Supporting Practical Science, D&T and Art
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Heart dissection
Heart dissection is popular in schools and allows students some appreciation of what is going on in their
bodies. The opportunity to hold, feel, probe and examine a heart is a personal experience that is very real.
Different sources of hearts can be used for dissection but lamb hearts are closest in size to human hearts,
and are most commonly used.
Hearts used for dissections
Pig heart
10-14cm long
Ox heart Lamb heart
Up to 30cm long 10-12cm long
Chicken heart
2-3cm long
Heart dissection begins with looking at the outside of the heart, before either cutting it longitudinally or in
cross sections, to observe the internal structures. This guide uses a lamb heart, but the protocols can be
carried out using any mammalian heart. See our guide Chicken heart dissection for an alternative
dissection.
Hearts vary in quality depending on the supplier. For this guide we bought a pluck (lungs, trachea and
heart) with a heart that contains all the associated blood vessels still intact, and a supermarket heart with
all the blood vessels and part of the atria removed. The supermarket heart was also slashed during the
butchering and examination process.
Anterior view (front view)
The coronary artery runs from the top right to the bottom left of the heart
Complete heart Supermarket heart
Glass rod Tubing into Right atrium Left atrium
into aorta pulmonary vein
Vena cava Pulmonary artery
Right atrium Left atrium
Epicardial Coronary artery
fat (encased in fat)
Left ventricle
Right
ventricle Right ventricle Left ventricle
Apex of heart Slashed during butchery or
inspection
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Superior view (top view)
Complete heart Supermarket heart
Epicardial fat Pulmonary vein Right atrium Left atrium
Vena cava Left atrium
Aorta
Right atrium
Pulmonary artery
Anterior of heart
External examination of the heart
1. Hold the heart to feel its weight and how firm it is.
2. Locate the coronary artery. It is a large blood vessel often encapsulated in fat. When looked at from
the anterior (front) of the heart, it runs diagonally from the top right of the heart to the bottom left.
Note: The right atrium and ventricle appear on the left side, and the left atrium and ventricle will
appear on the right side.
3. Look at the top of the heart and locate the atria. They are dark red-grey and appear as limp flaps.
4. Look at the blood vessels. To identify which is which, put your fingers, one by one, into each blood
vessel and feel the thickness of the heart wall.
a. Vena cava. A thin-walled dark coloured blood vessel that readily collapses. It feeds straight into
the right atrium, which has a thin limp wall. If you push your fingers in further you will enter the
right ventricle. This has a thin muscle wall.
b. Pulmonary vein. A thin-walled dark coloured blood vessel that readily collapses. It feeds straight
into the left atrium, which has a thin limp wall. If you push your fingers in further you will enter
the left ventricle. This has a thick firm muscle wall.
c. Pulmonary artery. A thick-walled whitish vessel held in place by fat (it may have branches coming
off it). Your fingers feed straight into the right ventricle. This has a thin muscle wall.
d. Aorta. A thick-walled whitish vessel held in place by fat. It is typically the most obvious blood
vessel and is often open. Your fingers feed straight into the left ventricle. This has a thick firm
muscle wall.
It is useful to place pieces of tubing, or glass rods, into the blood vessels and leave them in place during the
dissection. This will help show students how the blood vessels are related to the heart chambers.
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Dissecting the heart
The internal structures of a complete heart and a supermarket heart typically look the same. Only the
complete heart is shown in this series of photographs.
Place the heart on the dissection surface with the anterior view facing you and blood vessels at the top of the
heart. Start by cutting into the right side of the heart.
Tubing into Glass rod into the aorta
pulmonary vein
Pulmonary artery
Tubing into vena cava
Coronary artery
Left ventricle
Apex
Right ventricle
1. Locate the coronary artery (top right of the heart diagonally down to the bottom left).
2. To dissect the right side of the heart, make an incision approx. 2 cm to the left of the coronary artery using
a scalpel. Start from the top of the ventricle and cut parallel to the coronary artery down to the bottom of
the heart. You will cut into the right ventricle.
Note: The wall of the right side of the heart is thin, so cut gently until the chamber of the right ventricle is
revealed then extend this incision to the bottom of the heart.
Silicon tubing from pulmonary
artery into right ventricle
Pulmonary artery
Semi-lumar valve
(held by forceps)
Right ventricle
Coronary artery
Thin ventricle wall
3. Open up the right ventricle.
4. Using a scalpel, or sharp scissors, extend the incision up through the pulmonary artery.
5. At the opening of the ventricle from the artery, there are two semilunar valves that look like thin
membrane ‘pockets’. Use forceps (or the handle end of a mounted needle) to lift the semilunar valve.
Note: the semilunar valves are very strong, you can demonstrate this by lifting the heart up by the valve
using forceps.
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Rubber tubing into the vena cava
Right atrium
Bicuspid valves
Tendinous chords
Right ventricle
6. Make another incision from the right atrium down to the bottom of the heart. Locate the tendinous chords
(heart strings), which look like ‘strings’.
Note: One end of each tendinous chord is attached to the ventricle wall. The other end is attached to the
tricuspid valve (atrioventricular valve), which appear as three tough, thin membranes.
Aorta (glass rod from the aorta into
the left ventricle)
Pulmonary artery
(wide tubing from the pulmonary
artery and into the left atrium)
Left atrium
Bicuspid valves
Tendinous chords
Left ventricle
Coronary artery (thick muscle wall)
7. To dissect the left side of the heart make an incision approx. 2 cm to the right of the coronary artery. Start
from the top of the ventricle and cut parallel to the coronary artery down to the bottom of the heart.
8. Open up the left ventricle. The wall of the left ventricle is thick.
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Aorta
Left atrium
Semilunar valve Bicuspid valves
(held open by the handle of a
mounted needle)
Tendinous chords
Thick muscle of the left ventricle
Left ventricle
9. Use a scalpel, or sharp scissors, to extend the incision up through the left atrium.
10. Open up the left side of the heart fully by dissecting the aorta, you may need to cut the tendinous cords in
order to achieve this.
Locate the bicuspid valve, semilunar valves, and tendinous chords.
Heart dissection – cross-sections
If the top of the heart has been cut away or the organ has been heavily slashed, there may not be much
value in dissecting the heart longitudinally. Instead, cut the heart into sections horizontally (2-3 cm thick) to
compare the different structures that comprise the heart.
Apex Right ventricle Aorta Left atrium
Septum Left ventricle
For disposal search Dissection.
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