Beat-by-beat changes of viscoelastic and inertial properties of the pulmonary arteries

We tested the hypothesis that pulmonary arterial input impedance varies during the ventilatory cycle due to alterations not only of the viscoelastic components of the pulmonary vasculature but also due to changes of the inertial components. A four-element lumped-parameter model was used to fit the pulmonary arterial pressure-flow recordings in the time domain in 10 anesthetized dogs. The four elements consisted of a resistor (R) that represents input resistance, a second resistor (R1) and a capacitor (C1) that represent the viscoelastic properties of the pulmonary vasculature, and an inductor (L1) that represents inertial properties of blood within the pulmonary vasculature. The parameters were evaluated at each heartbeat throughout the ventilatory cycle at three levels of positive end-expiratory pressure. All four parameters varied significantly during the ventilatory cycle. R, C1, L1, and R1 varied by up to 97, 33, 13, and 17%, respectively. Changes in parameter values were most apparent at the start of expiration when the most rapid changes of lung volume occur. This pattern of the results is consistent with the hypothesis that the time variation of pulmonary arterial impedance is due to dynamic shifts of blood volume between the extra-alveolar and alveolar arteries.