Innervation of the heart
Citation, DOI, disclosures and article data
At the time the article was created Henry Knipe had no recorded disclosures.
View Henry Knipe's current disclosuresAt the time the article was last revised Calum Worsley had no financial relationships to ineligible companies to disclose.
View Calum Worsley's current disclosures- Cardiac conduction system
- atrioventricular node
- AV node
- bundle of His
- Purkinje fibres
The heart has extrinsic and intrinsic innervation, which allows the heart to continue beating if its nerve supply is disrupted (e.g. in cardiac transplant).
The extrinsic supply is from parasympathetic (from the vagus nerve) and sympathetic nerves from both the superficial and deep cardiac plexuses, which provide post-ganglionic fibres to the sinoatrial (SA) and atrioventricular (AV) nodes, as well as other parts of the cardiac conduction system.
The cardiac conduction system represents the intrinsic component and is composed of (in order of depolarisation):
internodal connections
right and left bundle branches
Cardiac myocyte conduction spreads through the heart from myocyte-to-myocyte starting at the SA (pacing) node and then via other parts of the cardiac conduction system in turn as outlined above.
Each part of the cardiac conduction system has its own intrinsic pacemaker, which means that if a higher pacing centre (e.g. SA node) is damaged and stops functioning a lower pacing centre (e.g AV node) can take over.
References
- 1. Revisiting Cardiac Anatomy. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN:1405194693. Read it at Google Books - Find it at Amazon
- 2. Dudek RW. High-yield heart. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. ISBN:0781755689. Read it at Google Books - Find it at Amazon
- 3. Handbook of Cardiac Anatomy, Physiology, and Devices. Humana Press. ISBN:1603273719. Read it at Google Books - Find it at Amazon
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