muscular arteries

(noun)

Medium-sized arteries that draw blood from an elastic artery and branch into resistance vessels, including small arteries and arterioles.

Related Terms

Examples of muscular arteries in the following topics:

  • Muscular Arteries

    • Distributing arteries are medium-sized arteries that draw blood from an elastic artery and branch into resistance vessels.
    • Muscular or distributing arteries are medium-sized arteries that draw blood from an elastic artery and branch into resistance vessels, including small arteries and arterioles.
    • In contrast to the mechanism elastic arteries use to store and dissipate energy generated by the heart's contraction, muscular arteries contain layers of smooth muscle providing allowing for involuntary control of vessel caliber and thus control of blood flow.
    • Muscular arteries can be identified by the well-defined elastic lamina that lies between the tunicae intima and media.
    • The splenic artery (lienal artery), the blood vessel that supplies oxygenated blood to the spleen, is an example of a muscular artery.

  • Elastic Arteries

    • Elastic arteries contain larger numbers of collagen and elastin filaments in their tunica media than muscular arteries do, giving them the ability to stretch in response to each pulse.
    • Elastic arteries include the largest arteries in the body, those closest to the heart, and give rise to the smaller muscular arteries.
    • The pulmonary arteries, the aorta, and its branches together comprise the body's system of elastic arteries.
    • In elastic arteries, the tunica media is rich with elastic and connective tissue.
    • The aorta makes up most of the elastic arteries in the body.

  • Artery Function

    • Arteries are blood vessels that carry blood away from the heart under pressure.
    • As with veins, arteries are comprised of three layers: the tunicae intima, media, and externa.
    • Arteries of the systemic circulation can be subdivided into muscular or elastic types according to the the relative compositions of elastic and muscle tissue in their tunica media.
    • Larger arteries are typically elastic and smaller arteries are more likely to be muscular.
    • Distinguish the function of the arterial system from that of venous system

  • Distribution of Blood

    • Humans have a closed cardiovascular system, meaning that blood never leaves the network of arteries, veins, and capillaries.
    • Humans have a closed cardiovascular system, meaning that the blood never leaves the network of arteries, veins, and capillaries.
    • Vasoconstriction is the narrowing of the blood vessels resulting from contraction of the muscular wall of the vessels, particularly the large arteries and small arterioles.
    • Therefore, dilation of arterial blood vessels (mainly the arterioles) causes a decrease in blood pressure.
    • Oxygenated arterial blood (red) and deoxygenated venous blood (blue) are distributed around the body.

  • Venous Blood Pressure

    • Venous pressure is the vascular pressure in a vein or in the atria of the heart, and is much less than arterial pressure.
    • Blood pressure generally refers to the arterial pressure in the systemic circulation.
    • Compared with arteries the tunica media, which contains smooth muscle or elastic fibers allowing for contraction, of veins is much thinner; because of this the ability to generate pressure in the veins is significantly compromised compared to arteries.
    • The pressure within the circulatory circuit as a whole is denoted mean arterial pressure (MAP).
    • Veins differ from arteries in structure and function; arteries are more muscular than veins, veins are often closer to the skin and contain valves to help keep blood flowing toward the heart.

  • Veins

    • The difference between veins and arteries is their direction of blood flow (out of the heart by arteries, returning to the heart for veins), not their oxygen content.
    • Veins differ from arteries in structure and function.
    • For example, arteries are more muscular than veins, veins are often closer to the skin, and veins contain valves to help keep blood flowing toward the heart, while arteries do not have valves and carry blood away from the heart.
    • Superficial veins - Superficial veins are close to the surface of the body, and have no corresponding arteries.
    • Deep veins - Deep veins are deeper in the body and have corresponding arteries.

  • Short-Term Chemical Control

    • There are many physical factors that influence arterial pressure.
    • In practice, each individual's autonomic nervous system responds to and regulates all of these interacting factors so that, although the above issues are important, the actual arterial pressure response of a given individual varies widely because of both split-second and slow-moving responses of the nervous system and end organs.
    • Vasoconstriction is the narrowing of the blood vessels resulting from contraction of the muscular wall of the vessels, particularly the large arteries and small arterioles.
    • Vasodilation refers to the widening of blood vessels resulting from relaxation of smooth muscle cells within the vessel walls, particularly in the large veins, large arteries, and smaller arterioles.

  • Gross Anatomy of the Stomach

    • The arteries supplying the stomach are the left gastric, the right gastric and right gastroepiploic branches of the hepatic, and the left gastroepiploic and short gastric branches of the lineal.
    • They supply the muscular coat, ramify in the submucous coat, and are finally distributed to the mucous membrane.
    • The arteries break up at the base of the gastric tubules into a plexus of fine capillaries, which run upward between the tubules.
    • Nerve plexuses are found in the submucous coat and between the layers of the muscular coat as in the intestine.
    • From these plexuses fibrils are distributed to the muscular tissue and the mucous membrane.

  • Arterioles

    • An arteriole is a small diameter blood vessel in the microcirculation system that branches out from an artery and leads to capillaries.
    • An arteriole is a small-diameter blood vessel which forms part of the micro-circulation that extends and branches out from an artery and leads to capillaries.
    • Arterioles have muscular walls (usually only one to two layers of smooth muscle) and are the primary site of vascular resistance.

  • Arteries of the Pelvis and Lower Limbs

    • The abdominal aorta divides into the major arteries of the leg: the femoral, popliteal, tibial, dorsal foot, plantar, and fibular arteries.
    • Formed when the common iliac artery divides the internal iliac artery at the vertebral level L5 descends inferiorly into the lesser pelvis.
    • The external iliac artery passes into the thigh becoming the femoral artery.
    • Key branches include the obturator artery, the inferior vesical artery in men and the equivalent vaginal artery in females and the rectal and gluteal arteries.
    • The posterior trunk gives rise to arteries that supply the posterior pelvic wall and the gluteal region including the iliolumbar artery which supplies the psoas major muscle, the lateral sacral arteries and the superior gluteal artery.