CIRCULATORY SYSTEM

 Circulatory System is responsible for transporting materials throughout the entire body.
 It transport nutrients, water, and oxygen to your billions of body cells and carries away wastes
such as carbon dioxide that body cells produce.
 It is an amazing highway that travels through your entire body connecting all your body cells.

Components

 Heart Blood Vessels

(arteries,veins,capillaries)

The Circulatory System delivers:

1. Oxygen
2. Blood
3. Nutrients
4. Hormones

To the other part of the body.

 Which gases are transported to and form the body’s cells by the blood flowing in the circulatory
system?

Oxygen is the gas needed for respiration and is transported to the body’s cells.
 The circulatory system carries two types of blood

 Arrangement of the circulatory system means that these two types of blood do not mix.

The heart is the organ at the centre of the circulatory systems. It pumps blood around the body.

The inside of the heart is divided into two sections so that the two types of blood (oxygen-rich and
oxygen-poor) are kept apart.

The Heart: Structures

Heart Coverings:

 Pericardium
- Covers the heart and the large blood vessels attached to the heart.
 Visceral Pericardium
- Innermost layer
- Directly on the heart
 Parietal Pericardium
- Layer on the top of the visceral pericardium
 PERICARDIUM

- Protective sac of connective tissue

- Surrounds the heart
- Filled with fluid

 Heart Walls:
  Epicardium
-Outermost layer
- Fat to cushion heart
The epicardium is an evolutionarily conserved layer of mesothelium covering the
outermost cell layer of the vertebrate heart. During fetal development, the epicardium serves
as a progenitor source, contributing multipotent cells that give rise to cardiac mesenchyme.

 Myocardium
- Middle layer
- Primarily cardiac muscle
- The muscle of the heart
- Strong and thick
- Composed of spontaneously contracting cardiac muscle fibers.
- Can conduct electricity like nerves.
- It’s blood supply comes from the coronary arteries.
The muscle layer of the heart is termed the myocardium and is made up of
cardiomyocytes. The myocardium is found in the walls of all four chambers of the heart, though
it is thicker in the ventricles and thinner in the atria.

 Endocardium
- Innermost layer
- Thin and smooth
- Stretches as the heart pump.
The endocardium is the innermost layer of the heart and lines the chambers and
extends over projecting structures such as the valves, chordae tendineae, and papillary muscles.

 The right and left sides of the heart are separated by a septum, or wall.
 The septum prevents the mixing of oxygen rich and oxygen poor blood.
 One each side of the septum are two chambers.
 The upper chamber (receives blood) is the atrium.
 The lower chamber (pumps blood out of heart) is the ventricle.
Four Chambers

 Two Atria
 Upper chambers
 Left and right
 Separated by Interatrial septum

 Two Ventricles
 Lower chambers
 Left and right
 Separated by Interventricular septum

4 Chamber of the heart have different functions:

 The valves between the atria and ventricles are connected to the inner walls of the heart by
tough tendons.

 The tendons allow the valves to close and hold the valve flaps in place. They prevent the valves
from flipping up and turning inside out.
Tendons: They are commonly referred to as the “heart strings” since they resemble small pieces of
string. Functionally, the chordae tendineae play a vital role in holding the atrioventricular valves in
place while the heart is pumping blood.

Valves: The valves prevent the backward flow of blood. These valves are actual flaps that are located
on each end of the two ventricles (lower chambers of the heart). They act as one-way inlets of blood
on one side of a ventricle and one-way outlets of blood on the other side of a ventricle.

 A valve acts like a door that only opens in one direction.

 If the door is held by someone at a fixed point, only the arm moves as the door opens and closes.
 When the door is closed the arm is fully extended, so the door can only be opened in one
direction.

 In the heart, the tendons holding the valve are like the arm holding the door.
 One end of each tendon is fixed to the wall of the heart and so the valve can open in one
direction.

How does the heart pump blood?

 The heart can pump blood because it is made of muscle. Muscle tissue works by contracting
(squeezing) and relaxing.

 All the parts of the heart on either side, work together in a repeated sequence.
 The two atria contract and relax; then the two ventricles contract and relax.
 This is how blood moves through the heart and is pumped to the lungs and the body.
 One complete sequence of contraction and relaxation is called a heartbeat.
Blood Vessels

 As blood moves through the circulatory system it moves 3 types of blood vessels:
1. Arteries: Carry blood away from the heart.
2. Capillaries: Link arterioles to veins.
3. Veins: Carry blood towards the heart.

Arteries:
 Large vessels
 Carry blood from heart to tissues of body.
 Carry oxygen rick blood, with the exception of pulmonary arteries.
 Thick walls-need to withstand pressure produced when heart pushes blood into them.

Capillaries:
 Smallest blood vessels.
 Walls are only one cell thick and very narrow.
 Important for bringing nutrients and oxygen to tissues and absorbing CO2 and other waste
products.

Veins:
 Once blood has passed through the capillary systems it must be returned to the heart. Done by
veins.
 Walls contains connective tissue and smooth muscle.
 Largest veins contain one way valves that keep blood flowing toward heart.
 Many found near skeletal muscles. When muscles contact, blood is forced through veins.

Blood Pressure
 The heart produces pressure.
 The force of blood on the wall of the arteries is known as blood pressure.
 Blood pressure decreases as the heart relaxes, but the rest of the circulatory system is still under
pressure.
 When blood pressure is taken, the cuff is wrapped around the upper portion of the arm and
pumped with air until blood flow in the artery is blocked.
 As the pressure in the cuff is relaxed, 2 numbers are recorded.
 Systolic pressure - the first number taken, is the force felt in the arteries when the
ventricles contract.
 Diastolic pressure - the second number taken, is the force of the blood on the arteries when
the ventricles relax.

Blood

What percent of your body is blood? 8%

How much blood do we contain?
 On average 4-6 liters
 We contain about a pint of blood for every 15 pounds of body weight.
Composition of Blood:
What percent of your blood is cellular? 45%
What percent of your blood is plasma? 55%

 Composed of plasma and blood cells.

 Types of Cells are:
 Red Blood Cells
 White Blood Cells
 Platelets
 Plasma
 Straw colored
 90% water
 10% dissolved gasesm salts, nutrients, enzymes, hormones, wastes, and proteins.

 Red Blood Cells

 Most numerous type

 Transport oxygen
 Get color from hemoglobin
 Disk shaped
 Made in red bone marrow
 Circulate for 120days

 White Blood Cells

 Guard against infection, fight parasites, and attack bacteria.
 Number of WBC’s increase when body is fighting.
 Lymphocytes produce antibodies which fight pathogens and remember them.

 Platelets
 Aid the body in clotting
 Small fragments
 Stick to edges of broken blood cell and secrete clotting factors to help form clot.
Blood has 3 main Functions
 Transport
 Protection
 Temperature Regulation