Essay On Coronary Arteries

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An artery is an elastic blood vessel that transports blood away from the heart. There are two main types of arteries: pulmonary arteries and systemic arteries.

Pulmonary arteries carry blood from the heart to the lungs where the blood picks up oxygen. The oxygen rich blood is then returned to the heart via the pulmonary veins. Systemic arteries deliver blood to the rest of the body. The aorta is the main systemic artery and the largest artery of the body. It originates from the heart and branches out into smaller arteries which supply blood to the head region brachiocephalic artery, the heart itself coronary arteries, and the lower regions of the body.

The smallest arteries are called arterioles and they play a vital role in microcirculation. Microcirculation deals with the circulation of blood from arterioles to capillaries to venules the smallest veins. The liver, spleen and bone marrow contain vessel structures called sinusoids instead of capillaries. In these structures blood flows from arterioles to sinusoids to venules.
The artery wall consists of three layers;
•Tunica Adventitia - the strong outer covering of arteries and veins. It is composed of connective tissue as well as collagen and elastic fibres. These fibres allow the arteries and veins to stretch to prevent overexpansion due to the pressure that is exerted on the walls by blood flow.
•Tunica Media - the middle layer of the walls of arteries and veins. It is composed of smooth muscle and elastic fibres. This layer is thicker in arteries than in veins. Its function is to help in the increasing and decreasing in calibre of the artery.
•Tunica Intima - the inner layer of arteries and veins. In arteries this layer is composed of an elastic membrane lining and smooth e...

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...Another difference between the three is that the arteries mainly carry oxygenated blood. This is different to the veins because they mostly carry de-oxygenated blood, furthermore out of the three, the capillaries have the smallest blood vessels out of the three.
A third difference is that the arteries have high pressure within the blood, this is not the same in the veins though as the blood that they carry into the heart contains lower pressure.
Another contrasting point between the arteries and the veins is that the veins have thin outer walls, this is different to the arteries because they have much thicker outer walls which means that they can pump out a lot more blood.
The arteries have a thick inner layer of muscle and elastic fibres. This means that they can stretch a lot more than the veins that have a thin inner layer, this means that they are more compact.

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