Circulatory System Lab Report

The circulatory system is composed of vessels that take blood from the heart, thin-walled capillaries where exchange occurs, and vessels that return blood to the heart. Blood is pumped by the heart simultaneously into two ways the pulmonary and systemic circuits. The pulmonary system takes blood through the lungs where gas exchange occurs and the systemic system transports blood to all parts of the body where exchange with tissue fluid takes place. In practical terms, we can think of the systemic circuit as a means to conduct blood to and away from the capillaries, because only here does exchange with tissue fluid take place. Nutrient molecules leave the capillaries to be taken up by the cells, and waste molecules given off by the cells are received by the capillaries to be transported away. Capillaries abound in all parts of the body, and no cell is more than a few micrometers from a capillary. Blood is composed of two parts: formed elements and plasma. All of the formed elements contribute to homeostasis, as outlined in table 1. Oxygen is utilized during cellular respiration, a process that …show more content…
Any interruption to the flow of blood may bring brain damage or death. The nervous system maintains homeostasis by controlling and regulating the other parts of the body. A deviation from a normal set point acts as a stimulus to a receptor, which sends nerve impulses to a regulating center in the brain. The brain directs an effector to act in such a way that an adaptive response takes place. If, for example, the deviation was a lowering of body temperature, the effector acts to increase body temperature. The adaptive response returns the body to a state of normalcy and the receptor, the regulating center, and the effector temporarily cease their activities. Since the effector is regulated by the very conditions it produced, this process is called control by negative