What is the function of respiration

Respiratory System

Overview

What is the respiratory system?

The respiratory system is the network of organs and tissues that help you breathe. It includes your airways, lungs and blood vessels. The muscles that power your lungs are also part of the respiratory system. These parts work together to move oxygen throughout the body and clean out waste gases like carbon dioxide.

Function

What does the respiratory system do?

The respiratory system has many functions. Besides helping you inhale (breathe in) and exhale (breathe out), it:

Anatomy

What are the parts of the respiratory system?

The respiratory system has many different parts that work together to help you breathe. Each group of parts has many separate components.

Your airways deliver air to your lungs. Your airways are a complicated system that includes your:

From your lungs, your bloodstream delivers oxygen to all your organs and other tissues.

Muscles and bones help move the air you inhale into and out of your lungs. Some of the bones and muscles in the respiratory system include your:

When you breathe out, your blood carries carbon dioxide and other waste out of the body. Other components that work with the lungs and blood vessels include:

Some of the other components of your respiratory system include:

Conditions and Disorders

What conditions affect the respiratory system?

Many conditions can affect the organs and tissues that make up the respiratory system. Some develop due to irritants you breathe in from the air, including viruses or bacteria that cause infection. Others occur as a result of disease or getting older.

Conditions that can cause inflammation (swelling, irritation and pain) or otherwise affect the respiratory system include:

How can I keep my respiratory system healthy?

Being able to clear mucus out of the lungs and airways is important for respiratory health.

To keep your respiratory system healthy, you should:

When should I call a healthcare provider about an issue with my respiratory system?

Contact your provider if you have breathing trouble or pain. Your provider will listen to your chest, lungs, and heartbeat and look for signs of a respiratory issue such as infection. To see if your respiratory system is working as it should, your healthcare provider may use imaging tests such as a CT scan or MRI. These tests allow your provider to see swelling or blockages in your lungs and other parts of your respiratory system. Your provider may also recommend pulmonary function tests, which will include spirometry. A spirometer is a device that can tell how much air you inhale and exhale. See your doctor for regular checkups to help prevent serious respiratory conditions and lung disease. Early diagnosis of these issues can help prevent them from becoming severe.

Last reviewed by a Cleveland Clinic medical professional on 01/24/2020.

References

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Respiratory System

In this Article

What Is the Respiratory System?

The respiratory system is the organs and other parts of your body involved in breathing, when you exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide.

Parts of the Respiratory System

Your respiratory system includes your:

How Do We Breathe?

Breathing starts when you inhale air into your nose orВ mouth. It travels down the back of your throat and into your windpipe, which is divided into air passages called bronchial tubes.

For yourВ lungsВ to perform their best, these airways need to be open. В They should be free fromВ inflammationВ or swelling and extra mucus.

As the bronchial tubes pass through your lungs, they divide into smaller air passages called bronchioles. The bronchioles end in tiny balloon-like air sacs called alveoli. Your body has about 600 million alveoli.

The alveoli are surrounded by a mesh of tinyВ bloodВ vessels called capillaries. Here, oxygen from inhaled air passes into yourВ blood.

After absorbing oxygen, blood goes to yourВ heart. YourВ heartВ then pumps it through your body to the cells of your tissues and organs.

As the cells use the oxygen, they make carbon dioxide that goes into your blood. Your blood then carries the carbon dioxide back to your lungs, where it’s removed from your body when you exhale.

Inhalation and Exhalation

Inhalation and exhalation are how your body brings in oxygen and gets rid of carbon dioxide. The process gets help from a large dome-shaped muscle under your lungs called the diaphragm.

When you breathe in, your diaphragm pulls downward, creating a vacuum that causes a rush of air into your lungs.

The opposite happens with exhalation: Your diaphragm relaxes upward, pushing on your lungs, allowing them to deflate.

How Does the Respiratory System Clean the Air?

Your respiratory system has built-in methods to keep harmful things in the air from entering your lungs.

Hairs in your nose help filter out large particles. Tiny hairs, called cilia, along your air passages move in a sweeping motion to keep the passages clean. But if you breathe in harmful things like cigarette smoke, the cilia can stop working. This can lead to health problems likeВ bronchitis.

Cells in your trachea and bronchial tubes make mucus that keeps air passages moist and helps keep things like dust, bacteria and viruses, andВ allergy-causing things out of your lungs.

Mucus can bring up things that reach deeper into your lungs. You then cough out or swallow them.

Respiratory System Diseases

Common diseases of the respiratory system include:

Show Sources

TeensHealth: «Lungs and Respiratory System.»

