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Fig. 1 | Annals of Intensive Care

Fig. 1

From: Personalizing blood pressure management in septic shock

Fig. 1

Theoretical relationship between arterial input pressure (P) and blood flow (Q) for a given vascular bed or the entire body. The thick solid line represents the actual relationship between pressure and flow describing the autoregulation of vascular tone to sustain a constant blood flow despite varying arterial input pressures. The smaller straight lines reflect the theoretical instantaneous arterial input pressure to blood flow relations that exist upon this autoregulation curve showing how changes in vascular tone from maximal vasoconstriction (far left) to maximal vasodilation (far right) account for this phenomenon. Note the zero blood flow intercept points, or critical closing pressure of the arterial input circuit also varies with changes in vasomotor tone such that both slope (resistance) and zero-flow intercept (critical closing pressure) co-vary as local vasomotor tone varies

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