Pulmonary gas exchange in anatomically-based models of the lung.

Pulmonary gas exchange can be investigated at different scales of interest. Our approach is to couple models of gas exchange to anatomically-detailed models of the airway and pulmonary vascular trees. We are linking a hierarchy of models from the capillary segment up to the whole lung, so that a change in the detailed small-scale behaviour has a flow-on effect to function at a larger scale. The anatomically-based models will be used to understand how regional perturbations to the structure or function of the airway and vascular trees and the state of health of the functional tissue affect gas exchange. We are interested in the degree to which the system can be perturbed before it is detected by standard laboratory measures.