Home▸Medical Technology & Imaging Physics▸The Frank-Starling Law of the Heart: How the Heart Automatically Matches Its Output to Its Input

❤️ The Frank-Starling Law of the Heart: How the Heart Automatically Matches Its Output to Its Input

Explore the Frank-Starling mechanism, the intrinsic property of heart muscle that lets stroke volume rise automatically as venous return and ventricular filling increase.

Medical Technology & Imaging Physics3DModerate60 FPS

This simulator demonstrates how changing ventricular filling volume (preload) shifts the heart along its Frank-Starling curve to produce a corresponding change in stroke volume.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

This simulator demonstrates how changing ventricular filling volume (preload) shifts the heart along its Frank-Starling curve to produce a corresponding change in stroke volume.

🎮 How to Use

Adjust the end-diastolic filling volume slider and watch how stroke volume responds, then compare a healthy curve to a flattened heart-failure curve to see how the same increase in filling produces different results.

💡 Did You Know?

The Frank-Starling mechanism still works in a heart that has been completely removed from the body and disconnected from all nerves, proving it is a property of the muscle itself rather than something the nervous system controls.

⚙ Under the hood

Explore the Frank-Starling mechanism, the intrinsic property of heart muscle that lets stroke volume rise automatically as venous return and ventricular filling increase.

frank-starlingcardiac-physiologystroke-volumepreloadheart-failurecardiac-musclesarcomerehemodynamics

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install