BLOOD

VESSELS
 NEED TO KNOW…
You should be able to:

• Describe the direction of blood flow through arteries, veins and capillaries
• Describe the structure of arteries, veins and capillaries and outline how this structure
makes it suited to its function
 BLOOD VESSELS
• Are the pipes for the blood travelling around our bodies. The lumen of the vessel is where the
blood is found.
• There are three types
• Arteries
• Capillaries
• Veins
• The blood always flows in the same direction – it leaves the heart, goes into the arteries, then
the capillaries, then the veins, then back to the heart.
• There are generally three layers in a vessel wall:
• Tunica Interna
• Tunica Media
• Tunica Externa
 ARTERIES
• Carry blood away from the heart – the heart repeatedly pumping blood out at high
pressure ensures that the flow always continues in the one direction
• The biggest artery leading from the heart is the aorta
• The tunica media is the thickest layer – it has a large amount of muscle tissue and
elastic tissue.
• Muscle allows the vessel to control its diameter while providing a thick walled vessel
necessary to withstand the pressure of the blood flowing inside it.
• Elastic tissue allows the vessel to stretch and contract to accommodate the blood as it
is pumped through by the heart.
• Arteries divide and have side branches, vessels get smaller with each division
• The smallest branches are called arterioles. This is where the greatest and most rapid
drops in blood pressure occur
• When people describe blood pressure they use 2 numbers like 120 / 80.
• What they are describing, specifically is the pressure in major systemic arteries at heart
level.
BLOOD
• The pressure – the force pushing the blood flow along – changes during the cardiac cycle.
PRESSURE
It goes up when the heart is pushing blood out (this is the bigger number, mentioned first,
and called the systolic pressure) and drops when the flow from the left ventricle stops
(smaller number, mentioned second, called the diastolic pressure).
• There are a few determinants of blood pressure:
• How hard the heart is pumping
• How much resistance there is to flow in the vessels
• How much blood is in the circulation
• How much elastic tissue is in the major arteries
 CAPILLARIES
• The smallest of vessels
• They are down to only a single layer of endothelium as their walls – this layer is continuous with
the tunica intima.
• Thin walls allow for easy diffusion of nutrients from the blood inside the vessel into the tissues
• Wastes can also diffuse back into capillaries easily.
• Water balance at this level is achieved by hydrostatic pressure pushing water out of the proximal
capillaries and osmotic pressure pushing the water back into the distal end of the capillaries.

• This is where the core business of the transport system that is the CVS occurs – no where else in
the vasculature does exchange of materials occur!
 WHAT MAKES CAPILLARIES SO
AWESOME?
• What is their function?
• What about their structure is so suited to this function?
 VEINS
• Capillaries joining up again become venules (small veins) and then veins which return
blood to the heart
• Veins return to having the three layers in their walls.
• The tunica media contains muscle and is the thickest layer, though much thinner than
arteries.
• They are removed enough from the pumping action of the heart that flow can be slow in
some veins and is at risk of flowing backwards. Pressure is very low.
• Veins have valves in order to stop this backflow. Sometimes pumps are available to aid flow,
these are in the form of skeletal muscles contracting around the vein which act to squeeze it
 ARE THESE
VESSELS
LABELLED
CORRECTLY?
• Frequently arteries and veins will
travel together. Compare and
contrast features of arteries and
veins, using that information to
justify your answer to the above
question.