In this unit, students learn about the form and function of the human heart through lecture, research and dissection. Following the steps of the Legacy Cycle, students brainstorm, research, design and present viable solutions to various heart conditions as presented through a unit challenge. Additionally, students study how heart valves work and investigate how faulty valves can be replaced with new ones through advancements in engineering and technology. This unit demonstrates to students how and why the heart is such a powerful organ in our bodies

Students are presented with a hypothetical scenario in which they are biomedical engineers asked to design artificial hearts. Using the engineering design process as a guide, the challenge is established and students brainstorm to list everything they might need to know about the heart in order to create a complete mechanical replacement (size, how it functions, path of blood etc.). They conduct research to learn the information and organize it through various activities. They research artificial heart models that have already been used and rate their performance in clinical trials. Finally, they analyze the data to identify the artificial heart features and properties they think work best and document their findings in essay form.

Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Describe the system of blood flow through the bodyDescribe how blood pressure is regulated

Revised images and multiple choice questions only. By the end of this section, you will be able to:Describe the system of blood flow through the bodyDescribe how blood pressure is regulated

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Describe the structure of the heart and explain how cardiac muscle is different from other musclesDescribe the cardiac cycleExplain the structure of arteries, veins, and capillaries, and how blood flows through the body

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Describe the structure of the heart and explain how cardiac muscle is different from other musclesDescribe the cardiac cycleExplain the structure of arteries, veins, and capillaries, and how blood flows through the body

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Describe the system of blood flow through the bodyDescribe how blood pressure is regulated

Students study how heart valves work and investigate how valves that become faulty over time can be replaced with advancements in engineering and technology. Learning about the flow of blood through the heart, students are able to fully understand how and why the heart is such a powerful organ in our bodies.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Increased blood flow to the uterus during pregnancy is essential to the health of both mother and baby But the cellular processes that promote blood flow during pregnancy aren’t fully understood Now, researchers have discovered that fat surrounding blood vessels in the uterus plays a key role In pregnant rats, uterine blood flow was up to 3 times higher than in non-pregnant rats But blood flow plummeted when fat tissue was removed from the uterus of pregnant rats Interestingly, tests on isolated vessels demonstrated that fat tissue-shrinking factors could be at play which seems counterintuitive because narrow vessels generally mean low blood flow One explanation is that isolating tissue from its natural surroundings could produce changes not observed in a live animal Future studies will explore this apparent contradiction and hopefully reveal the role of fat tissue in human pregnancy Osikoya et al..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Students learn about the heart and its role at the center of the human cardiovascular system. In the associated activity, students play out a scenario in which they are biomedical engineers asked to design artificial hearts. They learn about the path of blood flow through the heart and use that knowledge to evaluate designs of artificial hearts on the market.

Students learn about the form and function of the human heart through lecture, research and dissection. They brainstorm ideas that pertain to various heart conditions and organize these ideas into categories that help them research possible solutions. An expert in the field of cardiac valve research was interviewed for this lesson and shares his ideas with the class. Students conclude by researching various possible heart defects.

This text been designed for an undergraduate human anatomy and physiology course at a medium sized public university. This text has been modified from the original OpenStax text to encourage more active reading for an early undergraduate student taking the first semester of a year-long human anatomy and physiology course sequence. This text has been targeted to our student population, consisting primarily of first semester pre-nursing and kinesiology majors at a university with a high proportion of first generation and PELL-eligible students who benefit from lower barriers to entry into the field. Therefore, freely-available and differently presented text can be beneficial to this student population. This version was designed with the intention of distributing it section by section through a learning management system. If this mode of distribution is used, connection to an assessment tool could be utilized. Systems covered include skeletal, muscular, cardiovascular, respiratory, and nervous.

As this text reorganizes and modifies an OpenStax’s Anatomy and Physiology 2e (see related resources link below), chapter numbers and chapter section numbers from the original have been preserved in this document. Material supplemented from other sources is cited within the text.

Course connections: Undergraduate courses aimed towards freshmen or sophomore, including Anatomy and Physiology, Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology, Physiology, Introduction to Physiology, Human Biology or similar with a human focus.

Students learn about the form and function of the human heart through the dissection of sheep hearts. They learn about the different parts of the heart and are able to identify the anatomical structures and compare them to the all of the structural components of the human heart they learned about in the associated lesson, Heart to Heart.

Students use provided materials to design and build prototype artificial heart valves. Their functioning is demonstrated using water to simulate the flow of blood through the heart. Upon completion, teams demonstrate their fully functional prototypes to the rest of the class, along with a pamphlet that describes the device and how it works.

Students learn how to take blood pressure by observing a teacher demonstration and then practicing on fellow classmates in small groups. Once the hands-on component of this activity is completed, the class brainstorms and discusses how blood pressure might affect a person's health. This activity acts as hook for the second lesson in this unit, in which blood pressure is presented in detail, as well as how variances in blood pressure can affect a person's cardiovascular system.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Physicians may soon be able to get a detailed look at blood vessels surrounding breast tumors quickly, painlessly, and without radiation, thanks to the work of a team of Japanese researchers. One application of the technology is earlier and more accurate tracking of when cancer has turned deadly. The formation of new blood vessels around a tumor is a key sign that cancer is getting ready to spread. But getting a clear look at these blood vessels can be tricky. Approaches like MRI or computed tomography often come with a hefty price tag, and exposure to contrast agent or radiation may pose health risks. To sidestep these issues, the researchers optimized a way to perform photoacoustic imaging. This type of imaging utilizes the light-absorbing properties of hemoglobin to show where blood is flowing in the body. When hemoglobin is exposed to pulses of laser light, it produces small vibrations. These vibrations are picked up by scanners and used to generate a detailed map of blood vessel architecture..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.