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The tunica media may (especially in arteries) be rich in vascular smooth muscle, which controls the caliber of the vessel. Veins do not have the external elastic lamina, but only an internal one. The tunica media is thicker in the arteries rather than the veins. The outer layer is the tunica adventitia and the thickest layer in veins. It is ...
In vertebrates, the circulatory system is a system of organs that includes the heart, blood vessels, and blood which is circulated throughout the body. [1] [2] It includes the cardiovascular system, or vascular system, that consists of the heart and blood vessels (from Greek kardia meaning heart, and Latin vascula meaning vessels).
The smallest veins are the post-capillary venules. Veins have a similar three-layered structure to arteries. The layers known as tunicae have a concentric arrangement that forms the wall of the vessel. The outer layer, is a thick layer of connective tissue called the tunica externa or adventitia; this layer is absent in the post-capillary ...
It is unique because the blood in it is not "oxygenated", as it has not yet passed through the lungs. The other unique artery is the umbilical artery, which carries deoxygenated blood from a fetus to its mother. Arteries have a blood pressure higher than other parts of the circulatory system. The pressure in arteries varies during the cardiac ...
The middle coat is composed of a thick layer of connective tissue with elastic fibers, intermixed, in some veins, with a transverse layer of muscular tissue. [6] The white fibrous element is in considerable excess, and the elastic fibers are in much smaller proportion in the veins than in the arteries.
Due to higher radial and circumferential pressures within the vessel wall layers closer to the main lumen of the artery, vasa vasorum externa cannot perfuse these regions of the vessel wall (occlusive pressure). The structure of the vasa vasorum varies with the size, function and location of the vessels.
Lateral to the artery, inside the carotid sheath with the common carotid, are the internal jugular vein and vagus nerve. At the lower part of the neck, on the right side of the body, the right recurrent laryngeal nerve crosses obliquely behind the artery; the right internal jugular vein diverges from the artery. On the left side, however, the ...
Veins have a much higher compliance than arteries (largely due to their thinner walls.) Veins which are abnormally compliant can be associated with edema . Pressure stockings are sometimes used to externally reduce compliance, and thus keep blood from pooling in the legs.