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An elastic artery (conducting artery or conduit artery) is an artery with many collagen and elastin filaments in the tunica media, which gives it the ability to stretch in response to each pulse. [1] This elasticity also gives rise to the Windkessel effect , which helps to maintain a relatively constant pressure in the arteries despite the ...
It is mainly composed of collagen and, in arteries, is supported by external elastic lamina. The collagen serves to anchor the blood vessel to nearby organs, giving it stability. The three layers of the blood vessels are: an inner tunica intima, a middle tunica media, and an outer tunica externa.
Systemic arteries can be subdivided into two types—muscular and elastic—according to the relative compositions of elastic and muscle tissue in their tunica media as well as their size and the makeup of the internal and external elastic lamina. The larger arteries (>10 mm diameter) are generally elastic and the smaller ones (0.1–10 mm ...
Micrograph showing the internal elastic lamina (thin pink wavy line - image edge mid-left to image edge bottom-centre-left). H&E stain. The internal elastic lamina or internal elastic lamella is a layer of elastic tissue that forms the outermost part of the tunica intima of blood vessels. It separates tunica intima from tunica media.
Vasa vasorum are networks of small blood vessels that supply the walls of large blood vessels, such as elastic arteries (e.g., the aorta) and large veins (e.g., the venae cavae). The name derives from Latin 'the vessels of the vessels'.
In the larger arteries, as the iliac, femoral, and carotid, elastic fibers and collagen [3] unite to form lamellae which alternate with the layers of smooth muscular fibers; these lamellae are united to one another by elastic fibers which pass between the smooth muscular bundles, and are connected with the fenestrated membrane of the inner coat.
Blood vessels function to transport blood to an animal's body tissues. In general, arteries and arterioles transport oxygenated blood from the lungs to the body and its organs, and veins and venules transport deoxygenated blood from the body to the lungs. Blood vessels also circulate blood throughout the circulatory system.
The tunica intima (Neo-Latin "inner coat"), or intima for short, is the innermost tunica (layer) of an artery or vein. It is made up of one layer of endothelial cells (and macrophages in areas of disturbed blood flow), [1] [2] and is supported by an internal elastic lamina. The endothelial cells are in direct contact with the blood flow.