Model to facilitate studying oxygen and carbon dioxide transport.

A simple model has been constructed for microcomputer (PC) simulations involving basic cardiopulmonary principles of oxygen transport. Students can change parameters such as metabolic rate, blood hemoglobin concentration, barometric pressure, air composition, etc., and study parameter effects on blood gas concentrations and partial pressures. An important feature of the model program is that there are no negative feedback controls to maintain homeostasis. However, after a perturbation has been introduced, adjustments can be made to appropriate variables to correct for abnormal effects. For example, ventilation rate and blood hemoglobin concentration might be adjusted to compensate for low atmospheric oxygen. Because these do not change automatically in the model program, learning is enhanced when the student has to make the appropriate adjustments needed to correct disturbances in the blood gases that follow a perturbation.