Blood Flow 1 Flashcards
(52 cards)
Blood flow-Ohm’s law: watch lecture at 29 mins
What is the equation for pressure and how is it determined using arterial and venous pressure?
Flow x resistance
Pressure = Pa - Pv (Pa means arterial pressure, Pv venous pressure)
Pressure is a ___
Gradient
What is the driving force for pressure?
The pressure gradient (the pressure on the venous side is typically around 0 and varies a lot on the arterial side)
What is the equation for blood pressure?
Blood pressure = cardiac output x TPR (total peripheral resistance)
What is total peripheral resistance (TPR) due to?
Mostly due to degree of vasoconstriction in the arterioles
How would vasodilation affect TPR?
It would decrease
How would vasoconstriction affect TPR?
It would increase
TPR is also called ___
SVR (systemic vascular resistance)
Pouseille’s Law (resistance)
The longer the tube, the ___ the resistance
Greater
How does having more red blood cells (higher hematocrit) affect blood viscosity?
It would increase it
How does viscosity affect resistance?
It increases it
Resistance is inversely proportional to ___
- The radius to the fourth power
- As the radius gets smaller, resistance gets much larger
Resistance in parallel
- There isn’t just one capillary connected to the aorta- many arteries branch off –> many arterioles –> many capillaries
- As the radius of these blood vessels gets smaller and smaller, the number of parallel pathways through which blood can flow gets greater
- This makes it difficult to determine where the most resistance is in the system (it’s an interplay between the radius of the blood vessels getting smaller and the number of parallel pathways getting bigger)
How can you calculate the total resistance of blood vessels in parallel?
Total resistance is less than 1
Pressure trace
- Starts in the left ventricle and goes out to the periphery
- Pressure drops when there’s more resistance??
- The solid line is the average pressure
- More resistance in the arterioles so pressure drops. Resistance at capillaries so pressure drops.
Where is the biggest pressure drop/where there is the most resistance?
- In the arterioles
- Capillaries have more parallel pathways
Capacitance of blood vessels (RC circuits) (very different in arteries and veins)
Capacitance of arteries:
- Affects pulse pressure
- Affects flow due to change in resistance
Capacitance of veins:
- Affects stroke volume
- DOES NOT AFFECT RESISTANCE!
Is there much resistance to flow in veins?
Not much because the internal diameter is very big
How do changes in the walls of veins affect blood flow back to the heart?
- If the walls of the vein are very flaccid, the blood is not effectively pushed back to the heart
- When the walls tense up a bit, blood gets back to the heart much faster
- This is one of the biggest things that changes during exercise
Capacitance of arteries
- (a) When the ventricle stretches, it pushes blood into the closed set of tubes with resistance downstream. Some of that energy is absorbed in the walls.
- (b) When the ventricle relaxes and fills with blood coming from the atria, the aortic valve closes, that pressure that was loaded into the walls discharges in between beats to keep flow going between beats.