Cardiac Conduction System

The conduction system of the heart consists of cardiac muscle cells and conducting fibers (not nervous tissue) that are specialized for initiating impulses and conducting them rapidly through the heart. They initiate the normal cardiac cycle and coordinate the contractions of cardiac chambers. The conducting system provides the heart its automatic rhythmic beat. For the heart to pump efficiently and the systemic and pumonary circulations to operate in synchrony, the events in the cardiac cycle must be coordinated. This model is part of an e-learning module for medicine students on the relation between location of infarcts in coronary arteries and the correlating ECGs.