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A pulmonary alveolus (pl. alveoli; from Latin alveolus 'little cavity'), also called an air sac or air space, is one of millions of hollow, distensible cup-shaped cavities in the lungs where pulmonary gas exchange takes place. [1] Oxygen is exchanged for carbon dioxide at the blood–air barrier between the alveolar air and the pulmonary ...
The alveoli are the dead end terminals of the "tree", meaning that any air that enters them has to exit via the same route. A system such as this creates dead space, a volume of air (about 150 ml in the adult human) that fills the airways after exhalation and is breathed back into the alveoli before environmental air reaches them.
Alveolus (/ æ l ˈ v iː ə l ə s /; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit. Uses in anatomy and zoology
The alveoli are tiny air sacs in the lungs where gas exchange takes place. The mean number of alveoli in a human lung is 480 million. [11] When the diaphragm contracts, a negative pressure is generated in the thorax and air rushes in to fill the cavity. When that happens, these sacs fill with air, making the lung expand.
Alveoli and their capillary networks 3D medical illustration showing different terminating ends of bronchioles. Alveoli consist of two types of alveolar cell and an alveolar macrophage. The two types of cell are known as type I and type II cells [32] (also known as pneumocytes). [3] Types I and II make up the walls and alveolar septa.
An increase in Pi causes extraalveolar blood vessels to reduce in caliber, in turn causing blood flow to decrease (extraalveolar blood vessels are those blood vessels outside alveoli). Intraalveolar blood vessels (pulmonary capillaries) are thin walled vessels adjacent to alveoli which are subject to the pressure changes described by zones 1-3.
The rest of the difference is due to the continual uptake of oxygen by the pulmonary capillaries, and the continual diffusion of CO 2 out of the capillaries into the alveoli. The alveolar pO 2 is not routinely measured but is calculated from blood gas measurements by the alveolar gas equation .
Each respiratory bronchiole supplies the alveoli held in each acinus accompanied by a pulmonary artery branch. The pulmonary lobule is the portion of the lung ventilated by one bronchiole. Bronchioles are approximately 1 mm or less in diameter and their walls consist of ciliated cuboidal epithelium and a layer of smooth muscle .