Blood flow distribution in the duck lung and its control by respiratory gases

Blood flow to subunits of the lung was studied in the duck by use of radioactive microspheres. In spontaneously breathing, unanesthetized animals (series I) neopulmo was slightly better perfused than the average lung and along the paleopulmonic parabronchi, blood flow was found to decrease in the direction of ventilatory gas flow and thus of decreasing PO2 and increasing PCO2 in lung gas. The effects of respiratory gases on regional lung perfusion were investigated in unidirectionally ventilated animals (series II) in which gas mixtures offered to both lungs could be controlled independently. Local hypoxia resulted in reduction of local blood flow, whereas effects from hyperoxia or CO2 could not be substantiated. Reversal of the direction of unidirectional ventilatory flow (series III), and thus reversal of the profiles of respired gas concentrations along the parabronchi, suggest that the inhomogeneity in blood flow observed in spontaneously breathing animals of series I can only in part be explained as an acute adjustment to the local hypoxia. Calculations show that this inhomogeneity of blood flow constitutes an only minor impairment of the overall gas exchange efficacy of the parabronchial lung.