- The right coronary artery supplies blood to the right side of your heart, the right atrium and the right ventricle. Rather than remaining a single blood vessel throughout its length, it branches near the bottom, and the posterior descending coronary artery supplies blood to the lower lobe of the right ventricle.
- In addition to supplying blood to the right ventricle, the descending coronary artery also supplies blood to the back of the heart and the back of the coronary septum, the muscular tissue which divides the left and right ventricles.
- Like the right coronary artery, the left coronary artery divides into two branches. It does this near the top of the heart, rather than at the bottom. One branch, the circumflex artery, supplies blood to the left atrium and the side and back of the left ventricle. The other branch, the left anterior descending artery, supplies blood to the front and bottom of the left ventricle and to the front of the coronary septum.
- The coronary arteries take oxygen and nutrient-rich blood to the heart, but the coronary veins bring the blood back to the right side of the heart, to be returned--by way of the pulmonary arteries--to the lungs for re-oxygenation.
- There are numerous small arteries and veins that surround your heart and normally, blood does not circulate through them. However, should a coronary artery become occluded, this "back up" system will start to function in much the same way as a coronary artery would, almost as if your heart grows its own bypass. Even so, if the occlusion occurs too quickly for the heart's collateral circulatory to begin to work, a myocardial infarction--a heart attack--will occur.
The Right Coronary Artery
The Posterior Descending Artery
The Left Cornary Artery
The Coronary Veins
Collateral Circulation
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