Human brain in the midline on top of the brain. Blood from here joins with blood from the straight sinus at the confluence of sinuses. Blood from here drains into the left and right transverse sinuses. These then drain into the sigmoid sinuses, which receive blood from the cavernous sinus and superior and inferior petrosal sinuses. The sigmoid drains into the large internal jugular veins. The larger arteries throughout the brain supply blood to smaller capillaries. These smallest of blood vessels in the brain, are lined with cells joined by tight junctions and so fluids do not seep in or leak out
Cardiac function curve The higher pressures normally occur only in disease, in conditions such as heart failure, where the heart is unable to pump forward all the blood returning to it and so the pressure builds up in the right atrium and the great veins. Swollen neck veins are often an indicator of this type of heart failure. At low right atrial pressures this graph serves as a graphic demonstration of the Frank–Starling mechanism, that is as more blood is returned to the heart, more blood is pumped from it without extrinsic signals. In vivo however, extrinsic factors such as an increase in