What defines stroke volume?

Stroke volume is defined as the volume of blood pumped by a ventricle with each heartbeat. This measurement is a crucial indicator of how effectively the heart is functioning in pumping blood throughout the body. It is typically expressed in milliliters and reflects the strength of the heart's contractions and the overall health of the cardiovascular system.

Understanding stroke volume is vital for assessing an individual's cardiovascular fitness and overall heart health. It plays a key role in calculating cardiac output, which is the total volume of blood the heart pumps in a minute, but stroke volume itself focuses specifically on the amount of blood ejected with each heartbeat.

The other options describe different cardiovascular concepts: cardiac output relates to the total volume pumped per minute, blood pressure refers to the pressure exerted by circulating blood on the walls of blood vessels, and blood volume pertains to the total amount of blood within the body. Each of these measures serves a different purpose in understanding heart and circulatory function, but they do not define stroke volume specifically.