Heart Muscle Lab Report

Our hearts serves as biological pumps responsible for pumping blood through blood vessels to body tissues. The hearts pumps blood by undergoing cycles of contraction (systole) and relaxation (diastole) in what is referred to as cardiac cycles. Each cardiac cycle, therefore, represents one heart bit. The number of heart bits per minute is referred to as the heart rate. The pumping mechanism of the heart is dependent on the pressure differences created in the chambers of the heart following the contraction and relaxation of heart muscles. The contraction of heart muscles results from electrical signals distributed through the electrical conduction system in the heart. These electrical signals are generated from special cells within the heart

The MAP was obtained by summing up diastolic pressure and 1/3 pulse pressure. TPR was then obtained by dividing the value for MAP by that for CO. All the above calculations were repeated for the three experiments; baseline, mild and moderate exercises. Findings were also tabulated and used for the generation of graphs.

Results

The mean baseline cardiac output (CO) was obtained to be 4,060 ml/min. However, the CO increased with increase in the intensity of exercise with the CO for mild exercise increasing to 8,820 and that for moderate exercise increasing to 18,375. This was an increase of 117% and 353% respectively. The baseline mean arterial pressure (MAP) was 88.3 mmHg. With the introduction of mild exercise, the MAP reduced by 8.66 mmHg to 79.67 mmHg. Moderate exercise had the highest MAP at 99 mmHg, which was an increase of 10.67 mmHg from the baseline MAP.

The baseline mean total peripheral resistance (TPR) was obtained to be 0.021 mmHg*min/ml. However, this value reduced after exercise with mild exercise showing a mean TPR of 0.009 mmHg*min/ml which is 0.012 mmHg*min/ml less the baseline mean TPR. Moderate exercise had the lowest mean TPR of 0.005 mmHg*min/ml which is 0.016 mmHg*min/ml less the baseline mean