American Lung Association: «Learn About Your Respiratory System.»

American Medical Association: «Respiratory System: Basic Function.»

University of Rochester Medical Center: “Anatomy of the Respiratory System.”

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute: “How the Lungs Work.”

Canadian Lung Association: “Respiratory system.”

American Thoracic Society: “Breathing in America: Diseases, Progress, and Hope.”

American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology: “Asthma.”

American Lung Association: “Bronchiectasis,” “Lung Cancer Basics,” “Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD),” “Pneumonia.”

Cystic Fibrosis Foundation: “About Cystic Fibrosis.”

Cleveland Clinic: “Pleural Effusion,” “Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis.”

Mayo Clinic: “Sarcoidosis.”

Nemours/KidsHealth: “Your Lungs & Respiratory System.”

An Introduction to Types of Respiration

Respiration is the process in which organisms exchange gases between their body cells and the environment. From prokaryotic bacteria and archaeans to eukaryotic protists, fungi, plants, and animals, all living organisms undergo respiration. Respiration may refer to any of the three elements of the process.

First, respiration may refer to external respiration or the process of breathing (inhalation and exhalation), also called ventilation. Secondly, respiration may refer to internal respiration, which is the diffusion of gases between body fluids (blood and interstitial fluid) and tissues. Finally, respiration may refer to the metabolic processes of converting the energy stored in biological molecules to usable energy in the form of ATP. This process may involve the consumption of oxygen and production of carbon dioxide, as seen in aerobic cellular respiration, or may not involve the consumption of oxygen, as in the case of anaerobic respiration.

Key Takeaways: Types of Respiration

Types of Respiration: External and Internal

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External Respiration

One method for obtaining oxygen from the environment is through external respiration or breathing. In animal organisms, the process of external respiration is performed in a number of different ways. Animals that lack specialized organs for respiration rely on diffusion across external tissue surfaces to obtain oxygen. Others either have organs specialized for gas exchange or have a complete respiratory system. In organisms such as nematodes (roundworms), gases and nutrients are exchanged with the external environment by diffusion across the surface of the animals body. Insects and spiders have respiratory organs called tracheae, while fish have gills as sites for gas exchange.

Humans and other mammals have a respiratory system with specialized respiratory organs (lungs) and tissues. In the human body, oxygen is taken into the lungs by inhalation and carbon dioxide is expelled from the lungs by exhalation. External respiration in mammals encompasses the mechanical processes related to breathing. This includes contraction and relaxation of the diaphragm and accessory muscles, as well as breathing rate.

Internal Respiration

External respiratory processes explain how oxygen is obtained, but how does oxygen get to body cells? Internal respiration involves the transportation of gases between the blood and body tissues. Oxygen within the lungs diffuses across the thin epithelium of lung alveoli (air sacs) into surrounding capillaries containing oxygen depleted blood. At the same time, carbon dioxide diffuses in the opposite direction (from the blood to lung alveoli) and is expelled. Oxygen rich blood is transported by the circulatory system from lung capillaries to body cells and tissues. While oxygen is being dropped off at cells, carbon dioxide is being picked up and transported from tissue cells to the lungs.

Cellular Respiration

The oxygen obtained from internal respiration is used by cells in cellular respiration. In order to access the energy stored in the foods we eat, biological molecules composing foods (carbohydrates, proteins, etc,) must be broken down into forms that the body can utilize. This is accomplished through the digestive process where food is broken down and nutrients are absorbed into the blood. As blood is circulated throughout the body, nutrients are transported to body cells. In cellular respiration, glucose obtained from digestion is split into its constituent parts for the production of energy. Through a series of steps, glucose and oxygen are converted to carbon dioxide (CO₂), water (H₂O), and the high energy molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Carbon dioxide and water formed in the process diffuse into the interstitial fluid surrounding cells. From there, CO₂ diffuses into blood plasma and red blood cells. ATP generated in the process provides the energy needed to perform normal cellular functions, such as macromolecule synthesis, muscle contraction, cilia and flagella movement, and cell division.

Aerobic Respiration

Aerobic cellular respiration consists of three stages: glycolysis, citric acid cycle (Krebs Cycle), and electron transport with oxidative phosphorylation.

In total, 38 ATP molecules are produced by prokaryotes in the oxidation of a single glucose molecule. This number is reduced to 36 ATP molecules in eukaryotes, as two ATP are consumed in the transfer of NADH to mitochondria.

