What Causes Blood To Flow Through The Heart
Blood flows through our heart because of the Right and left side of our heart works in a specific pattern.
Explanation:
The Process of blood passage throughout our heart-
Right Side-
1) Blood enters the heart through two large veins. They are –Inferior vena cava and Superior vena cava. Which emties Oxygen poor blood into the Right atrium of heart.
2) Now, as the atrium contracts blood flows from right atrium into your right ventricle through the open tricuspid valve.
3) When the ventricle is full, the tricuspid valve shuts. This prevents blood from flowing backward into the atria while the ventricle contracts.
4) As the ventricle contracts blood leaves the heart through the pulmonic valve into the pulmonary artery and to the lungs where it is oxygenated.
Left Side –
1) The pulmonary vein empties oxygen-rich blood from the lungs into the left atrium of the heart.
2)As the atrium contracts, blood flows from your left atrium into your left ventricle through the open mitral valve.
3) When the ventricle is full, the mitral valve shuts. This prevents blood from flowing backward into the atrium while the ventricle contracts.
4) As the ventricle contracts blood leaves the heart through the aortic valve, into the aorta and to the body.
Answers By Expert Tutors
Oxygenated blood returns to the heart via the pulmonary artery. That empties into the left atrium, goes to the left ventricle and is then pumped to the body via the aorta. Oxygenated blood also enters the coronary arteries which deliver oxygen rich blood to the heart muscle itself.
Oxygenated blood flows out of the lungs and into the Left Atrium. From the Left Atrium, the blood empties through the Mitral Valve and into the Left Ventricle. The blood then is pumped from the left Ventricle, through the aortic valve, into the Aorta and to the rest of the tissues of the body in order to fulfill the body’s energy demand.
Structure Of The Cardiovascular System
If you clench your hand into a fist, this is approximately the same size as your heart. It is located in the middle of the chest and slightly towards the left.
The heart is a large muscular pump and is divided into two halves – the right-hand side and the left-hand side.
The right-hand side of the heart is responsible for pumping deoxygenated blood to the lungs.
The left-hand side pumps oxygenated blood around the body.
Each side of the heart consists of an atrium and a ventricle which are two connected chambers.
The atria are where the blood collects when it enters the heart.
The ventricles pump the blood out of the heart to the lungs or around the body.
The separates the right-hand and left-hand side of the heart.
The tricuspid valve separates the right atrium and right ventricle. It opens due to a build-up of pressure in the right atrium, and prevents back flow of blood from the right ventricle to the right atrium.
The bicuspid valve separates the left atrium and left ventricle and prevents back flow of blood from the ventricle to the atrium. It likewise opens due to a build-up of pressure, this time in the left atrium.
The semilunar valves stop the back flow of blood into the heart. There is a semilunar valve where the aorta leaves the left ventricle and another where the pulmonary artery leaves the right ventricle.
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Heart Anatomy: By The Numbers
1. Superior vena cava: Receives blood from the upper body delivers blood into the right atrium.
2. Inferior vena cava: Receives blood from the lower extremities, pelvis and abdomen, and delivers blood into the right atrium.
3. Right atrium: Receives blood returning to the heart from the superior and inferior vena cava transmits blood to the right ventricle, which pumps blood to the lungs for oxygenation.
4. Tricuspid valve: Allows blood to pass from the right atrium to the right ventricle prevents blood from flowing back into the right atrium as the heart pumps .
5. Right ventricle: Receives blood from the right atrium pumps blood into the pulmonary artery.
6. Pulmonary valve: Allows blood to pass into the pulmonary arteries prevents blood from flowing back into the right ventricle.
7. Pulmonary arteries: Carry oxygen-depleted blood from the heart to the lungs.
8. Pulmonary veins: Deliver oxygen-rich blood from the lungs to the left atrium of the heart.
9. Left atrium: Receives blood returning to the heart from the pulmonary veins.
10. Mitral valve: Allows blood to flow into the left ventricle prevents blood from flowing back into the left atrium.
11. Left ventricle: Receives oxygen-rich blood from the left atrium and pumps blood into the aorta.
12. Aortic valve: Allows blood to pass from the left ventricle to the aorta prevents backflow of blood into the left ventricle.
13. Aorta: Distributes blood throughout the body from the heart.
What Is The Role Of Blood Flow Through The Heart

Your heart is a powerful muscle, about the size of your fist. Every second, it pumps nutrient- and oxygen-rich blood to your body. With each heartbeat, your heart sends blood through your circulatory system.
Blood is crucial to remain alive. Blood carries oxygen and nutrients from your heart to other tissues throughout your body. It also carries waste products such as carbon dioxide away from your tissues.
