Circulation Flashcards
What are the 3 main components of circulatory systems?
- pump or propulsive structures (ie. heart)
- system of tubes, channels, or spaces
- fluid that circulates through system (ie. blood)
What are the 3 types of pumps?
- chambered hearts
- skeletal muscle
- pulsating blood vessels
How do chambered heart pumps work?
- contractile chambers
- blood moves into muscular wall through vein
- muscular wall contracts
- one-way valves ensure unidirectional blood flow out of chamber through artery into circulatory system
How do skeletal muscle (external) pumps work?
- muscle mass contracts, compressing blood in vessel to generate pressure, which forces blood unidirectionally through one-way valve
- no specifically designed chamber
How do pulsating blood vessel pumps work?
- peristalsis: rhythmic contractions of vessel wall (contractile tissue) pumps blood by elevating hydrostatic pressure, which forces blood to move in intended direction of flow
What are the 4 types of fluid?
- blood
- hemolymph
- interstitial fluid
- lymph*
What is blood?
fluid that circulates within vessel of closed circulatory system
What is hemolymph?
fluid that circulates in open circulatory system
What is interstitial fluid?
extracellular fluid (between cells) that directly bathes tissues
- composition similar to plasma
What is lymph?
fluid that circulates in lymphatic system
What is the lymphatic system?
secondary circulatory system of vertebrates that carries fluid (lymph) that filtered out of vessel
- capillaries are not perfectly impermeable
- pressure that drives blood forces some fluid out across membrane into interstitial fluid → lymph ducts → lymph vessels
What is an open circulatory system?
circulatory fluid comes in direct contact with tissues in spaces called sinuses
- circulating fluid mixes with interstitial fluid
- heart pumps hemolymph to one end of animal, fluid enters big open space (hemocoel), and eventually gets drawn back into venous system to return to heart
- no control of how fluid returns to heart – just mixes the contents to make sure nutrients are distributed throughout the body
What is the tracheal system?
- brings air to within 2-3 cells of every cell in the body
- O2 brought into system, CO2 removed
Does the hemocoel play a role in gas exchange?
no – more about nutrients, waste products
What is a closed circulatory system?
circulatory fluid remains within vessels and doesn’t come in direct contact with tissues
- circulating fluid is distinct from interstitial fluid
- efficient way of circulating fluid throughout body, but molecules must diffuse across vessel wall
- heart pumps blood through circulatory system into capillary bed (high surface area) – everything diffuses across membranes, and blood remains in circulatory system
What happens at the capillaries? (3)
diffusion of molecules between blood and interstitial fluid occurs
- gas exchange (O2 in, CO2 out)
- nutrient delivery from blood
- lymph is generated (which then needs to be removed)
Why did the circulatory system first evolve, and how did it change?
- first evolved to transport nutrients to body cells
- very early began to serve respiratory function – get O2 to metabolizing tissues, and CO2 away from tissues
How did closed circulatory systems evolve? What did this do?
evolved independently in jawed vertebrates, cephalopods, and annelids
- increased blood pressure and flow
- and therefore increased control of blood distribution
What did closed circulatory system evolve in combination with?
with specialized oxygen carrier molecules
- high metabolic rates
How does the circulatory system fit into O2 delivery?
O2 cascade – framework for all vertebrate animals
- external convection
- diffusion
- internal convection
- diffusion
- ATP production
Describe the steps of the O2 cascade.
- EXTERNAL CONVECTION moves air into lungs to obtain O2 from external medium
- DIFFUSION of O2 across barrier and into circulatory system – to quickly and fully saturate respiratory pigment with O2
- INTERNAL CONVECTION – circulatory system pumps blood around circuit of tubes to get blood to where and when it is needed
- DIFFUSION to rapidly unload O2 from blood to mitochondria of tissues
- ATP PRODUCTION
What is convection important for?
for getting medium as close as possible to site where it needs to diffuse, which greatly reduces time constraints
All activities (locomotion, digestion, reproduction, etc.) ultimately require O2. What are the two ways of providing it?
- heart pumps more blood per unit time (higher cardiac output) with activity intensity
- tissues extract more O2 from capillaries with activity intensity (CaO2 remains constant, CvO2 decreases)
What is the equation for O2 uptake?
MO2 = Q(CaO2-CvO2)
- CaO2: content of O2 in arterial blood
- CvO2: content of O2 in venous blood
What happens to blood saturation when you increase activity intensity under resting conditions?
high arterial saturation, will extract ~50% of O2 in blood
What is the goal (in terms of blood saturation) when you increase exercise intensity?
goal is still to saturate blood completely
- usually possible
- can extract more O2 from venous system with each pumping of blood to satisfy metabolic demand
What happens when you double O2 extraction and increase CO by 4-fold?
increase metabolic rate by 8-fold
What happens to blood O2 content at altitude?
