18. Blood and the heart Flashcards
What is the primary method of transport in the body?
Blood
What is the name of the liquid part of blood?
Plasma
What is the name of the solid components in blood?
Corpuscles
What three things are in corpuscles?
・Red blood cells
・White blood cells
・Platelets
What is the job of red blood cells?
To carry oxygen around the body
What is the name of the protein contained inside red blood cells?
Haemoglobin
What is Haemoglobin?
An iron-containing molecule that can bond with oxygen and gives the cell its red colour
What system are white blood cells part of?
The immune system
What colour and size are white blood cells?
They are white, and come in all shapes and sizes
What are the white blood cells’ jobs?
To kill bacteria and viruses
Why do we get white/yellowish pus?
Due to white blood cells consuming bacteria in our bodies
What are platelets?
They are pieces of larger cells that have broken apart
How big are platelets?
Smaller than rbc & wbc
What are platelets involved in?
Blood clotting
What are platelets’ jobs?
To block any damage to your blood vessels
What percentage of plasma is water?
90%
What does plasma do?
Carries dissolved nutrients and gases
What does plasma become when blood gets to capillaries (smallest kind of vessels)
leaks out and becomes tissue fluid
What does tissue fluid do?
・Delivers nutrients etc. to the cells where they are needed
・Carries waste back to the blood through the capillaries once more
Where does the tissue fluid that does not re-enter the capillaries go into?
The lymphatic system
What does the tissue fluid become in the lymphatic system?
lymph
What does lymph contain?
Immune system cells
Blood is carried around the body in the ＿?
Circulatory system
What is the heart?
A muscular organ
What does the heart do?
Pumps blood around the whole circulatory system
What 3 types of vessels does blood travel through?
Arteries, veins, capillaries
What kind of wall do arteries have?
A thick, muscular wall
What do the arteries do?
・lead away from the heart
・carry a lot of blood under high pressure with every heartbeat
Arteries always moves＿ because arteries are pumped by the heart.
forward
What do arteries branch into?
Capillaries
Compared to arteries, what do the veins look like?
They are smaller and have thinner walls
What do veins do?
They carry blood back to the heart
What do veins have to prevent blood from flowing the wrong way?
Valves
What helps pump back blood to your heart?
Contraction of your skeletal muscles
What are capillaries like?
Small & thin
What are capillaries’ cell walls like?
Only one cell thick
What does the thinness of capillaries’ cell walls allow?
Allows nutrients and gases to be exchanged between cells and the blood stream
What is the heart made of?
cardiac muscle
What are the four chambers of the heart?
2 atria & 2 ventricles
Why are there valves in between the atria and ventricles?
To open and close to let blood through
Are atria smaller than ventricles?
Yes
What does the left ventricle do?
It pumps blood to the whole body and has a rather thick muscle wall
What does the aorta do?
It sends blood to the body
What does the vena cava do?
Bring the blood back to the heart
