Blood vessel between the blood and the tissues; and the veins, which carry blood from the capillaries back toward the heart. The word "vascular", meaning relating to the blood vessels, is derived from the Latin "vas", meaning vessel. A few structures (such as cartilage and the lens of the eye) do not contain blood vessels and are labeled. The arteries and veins have three layers. The middle layer is thicker in the arteries than it is in the veins: Capillaries consist of little more than a layer of endothelium and occasional connective tissue. When blood vessels connect to form a region of
Hemodynamics forces (e.g., during standing), and valves in veins, breathing, and pumping from contraction of skeletal muscles also influence blood pressure in veins. The relationship between pressure, flow, and resistance is expressed in the following equation: When applied to the circulatory system, we get: where A simplified form of this equation assumes right atrial pressure is approximately 0: The ideal blood pressure in the brachial artery, where standard blood pressure cuffs measure pressure, is <120/80 mmHg. Other major arteries have similar levels of blood pressure recordings indicating very low disparities among major arteries. In the innominate artery, the average reading is