- breathing O2 levels that are much lower than at sea level
- total CaO2 reduced, requires drop in CvO2 to maintain same metabolic rate – this puts limits on maximum metabolic rate
How is O2 unloading based on supply and demand?
high metabolic activity (mitochondria doing more work) decreases PO2 because O2 is consumed, which increases partial pressure gradient to increase O2 movement from venous blood to tissue
What are the two types of closed circulatory systems?
- single-circuit (most fishes)
- double-circuit (all birds and mammals)
Describe the circulatory plan of vertebrates.
- blood leaves heart in arteries
- arteries branch out into arteries with smaller diameter
- small arteries branch out into arterioles within tissues
- blood flows from arterioles into capillaries
- capillaries coalesce to form venules
- venules coalesce to form veins
- blood flows to heart in veins
What is the central lumen?
interior of a vessel (tube) through which blood flows
What are the 3 layers of the complex wall that surrounds the central lumen?
- tunica intima
- tunica media
- tunica externa
What is the tunica intima?
internal lining
- smooth, epithelial cells (vascular endothelium) that are in direct contact with plasma moving through central lumen
What is the tunica media?
middle layer
- smooth muscle (if needed)
- elastic connective tissue (that allows for expansion and contraction of muscle)
What is the tunica externa?
outermost layer
- collagen (provides structural support)
Why does the thickness of the wall vary among vessels?
- arteries are more muscular than veins because they need to be able to handle high blood pressure and transmit force evenly
- venous end is low pressure (after passing through high resistance capillaries) and acts as reservoir to return blood back to heart
Which layers do venules lack?
- tunica media
- tunica intima
Which layers do arterioles lack?
- tunica externa
- tunica intima
What layers do capillaries lack?
- tunica media
- tunica externa
What are the 3 types of capillaries?
- continuous capillaries
- fenestrated capillaries
- sinusoidal capillaries
What are continuous capillaries? Where are they located?
- in skin and muscle
- cells held together by tight junctions – not permeable
What are fenestrated capillaries? Where are they located?
- in kidneys, endocrine organs, and intestine
- cells contain pores – designed to be leaky so fluids (such as water and salts) can move in and out to some degree
- specialized for exchange
What are sinusoidal capillaries? Where are they located?
- in liver and bone marrow
- few tight junctions
- most porous for exchange of large proteins
What are capillaries specialized based on?
based on needs and type of exchange required of the tissue
What is tank treading?
- capillary diameter is slightly smaller than RBC diameter
- RBCs need to squeeze through capillary (tank treading), which mixes contents of RBC and promotes diffusion
What are accessory hearts?
hearts in the tail of some water-breathing fish that helps pump blood back to heart
What is pressure?
potential energy to send blood anywhere in body that needs
What is the law of bulk flow?
Q = ΔP/R
- Q: flow
- ΔP: pressure drop
- R: resistance
What is the equation for resistance?
R = 8Lη / πr^4
- L: length of tube
- η: viscosity of fluid
- r: radius of tube (vasoconstriction, vasodilation)
What is Poiseuille’s equation?
Q = ΔPπr^4 / 8Lη
more detailed version of law of bulk flow
Like electrical resistors, blood vessels can be arranged in series or parallel.
resistors in series: RT = R1 + R2 …
- fish capillary beds
resistors in parallel: 1/RT = 1/R1 + 1/R2 …
- overcomes problems with resistance
because of law of conservation of mass, flow through each segment of the system must be equal if R is the same
What is flow (Q)?
volume of fluid transferred per unit time
What is the equation for blood velocity?
blood velocity = Q/A
- A: cross-sectional area of channels
- velocity of flow is inversely related to total cross-sectional area
- large total cross-sectional area of capillaries → slow velocity → more time for diffusion
Why do you want low velocity in capillaries?
velocity drops dramatically where total cross-sectional area of capillaries is high
- great for delivering O2, taking up CO2
- RBC is squeezing through capillary – tank treading to mix its contents
(total area increases in smaller vessels)
What are the two different types of myocardium?
- compact myocardium
- spongy myocardium
What is compact myocardium?
- tightly packed cells arranged in regular pattern
- can generate lots of force
What is spongy myocardium?
- meshwork of loosely connected cells
- bathed by blood
- allows lots of blood to move in and around muscle
Are there coronary arteries in compact myocardium?
