Set 7 (Part I) Flashcards
What detects a decrease in blood volume and blood pressure?
- Volume receptors in the atria
- Carotid and aortic baroreceptors
How does a decrease in blood pressure affect the cardiovascular system?
- Increase in cardiac output
- Vasoconstriction (vagus nerve, epinephrine)
- Increase in BP
How does a decrease in blood pressure affect behaviour?
- Thirst causes increased water intake
- ECF and ICF volume increases
- Increase in BP
How does a decrease in blood pressure affect the kidneys?
- Conserve H2O to minimize further volume loss
- ADH (reabsorption of water in tubules)
When would a decrease in blood volume or blood pressure occur?
Major bleeding or extreme dehydration
How does an increase in blood pressure affect the cardiovascular system?
- Decrease in cardiac output
- Vasodilation
- Decrease blood pressure
How does an increase in blood pressure affect the kidneys?
- Excrete salts and water in urine
- Decrease in ECF and ICF volume
- Decrease blood pressure
Describe the process of blood transportation to the kidneys.
- Renal artery brings blood to the kidneys
- After filtration through the kidneys (20% of blood), the fluid leaves through the renal vein
- The rest of the blood enters the capillary system that surrounds the tubules of the kidney
How are the kidneys connected to the bladder?
Ureters
How are the contents of the bladder emptied?
Through the urethra
How much water can the bladder contain?
2 cups
How does caffeine and alcohol affect the urine output?
- They are diuretics, so they increase urine output
- Thirst mechanism increases as well
What are the functional units of the kidneys?
Nephrons
What is the calyx?
- Also called the renal pelvis
- Collecting ducts from individual filtering units
- Empty into the ureter
What are the differences between the male and female urethra?
- Urethra passes through the prostate in males
- Urethra is much longer in males
What causes men to urinate more slowly and frequently as they age?
- Prostate gland enlarges due to andropose
- Prostate squeezes on the urethra, which decreases in diameter
What consequences does a shorter urethra cause in women?
More prone to bladder infections
How many nephrons are there in the kidney?
A million
What sits in the renal cortex?
- Bowman’s capsule
- Proximal and distal tubules
- Start of the collecting duct
What sits in the renal medulla?
Loop of Henle
What are the two components of a nephron?
- Vascular component
- Tubular component
Where does the blood that is not filtered by the glomerulus travel to?
- Efferent arteriole, which breaks down into capillaries
- Serve in ongoing absorption and excretion through the tubules
How may substances be excreted if they are not filtered through the glomerulus?
Via the capillary network that surrounds the tubule
What are the two distinct regions within the nephrons of the kidney?
- Renal cortex
- Renal medulla
Where is the dominant portion of the vascular component?
- The glomerulus
- Tight ball of capillaries located within the Bowman’s capsule
What is the filtered fluid of the glomerulus like? What does it become as it passes through the tubules?
- The filtered fluid is like plasma
- Becomes filtrate as it passes through the tubules
How does the diameter of the afferent arteriole compare to the efferent arteriole?
- Afferent arteriole has a wider diameter than the efferent arteriole
- High hydrostatic pressure, which promotes filtration through the glomerulus
Describe the vascular route through the nephron.
- Afferent arteriole
- Glomerulus
- Efferent arteriole
- Peritubular capillaries
- Venules
- Renal vein
What are peritubular capillaries?
- Surround the tubular part of the nephron
- Supply the blood for the exchange with the fluid in the tubular lumen
What is the structure of the Bowman’s capsule membrane?
- Double epithelial cell-layered structure
- Single layer of epithelial cell (capillary lumen)
- Podocytes are fused to the endothelial cells that make up the glomerulus (lumen of Bowman’s capsule)
What structure of the nephron creates an osmotic gradient?
The loop of Henle in the renal medulla
What occurs at the descending limb of Henle?
- Permeable to water (water moves out)
- Not permeable to salt
What occurs at the ascending limb of Henle?
- Thicker epithelium
- Not permeable to water
- Permeable to salt (salt moves out)
What controls the concentration of urine? What hormone acts on that region?
- Distal tubule
- ADH, aldosterone
What is the juxtaglomerular apparatus?
The ascending limb of Henle passes through a fork created by the afferent and efferent arteriole
Is glomerular filtration discriminant? What does it let pass through?
- Non-discriminant
- Blood cells and plasma proteins are not filtered
What occurs to 20% of the plasma that enters the glomerulus? What occurs to 80% of the plasma?
- 20% of the plasma that enters the glomerulus is filtered
- 80% of the plasma that enters the glomerulus is not filtered and leaves through the efferent arteriole
What are RBCs and WBCs or damaged tubular cells in a urine sample a sign of?
- Problem with the kidneys
- Infection: largely WBCs and some RBCs
Why would you see WBCs and some RBCs in urine during an infection?
- Inflammation makes cell leaky
- If the cells that are filtering in the glomerulus are leaky, they might let WBCs and RBCs pass through
What is tubular reabsorption? Is it selective?
- Highly selective
- Movement of filtered substances from the tubular lumen into the peritubular capillaries
What is tubular secretion? Is it selective?
- Selective movement of non-tubular filtered substances
- From the peritubular capillaries into the tubular lumen (for excretion)
Urine results from which three basic renal processes?
- Glomerular filtration
- Tubular reabsorption
- Tubular secretion
What is the important statement to remember?
Anything filtered or secreted but not absorbed is excreted
To be filtered, a substance must pass through what?
- The pores between the endothelial cells of the glomerular capillary
- Acellular basement membrane
- Filtration slits between the foot processes of the podocytes of the inner layer of Bowman’s capsule
What is the effect of glomerular capillary blood pressure? Why?
- Favours filtration
- Afferent arteriole is much wider than efferent arteriole
- Blood is rushing through the complex at a HIGH pressure
- Hydrostatic force
Fluid moves from ____ pressure to ____ pressure in the glomerulus.
high
low
What is the effect of plasma-colloid osmotic pressure?
Opposes filtration
What causes the plasma-colloid osmotic pressure?
- Larger plasma proteins cannot be filtered across the glomerulus membrane and enter Bowman’s capsule
- They exert a colloid osmotic pressure on the filtered fluid in the Bowman’s capsule
What is the effect of Bowman’s capsule hydrostatic pressure?
Opposes filtration
What causes Bowman’s capsule hydrostatic pressure?
Fluid pressure in Bowman’s capsule opposes filtration
Which pressure may increase in the case of a blockage, such as kidney stones?
- Bowman’s capsule hydrostatic pressure
- Causes inflammation, pain, and damages the kidney