[The external respiratory reaction and its significance for oxygen transport in rats in acute anemic hypoxia].

In anesthetized Wistar rats, the external respiration response, changes of the oxygen transport system's parameters and of total gas exchange, were studied in discrete acute anemia (isovolemic hemodilution with the 6.5% albumin solution). In 3 groups of rats (I--spontaneous breathing and intact pulmonary circulation; II--artificial ventilation of the lungs with a fixed volume; III--embolism of pulmonary vessels), an increase in the lung ventilation was an important compensatory response to acute anemia maintaining a high degree of arterial blood oxygenation in increased perfusion of the lungs. The conjugation of respiratory and circulatory responses plays a major role in the maintenance of gas exchange and gas transport in the organism: separate switching off of compensatory response in one of these systems leads a weakening of compensatory responses in another system.