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Updated: Oct 5, 2026

Measurement of the Pressure-volume Curve in Mouse Lungs
Published on: January 27, 2015
Characterization of the branching structure of the lung from "macroscopic" pressure-volume measurements
A Majumdar1, A M Alencar, S V Buldyrev
1Center for Polymer Studies and Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.
Abstract:
We analyze the problem of fluid flow in a bifurcating structure containing random blockages that can be removed by fluid pressure. We introduce an asymmetric tree model and find that the predicted pressure-volume relation is connected to the distribution Pi(n) of the generation number n of the tree's terminal segments. We use this relation to explore the branching structure of the lung by analyzing experimental pressure-volume data from dog lungs. The Pi(n) extracted from the data using the model agrees well with experimental data on the branching structure. We can thus obtain information about the asymmetric structure of the lung from macroscopic, noninvasive pressure-volume measurements.
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