Heart and Lung Flashcards
The events of one heartbeat, so called cardiac cycle
- The heart releaxes and blood enters both atria from veins.
- Both atria contract to push blood into the ventricles through the atrioventricular valves
- The ventricles contract powerfully
- The atrioventricular valves shut, preventing blood from flowing back into the atria
- The semilunar valves open, allowing blood into the aorta and pulmonary artery
- The ventricles relax
- The atria begin to fill again to repeat the cycle
Why do we need a circulation?
Blood is a mass flow or a mass transport system. Large volumes of fluid are pumped rapidly around the body from organs of exchange such as the guts and lungs, to the cells that need them.
The heart is simply a pump. Mammals have a double circulation — there are two circuits that take blood on a return journey to the heart.
1 The pulmonary circulation carries blood to the lungs and back.
2 The systemic circulation carries blood to the rest of the body and back.
We need two circulations because blood goes to the lungs to collect oxygen, but in doing so it loses pressure, so it needs to return to the heart for a boost. In order to pump blood round two circulations at the same time, we need a four-chambered heart:
●Two atria. Their job is simply to fill with the right volume of blood, and pump it into the ventricles. Think of them as ‘loading chambers’.
●Two ventricles, whose job is to create pressure. They contract powerfully, forcing blood into arteries.
The right side of the heart fills with deoxygenated blood, and
pumps blood around the pulmonary circulation.
The left side of the heart fills with oxygenated blood from the lungs, which needs to be pumped around the systemic circulation. This requires more pressure, so the left ventricle has a thicker muscle wall than the right ventricle.
How many types of blood vessels are there?
There are three main types of blood vessels: arteries, veins and capillaries.
What is coronary heart disease?
It is the most common form of heart disease in which the arteries become narrower due to a build-up of fatty deposits inside them. When the coronary arteries get blocked, not enough oxygen and glucose reaches the heart muscle, part of the heart muscle dies, and a heart attack results.
When coronary arteries narrow, they can be treated by inserting a stent — a tubular wire mesh that keeps the lumen of the artery open to allow the blood to flow freely again.
How does gas exchange happened in the capillaries?
- Blood flows from the heart into arteries, then into smaller arteries, which finally branch out into capillaries. These tiny vessels take blood to within a fraction of a millimetre of all the respiring cells.
- All cells are surrounded by tissue fluid, from which cells get the oxygen and nutrients, and into which they secrete their waste and other products. Blood slows down as it flows along a capillary. The walls are one cell thick and permeable (leaky) so that exchange can happen between blood and tissue fluid. Tissue fluid is basically plasma that leaks out of the capillaries.
For each of the following blood vessels, state the pressure and the oxygen content of the blood it contains (you could do this as a table):
a) vena cava
b) pulmonary artery
c) pulmonary vein
d) aorta
a) vena cava — deoxygenated, low pressure
b) pulmonary artery — deoxygenated, high pressure
c) pulmonary vein — oxygenated, low pressure
d) aorta — oxygenated, high pressure
Blood flow is slowest in capillaries. Suggest an advantage of this slow flow.
There is more time for diffusion/exchange of materials.
Arteries carry oxygenated blood. Is this always true? Explain.
No, the pulmonary artery carries deoxygenated blood.
Most arteries lie deep under the surface of the skin, while veins run much closer to the surface. Explain the advantage of this arrangement.
There is less chance of an artery being cut. Rapid blood loss would be dangerous/fatal.
What is blood made up of?
Blood is a complex fluid containing red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets ( bits of broken cells) and plasma.
Red blood cells
Red blood cells are basically little bags of haemoglobin. They have no nucleus or any of the other normal cell contents such as mitochondria.
The function of haemoglobin is to collect oxygen where it is abundant — the lungs — and release it where it is needed — the respiring tissues.
As red blood cells pass through the lungs, haemoglobin combines with oxygen to form bright red oxyhaemoglobin. As it passes through the respiring tissues in the rest of the body, the haemoglobin gives up its oxygen, becoming a darker red as it does so.
