FOUNDATIONAL TERM
Atrium
心房
A chamber receiving returning blood.
Study this concept in context
10 · How the heart beats
Place your fingertips lightly on your wrist and you can feel a pulse. Its rhythm alone does not tell you how much blood the heart ejects with each beat, or show you the valves opening and closing. To understand a heartbeat, we need to connect anatomy, electrical activity, muscle contraction and blood flow.
Sources
- NHLBI: How Blood Flows through the Heart
- NHLBI: How the Heart Beats
- OpenStax: Heart anatomy
- OpenStax: Cardiac muscle and electrical activity
- OpenStax: Cardiac cycle
- OpenStax: Cardiac physiology
Definitions come from the published lessons. Read the linked lesson for mechanisms, conditions and examples.