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When To Worry About Blood Flow
If you have a sudden irregular heartbeat, or cardiac symptoms like chest pain and shortness of breath, call 911 for immediate medical help. Be sure to tell your healthcare provider about more chronic symptoms, like chest pain with exertion or swelling in your legs, that may indicate problems with blood flow.
How Does Blood Travel Through The Heart
As the heart beats, it pumps blood through a system of blood vessels, called the circulatory system. The vessels are elastic, muscular tubes that carry blood to every part of the body.
Blood is essential. In addition to carrying fresh oxygen from the lungs and nutrients to your body’s tissues, it also takes the body’s waste products, including carbon dioxide, away from the tissues. This is necessary to sustain life and promote the health of all the body’s tissues.
There are three main types of blood vessels:
- Arteries. Arteries carry oxygen-rich blood away from the heart to all of the body’s tissues. They branch several times, becoming smaller and smaller as they carry blood further from the heart and into organs.
- Capillaries. These are small, thin blood vessels that connect the arteries and the veins. Their thin walls allow oxygen, nutrients, carbon dioxide, and other waste products to pass to and from cells.
- Veins. These are blood vessels that take blood back to the heart this blood contains less oxygen and is rich in waste products that are to be excreted or removed from the body. Veins become larger as they get closer to the heart. The superior vena cava is the large vein that brings blood from the head and arms to the heart, and the inferior vena cava brings blood from the abdomen and legs into the heart.
This vast system of blood vessels — arteries, veins, and capillaries — is over 60,000 miles long. That’s long enough to go around the world more than twice!
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How Does The Heart Beat
The atria and ventricles work together, alternately contracting and relaxing to pump blood through your heart. This is your heartbeat. The electrical system of your heart is the power source that makes this possible.
Your heartbeat is triggered by electrical impulses that travel down a special pathway through your heart.
- The impulse starts in a small bundle of specialized cells called the SA node , located in the right atrium. This node is known as the heart’s natural pacemaker. The electrical activity spreads through the walls of the atria and causes them to contract.
- A cluster of cells in the center of the heart between the atria and ventricles, the AV node is like a gate that slows the electrical signal before it enters the ventricles. This delay gives the atria time to contract before the ventricles do.
- The His-Purkinje network is a pathway of fibers that sends the electrical impulse from the AV node to the muscular walls of the ventricles, causing them to contract.
At rest, a normal heart beats around 50 to 90 times a minute. Exercise, emotions, anemia, an overactive thyroid, fever, and some medications can cause your heart to beat faster, sometimes to well over 100 beats per minute.
Route Of Blood Flow Through The Heart
Blood enters the right side of the heart through the first partof the superior and ending part of the inferior vena cavae as wellas the coronary sinus where it enters the right atrium. From theright atrium is flows through the tricuspid valve into the rightventricle. From the right ventricle it goes through the pulmonaryvalve into the pulmonary trunk and pulmonary .artery and into thelungs. blood returns to the heart via pulmonary veins. From thepulmonary veins the blood enters back into the left atrium thenthrough the mitral and into the left ventricle,then flows through the aortic valve into the aorta and systemiccirculation takes place and de oxygenated blood comes back viaveins and back into the heart for circulation again.
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The Heart Wall Is Composed Of Three Layers
The muscular wall of the heart has three layers. The outermost layer is the epicardium . The epicardium covers the heart, wraps around the roots of the great blood vessels, and adheres the heart wall to a protective sac. The middle layer is the myocardium. This strong muscle tissue powers the hearts pumping action. The innermost layer, the endocardium, lines the interior structures of the heart.
What Signals Control Your Heartbeat
Your heart contracts when it receives an electrical impulse from your sinoatrial node. This signal is called heart conduction. The SA node is your bodys natural pacemaker, setting your hearts rhythm.
Heart conduction continues as the electrical signal moves to the atrioventricular node in your right atria. The signal then travels down the His-Purkinje system and spreads to the rest of your heart.
How fast or slow your heart beats varies throughout the day. Your nervous system sends electrical signals and your endocrine system sends hormones that control your heart rate. These signals help your heart adapt to your bodys changing needs. For example, your heartbeat quickens when you run and slows when you sleep.
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Pathway Of Blood Through The Heart
In this educational lesson, we learn about the blood flow order through the human heart in 14 easy steps, from the superior and inferior vena cava to the atria and ventricles. Come also learn with us the hearts anatomy, including where deoxygenated and oxygenated blood flow, in the superior vena cava, inferior vena cava, atrium, ventricle, aorta, pulmonary arteries, pulmonary veins, and coronary arteries.
Why Bloodflow Is Important Order In Which Blood Flows Through Heart

There are numerous factors that regulate blood flow in the human body. Each organ has a unique way of regulating blood flow. Understanding these mechanisms is necessary to treat and prevent diseases associated with blood flow pathophysiology. This article will look at some of the factors that can influence blood flow. In this article, youll learn about the basic chemistry of the blood, as well as the various components that make up the human circulatory system.
