The Circulatory System Flashcards
What is hemoglobin responsible for?
Hemoglobin is responsible for distributing oxygen, and to a lesser extent, carbon dioxide, throughout the circulatory systems
of humans, vertebrates, and many invertebrates.
What is the role of blood in the human body?
Blood is important for regulation of the body’s systems and homeostasis.
Blood helps maintain homeostasis by stabilizing pH, temperature, osmotic pressure, and by eliminating excess heat.
Blood supports growth by distributing nutrients and hormones, and by removing waste.
Blood plays a protective role by transporting clotting factors and platelets to prevent blood loss and transporting the disease-fighting agents or white blood
cells to sites of infection.
What is the function of red blood cells?
Red blood cells or erythrocytes are specialized cells that circulate through the body delivering oxygen to cells; they are formed from stem cells in the bone marrow.
What is the function of white blood cells?
they are primarily involved in the immune response to identify and target pathogens, such as invading bacteria, viruses, and other foreign organisms. White blood cells
are formed continually; some only live for hours or days, but some live for years.
What is the function of platelets?
Small cell fragments called platelets (thrombocytes) are
attracted to the wound site where they adhere by extending many projections and releasing their contents. These contents activate other platelets and also interact with other coagulation factors, which convert fibrinogen, a water-soluble protein present in blood serum into fibrin (a non-water soluble protein), causing the blood to clot.
What are the jobs of the chambers of the heart?
The atria are the chambers that receive blood, and the ventricles are the chambers that pump blood.
Where does the atrium receive blood from?
The right atrium receives deoxygenated blood from the superior vena cava, which drains blood from the
jugular vein that comes from the brain and from the veins that come from the arms, as well as from the inferior vena cava which drains blood from the veins that come from the lower organs and the legs. In addition, the right atrium receives blood from the coronary sinus which drains deoxygenated blood from the heart itself.
What are the three layers of the heart?
Epicardium, the myocardium and the endocardium
