Respiration (physiology)

In physiology, respiration is the movement of oxygen from the outside environment to the cells within tissues, and the transport of carbon dioxide in the opposite direction.

The physiological definition of respiration differs from the biochemical definition, which refers to a metabolic process by which an organism obtains energy (in the form of ATP) by oxidizing nutrients and releasing waste products. Although physiologic respiration is necessary to sustain cellular respiration and thus life in animals, the processes are distinct: cellular respiration takes place in individual cells of the organism, while physiologic respiration concerns the diffusion and transport of metabolites between the organism and the external environment.

In animals with lungs, physiological respiration involves respiratory cycles of inhaled and exhaled breaths. Inhalation (breathing in) is usually an active movement. The contraction of the diaphragm muscle cause a pressure variation, which is equal to the pressures caused by elastic, resistive and inertial components of the respiratory system. In contrast, exhalation (breathing out) is usually a passive process. Breathing in, brings air into the lungs where the process of gas exchange takes place between the air in the alveoli and the blood in the pulmonary capillaries

The process of breathing does not fill the alveoli with atmospheric air during each inhalation (about 350 ml per breath), but the inhaled air is carefully diluted and thoroughly mixed with a large volume of gas (about 2.5 liters in adult humans) known as the functional residual capacity which remains in the lungs after each exhalation, and whose gaseous composition differs markedly from that of the ambient air. Physiological respiration involves the mechanisms that ensure that the composition of the functional residual capacity is kept constant, and equilibrates with the gases dissolved in the pulmonary capillary blood, and thus throughout the body. Thus, in precise usage, the words breathing and ventilation are hyponyms, not synonyms, of respiration; but this prescription is not consistently followed, even by most health care providers, because the term respiratory rate (RR) is a well-established term in health care, even though it would need to be consistently replaced with ventilation rate if the precise usage were to be followed.

Classifications of respiration

There are several ways to classify the physiology of respiration:

By species

By mechanism

By experiments

By intensive care and emergency medicine

By other medical topics

Additional images

References

External links

Overview at Johns Hopkins University
Clinical Sciences - Respiratory An iPhone app covering detailed respiratory science and anatomy

v t e Respiratory physiology
Respiration	breath inhalation exhalation obligate nasal breathing respiratory rate respirometer pulmonary surfactant compliance elastic recoil hysteresivity airway resistance bronchial hyperresponsiveness constriction dilatation mechanical ventilation
Control	pons pneumotaxic center apneustic center medulla dorsal respiratory group ventral respiratory group chemoreceptors central peripheral pulmonary stretch receptors Hering–Breuer reflex
Lung volumes	VC FRC Vt dead space CC PEF calculations respiratory minute volume FEV1/FVC ratio Lung function tests spirometry body plethysmography peak flow meter nitrogen washout
Circulation	pulmonary circulation hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction pulmonary shunt
Interactions	ventilation (V) Perfusion (Q) Ventilation/perfusion ratio V/Q scan zones of the lung gas exchange pulmonary gas pressures alveolar gas equation alveolar–arterial gradient hemoglobin oxygen–hemoglobin dissociation curve (Oxygen saturation 2,3-BPG Bohr effect Haldane effect) carbonic anhydrase (chloride shift) oxyhemoglobin respiratory quotient arterial blood gas diffusion capacity (DLCO)
Insufficiency	high altitude death zone oxygen toxicity hypoxia