Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Donna Carden, Marie Elie The acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a complex disorder associated with rapidly progressive lung inflammation, non-cardiogenic pulmonary edema, hypoxemic respiratory failure and one or more well-defined risk factors including sepsis and ... Publication Date: 10/01/2013
Malaria Erika Martins Braga, Juliana Carvalho-Tavares This ebook describes the pathogenesis of malaria and the major consequences of the parasitism to the vertebrate host. Malaria is one of the oldest infectious diseases of mankind, which still exerts a high burden on human health and society. It is cau... Publication Date: 09/01/2013
Immune Mechanisms of Hypertension Michael J. Ryan In the vast majority of patients, hypertension has no identifiable cause. Moreover, despite decades of discovery and therapeutic development, approximately only half of the hypertensive patients are achieving clinically recommended blood pressure con... Publication Date: 09/01/2013
Cell Survival Programs and Ischemia/Reperfusion Maike Krenz, Christopher Baines, Theodore Kalogeris, Ronald J. Korthuis The major purpose of this book is to review the evidence supporting the concept that intrinsic cell survival programs can be activated by a variety of mildly noxious stimuli or pharmacologic agents to confer protection against the deleterious effects... Publication Date: 09/01/2013
Control of Potassium David B. Young Several physiological mechanisms act to regulate renal potassium excretion and distribution. Together they comprise an integrated control system that may be envisioned as being made up of several interacting negative feedback control mechanisms, all ... Publication Date: 08/01/2013
Stroke Jens Minnerup, Antje Schmidt, Christiane Albert-Weissenberger, Christoph Kleinschnitz Stroke is a major global health problem because of its large contribution to mortality, morbidity, and disability. The most common form of stroke is ischemic stroke which accounts for approximately 80% of all strokes. During the past decade, our know... Publication Date: 08/01/2013
Pulmonary Gas Exchange G. Kim Prisk, Susan R. Hopkins The lung receives the entire cardiac output from the right heart and must load oxygen onto and unload carbon dioxide from perfusing blood in the correct amounts to meet the metabolic needs of the body. It does so through the process of passive diffus... Publication Date: 08/01/2013
Developmental Programming of Cardiovascular Disease Barbara T. Alexander Numerous epidemiological studies report that birth weight is inversely associated with blood pressure, suggesting that slow growth during fetal life programs hypertension and increased risk for cardiovascular disease in later life. Different experime... Publication Date: 06/01/2013
Peripheral Arterial Disease Christopher G. Kevil, Shyamal C. Bir, Christopher B. Pattillo Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a cardiovascular disorder of the peripheral vasculature due to progressive atherosclerotic stenosis of conduit arteries restricting blood flow to tissues. PAD is typically a disease of older individuals, and the i... Publication Date: 08/01/2013
Ascites Jens Henriksen, Soren Moller This volume deals with the history, aetiology, pathophysiology, symptoms, signs, prognosis, and rational treatment of ascites. During the past decade, our knowledge of the pathophysiology of ascites has increased substantially and more specific thera... Publication Date: 06/01/2013
Respiratory Muscles Gary C. Sieck, Heather M. Gransee Breathing is usually automatic and without conscious effort; yet our breathing is a complex motor function requiring the coordinated activation of a number of respiratory muscles that span from our heads to our abdomen. Some of our respiratory muscle... Publication Date: 05/01/2012
Local Control of Microvascular Perfusion Michael Hill, Michael Davis Local control of microvascular perfusion refers to the ability of individual tissues to maintain a relative constancy of hemodynamics in the face of changing perfusion pressure while meeting metabolic demands appropriately. The regulation of local bl... Publication Date: 10/01/2012
Alveolar Structure and Function D. Keith Payne, Adam Wellikoff In the distal regions of the human lung, one of the most challenging problems facing a large multicellular organism is solved; ensuring an adequate supply of oxygen for aerobic tissue metabolism while removing associated waste products. Conduits for ... Publication Date: 11/01/2012
Airway Epithelium Jonathan Widdicombe The airways are lined with a film of fluid ~10µ deep that acts as the first line of defense against inhaled pathogens, dirt, and noxious vapors. Transepithelial fluid movements driven by active transepithelial ion transport serve to regulate the... Publication Date: 11/01/2012
Neural Control of Gastrointestinal Function David Grundy, Simon Brookes The gastrointestinal tract is a long, muscular tube responsible for the digestion of food, assimilation of nutrients and elimination of waste. This is achieved by secretion of digestive enzymes and absorption from the intestinal lumen, with different... Publication Date: 01/01/2012
Intestinal Water and Electrolyte Transport Mrinalini Rao, Jayashree Sarathy (nee Venkatasubramanian), Mei Ao The unique architecture and physiology of the mammalian intestine, together with a tightly coordinated regulatory system, allows for the handling and absorption of as much as 9 L of fluid a day with 98% or greater efficiency. Advances in the past 40 ... Publication Date: 01/01/2012
The Ocular Circulation Jeffrey Kiel This presentation describes the unique anatomy and physiology of the vascular beds that serve the eye. The needs for an unobstructed light path from the cornea to the retina and a relatively fixed corneal curvature and distance between refractive str... Publication Date: 01/01/2011
The Exocrine Pancreas Stephen Pandol The secretions of the exocrine pancreas provide for digestion of a meal into components that are then available for processing and absorption by the intestinal epithelium. Without the exocrine pancreas, malabsorption and malnutrition result. This cha... Publication Date: 01/01/2011
The Enteric Microbiota Francisco Guarner The human gut is the natural habitat for a diverse and dynamic microbial ecosystem having an important impact on health and disease. Bacteria have lived in and on animal hosts since multicellular life evolved about 1 billion years ago. Hosts provide ... Publication Date: 01/01/2011
The Endothelium, Part II Michel Feletou The endothelium controls vascular tone by releasing various vasoactive substances. Additionally, another pathway associated with the hyperpolarization of both endothelial and vascular smooth muscle cells contributes also to endothelium-dependent rela... Publication Date: 01/01/2011
Linking the World's Information When Sir Tim Berners-Lee first proposed the foundations of the World Wide Web at CERN in 1989, his manager called it “vague, but exciting...