Physiology 2130 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Starling Equation, Mean Arterial Pressure, Blood Vessel

• School: Western University
• Department: Physiology
• Course: Physiology 2130
• Professor: Valeria Puntorieri

Document Summary

Summary of module 9: blood volume distribution. Your body only has about 5 liters of blood, and this is distributed amoung the different parts of the circulatory system. You should know the relative distribution of blood in the different vessels. Most of the blood is found in the veins this is why the veins are sometimes called capacitance vessels - they contain most of the capacity of the circulatory system. We will see later that this is quite important: putting blood on the move. I like to think about the circulatory system in the context of a garden hose, since much of what you learn about pressure, radius and resistance is the same. Of course your circulatory system is a set of tubes that is a closed loop, but i think you will get the general idea. By turning on the tap, and in doing so you create pressure that drives the water through the hose.