difference between pulmonary ventilation and alveolar ventilation
Answers
Answer:
Gas exchange occurs in the lungs between alveolar air and blood of the pulmonary capillaries. For effective gas exchange to occur, alveoli must be ventilated and perfused. Ventilation (V) refers to the flow of air into and out of the alveoli, while perfusion (Q) refers to the flow of blood to alveolar capillaries.7 days ago
Answer:
Alveolar ventilation refers to the amount of gas that reaches the alveoli during a breath.
Deadspace ventilation refers to the rest of the gas taken in during a breath that stays in spaces not capable of gas exchange, like the trachea and conducting airways
Pulmonary ventilation refers to the total volume of gas taken into the respiratory system during a breath, so alveolar ventilation + deadspace ventilation.
The function of alveolar ventilation is to remove carbon dioxide from the blood, and to add more oxygen to the blood so it can bind to hemoglobin and be delivered to body tissues. This happens because gases move according to their concentration gradients, in other words gas always move to where ever there is less of its self. Since the body’s metabolism is constantly removing oxygen from the blood and adding carbon dioxide, the blood has more carbon dioxide and less oxygen than inspired air. The chemical structure of hemoglobin is such that oxygen binds more readily to hemoglobin when it’s in the presence in low CO2 levels, and less readily when it’s in the presence of high CO2 levels (the Bohr effect). This is adventitious because metabolically active tissues that require oxygen also produce lots of CO2, so the hemoglobin “lets go” of it’s oxygen close to tissues that need it most, and binds to oxygen more easily when it is in the pulmonary capillary, where CO2 levels are lowest and oxygen levels are highest. This helps to pull more oxygen from the air into the blood.
As the other person who responded to this question said, pulmonary physiology is a huge topic. About a third of one of the A&P classes I’ve taken was pulmonary physiology, and I’ve also taken an entire class on the physiology of gas transport in the blood.