20/10/2021 - Dustin (ESR #14)
In today’s INSPIRE weekly post, I present the “circle of life”. This graph shows the volume and pressure relationship during a single heart beat in the left ventricle presented as a loop. A heart beat can be described in 4 phases displayed in the image (A-D). The cardiac cycle starts with the so-called isovolumetric relaxation of the heart (A). This means that the heart muscle cells relax while the volume of blood in the chambers is constant. The second phase (B) is the ventricular filling where blood enters the heart chamber and the pressure in the heart increases. After a certain threshold is reached the heart contracts and builds up pressure (C), which leads to ejection of the blood (D) from the heart into the aorta. After the ejection of the blood, the cardiac cycle starts again with phase A.
These phases can be simplified as diastole (phase A and B) and systole (phase C and D). Diastole describes the relaxation and filling of the heart. Whereas systole the ejection and contraction includes.
In my project I will determine pressure volume loops via in invasive catheter in mice treated with known cancer drugs to precisely investigate changes in systole and diastole.