PANCU DANIEL FLORIN

UMF CRAIOVA / MEDICINA GENERALA

ANUL I / SERIA B / GRUPA 12

THE CARDIO-VASCULAR SYSTEM

YOUR CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM IS YOUR :

HEART
BLOOD VESSELS – ARTERIES, VEINS and CAPILLARIES
BLOOD

How does your cardiovascular system work?

Oxygen makes up about a fifth of the atmosphere. You breathe air through your mouth and nose and it
travels to your lungs. Oxygen from the air is absorbed into your bloodstream through your lungs. Your heart
then pumps oxygen-rich ('oxygenated') blood through a network of blood vessels – the arteries – to tissues
including your organs, muscles and nerves, all around your body.
When blood reaches the capillaries in your tissues it releases oxygen, which cells use to make energy.
These cells release waste products, such as carbon dioxide and water, which your blood absorbs and carries
away.
The used (or 'deoxygenated') blood then travels along your veins and back towards your heart. Your
heart pumps the deoxygenated blood back to your lungs, where it absorbs fresh oxygen, and the cycle starts
again.
THE HEART
Your heart is roughly the size of a clenched fist and weighs about 300g. It lies just to the left in your
chest, surrounded by a protective membrane called the pericardium.
Your heart is a pump, divided into left and right sides. It has walls, made of muscle, which squeeze
(contract) to pump blood into the blood vessels and around your body. You have around 8 pints of blood in
your body, and in an average day your heart beats 100,000 times to keep the blood moving around your
body.
Your veins deliver deoxygenated blood to the right side of your heart. Your heart pumps this blood back
to your lungs, where it absorbs more oxygen. This oxygenated blood then returns to the left side of your
heart, which pumps it out to the rest of your body through the arteries. The muscle on the left side of your
heart is slightly larger because it has more work to do than the right: the right side only pumps blood to your
lungs, the left side pumps blood around your body.
Each side of your heart is divided into an upper chamber called an atrium and a larger, lower chamber,
called a ventricle. Blood flows from each atrium to the ventricle below, through a one-way valve.
THE LUNGS
Your lungs are on either side of your heart in your chest (thorax) and consist of spongy tissue with a rich
blood supply.
Your diaphragm is a sheet of muscle that separates your chest from your abdominal cavity and forms the
floor of your thorax. Movement of your diaphragm as you breathe in makes your lungs inflate.
Air passes from your nose and mouth into your trachea (windpipe) and into each lung, through two
airways called the bronchi. These divide into smaller airways, called bronchioles, which repeatedly divide and
end in tiny sacs called alveoli. These are air sacs with walls just one cell thick. It's here that oxygen and
carbon dioxide filter into and out of your blood. In this process, known as gaseous exchange, molecules of
oxygen and carbon dioxide bind to the hemoglobin, a protein in your red blood cells.
There are about 300 million alveoli in each lung, which provide a vast surface area for gaseous exchange –
around the size of a tennis court if it could be spread out.
In an average day, you breathe 10,000 litres of air in and out of your lungs.
Blood pressure
Blood carrying oxygen and nutrients is pumped around your body by your heart. The blood is under
pressure as a result of the pumping action of your heart and the size and flexibility of your arteries. This blood
pressure is an essential part of the way your body works.
 When blood pressure is measured, the result is expressed as two numbers, such as 120/80mmHg (one
hundred and twenty over eighty millimetres of mercury).
The first figure – the systolic blood pressure – is a measure of the pressure when your heart muscle is
contracted and pumping blood. This is the maximum pressure in your blood vessels.
The second figure – the diastolic blood pressure – is the pressure between heart beats when your heart is
resting and filling with blood. This is the minimum pressure in your blood vessels.
The lower your blood pressure, the better for your health, although very low blood pressure can make you
feel dizzy or faint. Doctors recommend that blood pressure is kept below 140/85. If you have diabetes, kidney
disease or cardiovascular disease, your blood pressure should be lower than this – ideally less than 130/80.
Your cardiovascular health
Your lifestyle plays an essential part in maintaining your long-term cardiovascular health. A healthy diet,
moderate drinking, plenty of exercise, and not smoking can all help to maintain a healthy cardiovascular
system.
The circulatory system is an organ system that passes nutrients (such as amino acids, electrolytes and
lymph), gases, hormones, blood cells, etc. to and from cells in the body to help fight diseases and help
stabilize body temperature and pH to maintain homeostasis.
