Pulmonary Ventilation: Processes, Mechanisms, and Terminologies

This article discusses the processes, mechanisms, and terminologies involved in pulmonary ventilation, including the role of intercostal muscles, the relationship between pressure and volume, and respiratory volumes and capacities.

Running head: human physiology
Human Physiology

Human Physiology
Pulmonary Ventilation
Pulmonary ventilation can also be known as breathing process. Breathing is a process which
involves inhaling and exhaling of air from and to the atmosphere. Atmospheric air consists of
mixture of air from which one of them is oxygen. The oxygen is taken by our body which is
responsible for many processes inside the body. Oxygen is taken from the air into the lungs
and carbon dioxide is exhaled out of the body. This exchange of gases takes place due to
famous universal phenomena or it can be said by law of low and high pressure. It states that
air is inhaled with a high pressure in lungs. And this takes place inside the lungs of human
body or any other animal as well. Air is taken inside the lungs due to the creation of low
pressure inside the lungs and exhaled out because this pressure becomes more inside the
lungs as compared to the outside atmospheric pressure. So, in this paper the discussion will
be made on the topic “processes involved in pulmonary ventilation”.
This difference of pressure is created due to contraction and expansion of the organ called
“diaphragm”. When the diaphragm expands it creates a region of low pressure inside the
lungs and the air from atmosphere is taken inside the lungs and this air is oxygen. This intake
of oxygen from the atmosphere is called inspiration process and releasing of carbon dioxide
to atmosphere is called expiration. The air containing oxygen is taken into the body to the
lungs and passes through various organs, and also passes through some of the tiny hairs
which serves as the filters of the air going into the lungs (Mayo et al., 2016). Air is taken in
through mouth or nose or through nasal cavity which consists of these tiny hairs. In this the
air and dust got filtered and most of the unwanted particles are filtered. These hairs which are
situated in the nasal cavity are commonly known as cilia. After passing through the nasal
cavity and cilia the air is passed through wind pipe which is inside our neck and then finally
into the lungs (Wallden, 2017).
Diaphragm and lungs serve as the most important organs during respiration process. When
the diaphragm contracts it makes the lungs to expand hence creating a low-pressure region
inside the lungs. The condition of pressure gradient is created and the air from the outside
atmosphere is taken inside the lungs. Totally opposite process takes place in expiration
process. In expiration, the diaphragm expands and it squeeze the lungs (Párraga, Moore and
Fahlman, 2018). Hence causing a high-pressure region inside the lungs can results in the
exhalation of air inside the lungs to the atmosphere. This expiration process in which
diaphragm expansion takes place is not a process which is to be taken in particular because
after the expansion of diaphragm and inspiration process of air, the diaphragm muscles will
go to its original position, and this only causes the expansion condition of the diaphragm
muscle and hence causes the lungs to contract and creating a high-pressure region (Amado-
Rodríguez et al., 2017).
The first key concept is related with respiration process in relation to the process involved in
pulmonary ventilation. It takes place in normal condition. But what happens when a person is
running or doing exercise or some other work. While doing activities like exercising or
running there is an increase in the demand of oxygen inside the body and hence, there is an
increase in the rate of respiration (Kenney, Wilmore and Costill, 2015). So, it can be stated
that how does our body manages to fulfil this requirement of more oxygen inside the body
during activities like running and doing exercising, and also what all are the organs that helps
in maintaining the proper rate of inspiration as per the requirement of the body. Intercoastal
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Human Physiology
muscles are the organs which helps our body to deal with such conditions, these muscles lift
up and expands the ribs of our body when the rate of respiration is increased. This lifting and
expanding of ribs allow more air to enter the lungs which helps to fulfill the proper
requirement of oxygen inside the body. So, whenever there is a need of increasing the amount
of oxygen to be inhaled in, intercoastal muscles come into action to fulfill the demands
(Graziottin and Gambini, 2015).
The respiration rate is the number of times the human inhale and exhale air from the lungs