- coronary artery moves through myocardium – perfusing, providing lots of O2, and removing lots of CO2
- specialized, completely new/evolved arterial network
Are there coronary arteries in spongy myocardium?
- lacks coronary vessels
- all O2 has to be extracted from blood that is perfusing through heart
- this evolved first in fish
Where does compact myocardium receive O2 from?
from coronary arteries
Where does spongy myocardium receive O2 from?
from blood flowing through (perfusing) heart
What are the 4 main parts of the complex walls of vertebrate hearts?
- pericardium
- epicardium
- myocardium
- endocardium
What is the pericardium?
- sac of connective tissue that surrounds heart
- outer (parietal) and inner (visceral) layers, with space between them containing lubricating fluid
What is the epicardium?
- outer layer of heart, continuous with visceral pericardium
- contains nerves that regulate heart and coronary arteries that bring oxygenated blood to myocardium
What is the myocardium?
- layer of heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes)
- contractile tissue that pumps blood
- extremely oxidative – has high O2 demand
What is endocardium?
- innermost layer of connective tissue covered by epithelial cells (endothelium)
- direct interface between blood and muscle
What is the cardiac cycle?
pumping action of heart – two phases
- systole: contraction – blood is forced out into circulation
- diastole: relaxation – blood enters heart
What are the 3 types of pacemakers?
- neurogenic
- myogenic
- artificial
What is a neurogenic pacemaker?
- rhythm generated in neurons
- continuous pace
- found in some invertebrates
What is a myogenic pacemaker?
- rhythm generated in myocytes
- cardiomyocytes (muscle cells) produce spontaneous rhythmic depolarizations – cells are electrically coupled via gap junctions to ensure coordinated contractions (AP passes directly from cell to cell)
- do not require nerve signal
- in vertebrates and some invertebrates
What is an artificial pacemaker?
rhythm generated by device
Cell membranes are polarized. What is the resting (stable) membrane potential in vertebrates?
- -60 mV to -110 mV inside
- inside is always relative to outside
What is a resting membrane potential?
created by ATPases working against selectively permeable ion channels (ie. Na+, K+, Ca2+, Cl-), resulting in ionic gradients across cell membrane
- ATPases pump 3 Na+ for 2 K+ to generate electrical potential
What do electrochemical gradients do?
- is the ‘battery’ for life – electrical potential energy for many of cell’s activities
- only time it disappears, and everything comes into equilibrium, is at death
Why are some cells (ie. neurons, muscles) excitable?
because ion channel permeabilities can change briefly
- such voltage-gated ion channels in muscle cells can create AP, which triggers muscle contraction
Do pacemaker cells have stable resting membrane potentials? Why?
no – unstable
- due to slow decrease in K+ conductance and opening of funny channels (Na+ channels)
- reduces outflow of K+
- increases probability of Na+ inflow
Describe the steps of how vertebrate pacemaker APs are generated.
- cell gradually depolarizes to threshold (-40 mV)
- opens voltage-gated channels
- permeability for Na+ increases – enters cell and makes inside less negative
- initiates spike (AP)
- AP due to voltage-gated Ca2+ channels
- permeability for Ca2+ increases – enters cell and makes inside less negative
- changes in permeability of different channels in different regions of AP drives change in membrane potential
- cell repolarizes
- K+ channels initiate repolarization phase
- permeability for K+ increases – leaves cell and makes inside more negative
What are the relative concentrations of Na+, Ca2+, and K+ inside and outside of cells?
- Na+ high outside of cell, low inside
- Ca2+ high outside of cell, low inside
- K+ low outside of cell, high inside
What are the major differences between action potentials and pacemaker potentials?
- in most nerve function, there is stimulus that alters membrane permeability, which results in Na+ influx to generate AP, K+ recovery and hyperpolarization, then flat threshold until next stimulus is received
- but in AP there is never a stable resting membrane – it is always drifting to ensure heart is beating at some constant rate
- but we can change heart rate
How does sympathetic stimulation affect heart rate?
increases rate of pacemaker potentials
- increases rate of depolarization (channels opening)
How does parasympathetic stimulation affect heart rate?
decreases rate of pacemaker potentials
- decreases rate of depolarization (channels opening)
Describe the steps of how sympathetic stimulation increases heart rate.
- norepinephrine (noradrenaline) released from sympathetic neurons OR epinephrine (adrenaline) released from adrenal medulla bind to beta receptors of autorhythmic cells
- stimulates cAMP release
- results in protein kinase
- more Na+ and Ca2+ channels open, increasing influx of both ions
- rate of depolarization and frequency of APs increase
- heart rate increases