. Sometimes people can have a hole in this wall, or a hole in their heart, which would be called a septal defect. To get to the left side of the heart on our tour, we cannot go through the lungs, so we will actually step right through this wall, the septum.
The left side of the heart is the power house. The oxygenated blood enters in the left atrium and passes through the mitral valve into the left ventricle. This area is reponsible for getting the blood to your whole body! That means, it has to overcome your blood pressure, just to get the blood out of your heart. That is why it is the biggest and the strongest part of your heart.
Once the blood has left the left ventricle and gets to all the tissues in need of oxygen, it hops a ride by vein and heads back to your right atrium to do it all again. Here are some more pictures of the model heart. Check it out the next time you see it in public.
The exit through the left atrium can be seen here. And also the ribs. The ribs protect your heart from being damaged.
The black area here is showing you what happens from a heart attack. The muscle starts to die!
We also have a demonstration of a stent in one of the coronary arteries. This is placed when some has blockage in an artery which doesn't allow blood and oxygen to be delivered to the heart muscle. We open that artery up so blood can flow and leave a stent in place, to keep the artery open.
