Fig. 4.4  (a) Cardiac cycle and (b) blood pressure (Source of videos and images below. Used with permission)
 

 

                                                                                        (a) Cardiac cycle





                                                                                        (b) Blood Pressure

See the image below and the video of the heart beating at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Cardiac-Cycle-Animated.gif. It shows an animation of an opened human heart performing cardiac cycles. The red line in the graph below the animation shows the rising and falling blood pressure of the "Aortic pressure" in a main artery, the aorta. Notice that the blood pressure rises as the ventricles contract during systole and falls as the ventricles relax during diastole. In this example, the systolic pressure rises to 120mmHG, and the the diastolic pressure falls to 80mmHG, hence the blood pressure is “120/80”. The small pressure bump at the beginning of diastole is from the pulse wave bouncing back from lower arteries.


 

                                      

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