systole

Examples of systole in the following topics:

• Pumps and the Heart

  • A complete cardiac cycle is one round of the heart pumping blood and consists of two parts: systole (contraction of the heart muscle) and diastole (relaxation of the heart muscle).

• Blood Flow

  • Blood velocities in arteries are higher during systole than during diastole.
  • One parameter to quantify this difference is pulsatility index (PI), which is equal to the difference between the peak systolic velocity and the minimum diastolic velocity divided by the mean velocity during the cardiac cycle.

• Pressure in the Body

  • In practice, the mean arterial pressure (MAP) can be approximated from easily obtainable blood pressure measurements in , where Psys is the measured systolic pressure and Pdias is the measured diastolic pressure.

• Nerve Conduction and Electrocardiograms

  • Arterial blood pressure varies with each part of the heartbeat, with systolic (maximum) pressure occurring closely after the QRS complex, signaling the contraction of the ventricles.