Human Heart Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

Free long human heart trivia quiz with answers.

Human Heart Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

What is a heart?
A: The heart is a muscular organ in most animals, which pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system.

Blood provides the body with what?
A: Oxygen and nutrients, as well as assists in the removal of metabolic wastes.

In humans, the heart is located where?
A: Between the lungs, in the middle compartment of the chest.

In humans, other mammals, and birds, the heart is divided into how many chambers?
A: Four.

What are they called?
A: Upper left and right atria; and lower left and right ventricles.

Commonly the right atrium and ventricle are referred together as the what?
A: The right heart and their left counterparts as the left heart.

Fish, in contrast, have two chambers, an atrium and a ventricle, while reptiles have how many chambers?
A: Three.

In a healthy heart blood flows one way through the heart due to what?
A: Heart valves, which prevent backflow.

The heart is enclosed in a protective sac called what?
A: The pericardium, which also contains a small amount of fluid.

The wall of the heart is made up of how many layers?
A: Three.

What are the layers called?
A: The epicardium, myocardium, and endocardium.

The heart pumps blood with a rhythm determined by a group of what?
A: Pace making cells in the sinoatrial node.

These cells generate an electric current that causes what?
A: Contraction of the heart.

The heart beats at a resting rate close to how many beats per minute?
A: 72.

Exercise temporarily increases the rate, but lowers what?
A: The resting heart rate in the long term.

What kind of diseases are the most common cause of death globally as of 2008?
A: Cardiovascular (CVD) diseases which account for 30% of deaths.

Of these, more than three quarters are a result of what?
A: Coronary artery disease and stroke.

Risk factors include what?
A: Smoking, being overweight, little exercise, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and poorly controlled diabetes, among others.

Cardiovascular diseases frequently do not have what?
A: Symptoms.

Diagnosis of heart disease is often done by doing what?
A: The taking of a medical history, listening to the heart-sounds with a stethoscope, ECG, and ultrasound.

Specialists who focus on diseases of the heart are called what?
A: Cardiologists.

The human heart is in the middle of the thorax, with its apex pointing in which direction?
A: To the left.

A double-membraned sac called the pericardium surrounds the heart and attaches to the what?
A: The mediastinum.

The back surface of the heart lies near the vertebral column, and the front surface sits behind what?
A: The sternum and rib cartilages.

The upper part of the heart is the attachment point for several large what?
A: Blood vessels.

What are they called?
A: The venae cavae, aorta and pulmonary trunk.

The largest part of the heart is usually slightly offset to which side of the of the chest?
A: The left side (though occasionally it may be offset to the right).

Because the heart is between the lungs, the left lung is smaller than the right lung and has a what?
A: Cardiac notch in its border to accommodate the heart.

An adult heart has a mass of how much?
A: 250–350 grams (9–12 oz).

The heart is often described as the size of a what?
A: A fist:, although this description is disputed, as the heart is likely to be slightly larger.

Well-trained athletes can have much larger hearts due to the effects of what?
A: Exercise on the heart muscle, similar to the response of skeletal muscle.

The cardiac skeleton is made of what?
A: Dense connective tissue and this gives structure to the heart.

The cardiac skeleton also provides an important boundary in the heart's what?
A: Electrical conduction system since collagen cannot conduct electricity.

The heart has how many valves?
A: Four.

One valve lies between each atrium and ventricle, and one valve rests at the exit of what?
A: Each ventricle.

The valves between the atria and ventricles are called what?
A: The atrioventricular valves.

Between the right atrium and the right ventricle is the what?
A: The tricuspid valve.

What valve lies between the left atrium and left ventricle?
A: The mitral valve.

It is also known as the bicuspid valve due to its having what?
A: Two cusps, an anterior and a posterior cusp.

The left atrium receives oxygenated blood back from the lungs via one of the four what?
A: Pulmonary veins.

The left ventricle is much thicker as compared with the right, due to what?
A: The greater force needed to pump blood to the entire body.

The left ventricle pumps blood to the body through what?
A: The aortic valve and into the aorta.

Two small openings above the aortic valve carry blood to what?
A: The heart itself.

The innermost layer of the heart, the endocardium, is made up of a lining of what?
A: Simple squamous epithelium, and covers heart chambers and valves.

The endocardium, by secreting endothelins, may also play a role in what?
A: Regulating the contraction of the myocardium.

The middle layer of the heart wall is the myocardium, which is the cardiac what?
A: Muscle – a layer of involuntary striated muscle tissue surrounded by a framework of collagen.

The cardiac muscle pattern is elegant and complex, as the muscle cells do what?
A: Swirl and spiral around the chambers of the heart.

The outer muscles form what kind of a pattern around the atria and around the bases of the great vessels?
A: A figure 8 pattern.

What does this complex swirling pattern allow?
A: It allows the heart to pump blood more effectively.

What are the two types of cells in cardiac muscle?
A: Muscle cells which have the ability to contract easily, and pacemaker cells of the conducting system.

The muscle cells make up what percentage of the cells in the atria and ventricles?
A: 99%.

The pacemaker cell function is similar in many respects to what?
A: Neurons.

What is the tough outer surface of the pericardium called?
A: The fibrous membrane.

When does the embryonic heart begin to beat?
A: At around 22 days after conception.

It starts to beat at what rate?
A: Near to the mother's which is about 75–80 beats per minute.

Early in the 7th week the embryonic heart rate accelerates and reaches a peak rate of what?
A: 165–185 bpm.

After 9 weeks (start of the fetal stage) it starts to what?
A: Decelerate, slowing to around 145 (±25) bpm at birth.

There is no difference in female and male heart rates before what?
A: Birth.

The period of time during which the ventricles contract, forcing blood out into the aorta and main pulmonary artery, is known as what?
A: Systole.

The period during which the ventricles relax and refill with blood is known as what?
A: Diastole.

At the beginning of the cardiac cycle, the ventricles are doing what?
A: Relaxing.

As they do so, they are filled by blood passing through what?
A: The open mitral and tricuspid valves.

Cardiac output (CO) is a measurement of what?
A: The amount of blood pumped by each ventricle (stroke volume) in one minute.