Cardiac Nodal Tissue & Conduction — NEET Biology

The entire heart is made of cardiac muscles. The walls of ventricles are much thicker than that of the atria. A specialised cardiac musculature called the nodal tissue is also distributed in the heart. A patch of this tissue is present in the right upper corner of the right atrium called the sino-atrial node (SAN). Another mass of this tissue is seen in the lower left corner of the right atrium close to the atrio-ventricular septum called the atrio-ventricular node (AVN). A bundle of nodal fibres, atrio-ventricular bundle (AV bundle) continues from the AVN which passes through the atrio-ventricular septa to emerge on the top of the inter-ventricular septum and immediately divides into a right and left bundle. These branches give rise to minute fibres throughout the ventricular musculature of the respective sides and are called purkinje fibres. The nodal musculature has the ability to generate action potentials without any external stimuli, i.e., it is autoexcitable. However, the number of action potentials that could be generated in a minute vary at different parts of the nodal system. The SAN can generate the maximum number of action potentials, i.e., 70-75 min⁻¹, and is responsible for initiating and maintaining the rhythmic contractile activity of the heart. Therefore, it is called the pacemaker. Our heart normally beats 70-75 times in a minute (average 72 beats min⁻¹).