What are the valves in the heart, and what is the function of ...

Question

What are the valves in the heart, and what is the function of each?

Accepted Answer

Hi, everyone. Welcome back. Let's look at our next question. It says through which of the following valves, does blood leave the left ventricle? A mitral valve? B, bicuspid valve, C aortic semi lunar valve or D Tricuspid valve. So when I'm looking at a question about valves in the heart, so I'm thinking about there's several different valves with different names, two different sides. Sometimes a quick sketch can help just drawn quickly on my test paper to remind myself of the various landmarks. So I'm going to put that up here. You can see that this is sort of a stylized heart shape, not going for accuracy here again, just super quick to remind myself of where everything is to find the one I'm looking for. So I have my four chambers here on and my four different valves. I've drawn the A V valves between the Atrian ventricle in blue and I've drawn the semi lunar valves which are the ones that where the blood exits the ventricles in red. We're talk asking about blood leaving the left ventricle. So we know we're looking for one of the semi lunar valves. Well, if I'm really in a hurry and I want to just go ahead. Um And I wasn't quite sure I've only got one answer choice and that's c with the word semi lunar in it, aortic aortic semi lunar valve. And this is the correct answer because the left ventricle is that last chamber that blood will flow through and then it will exit out into the aorta. So the aortic semi lunar valve is the one we want. However, it's good to note that these don't have to be called semi lunar. So an answer choice could have said aortic valve and that would also be correct. Same with our other semi lunar valve, the pulmonary semi lunar valve, which is the one on the right side. And again, that could have just said pulmonary valve. So in this case, I just had the one answer choice that said semi lunar and that was correct. But for instance, if pulmonary semi lunar valve had been on there and then aortic valve, aortic valve would have been our correct answer. So just something to note when you're looking at something like a multiple choice test. So let's look at our other answer choices and again, referring back to the diagram. So we've got our A V valves, our semi lunar valves. And we I've labeled here the pulmonary trunk, which is coming out from the right ventricle and the two exits the ventricles kind of crisscross each other pulmonary trunk starting on the right side, it's in front and then it's crossing over to the left side and of course, blood exits the left ventricle into the aorta. The aorta is sort of crossing over to the right side underneath the um pulmonary trunk. So I've drawn them sort of crisscrossing in the middle of the heart again with the semi luminar valves opening to them. So we've already labeled our semi lunar valves as aortic and pulmonary. So when we look at our other answer choices, choice, A says mitral valve, well, the mitral valve is the same as choice B the B cuspid valve. So these are the same two things and that is the A V valve on the left side. So this is the mitral or by cuspid valve, even though the A V valves, we think of them as sort of a pair. The left A V valve, the mitral valve has two cusps. So it's a bicuspid valve. And then our right A B valve is the tri cuspid valve. We recall because it has three cusps. How do we keep those two straight? The little memory aid is the, you try to be right. So the tricuspid valves on the right side and in mitral, you can think about l you know that uh the tricuspid on the right, the bic cuspids on the left. And in terms of remembering the mitral valve, think of that l at the end of mitral um as being on the left. So when we look at our answer choices, A and B mitral and bic cuspid. These are the ones, these are the A V, same names, two names for the A V valves on the left. And then choice D, the Tricuspid valve would be the A V valve on the right. So A B and D are all places where blood leaves the atria, not the ventricle. So again, the place where blood exits the left ventricle is choice C the aortic semi lunar valve. See you in the next video.

What are the valves in the heart, and what is the function of each?

Key Concepts

Types of Heart Valves

Function of Atrioventricular Valves

Function of Semilunar Valves

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