Scaling Laws of Flow Rate, Vessel Blood Volume, Lengths, and Transit Times With Number of Capillaries.

ABSTRACT: The structure-function relation is one of the oldest hypotheses in biology and medicine; i.e., form serves function and function influences form. Here, we derive and validate form-function relations for volume, length, flow, and mean transit time in vascular trees and capillary numbers of various organs and species. We define a vessel segment as a "stem" and the vascular tree supplied by the stem as a "crown." We demonstrate form-function relations between the number of capillaries in a vascular network and the crown volume, crown length, and blood flow that perfuses the network. The scaling laws predict an exponential relationship between crown volume and the number of capillaries with the power, λ, of 4/3 < λ < 3/2. It is also shown that blood flow rate and vessel lengths are proportiona

SUBMITTER: Razavi MS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5974547 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature