Regulation of the Circulation

THE first part of this presentation summarized the regulation of cardiac output by heart rate, stroke volume and the factors that influence them. Of equal importance to the regulation of the circulation is the distribution of the output to the vascular beds.Peripheral Vascular BedThe magnitude of the variation in blood flow in various organs is shown in Figure 8. Tissues, such as skeletal muscle and salivary glands, that exhibit a wide range of metabolic activity manifest an especially high basal vascular tone that is reduced when the tissue performs work — that is, becomes metabolically active.22 For example, the . . .