White blood cells
White blood cells defend the body against attack by microbes/pahtogens.
Lymphocytes produce antibodies to destroy microorganisms and memory lympohocytes give us immunity to specific diseases. Phagocytes engulf and digest microorganisms.
About 70% of white blood cells are phagocytes.
Platelets
Platelets are cell fragments which help clot the blood.
Plasma
Plasma is the yellow liquid which transports dissolved food molecules, carbondioxide, and urea as well as all the blood cells. It’s mainly water.
Plasma also contains other important substances such as hormones, blood clotting factors and heat.
Red blood cells do not live very long. Use your knowledge of their structure to suggest why.
They have no nucleus, so are not able to repair themselves and therefore have a short life.
The higher the altitude at which people live, the greater the volume of red blood cells in their blood. Suggest an advantage of this adaptation.
At higher altitude, each red cell carries less oxygen. So having more red blood cells compensate for this/allows more oxygen to be carried.
Why exchange gas?
● All living things must respire — this is the release of energy from
organic molecules such as glucose.
● Respiration uses oxygen, and produces carbon dioxide.
● So all living things must exchange these gases.
● Large organisms — and especially those with high energy demands, such as mammals — need to exchange lots of gas.
● That is why special gas exchange organs such as lungs and gills have evolved.
Explain why we cannot drink seawater to cure dehydration.
Seawater has a high salt concentration, which will draw water out of the blood by osmosis and make dehydration worse.
Blood clotting is a relatively fast reaction. Give two advantages of
this fact.
Less blood loss; less chance of infection.
The lungs contain no muscle. Explain how they inflate.
The lungs are attached to the ribcage and diaphragm (1 mark). The intercostal muscles and diaphragm contract (1 mark), increasing the volume in the thorax (1 mark) and lowering the pressure (to below atmospheric) (1 mark). So air flows in (1 mark).
a) Describe how our breathing pattern changes when we exercise.
b) Explain the need for this change.
a) We breathe more deeply, and more frequently.
b) Any three from:
- Muscles respire.
- So they need more oxygen.
- And they make more CO2
- l So gas exchange must be faster.
The young of frogs and toads are called tadpoles and they have gills. Predict what features these gills will have in order to maximise gas exchange.
large surface area, thin membranes, good blood supply
Smoking effects and health
- Nicotine in smoke makes your heart beat faster and increases your blood pressure. Your heart then need to work faster.
- Carbon monoxide in smoke lowers the amount of oxygen blood can carry as it binds easily to haemoglobin. In pregnant smoker, the developing foetus gets less oxygen and so grows more slowly.
- Substances in smoke, tar and particulates, damages the cilia (ciliated epithelial cells), that line the airways (trachea, bronchi and bronchioles). And increase the risks that arteries will become narrowed by fatty material (atheroma). This can cause heart attacks and strokes.
- Increases cholesterol which causes coronary artery to narrow and less oxygen gets to heart muscles, more anaerobic respiration. Can increase risk of heart attack.
Smoking damage to the lungs
Tobacco smoke has the following effects:
- Cilia are destroyed so dirt and bacteria are not removed.
- Emphysema – the walls of the alveoli are damaged and break down to form large irregular air spaces which do not exchange gases efficiently. These all act to decrease the rate of diffusion of O2 through the alveoli into the blood, and the rate of diffusion of O2 from the blood into the respiring tissues. The same is true for CO2 but in the opposite direction. This makes smokers breathless.
- Lung cancer- tar and other chemicals cause cells to mutate and form cancers in the lungs and throat.
- Carbon monoxide binds to haemoglobin, lowering the oxygen levels in the blood. In pregnant women, this deprives the fetus of oxygen and can lead to smaller babies and stillbriths.
- Smoking also affects the circulatory system and causes an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Emphysema
This damages the walls of the alveoli and vastly reduces the surface area of the lungs. This means that it may no longer be possible to get sufficient O2 to the rest of the body. Thus a sufferer will be breathless and unable to carry out physical exercise. In extreme cases an oxygen cylinder is needed to increase the availability of oxygen to the respiring tissues in the body.
