Sheep Heart Dissection Reflection Questions

1. What is the purpose of the pericardium?
The pericardium is a sac of serous membranes that secretes a fluid to lubricate the heart and reduce friction.  It is made of visceral and parietal layers.
2. How do arteries differ from veins in their structure? 
Veins carry blood from the tissues to the heart and arteries carry blood away from the heart to the tissues.  Veins have thinner walls, arteries are larger and are under higher pressure.
3. What function does the auricles serve?
They are chambers that blood enters the heart.
4. What external differences of the atria and ventricles do you observe? 
The walls of the ventricles are thicker, the atrium's are above the ventricles and they are smaller than the ventricles.
5. Find the following structures, and use pictures or words to describe each.
a. Coronary Sinus: receives blood from the coronary veins, and flows into the right atrium.
b. Inferior Vena Cava: Large vein that carries deoxygenated blood into the heart. Carries blood from the lower body.
c. Right Atrioventricular Valve (Tricuspid Valve): It allows blood to flow in one direction and it prevents back flow of blood. The Tricuspid Valve is between the right atrium and the right ventricle.
6. Draw a picture of the Tricuspid Valve including the chordate tendinae and the papillary muscle.

7. Why is the "anchoring" of the heart valves by the chordate tendineae and the papillary muscle important to heart function? They are there to prevent the tricuspid and bicuspid valves from collapsing into the atrium when it contracts.
8. Using pictures and/or words, describe what you see (bicuspid valve): It prevents back flow of blood, and allows blood to flow in one direction, it is between the left atrium and the left ventricle, and is also called the mitral valve.
9. What is the function of the semi-lunar valves? Semi-lunar valves prevents arterial blood from re-entering the heart.
10.  a. If the valve disease occurs on the right side of the heart, it results in swelling in feet and ankles, why might this happen? Because the right side of the heart deals with deoxygenated blood, so the feet and ankles are not getting oxygenated blood.
b. If valve disease occurs on the left side of the heart, what complications would you expect to see?
The left side of the heart deals with oxygenated blood, so deoxygenated blood would be filling up the lungs, so the lungs would swell.
11. Using pictures or words, describe what you see: The coronary tendineae connects the papillary muscle to the bicuspid valve.
12. Describe the left and right sides of the heart differ from each other? 
The right side of the heart deals with deoxygenated blood and the left side of the heart deals with oxygenated blood.  The right side of the heart goes to the lungs and the left side comes from the lungs.
13. Draw and label all structures visible in the interior of the cross section.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSn9fymN1SQ

Unit 3 Reflection

This unit taught us all about the circulatory system, the major components, specific parts, accessory organs, and much more.  The cardiovascular system is a  fluid filled network of tubes or vessels, through which materials move between the environment and the cells of a multicellular animal.  Cardiovascular health is making sure that you keep your heart healthy.  Theres several things that cause heart attacks, a heart attack is when blood supply to the myocardium is severely reduced, or stopped resulting in damage to the heart cells or death of heart cells. This is caused by one or more coronary arteries blocked, usually due to atherosclerosis.  Stroke is a brain injury that occurs when blood supply to part of the brain is interrupted. This is also often caused by atherosclerosis, but can be caused by an aneurysm.  To promote your cardiovascular health, you can control your blood pressure, stop smoking, control cholesterol, eat a healthy diet, drink alcohol in moderation, control diabetes, control your weight, exercise, manage your stress, and your genetic history.  I think this unit was very interesting because it applies to our lives, and it helped me understand what happens when these things go wrong.  Also it taught me ways of identifying these situations, which is important to know.  This unit we did our first dissection, and it was helpful to actually see the parts of the heart it made it easier to understand how it works.  For the remainder of the semester, I want to study more and the temp checks are very helpful, so its nice when we have them because it lets me know how much information I retained, so my goal is to study more and do better on tests.

Sheep heart dissection

Heart Diagram 

Atherosclerosis