This is about compliance in blood vessels and the heart specifically.
I have looked this up multiple times, and whenever I think I have it, I get another question wrong because I apparently don’t have it down pat yet. I have been told that ‘compliance is the inverse of elasticity’ but that just makes me go through more mental hoops to get to the same answer.
Can someone explain this concept to me? I’ve tried everything short of eating my textbook.
In: 2
you can think of a blood vessel as if it were a rubber tube. now, rubber can be harder or softer, and more or less bouncy.
“compliance” refers to how much that rubber tube allows itself to expand when the liquid inside it is a LOT or under high pressure.
“elasticity” is the ability of that tube to bounce back to its original shape.
so for example if you have a tube that is low compliance, high elasticity, it will resist expanding, and even when it does expand a little, it will tend to revert back to its original shape. this means that the pressure inside it will get higher.
Latest Answers