8. What happens in the four chambers of the heart?
Left atrium:_________
Left ventricle:________
Right atrium:___________
Right ventricle:_________
Answers
Explanation:
The heart has four chambers: two atria and two ventricles. The right atrium receives oxygen-poor blood from the body and pumps it to the right ventricle. The right ventricle pumps the oxygen-poor blood to the lungs. The left atrium receives oxygen-rich blood from the lungs and pumps it to the left ventricle.
The heart is divided into four chambers or "rooms". You can compare it to a duplex apartment that is made up of a right and a left unit, separated from each other by a partition wall known as a septum (pronounced SEP-tum).
Each "duplex" is subdivided into an upper and a lower chamber. The upper chamber is known as the atrium (pronounced AY-tree-yum) while the lower chamber is referred to as the ventricle (pronounced VEN-trickle). The right atrium (RA) sits on top of the right ventricle (RV) on the right side of the heart while the left atrium (LA) sits atop the left ventricle (LV) on the left side.
The right side of the heart (RA and RV) is responsible for pumping blood to the lungs, where the blood cells pick up fresh oxygen. This oxygenated blood is then returned to the left side of the heart (LA and LV). From here the oxygenated blood is pumped out to the rest of the body supplying the fuel that the body cells need to function. The cells of the body remove oxygen from the blood, and the oxygen-poor blood is returned to the RA, where the journey began. This round trip is known as the circulation of blood.