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Surface Tension & Surfactant in Alveoli
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Surface Tension & Surfactant in Alveoli

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In this lecture Professor Zach Murphy will be teaching you about Surface Tension and Surfactant in Alveoli. We will be outlining the significance of the air-water interaction in the alveoli of the lungs. We talk about how this air-water interaction increases the tension within the alveolar walls, increasing the collapsing pressure of the alveoli. We also discuss Laplace's law and show a diagram of the histology of the alveoli. In addition, we talk about surfactant and its function to naturally act to decrease surface tension. In the presence of a pathology, when surface tension is high and surfactant production is low, this can lead to infant respiratory distress syndrome, which is described in this lecture.