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Homeostatic Respiratory System

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These 3 experiments offered an in-depth understanding to the respiratory system’s role in homeostatic regulation. Furthermore, it provided an insight to the relationship between the respiratory system and the central nervous system. Consequently, seen firsthand throughout the experiments, this system is one of the first responders when the body requires an accurate, and immediate response to changes involving internal, and external gas compositions.
With that said, Table 2 was a collection of the subject’s static lung volumes, here it comprised of tidal volume, inspiratory reserve volume, and expiratory reserve volume. During normal conditions, tidal volume is an indication of air being inhaled and exhaled when the body is at rest. Looking …show more content…

For the test subject, her IRV value was 1.025 liters of air. Meaning, this was the volume she inspired following a normal tidal inhalation. As for subject’s expiratory reserve volume (ERV), this value was 3.28 liters during the time of the trial. This value reflected the amount of air forcefully exhaled following a standard tidal expiration. Upon comparing these results, ERV had a greater volume than IRV. This result did not align with the hypothesis because according to the lab guide, the inspiratory reserve volume of an adult is approximately 3000 ml, while expiratory reserve volume is 1200 ml. The reason why ERV is smaller than IRV is because the lungs are never empty; there is always a small volume of air that remains even after forcefully expiring following a normal expiration, this is known as residual volume. Therefore, the results for the subject’s ERV and IRV were opposite of each other. The possible reasoning for this discrepancy is attributed to human error. For instance, there was a possibility the test subject did not inhale to her maximum capacity. As for ERV, there was the likelihood of the subject exhaling a smaller volume than tidal expiration before the maximum expiration, therefore when it was used to calculate for ERV it resulted at a higher value than expected. The last type of static volume found at Table 2 is vital capacity. The vital capacity is the summation of the …show more content…

This event was simulated during the re-breathing exercise. Unlike hyperventilation, where the subject had a long breath-hold and a small carbon dioxide composition, re-breathing had the shortest duration and the highest percent of carbon dioxide. The test subject was able to hold her breath for only 27 seconds. While her CO2% before the breath-hold was 6.23% and after was 6.61%. This short duration of breath hold was attributed by a low concentration of oxygen in the arterial

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