When Mr. Williams goes to the emergency department with pain in the area along the midline of the diaphragm, he worries he is having a heart attack. Could the pain be related to his heart? Could it be related to any other organ(s)? Explain.

Video transcript

Hi, everybody. Here's our next question. A heart attack or myocardial infarction happens when there is a blockage in the blood flow to a section of the heart muscle. In addition to chest pain, in which other areas can the pain be present? A jaw, b lower abdomen, c around the umbilicus or D groin. So we see that these other pain areas are distant from the heart. And we can recall that, that that phenomenon where the body experiences pain in an area distant from the area where damages occurred is that's that uh phenomenon of referred pain. So it's the heart muscle being damaged. But in addition to chest pain, you're having pain in these, in this distant area of the body and heart attacks are rather notorious for this referred pain. And one of the areas where that could be experienced is choice A or the jaw. In addition to the jaw, one can have referred pain in the arm, most likely the left with the heart being on the left side of the body um in the upper back or neck. And this occurs because nerves from different parts of the body can converge on the same nerve nerve pathways as they come into the spinal cord. Since they're all converging on the same pathway, the brain can then interpret that pain as coming from one of those other areas of the body that has these nerve pathways converging. So our other answer choices, lower abdomen, umbilicus and groin are not areas where you would experience referred pain from a heart attack. So once again, be in a heart attack in addition to chest pain and what other areas can the pain be present? That would be choice a jaw. See you in the next video.