Your Heart: Syncytium
The next few Memos were from 2016 and are still relevant today! This is why your heart is special. Let’s begin American Heart Month with some facts you probably didn’t know about your heart. Your heart is unique in many ways, and you’re going to learn about a few of them.
The heart muscle is similar to skeletal muscle in the way it contracts, but that’s where the similarity ends. While skeletal muscle is laid out in parallel fashion and independent of one another, the heart muscle splits and connects to other fibers. In that way, every heart muscle cell connects to every other heart muscle cell, and that allows signals to be transferred very quickly. It’s referred to as a syncytium (pronounced sinˈsiSHəm) because it can act as a single unit.
But the heart must contract in specific locations at the correct time in order for blood to be pumped. The heart has to contract at the upper chambers first, the atria, and then the bottom of the lower chambers called the ventricles. That allows the blood to be pumped from the upper chambers to the lower, then from the lower chambers through arteries to the body.
Pretty cool, isn’t it? Wait until you read Tuesday’s Memo about the electrical system of the heart.
What are you prepared to do today?
