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The process of moving blood through the body is called circulation. This results in the continuous exchange of oxygen-rich blood with oxygen-poor blood that is necessary to keep you alive. Blood is carried through the body in blood vessels, or tubes, called arteries and veins. The conduction system keeps your heart beating in a coordinated and normal rhythm, which in turn keeps blood circulating. Electrical impulses begin high in the right atrium, in the sinus node, and travel through specialized pathways to the ventricles, delivering the signal for the heart to pump. This cycle is driven by your heart's electrical wiring, called the conduction system. Your ventricles then relax during diastole and are filled with blood coming from the upper chambers, the left and right atria. blood returns through a system of veins to the right atrium of the heart. Contraction is called systole, and relaxation is called diastole.ĭuring systole, your ventricles contract, forcing blood into the vessels going to your lungs and body. Pulmonary circulation transports oxygen-poor blood from the right ventricle to. Oxygen-rich blood is delivered by coronary arteries that extend over the surface of your heart.Ī beating heart contracts and relaxes. The blood is then pumped through the main artery that supplies blood to the body, called the aorta, to supply tissues throughout your body with oxygen. The oxygen-rich blood then flows from the left atrium to the left ventricle. The now oxygen-rich blood, shown in red, then returns from the lungs and enters the left atrium.

The lungs refresh the blood with a new supply of oxygen, which comes from the air that you breathe in. The oxygen-poor blood fills the right atrium and then flows to the right ventricle, where it is pumped to the lungs through the pulmonary arteries. In the beginning of a pumping cycle, oxygen-poor blood, shown here as blue, returns to the heart after circulating through your body. Each valve has flaps, called leaflets or cusps, that open and close once during each heartbeat. The pulmonary valve manages blood flow out of the right ventricle through the pulmonary trunk into the pulmonary arteries. These valves include the tricuspid, mitral, pulmonary and aortic valves. Your heart has four valves that keep your blood moving in the correct direction by opening only one way and only when they need to. The division protects oxygen-rich blood from mixing with oxygen-poor blood. These include two on the right, called the right atrium and right ventricle, and two on the left, called the left atrium and left ventricle. Your heart is divided into four chambers. Together, your heart and blood vessels make up your cardiovascular system, which circulates blood and oxygen around your body. It's a muscular organ about the size of your fist and located slightly left of center in your chest.