per min. The respiration rate is between 12 to 20. This a rate of respiration when a person is
at rest. This means that when a person is totally at a state of rest, he or she breathes 12 to 20
times or inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide 12 to 20 times within a minute. It has been
analyzed that the estimated time is taken by different respiration organs or the work done by
the organs to inhale oxygen from atmosphere and transfer it to different body parts and
exhale carbon dioxide back to the atmosphere (Thomas, Mann and Williams, 2018). But if a
person is having a rate of respiration below 12 or above 25 breaths per minute then in this
condition it can be said to be considered as abnormal and these are the cases of diseases the
asthama, pneumonia, heart attack and lung diseases. These are the diseases which can take
place due to intake of heavy dose of alcohol, drugs, and other such intoxicating things. Air
pollution can also be the big reason of abnormal respiratory rate (Whitsett and Weaver,
2015).
The second key concept is related with the “mechanism behind the pulmonary ventilation
system”. The main mechanism behind the pulmonary ventilation is defined by the law which
is given by famous and known boyle’s law. This law states that pressure and volume are
inversely proportional to each other, this means that whenever there is an increase in volume
the pressure will be decreased and if the pressure is increased it will result in decrease in the
volume (Lee et al., 2017). And this happens in lungs as well whenever the lungs of our body
contract the volume is decreased this means increase in pressure and hence air in form of
carbon dioxide is exhaled to atmosphere and similarly when the lungs expand there is a
decrease in pressure and hence the air is inhaled inside the lungs (Rutty et al., 2015). There
are commonly three types of pressure which are analyzed in respiration system. These
pressures are atmospheric pressure, intra-alveolar and inter-pleural. Atmospheric pressure is
the pressure of the air surrounding our environment, intra-alveolar pressure is the pressure
that is exerted by the air inside the lungs and inter-pleural is the pressure of air inside pleural
cavity (Levin, Schiebler and Hopkins, 2017).
The third key concept is related with “terminologies which are used in pulmonary
ventilation”. The terminologies are, respiration volume and capacity. The respiratory volume
is further sub divided into tidal volume, expiratory reserve and inspiratory reserve volume.
The volume of air that enters inside the lungs from the atmosphere during inspiration process
is called tidal volume. Tidal volume is taken into the consideration when the breathing is
done in quite state or no exertion is done by the body, whereas expiratory reserve volume is
the amount of air which a person exhale above the tidal volume in case of exertion and
inspiratory reserve volume is the amount. Also, there is one more type which is called as
residual volume and it is considered as the amount of air left inside the lungs when all the air
has been exhaled (Baumgardner and Hedenstierna, 2016).
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Human Physiology
Summary
Pulmonary ventilation is related with breathing which is a process which involves inhaling
and exhaling of air from and to the atmosphere. The main mechanism behind pulmonary
ventilation is defined by the law which is stated by the very famous and known boyle’s law.
This law states that pressure and volume are inversely proportional to each other, this means
that whenever there is an increase in volume the pressure will be decreased and if the
pressure is increased it will result in decrease in volume. While doing activities like
exercising or running there is an increase in the demand of oxygen inside the body and hence,
there is an increase in the rate of respiration and in such case. Intercoastal muscles are the
organs which helps our body to deal with such conditions, these muscles lift up and expands
the ribs of our body when the rate of respiration is increased. The intra-alveolar and inter-
pleural are the king of pressure which changes with the change in breathing process
(inspiration and expiration). Also, the respiratory volume and capacity are the name given to
the volume of air present in the organ at a particular time during the respiration process. So,
it can be concluded that the entire evidence which are stated are convincing. With the overall
analysis it can be easy to predict the overall process of pulmonary ventilation and also with
these various different concepts related to different terminologies are analyzed. Therefore, the
overall analysis done is convincing with depth research.
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Human Physiology
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