Anatomy of arterial systems reveals that the major function of the heart is not to emit waves associated with the axial blood motion

摘要

The CrossTalk articles by Tyberg. (2013) and Westerhof & Westerhof (2013) and the comments about the forward and backward pressure waves in the arterial system reveal that most researchers depict the left ventricle as a wave emitter, and all the wave models arise from the axial momentum equation or the Navier-Stokes equations applied to the blood. These models not only have difficulty in defining the reflection sites, they also cannot explain many physiological ob-servationssuch as that the heart rate is inversely proportional to the size of the animal (Milnor, 1989), that the large arterial vessels have a high distensibility and are subjected to substantial longitudinal stretching in vivo, and that the organs of most mammals have similar structures and connect perpendicularly to the aorta at similar relative positions. Anatomical designs are important elements in the mechanism of blood deliv-eryand therefore a realistic haemodynamic model should be able to provide insight into the underlying physiological effects.