Fermentation

Aerobic respiration only occurs in the presence of oxygen. When oxygen supply is low, only a small amount of ATP can be generated in the cell cytoplasm by glycolysis. Although pyruvate can not enter the Krebs cycle or electron transport chain without oxygen, it can still be used to generate additional ATP by fermentation. Fermentation is another type of cellular respiration, a chemical process for the breakdown of carbohydrates into smaller compounds for the production of ATP. In comparison to aerobic respiration, only a small amount of ATP is produced in fermentation. This is because glucose is only partially broken down. Some organisms are facultative anaerobes and can utilize both fermentation (when oxygen is low or not available) and aerobic respiration (when oxygen is available). Two common types of fermentation are lactic acid fermentation and alcoholic (ethanol) fermentation. Glycolysis is the first stage in each process.

Lactic Acid Fermentation

Alcoholic Fermentation

In alcoholic fermentation, pyruvate is converted to ethanol and CO₂. NAD + is also generated in the conversion and gets recycled back into glycolysis to produce more ATP molecules. Alcoholic fermentation is performed by plants, yeast, and some species of bacteria. This process is used in the production of alcoholic drinks, fuel, and baked goods.

Anaerobic Respiration

How do extremophiles like some bacteria and archaeans survive in environments without oxygen? The answer is by anaerobic respiration. This type of respiration occurs without oxygen and involves the consumption of another molecule (nitrate, sulfur, iron, carbon dioxide, etc.) instead of oxygen. Unlike in fermentation, anaerobic respiration involves the formation of an electrochemical gradient by an electron transport system that results in the production of a number of ATP molecules. Unlike in aerobic respiration, the final electron recipient is a molecule other than oxygen. Many anaerobic organisms are obligate anaerobes; they don’t perform oxidative phosphorylation and die in the presence of oxygen. Others are facultative anaerobes and can also perform aerobic respiration when oxygen is available.

New Health Guide

What is the function of respiratory system? When you breathe in and out, your respiratory system is working. The respiratory system if made up of various organs that allow you to take in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide. If you don’t have oxygen, and you can’t get rid of carbon dioxide, your body can’t live for longer than a few minutes. Which organs make up the respiratory system? What are the functions of the respiratory system?

What Are the Components of the Respiratory System?

The respiratory system is made up of several organs that work in tandem to help you breathe. If something goes wrong with one of these organs, then the rest of them don’t work as well. The list below includes the various components of your respiratory system.

Major Organs

Nose, mouth, larynx, pharynx, trachea, lungs, bronchi

Upper Respiratory Tract

The nose, nasal cavity, sinuses (ethmoid, frontal, maxillary, and sphenoid). Larnyx and trachea.

Lower Respiratory Tract

The lungs, airways (bronchi and bronchioles), and air sacs, or alveoli.

What Is the Function of the Respiratory System?

Each part of your body works together seamlessly to create the breathing that you need to survive. Here are the functions of the respiratory system and how each organ works in tandem with the rest to create seamless, effortless breathing.

1. Breathing-Inhalation and Exhalation

The Act of Breathing:

When you inhale air through your nose or mouth, it goes straight to the trachea, or windpipe. Just below that, the trachea divided into several tubes known as bronchial tubes. The air you breathe goes into these, then into bronchioles in the lungs, which are even smaller tubes. The air then fills little sacs in the lungs, called alveoli. There are over 300 million of these in the typical human body.

The alveoli are surrounded by tiny blood vessels. These blood vessels suck the oxygen out of the air you have just taken in and send it to the blood, where it goes to the heart, where it is then pumped around your body to give your cells the oxygen they need.

As this happens, carbon dioxide is formed. The blood carries that back to your lungs, where the process reverses. When you breathe out, you are exhaling the carbon dioxide that was created inside your body. With each breath, the process continues.

Role of Diaphragm in Breathing:

One of the most important components of your body is the diaphragm. This is a large muscle shaped like a dome that sits right underneath your lungs. When you take a breath, the diaphragm pushes downward, creating a vacuum that then sucks the air into your lungs. When you exhale, the diaphragm pushes upward and outward, forcing the carbon dioxide from your body. An injury to the diaphragm can make it difficult to breathe, even if there is nothing wrong with the rest of your respiratory system.

2. Clearing the Air

The respiratory system also plays defense for you. The nose is filled with tiny hairs that filter out large particles. These hairs are also found among the air passages, where they move back and forth to “sweep” the air clean. The mucus produced in your respiratory system works to trap foreign invaders, such as bacteria, and prevent it from going deeper into your body. Finally, the things that do get past these defense systems can be coughed up from the lungs and expelled.