Mean blood flow is a measure of the amount of blood flowing through the human body. It is the rate at which the blood passes through the body. The greater the mean blood flow, the larger the vessel will be. As a result, blood vessels have a different diameter than other areas of the body. Using these dimensions, you can compare the speed at which blood flows through different vessels. Slower blood flow means that there is more time for exchange processes to occur. High-velocity veins are used to increase the velocity of the blood.
The left side of the heart receives oxygen-rich blood from the lungs and pumps it through arteries to the rest of the body. The heart has four chambers, two on each side. The right atrium receives oxygen-poor blood from the body, while the right ventricle pumps oxygen-rich blood back to the heart. The left atrium pumps the oxygen-rich blood through the veins to the rest of the body.
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Heart Diagram Parts Location And Size
Location and size of the heart
Normal heart anatomy and physiology
Normal heart anatomy and physiology need the atria and ventricles to work sequentially, contracting and relaxing to pump blood out of the heart and then to let the chambers refill. When blood leaves each chamber of the heart, it passes through a valve that is designed to prevent the backflow of blood. There are four heart valves within the heart:
- Mitral valve between the left atrium and left ventricle
- The tricuspid valve between the right atrium and right ventricle
- The aortic valve between the left ventricle and aorta
- Pulmonic valve between the right ventricle and pulmonary artery
How the heart valves work
Path Of Blood Through The Heart
The circulatory system, also called the cardiovascular system, is responsible for distributing nutrients and oxygen to different parts of the body, with the heart working as the pump. As the heart contracts, it pumps blood into your blood vessels, which then circulate the blood to the body before it goes back again to the heart. The path of blood through the heart also makes up a major part of the circulation because the heart also needs to be nourished, and this is where both oxygenated and deoxygenated blood flow.
The heart is made of four chambers which receive and pump blood. In the heart, the two circuits of the circulatory system converge. Before blood flows to the various parts of the body, it circulates in the heart and passes through the lungs.In this article, we will describe thepath of blood through the heart and discuss the function of the heart as part of the circulatory system.
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Blood Flow Of The Heart Review
Lets now use the 2×2 table we made in the anatomy of the heart post, and this will give us another way to visualize the blood flow through the heart.
Right Side
First, we have the SVC and IVC that carry deoxygenated venous blood from the rest of the body to the right atrium.
Blood will then flow from the right atrium, through the tricuspid valve, and enter the right ventricle.
The deoxygenated blood will then exit the right ventricle, travel through the pulmonary valve, and enter the main pulmonary artery to ultimately be delivered to the lungs to become oxygenated.
Left Side
The oxygenated blood will then travel from the lungs to the left atrium via the pulmonary veins.
Blood will then flow from the left atrium, through the mitral valve, and enter the left ventricle.
The oxygenated blood will then exit the left ventricle, travel through the aortic valve, and enter the aorta to be delivered to the rest of the body.
Diagram: Blood flow through the heart, cardiac circulation pathway steps, and cardiac anatomy and structures. Blue arrows Red arrows .
Now that we have a good understanding of the blood flow through the heart using the cartoon diagrams, we can apply it to a more realistic image of the heart.
The blue arrows represent the flow of deoxygenated blood through the right side of the heart.
The red arrows represent the flow of oxygenated blood through the left side of the heart.
What Are The Coronary Arteries
Like all organs, your heart is made of tissue that requires a supply of oxygen and nutrients. Although its chambers are full of blood, the heart receives no nourishment from this blood. The heart receives its own supply of blood from a network of arteries, called the coronary arteries.
Two major coronary arteries branch off from the aorta near the point where the aorta and the left ventricle meet:
- Right coronary artery supplies the right atrium and right ventricle with blood. It branches into the posterior descending artery, which supplies the bottom portion of the left ventricle and back of the septum with blood.
- Left main coronary artery branches into the circumflex artery and the left anterior descending artery. The circumflex artery supplies blood to the left atrium, as well as the side and back of the left ventricle. The left anterior descending artery supplies the front and bottom of the left ventricle and the front of the septum with blood.
These arteries and their branches supply all parts of the heart muscle with blood.
When the coronary arteries narrow to the point that blood flow to the heart muscle is limited , a network of tiny blood vessels in the heart that aren’t usually open may enlarge and become active. This allows blood to flow around the blocked artery to the heart muscle, protecting the heart tissue from injury.
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What Is The Order Of Blood Flow Through The Heart Step By Step
The right and left sides of your heart work together to ensure blood flows throughout your whole body. Blood flows through your heart through a series of steps. These steps take place in the space of one heartbeat just a second or two.
On the right side
On the left side
Blood flows through your heart from the right side to the left side and then back to the rest of your body.