Artery

Artery
Diagram of an artery
Details
SystemCirculatory system
Identifiers
Latinarteria (plural: arteriae)
Greekἀρτηρία
MeSHD001158
TA98A12.0.00.003
TA23896
FMA50720
Anatomical terminology

An artery (from Greek ἀρτηρία (artēríā))[1] is a blood vessel in humans and most other animals that takes oxygenated blood away from the heart in the systemic circulation to one or more parts of the body. Exceptions that carry deoxygenated blood are the pulmonary arteries in the pulmonary circulation that carry blood to the lungs for oxygenation, and the umbilical arteries in the fetal circulation that carry deoxygenated blood to the placenta. It consists of a multi-layered artery wall wrapped into a tube-shaped channel.

Arteries contrast with veins, which carry deoxygenated blood back towards the heart; or in the pulmonary and fetal circulations carry oxygenated blood to the lungs and fetus respectively.

  1. ^ ἀρτηρία, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus

Developed by StudentB