Stochasticity of flow through microcirculation as a regulator of oxygen delivery.
OBJECTIVE
Observations of microcirculation reveal that the blood flow is subject to interruptions and resumptions. Accepting that blood randomly stops and resumes, one can show that the randomness could be a powerful means to match oxygen delivery with oxygen demand.


METHODS
The ability of the randomness to regulate oxygen delivery is based on two suppositions: (a) the probability for flow to stop does not depend on the time of uninterrupted flow, thus the number of interruptions of flow follows a Poisson distribution; (b) the probability to resume the flow does not depend on the time for flow being interrupted; meaning that time spent by erythrocytes at rest follows an exponential distribution. Thus the distribution of the time to pass an organ is a compound Poisson distribution. The Laplace transform of the given distribution gives the fraction of oxygen that passes the organ.


RESULTS
Oxygen delivery to the tissues directly depends on characteristics of the irregularity of the flow through microcirculation.


CONCLUSIONS
By variation of vasomotion activity it is possible to change delivery of oxygen to a tissue by up to 8 times.
Kislukhin
Viktor V
VV
Transonic Systems Inc, Ithaca, NY, USA. victor.kislukhin@transonic.com
D018056:Hemorheology / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008833:Microcirculation / Q000502:physiology*; D010100:Oxygen / Q000378:metabolism*; D013269:Stochastic Processes
D010100:Oxygen