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Grades 6–8 · Organisms

How does the heart move blood around the body?

Your heartbeat keeps blood circulating because muscular chambers repeatedly fill and squeeze, connecting the lungs with the rest of the body. Each side has a receiving atrium and an outward-pumping ventricle. RA and RV label the right chambers; LA and LV label the left. In a front anatomical view, the body’s right appears on the left of the page.

Blood returning from the body enters the right side of the heart. The right heart pumps it toward the lungs. There, blood exchanges gases with air in tiny air spaces: it gains oxygen and releases carbon dioxide. Blood then returns from the lungs to the left side of the heart.

Contracting ventricular muscle squeezes the chamber and raises blood pressure inside it. Blood moves toward a region of lower pressure. Valves open when the pressure difference pushes them forward and close when it would push blood backward. They act like one-way doors, so repeated filling and squeezing produce circulation rather than simply shuttling the same blood back and forth.

Arrows connect Body, RA, RV, Lungs, LA and LV into a returning route. The blue and red paths distinguish relative oxygen content across the two linked circuits.

O01 visual explanationTrace blood returning from the body to the right heart. Colors are an oxygen-content key, not literal blue blood.RARVLALVLungsBodyRightLeftAnatomical right is on your left

Body, right heart, lungs and left heart form one returning route. The chamber names spell out RA, RV, LA and LV; the colored boxes track relative oxygen content.

O01 portrait visual explanationFlow route, not anatomical placement: body to right atrium, right ventricle, lungs, left atrium, left ventricle, and back to body. Blue and red distinguish lower and higher oxygen content, not literal blood colors.One connected blood routeBodyRight atrium · RARight ventricle · RVLungsLeft atrium · LALeft ventricle · LVBack to bodyFlow route, not body positions.
The connected route carries blood from the body to the right heart, lungs, left heart and back to the body. Colors distinguish relative oxygen content.

The left atrium receives blood from the lungs, and the left ventricle pumps it through body arteries to small tissue exchange vessels; veins return it to the right heart. Both sides work during each beat. Artery means away from the heart and vein means toward it, so lung arteries carry oxygen-poorer blood. Diagram colors track oxygen content: blood is never literally blue.

RA = right atrium; RV = right ventricle; LA = left atrium; LV = left ventricle. Red and blue distinguish oxygen content, not literal blood colors.

About this explanation

Starting knowledge: Follow directed routes and distinguish blood circulation from air movement.

Sources

  • NIH National Heart Lung and Blood Institute — How Blood Flows through the Heart
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