This system may be seen strictly as a blood distribution network, but some consider the circulatory system
as composed of the cardiovascular system, which distributes blood, and the lymphatic system,which
distributes lymph. While humans, as well as other vertebrates, have a closed cardiovascular system (meaning
that the blood never leaves the network of arteries, veins and capillaries), some invertebrate groups have an
open cardiovascular system. The most primitive animal phyla lack circulatory systems. The lymphatic system,
on the other hand, is an open system.
Two types of fluids move through the circulatory system: blood and lymph. The blood, heart, and blood
vessels form the cardiovascular system. The lymph, lymph nodes, and lymph vessels form the lymphatic
system. The cardiovascular system and the lymphatic system collectively make up the circulatory system.
Human cardiovascular system
The main components of the human cardiovascular system are the heart, the veins, and the blood vessels.
It includes: the pulmonary circulation, a "loop" through the lungs where blood is oxygenated; and the
systemic circulation, a "loop" through the rest of the body to provide oxygenated blood. An average adult
contains five to six quarts (roughly 4.7 to 5.7 liters) of blood, which consists of plasma, red blood cells, white
blood cells, and platelets. Also, the digestive system works with the circulatory system to provide the nutrients
the system needs to keep the heart pumping.
Pulmonary circulation
The Pulmonary circulation is the portion of the cardiovascular system which transports oxygen-depleted
blood away from the heart, to the lungs, and returns oxygenated blood back to the heart.
Oxygen deprived blood from the vena cava enters the right atrium of the heart and flows through the
tricuspid valve into the right ventricle, from which it is pumped through the pulmonary semilunar valve into
the pulmonary arteries which go to the lungs. Pulmonary veins return the now oxygen-rich blood to the heart,
where it enters the left atrium before flowing through the mitral valve into the left ventricle. Then, oxygen-
rich blood from the left ventricle is pumped out via the aorta, and on to the rest of the body.
Systemic circulation
Systemic circulation is the portion of the cardiovascular system which transports oxygenated blood away
from the heart, to the rest of the body, and returns oxygen-depleted blood back to the heart. Systemic
circulation is, distance-wise, much longer than pulmonary circulation, transporting blood to every part of the
body.
Coronary circulation
The coronary circulatory system provides a blood supply to the heart. As it provides oxygenated blood to
the heart, it is by definition a part of the systemic circulatory system.
CARDIO-VASCULAR SYSTEM
Main Arteries and Veins
 Heart
View from the front, which means the right side of the heart is on the left of the diagram (and vice-
versa)
The heart pumps oxygenated blood to the body and deoxygenated blood to the lungs. In the human heart
there is one atrium and one ventricle for each circulation, and with both a systemic and a pulmonary
circulation there are four chambers in total: left atrium, left ventricle, right atrium and right ventricle. The
right atrium is the upper chamber of the right side of the heart. The blood that is returned to the right atrium
is deoxygenated (poor in oxygen) and passed into the right ventricle to be pumped through the pulmonary
artery to the lungs for re-oxygenation and removal of carbon dioxide. The left atrium receives newly
oxygenated blood from the lungs as well as the pulmonary vein which is passed into the strong left ventricle
to be pumped through the aorta to the different organs of the body.
Closed cardiovascular system
The cardiovascular systems of humans are closed, meaning that the blood never leaves the network of
blood vessels. In contrast, oxygen and nutrients diffuse across the blood vessel layers and enters interstitial
fluid, which carries oxygen and nutrients to the target cells, and carbon dioxide and wastes in the opposite
direction. The other component of the circulatory system, the lymphatic system, is not closed.
Measurement techniques
Electrocardiogram—for cardiac electrophysiology
Sphygmomanometer and stethoscope—for blood pressure
Pulse meter—for cardiac function (heart rate, rhythm, dropped beats)
Pulse—commonly used to determine the heart rate in absence of certain cardiac pathologies
Heart rate variability -- used to measure variations of time intervals between heart beats
Nail bed blanching test—test for perfusion
Vessel cannula or catheter pressure measurement—pulmonary wedge pressure or in older animal
experiments.
Health and disease
Oxygen transportation
About 98.5% of the oxygen in a sample of arterial blood in a healthy human breathing air at sea-level
pressure is chemically combined with haemoglobin molecules. About 1.5% is physically dissolved in the
other blood liquids and not connected to haemoglobin. The haemoglobin molecule is the primary transporter
of oxygen in mammals and many other species.
