The Cardiovascular System
- Preload is the filling volume of circulating blood that a ventricle is capable of holding during diastole.
- Contractility is the strength of the myocardium, the heart’s ventricular muscle, during systolic contraction.
- Afterload is the workload which the ventricle must produce in order to eject blood through the semi-lunar valve (pulmonic valve for the right ventricle; aortic valve for the left ventricle).
