THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM

The circulatory system is an organ system that passes nutrients (such as

amino acids and electrolytes), 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,[1]
and the lymphatic system,[2] 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 system. The lymphatic system, on the other
hand, is an open system.
The main components of the human circulatory system are the heart, the
blood, and the blood vessels. The circulatory system 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.
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.
TYPES OF CIRCULATION
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. Also, 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 except the lungs.
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.

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 tissues 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.
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

Location of the Heart

The center of the circulatory system is the heart, which is the main pumping
mechanism. The heart is made of muscle. The heart is shaped something like
a cone, with a pointed bottom and a round top. It is hollow so that it can fill
up with blood. An adult’s heart is about the size of a large orange and weighs
a little less than a pound.
The heart is in the middle of the chest. It fits snugly between the two lungs.
It is held in place by the blood vessels that carry the blood to and from its
chambers. The heart is tipped somewhat so that there is a little more of it on
the left side than on the right. The pointed tip at the bottom of the heart
touches the front wall of the chest. Every time the heart beats it goes
“thump” against the chest wall. You can feel the thumps if you press there
with your hand. You can also listen to them with your ear.
Structure of the Heart
If you looked inside your heart, you would see that a wall of muscle divides it
down the middle, into a left half and a right half. The muscular wall is called
a septum. The septum is solid so that blood cannot flow back and forth
between the left and right halves of the heart. Another wall separates the
rounded top part of the heart from the cone-shaped bottom part. So there
are actually four chambers (spaces) inside the heart. Each top chamber is
called an atrium (plural: atria). The bottom chambers are called ventricles.
The atria are often referred to as holding chambers, while the ventricles are
called pumping chambers. Thus, each side of the heart forms its own
separate system, a right heart and a left heart. Each half consists of an
atrium and a ventricle, and blood can flow from the top chamber to the
bottom chamber, or ventricle, but not between the two sides.
HEART CHAMBERS
Heart chamber is a general term used to refer to any of the four chambers of
the mammalian heart (an organ):
• Right atrium: receives oxygen-depleted blood from the body via the
superior vena cava and the inferior vena cava and pumps it through
the tricuspid valve into the right ventricle.
• Right ventricle: receives oxygen-depleted blood from the right atrium
and pumps it through the pulmonary valve into the lungs via the
pulmonary artery.
• Left atrium: receives oxygen-rich blood from the lungs via the
pulmonary veins and pumps it through the mitral valve into the left
ventricle.
• Left ventricle: receives oxygen-rich blood from the left atrium and
pumps it through the aortic valve to the entire body via the aorta,
including to the heart muscle itself through the coronary arteries.
The left ventricle is the thicker of the chambers as it is the chamber that
pumps the blood around the body.

The Valves
Blood can flow from the atria down into the ventricles because there are
openings in the walls that separate them. These openings are called valves
because they open in one direction like trapdoors to let the blood pass
through. Then they close, so the blood cannot flow backwards into the atria.
With this system, blood always flows in only one direction inside the heart.
There are also valves at the bottom of the large arteries that carry blood
away from the heart: the aorta and the pulmonary artery. These valves keep
the blood from flowing backward into the heart once it has been pumped
out.
Branching Blood Vessels
The heart is a pump whose walls are made of thick muscle. They can
squeeze (contract) to send blood rushing out. The blood does not spill all
over the place when it leaves the heart. Instead, it flows smoothly in tubes
called blood vessels. First, the blood flows into tubes called arteries. The
arteries leaving the heart are thick tubes. But the arteries soon branch again
and again to form smaller and smaller tubes. The smallest blood vessels,
called capillaries, form a fine network of tiny vessels throughout the body.
The capillaries have extremely thin walls so that the blood that they carry
can come into close contact with the body tissues. The tiny red blood cells
can then pass easily through the walls of the capillaries to deliver the oxygen
they carry to nearby cells. As the blood flows through the capillaries, it also
collects carbon dioxide waste from the body cells. The capillaries containing
carbon dioxide return this used blood to the heart through a different series
of branching tubes: The capillaries join together to form small veins. The
veins, in turn, unite with each other to form larger veins until the blood from
the body is finally collected into the large veins that empty into the heart. So
the blood vessels of the body carry blood in a circle: moving away from the
heart in arteries, traveling to various parts of the body in capillaries, and
going back to the heart in veins. The heart is the pump that makes this
happen.
The Circulation of Blood
The human circulatory system is really a two-part system whose purpose is
to bring oxygen-bearing blood to all the tissues of the body. When the heart
contracts it pushes the blood out into two major loops or cycles. In the
systemic loop, the blood circulates into the body’s systems, bringing oxygen
to all its organs, structures and tissues and collecting carbon dioxide waste.
In the pulmonary loop, the blood circulates to and from the lungs, to release
the carbon dioxide and pick up new oxygen. The systemic cycle is controlled
by the left side of the heart, the pulmonary cycle by the right side of the
heart. Let’s look at what happens during each cycle:
The systemic loop begins when the oxygen-rich blood coming from the lungs
enters the upper left chamber of the heart, the left atrium. As the chamber
fills, it presses open the mitral valve and the blood flows down into the left
ventricle. When the ventricles contract during a heartbeat, the blood on the
left side is forced into the aorta. This largest artery of the body is an inch
wide. The blood leaving the aorta brings oxygen to all the body’s cells
through the network of ever smaller arteries and capillaries. The used blood
from the body returns to the heart through the network of veins. All of the
blood from the body is eventually collected into the two largest veins: the
superior vena cava, which receives blood from the upper body, and the
inferior vena cava, which receives blood from the lower body region. Both
venae cavae empty the blood into the right atrium of the heart.
From here the blood begins its journey through the pulmonary cycle. From
the right atrium the blood descends into the right ventricle through the
tricuspid valve. When the ventricle contracts, the blood is pushed into the
pulmonary artery that branches into two main parts: one going to the left
lung, one to the right lung. The fresh, oxygen-rich blood returns to the left
atrium of the heart through the pulmonary veins.
Although the circulatory system is made up of two cycles, both happen at
the same time. The contraction of the heart muscle starts in the two atria,
which push the blood into the ventricles. Then the walls of the ventricles
squeeze together and force the blood out into the arteries: the aorta to the
body and the pulmonary artery to the lungs. Afterwards, the heart muscle
relaxes, allowing blood to flow in from the veins and fill the atria again. In
healthy people the normal (resting) heart rate is about 72 beats per minute,
but it can go much higher during strenuous exercise. Scientists have
estimated that it takes about 30 seconds for a given portion of the blood to
complete the entire cycle: from lungs to heart to body, back to the heart and
out to the lungs.
BLOOD FLOW