Physiology Flashcards
What is meant by internal respiration?
The intracellular mechanisms by which oxygen is consumed and carbon dioxide is produced.
What is meant by external respiration?
The sequence of events that leads to the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the external environment and the cells of the body. This involves four steps.
Give the four stapes of external respiration?
- Ventilation or gas exchange between the atmosphere and alveoli in the lungs
- Exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between air in the alveoli and the blood.
- Transport of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the lungs and tissues
- Exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the blood and the tissues.
This then leads into internal respiration!
What is ventilation?
The process of moving air between the atmosphere and the alveolar sacs.
What is Boyle’s law?
“At any constant temperature the pressure exerted by a gas varies inversely with the volume of the gas”
This means as the volume of a gas increases the pressure exerted by it decreases.
What must happen before air will flow into the lungs?
The intra alveolar pressure must become less that the atmospheric pressure for air to flow in. This is because air will always flow down a pressure gradient.
How is the change in atmospheric pressure achieved before inspiration? (Before inspiration intra alveolar pressure and atmospheric pressure are equal)
The thorax and lungs expand duet contraction of inspiratory muscles. This means that the volume has increased and so pressure decreases, resulting in the required gradient.
How does movement of the chest walls expand the lungs?
There is no physical connection but the intrapleural fluid and negative intrapleural pressure mena they are very closely connected.
What two forces hold the thoracic wall and the lungs in close opposition?
- Intrapleural fluid cohesivness. This means the pleural membranes tend to stick together.
- The negative intrapleural pressure. The sub atmospheric intrapleural pressure and so creates a transmural pressure gradient across the lung wall and across the chest wall. This means the lungs are forced to expand outwards when the chest is forced to squeeze inwards.
What is meant by the term transmural pressure gradient across the lung wall?
Intra-alveolar pressure - intrapleural pressure
Across the lung wall, there is an outward push of 760mmHg by the intra - alveolar pressure. There is an intrapleural pressure of 756mmHg which pushes inwards.
This means that overall there in a 4mmHg difference which constitutes a transmural pressure gradients that pushes towards on the lungs, making them stretch to fill the thoracic cavity.
What is meant by the term transmural pressure gradient across the thoracic wall?
Atmospheric pressure - intrapleural pressure
The atmospheric pressure of 760mmHg pushes inwards while the intrapleural pressure of 756mmHg pushes outwards. This 4mmHg difference constitutes a transmural pressure gradient that pushes inward and compresses the thoracic wall.
What does transmural pressure mean?
The pressure on two different sides of a partition. Transpulmonary pressure is the difference between the alveolar pressure and the intrapleural pressure in the lungs. During human ventilation, air flows because of pressure gradients.
What two muscles contract to increase the volume of the thoracic cavity?
The diaphragm
The external intercostal muscles
In inspiration a passive or active process?
Active
In expiration a passive or active process?
passive (as it is brought around by muscle relaxation)
What does recoil of the lungs do to the itra alveolar pressure?
Causes it to rise (as volume has decreases) and so air to move out down a pressure gradient
What two things cause the lungs to recoil during expiration?
Elastic connective tissue in the lungs
Alveolar surface tension
What is alveolar surface tension?
Attraction between water molecules at a liquid air interface. In the alveoli this produces a force which resists the stretching of the lungs.
What reduces the alveolar surface tension?
Surfactant
What is surfactant?
A complex mixture of lipids and proteins which act to intersperse the water molecules lining the alveoli and lowers surface tension.
What secretes surfactant?
Type 2 alveoli
What is infant respiratory distress syndrome?
Babies born prematurely have not yet developed the ability to produce surfactant and so the baby finds it very hard to overcome the high surface tension and to breath.
Give another factor, aside from surfactant, which helps keep the alveoli open:
Alveolar interdépendance. Alveoli are usually found in a group of interconnected alveoli so the expanding forces of individual ones helps keep them all open.
What happens in the case of a traumatic pneumothorax?
A puncture in the chest wall permits air from the atmosphere to flow down its pressure gradients and into the pleural cavity and in doing so abolishes the transmural pressure gradient needed to expand.The lung will collapse to an unstretched size.
What are the muscles of active inspiration?
Abdominal muscles and internal intercostal muscles
What are the accessory muscles of forceful inspiration?
sternocleidomastoid and scalenus muscles.
What does tidal volume mean and what is its usual value?
Volume of air entering or leaving the lungs during a single breath: 500ml
What does inspiratory reserve volume mean and what is its normal value?
Extra volume of air that can be maximally inspired over and above the typical resting tidal volume: 3000ml