The typical response of myocardial cells to a persistenly increased workload, as with sustained arterial?

Question

hypertension, is to:
a) increase in size
b) decrease in resting length
c) increase in neuromuscular excitability
d) increase in numbers

Answer 1

Cardiac remodeling in response to arterial hypertension is a result of myocyte hypertrophy, hyperplasia, and hypertrophy of the nonmuscular cells and interstitial cell growth. (1)

In short the muscle gets larger and the other structures such as endothelium and collagen divide and grow. Some of the cardiac muscle eventually will actually die if the condition continues.

Answer 2

Increase in size.

Resting length does not have anything to do with workload but with preload, or the amount of blood available to be pumped at end-diastole or just before contraction.

Increase in excitability does not have anything to do with it either unless the patient has developed some form of dysrhythmia, or the sinoatrial node which is the pacemaker has been compromised by lack of oxygen.

Increase in numbers in not true because after birth, you have a definite amount of myofibers and can only react to increase workload by increasing in size, or hypertrophy. Increase in numbers is hyperplasia.

Answer 3

i think it's increase in size because when the heart increase in size it will pump more and more blood through the body....

Answer 4

increase in size