Aerobic and anaerobic respiration
If there is enough oxygen for respiration, aerobic respiration occurs.
However, if there is not enough oxygen an organism can respire using anaerobic respiration . This releases less energy.
Aerobic respiration is much more efficient and releases more energy per glucose molecule (19 times) than anaerobic respiration.
The oxygen debt
In humans during vigorous exercise our lungs cannot move enough oxygen to our muscles and anaerobic respiration occurs. Lactic acid builds up in the muscles and causes cramps. This lactic acid needs to be removed and metabolized. It can be respired but this requires oxygen. This is known as an oxygen debt. Thus at the end of the exercise the breathing rate and heart rate stay high as the oxygen necessary for the removal of the lactic acid is obtained.
Respiration equation
Respiration equation
Glucose + Oxygen —> Carbon dioxide + Water + Energy Released
In animals, lactic acid is made during anaerobic respiration, but in plants and fungi they make ethanol .
Anaerobic respiration equation in animals
Glucose –> Lactic acid + Energy Released
Anaerobic respiration equation in plants
Glucose —> Ethanol + Carbon dioxide + Energy Released
Adaptations of red blood cells that help them to perform their function
- Red blood cells transport oxygen from lungs to the tissues. Red blood cells are small and flexible, so they can pass through narrow blood vessels.
- They don’t have nucleus, so they can be packed with haemoglobin.
- The small size and biconcave shape of red blood cells gives them a large surface area to volume ratio for obsorbing oxygen. When the cells reaches the lungs, oxygen diffuces from the lungs into the blood.
- The haemoglobin modules in the red blood cells binds easily with the oxygen to form oxyhaemoglobin.
- The blood is then pumped around the body to the tissues, where the reverse reaction takes place. Oxygen is released which diffuses into cells.
Arteries, 10mm diameter on average
- Arteries carry blood away from the heart.
- Substances from the blood can’t pass through artery walls.
- They have thick, muscular, elastic walls in order to cope with the high pressure created when the heart beats.
Veins, 4mm diameter (average)
- Veins return blood to the heart.
- They have thinner walls than an artery and have less elastic muscular fibre because they do not have to cope with high pressure.
- They have valves to prevent blood flowing backwards.
Capillaries (0.005mm diameter), very narrow lumen
Capillaries are tiny blood vessels whose walls are one cell thick.
The walls are permeable because their function is to allow exchange of substances between blood and the body cells.
Describe and explain the differences between the structures of arteries and veins.
- Arteries have thick muscular and elastic walls, which can withstand the high pressure of blood they carry.
- Veins carry blood at low pressure. They contain valves that prevent the low pressure blood flowing backwards. They also have thinner walls than arteries as they don’t need to withstand high pressure of blood.
The Heart
The heart consists of powerful muscles that pump blood around the body. It needs glucose and oxygen for respiration because it never get tired or needs rest, so it has high energy requirements.
- The coronary artery supplies the heart itself with glucose and oxygen.
- The pulmonary vein carries oxygenated blood from the lungs to the heart.
- The aorta carries oxygnated blood from the heart to the rest of the body.
- The vena cava carries deoxygenated blood from the parts of the body back to the heart.
- The pulmonary artery carries deoxygenated blood from the heart to the lungs.
How does the body control heart rate?
The heart beat is controlled by groups of cells called the **pacemaker ** (or sino-atrial node, SAN)
The SAN produces impulses that spread across the atria to make them contract.
The atriventricular node (AVN) relays impulses that spread over the ventricles to make them contract.
Nerves connecting the heart to the brain can increase or decrease the pace of the SAN in order to regulate the heart beat. During exercise, muscles demand more energy so the pacemaker fires more frequently. This makes the heart rate speed up to supply oxygen and glucose to respiring muscles more efficiently.
Adrenaline is also secreted during exercise. Adrenaline acts on the pacemaker making it fire more frequently.