Development
The human arterial and venous systems develop from different embryonic areas. While the arterial
system develops mainly from the aortic arches, the venous system arises from three bilateral veins during
weeks 4 - 8 of human development.
Arterial development
The human arterial system originate from the aortic arches and from the dorsal aortae starting from week
4 of human development. Aortic arch 1 almost completely regreses except to form the maxillary arteries.
Aortic arch 2 also completely regreses except to form the stapedial arteries. The definitive formation of the
arterial system arise from aortic arches 3, 4 and 6. While aortic arch 5 completely regreses.
The dorsal aortae are initially bilateral and then fuse to form the definitive dorsal aorta. Aproximatel 30
posterolateral branches arise off the aorta and will form the intercostal arteries, upper and lower extremity
arteries, lumbar arteries and the lateral sacral arteries. The lateral brances of the aorta form the definitive
renal, suprarrenal and gonadal arteries. Finally, the ventral branches of the aorta consist of the vitelline
arteries and umbilical arteries. The vitelline arteries form the celiac, superior and inferior mesenteric arteries
of the gastrointestinal tract. After birth, the umbilical arteries will form the internal iliac arteries.
Venous development
The human venous system develops mainly from the vitelline veins, the umbilical veins and the cardinal
veins, all of which empty into the sinus venosus.
Nonhuman
Other vertebrates
The circulatory systems of all vertebrates, as well as of annelids (for example, earthworms) and
cephalopods (squid and octopus) are closed, just as in humans. Still, the systems of fish, amphibians,
reptiles, and birds show various stages of the evolution of the circulatory system.
 In fish, the system has only one circuit, with the blood being pumped through the capillaries of the gills
and on to the capillaries of the body tissues. This is known as single cycle circulation. The heart of fish is
therefore only a single pump (consisting of two chambers).
In amphibians and most reptiles, a double circulatory system is used, but the heart is not always
completely separated into two pumps. Amphibians have a three-chambered heart.
In reptiles, the ventricular septum of the heart is incomplete and the pulmonary artery is equipped with
a sphincter muscle. This allows a second possible route of blood flow. Instead of blood flowing through the
pulmonary artery to the lungs, the sphincter may be contracted to divert this blood flow through the
incomplete ventricular septum into the left ventricle and out through the aorta. This means the blood flows
from the capillaries to the heart and back to the capillaries instead of to the lungs. This process is useful to
ectothermic (cold-blooded) animals in the regulation of their body temperature.
Birds and mammals show complete separation of the heart into two pumps, for a total of four heart
chambers; it is thought that the four-chambered heart of birds evolved independently from that of mammals.
Open circulatory system
The Open Circulatory System is a system in which fluid (called hemolymph) in a cavity called the
hemocoel bathes the organs directly with oxygen and nutrients and there is no distinction between blood and
interstitial fluid; this combined fluid is called hemolymph or haemolymph. Muscular movements by the
animal during locomotion can facilitate hemolymph movement, but diverting flow from one area to another
is limited. When the heart relaxes, blood is drawn back toward the heart through open-ended pores (ostia).
Hemolymph fills all of the interior hemocoel of the body and surrounds all cells. Hemolymph is
composed of water, inorganic salts (mostly Na+, Cl-, K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+), and organic compounds (mostly
carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids). The primary oxygen transporter molecule is hemocyanin.
There are free-floating cells, the hemocytes, within the hemolymph. They play a role in the arthropod
immune system.
Absence of circulatory system
Circulatory systems are absent in some animals, including flatworms (phylum Platyhelminthes). Their
body cavity has no lining or enclosed fluid. Instead a muscular pharynx leads to an extensively branched
digestive system that facilitates direct diffusion of nutrients to all cells. The flatworm's dorso-ventrally
flattened body shape also restricts the distance of any cell from the digestive system or the exterior of the
organism. Oxygen can diffuse from the surrounding water into the cells, and carbon dioxide can diffuse out.
Consequently every cell is able to obtain nutrients, water and oxygen without the need of a transport system.
Some animals, such as jellyfish, have more extensive branching from their gastrovascular cavity (which
functions as both a place of digestion and a form of circulation), this branching allows for bodily fluids to
reach the outer layers, since the digestion begins in the inner layers.