This video is a great introduction to the respiratory system:

What Are Major Diseases of the Respiratory System?

Keep in mind that not everything that tries to invade your body is stopped by the respiratory system. Several diseases and other bad conditions can be caused by inhaling things such as chemicals, cigarette smoke and allergens. Some people might develop respiratory problems as a result of these environmental factors, but some problems can occur thanks to genetics. The following problems are some of the more common respiratory issues.

Diseases

Description

Asthma

Inflammation of the bronchi and bronchioles can lead to narrowing of the airways, and that makes it tough to breathe. Triggers for asthma include cleaning products, allergies, fumes, cigarette smoke, cold air, medications, chemicals and more.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)

This disease is caused by three conditions: emphysema, chronic bronchitis and chronic asthma. This can be caused by environmental factors but might also have a genetic component. The three conditions progress, making it increasingly difficult to breathe.

Lung Cancer

Though lung cancer is known to be caused by cigarette smoke, sometimes those who have never smoked or been exposed to it can develop lung cancer. As with any other type of cancer, lung cancer is an overgrowth of abnormal cells.

Other Diseases

Many other diseases can affect the respiratory system.

Pneumonia is an infection in the lungs, while bronchitis is an infection in the bronchial tubes.

Recurrent infection can lead to bronchietasis, a widening and destroying of the airways.

Tuberculosis is a disease that gradually destroys the lungs and other parts of the body.

Some very common diseases include tonsillitis, or the inflammation of the tonsils, and the common flu, which comes into your body through your mouth and nose.

Understanding what is the function of respiratory system can help you recognize when there is a problem. Breathing should always be easy and gentle, not labored. If it is labored, or if you feel short of breath or unable to take a deep breath, it’s time to go to the doctor.

What is the function of respiratory system?

The respiratory system is a progression of organs in charge of taking in oxygen and releasing out the carbon dioxide. The essential organs of the respiratory framework are lungs, which complete this trade of gasses as we breathe.

RBC’s gather the oxygen from the lungs and convey it to the parts of the body where it is required, as indicated by the American Lung Association. Amid the procedure, the red platelets gather the carbon dioxide and transport it back to the lungs, where it leaves the body when we breathe out.

Functions

Inhalation and Exhalation − The respiratory system helps in breathing, likewise called pulmonary ventilation. Air is breathed in through the nose and mouth. It travels through the pharynx, larynx, and trachea into the lungs.

At that point air is breathed out, streaming back through the same path. Changes to the volume and pneumatic force in the lungs trigger pulmonary ventilation.

Exchange of Gasses between Lungs and Blood − Inside the lungs, oxygen is traded for carbon dioxide through the procedure called external breathing. This respiratory procedure happens through countless minuscule sacs called alveoli. Oxygen from intake air diffuses from the alveoli into pulmonary vessels encompassing them.

It bonds with the haemoglobin in the RBC’s and is pumped through the circulatory system. The carbon dioxide from deoxygenated blood diffuses from the vessels into the alveoli and is removed through exhalation.

Exchange of Gasses between Bloodstream and Body Tissues − The circulatory system conveys oxygen to cells and eliminates carbon dioxide through respiration. The red platelets convey oxygen assimilated from the lungs around the body, through the vasculature.

At the point when oxygenated blood reaches the vessels, the RBC’s discharge the oxygen. It diffuses through the walls of the capillaries into body tissues. And the carbon dioxide diffuses from the tissues into RBC’s and plasma. The deoxygenated blood conveys the carbon dioxide back to the lungs for discharge.

Air Vibrating the Vocal Cords Creates Sound − Phonation is the production of sound by structures in the upper respiratory tract of the respiratory system. While exhaling, air goes from the lungs through the larynx, or «voice box.» When we talk, muscles in the larynx move the arytenoid ligaments. The arytenoid ligaments push the vocal chords together.

At this point when the folds are pushed together, air going between them makes them vibrate, making a sound. The Higher tension in the vocal folds makes more quick vibrations and higher-pitched sounds. Lesser pressure causes slower vibration and a lower pitch.

Olfaction or Smelling − The procedure of olfaction starts with olfactory filaments that line the nasal cavities inside the nose. As air enters the holes, a few chemicals in the air attach and initiate sensory system receptors on the cilia. The stimulus sends a signal to the mind and after that to the olfactory knobs. The signal at that point goes from the olfactory globules, along with cranial nerve, to the olfactory region of the cerebral cortex.