In the circulatory system, a vein is a blood vessel that carries blood back toward the heart (as opposed to artery, a blood vessel carrying blood away from the heart). The majority of veins in the body carry low-oxygen blood from the tissues back to the heart; the exceptions being the pulmonary and umbilical veins which both carry oxygenated blood.

Anatomy

Veins function to return deoxygenated blood to the heart, and are essentially tubes that collapse when their lumens are not filled with blood. The thick, outer-most layer of a vein is made of collagen, wrapped in bands of smooth muscle while the interior is lined with endothelial cells called intima. Most veins have one-way flaps called venous valves that prevent blood from flowing back and pooling in the lower extremities due to the effects of gravity. The precise location of veins is much more variable from person to person than that of arteries. Veins are located on close to the surface, mean while arteries are located towards the center of the body.

Function

Veins serve to return blood from organs to the heart. In systemic circulation oxygenated blood is pumped by the left ventricle through the arteries to the muscles and organs of the body, where its nutrients and gases are exchanged at capillaries, entering the veins filled with cellular waste and carbon dioxide. The de-oxygenated blood is taken by veins to the right atrium of the heart, which transfers the blood to the right ventricle, where it is then pumped through the pulmonary arteries to the lungs. In pulmonary circulation the pulmonary veins return oxygenated blood from the lungs to the left atrium, which empties into the left ventricle, completing the cycle of blood circulation.

The return of blood to the heart is assisted by the action of the skeletal-muscle pump which helps maintain the extremely low blood pressure of the venous system. Fainting can be caused by failure of the skeletal-muscular pump. Long periods of standing can result in blood pooling in the legs, with blood pressure too low to return blood to the heart. Neurogenic and hypovolaemic shock can also cause fainting. In these cases the smooth muscles surrounding the veins become slack and the veins fill with the majority of the blood in the body, keeping blood away from the brain and causing unconsciousness.

The arteries are perceived as carrying oxygenated blood to the tissues, while veins carry deoxygenated blood back to the heart. This is true of the systemic circulation, by far the larger of the two circuits of blood in the body, which transports oxygen from the heart to the tissues of the body. However, in pulmonary circulation the arteries carry deoxygenated blood from the heart to the lungs and veins return blood from the lungs to the heart. The difference between veins and arteries is their direction of flow (out of the heart by arteries, returning to the heart for veins), not their oxygen content. In addition, deoxygenated blood that is carried from the tissues back to the heart for reoxygenation in systemic circulation still carries some oxygen, though it is considerably less than that carried by the systemic arteries or pulmonary veins.