← 🫁 MedTech

🫁 The Carotid Body: The Sensor That Keeps You Breathing

Arterial O2:
Breathing:
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🫁 The Carotid Body: The Sensor That Keeps You Breathing

This simulator demonstrates how glomus cells in the carotid body respond to changing arterial oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, and how that signal travels through the glossopharyngeal nerve to alter breathing rate and depth.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

This simulator demonstrates how glomus cells in the carotid body respond to changing arterial oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, and how that signal travels through the glossopharyngeal nerve to alter breathing rate and depth.

🎮 How to Use

Adjust the simulated arterial oxygen and carbon dioxide levels to see how glomus cell firing rate changes, and watch how the resulting reflex signal shifts the breathing pattern in real time.

💡 Did You Know?

Gram for gram, the carotid body receives one of the highest blood flow rates of any tissue in the human body, allowing its glomus cells to sense changes in arterial blood gases almost as fast as the blood itself changes.