Abstract
1) The left ventricular function could be characterized by a model of mechanical pump. However, the actual mechanisms of blood ejection and filling were more complex in the beating heart than in the ordinary mechanical pump.
2) Recent advances have shown the concepts of muscle contraction and its regulation in terms of force-velocity-length relations. However, extrapolation of such muscle mechanics to the intact heart has not been simple because each myocardial fibers did not arrange for uniform direction in the left ventricular wall. Moreover, various factors, which determined ventricular shape and size, were shown to play an important role for ventricular performance.
3) In intact beating heart, characteristics of cardiac pump function could be better understood by instantaneous pressure-volume-flow relations during cardiac cycles. The physiological and clinical meanings of pressure-volume diagrams were considered.
4) In addition to the systolic events of left ventricle, attention was increasingly focused on the behaviours of left ventricle during diastole. Therefore, recent advances in the study of diastolic properties of left ventricle are also reviewed here.
