Human Cardiovascular Control - Hardcover

Rowell, Loring B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195073622 ISBN 13: 9780195073621

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1993

Synopsis

This is a new and comprehensive analysis of reflex and hormonal control of the human cardiovascular system that grew out of Rowell's 1986 volume, Human Circulation: Regulation During Physical Stress, and incorporates more recent findings. The goal is to assist students, physiologists and clinicians to understand control of pressure, vascular volume, and blood flow by examining the cardiovascular system during orthostasis and exercise, two stresses that most affect these variables. These stresses are employed to analyze the passive properties of the vascular system and provide a basis for a detailed examination of how these properties are modified by mechanical, neural, and humoral factors. Interactive effects of the vasculature on cardiac performance are stressed to underline the importance of autonomic control supplemented by muscle pumping to maintain adequate ventricular filling pressure, particularly during exercise. Limitations in cardiac pumping ability, in oxygen diffusion from lungs to blood and from blood to active muscle, in metabolism, and in neural control of organ blood flow are analyzed to explain how total oxygen consumption is limited. The unsolved mystery is the nature of signals that govern the cardiovascular responses to exercise. This is discussed in a new and critical synthesis of ideas and evidence concerning the specific "error signals" that are sensed and then corrected by activation of cardiac and vascular effectors during exercise.

About this title

From the Back Cover

This new analysis of reflex and hormonal control of the human cardiovascular system developed from questions raised in Human Circulation: During Physical Stress (Rowell, 1986) and from recent findings. The goal is to help students, physiologists and clinicians understand the control of pressure, vascular volume, and blood flow by examining the cardiovascular system during orthostasis and exercise, two stresses that most affect these variables. A discussion of the passive physical properties of the vascular system provides a basis for explaining how vascular control is modified by mechanical, neural, and humoral factors. Interactive effects of the vasculature on cardiac performance are emphasized; they reveal the importance of autonomic control, supplemented by muscle pumping, in maintaining adequate ventricular filling pressure. The author's detailed analysis of how total oxygen consumption is restricted focuses on limitations in cardiac pumping ability, oxygen diffusion from lungs to blood and from blood to active muscle, oxidative metabolism and neural control of organ blood flow. An unsolved mystery is the nature of the signals that govern the cardiovascular responses to exercise. This is discussed in a new and critical synthesis of ideas and evidence concerning the "error signals" that are sensed and then corrected by activation of the autonomic nervous system during exercise.

About the Author

Loring B. Rowell is a Professor of Physiology and Biophysics and of Medicine (Cardiology) at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Dr. Rowell has published over 150 research papers, chapters, and review articles and has served on the editorial boeards of American Journal of Physiology, Circulation Research, and the Journal of Applied Physiology.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0195073622
• ISBN 13: 9780195073621
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 520