Cardiovascular physiology: venous return.

Cardiac output is not regulated simply by autonomically mediated changes in heart rate and stroke volume. More often, changes in cardiac output predominantly reflect changes in the peripheral circulation which in turn change venous return. Any attempt to analyze circulatory function without considering the peripheral circulation will be incomplete. The principles discussed above can be fruitfully applied to the analysis of many clinically important derangements of circulatory function. This discussion is only intended as an introduction to concepts which have been exhaustively developed and discussed by Guyton et al. A careful review of this source material will reward the interested reader.