Healthcare and medicine

Preload and Afterload

  1. Why Doesn't the Heart Rip?
  2. What is Preload?
  3. Preload and Pressure
  4. Preload Stretches out the Heart Cells
  5. Frank-Starling Mechanism
  6. Sarcomere length-tension relationship
  7. Active contraction vs. passive recoil
  8. What is afterload?
  9. Increasing the Heart's Force of Contraction

Why Doesn't the Heart Rip? Understand LaPlace's law to see the effect that pressure, radius, and wall thickness each have on the "wall stress" in the left ventricle. Rishi is a pediatric infectious disease physician and works at Khan Academy.

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Why Doesn't the Heart Rip?

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