Strong Heart and Vascular Center
Division of Cardiac Surgery
Understanding The Heart
In order to understand your cardiac condition and your procedure, you need to first learn the normal functioning of the heart. The heart is a muscle, located in the left central area of your chest behind the sternum (breastbone) and ribs. It's about the size of an adult's closed fist and weighs less than a pound. There are four chambers in the heart, two on the right and two on the left. The upper two chambers are called atria and the lower two chambers are called ventricles.
Heart Valves and Their Function
A heart valve is a ring-like structure with smooth leaflets (cusps). These cusps serve to control the flow and direction of blood as it passes through the heart chambers and out into the body. The heart has four main valves: