At any given moment only about 5-10% of our capillary beds actually have blood flowing through them. These muscles allow the body to precisely control when capillary beds receive blood flow. If all of the sphincters are closed, then the blood will flow directly from the arteriole to the venule through the thoroughfare channel (see Figure 21.17). If the sphincters are open, the blood will flow into the associated branches of the capillary blood. The blood entering some capillary beds is controlled by small muscles, called precapillary sphincters, illustrated in Figure 21.17. During exercise, blood is diverted to the skeletal muscles through vasodilation while blood to the digestive system would be lessened through vasoconstriction. For example, after a large meal, most of the blood is diverted to the stomach by vasodilation of vessels of the digestive system and vasoconstriction of other vessels. Because skeletal muscle contraction aids in venous blood flow, it is important to get up and move frequently after long periods of sitting so that blood will not pool in the extremities.īlood flow through the capillary beds is regulated depending on the body’s needs and is directed by nerve and hormone signals. Because most veins must move blood against the pull of gravity, blood is prevented from flowing backward in the veins by one-way valves. Blood primarily moves in the veins by the rhythmic movement of smooth muscle in the vessel wall and by the action of the skeletal muscle as the body moves. After the blood has passed through the capillary beds to the venules, veins, and finally to the main venae cavae, the rate of flow increases again but is still much slower than the initial rate in the aorta. The slow rate of travel through the capillary beds, which reach almost every cell in the body, assists with gas and nutrient exchange and also promotes the diffusion of fluid into the interstitial space. While the diameter of each individual arteriole and capillary is far narrower than the diameter of the aorta, and according to the law of continuity, fluid should travel faster through a narrower diameter tube, the rate is actually slower due to the overall diameter of all the combined capillaries being far greater than the diameter of the individual aorta. As blood moves into the arteries, arterioles, and ultimately to the capillary beds, the rate of movement slows dramatically to about 0.026 cm/sec, one-thousand times slower than the rate of movement in the aorta. In the aorta, the blood travels at 30 cm/sec. With each rhythmic pump, blood is pushed under high pressure and velocity away from the heart, initially along the main artery, the aorta. Blood is pushed through the body by the action of the pumping heart.
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