ANAT 261 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Arteriole, Adventitia, Venule
Document Summary
Lymphatic system is separate from the circulatory system. It starts as blind capillaries larger lymphatic vessels drain into larger veins such as the superior vena cava: lymph is made of plasma and immunoglobulins. Right side - afferent system, left efferent system. Each box on both sides (in the above diagram) are parallel because they go together (i. e an arteriole and a venule, large vein and a large artery, etc. ) Larger arteries and veins are easy to distinguish because only a piece of their walls are seen under a light microscope. When observing blood vessels (both veins and arteries) there are 3 layers intima (closer to lumen), media (larger for an artery), adventitia (connective tissue around the structure). The media of muscular artery contains more than four layers of muscle cells (spindle shaped smooth muscle cells). Both media contain reticular fibres, proteoglycans, and sometimes external elastic membrane.