Biology › Section P · Breathing, circulation, and excretion › Topic P.2
Breathing
Your lungs have no muscle that can inflate them, yet you move about half a litre of air with every quiet breath. The trick is pressure: change the size of the chest, and air has no choice but to follow.
In this topic
- Air flows from high pressure to low
- One breath, in and out
- The pleura: why lungs follow the chest
- Worked example: Boyle's law in the chest
- Ventilation and dead space
- Worked example: shallow versus deep breathing
- Surfactant, compliance and resistance
- Worked example: reading a spirometry result
- Who sets the pace?
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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