Hemodynamics: Energy Forms - Video Lesson

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to today's lesson on hemodynamics. This lesson focuses on the forms of energy associated with blood flow. Let's get started. Blood receives energy from the contractions of the heart during systole, which is when the heart's ventricles contract, pumping blood out of the heart and into the circulatory system. Blood travels throughout the body, moving from regions of higher energy to regions of lower energy in what is called an energy gradient. There are three forms of energy associated with blood, pressure energy, gravitational energy, and kinetic energy. Pressure energy is a type of potential energy, meaning it is stored as the force exerted by the blood on vessel walls. Pressure energy is the dominant form of energy in the arterial system and drives the blood forward even during diastole, which is when the heart muscle relaxes in the cardiac cycle as it is aided by the elastic recoil of large arteries. Gravitational energy is another form of