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An arteriole is a small-diameter blood vessel in the microcirculation that extends and branches out from an artery and leads to capillaries. [1] Arterioles have muscular walls (usually only one to two layers of smooth muscle cells) and are the primary site of vascular resistance. The greatest change in blood pressure and velocity of blood flow ...
The tunica media may (especially in arteries) be rich in vascular smooth muscle, which controls the caliber of the vessel. Veins do not have the external elastic lamina, but only an internal one. The tunica media is thicker in the arteries rather than the veins. The outer layer is the tunica adventitia and the thickest layer in veins. It is ...
The afferent arterioles are a group of blood vessels that supply the nephrons in many excretory systems. They play an important role in the regulation of blood pressure as a part of the tubuloglomerular feedback mechanism. The afferent arterioles branch from the renal artery, which supplies blood to the kidneys.
The aorta is the root systemic artery (i.e., main artery). In humans, it receives blood directly from the left ventricle of the heart via the aortic valve . As the aorta branches and these arteries branch, in turn, they become successively smaller in diameter, down to the arterioles .
A pulmonary artery is an artery in the pulmonary circulation that carries deoxygenated blood from the right side of the heart to the lungs.The largest pulmonary artery is the main pulmonary artery or pulmonary trunk from the heart, and the smallest ones are the arterioles, which lead to the capillaries that surround the pulmonary alveoli.
The arteries are usually divided into different segments from 1–4 or 5 to denote how far the level of the branch with the lower numbers denoting vessels closer to the source artery. Even though the arteries branching off these vessels retain some aspect of constancy in terms of size and position, a great amount of variety in topography ...
Resistance arteries are usually small arteries or arterioles and include precapillary sphincters. [1] Having thick muscular walls and narrow lumen they contribute the most to the resistance to blood flow. Degree of the contraction of vascular smooth muscle in the wall of a resistance artery is directly connected to the size of the lumen.
However, this reduces blood flow to the kidneys. To compensate, the efferent arterioles constrict to a greater degree than the other arteries, in response to increased levels of angiotensin II. Pressure in glomerular capillaries is therefore maintained and glomerular filtration rate remains adequate.