Circulatory system
In vertebrates, the circulatory system is a system of organs that includes the heart, blood vessels, and blood which is circulated throughout the body.
At a glance
Key signals
75% cross fields · reaches 10 more
- Biology
- Physiology
- Explanation
- Examples
- Misconception
- Sourced relations 2
- Attribution
Dependencies
What this concept builds on and what it makes possible — derived from the atlas’s dependency, causal and structural relations, not from every related edge.
Enables · leads to
Circulatory systemenablesGas exchangeEstablished
circulatory system enables gas exchange.
Mechanism: The circulatory system serves gas exchange: blood carries oxygen from the lungs to every cell and returns carbon dioxide to be breathed out.
- Biology 2e (OpenStax) (2018) verified
System context
Blood pressureis part ofCirculatory systemEstablished
Blood pressure drives flow.
Mechanism: The pressure the heart builds pushes blood through the arteries; too high strains the whole system.
Cardiac cycleis part ofCirculatory systemEstablished
The heartbeat drives circulation.
Mechanism: Each cycle the heart fills then contracts, pushing blood out to the body and lungs.
Structural role & consequence
Interpreted from the current atlas graph — what the connections mean, not just how many there are.
Removing this node severs the only sampled structural route between Blood pressure and Cardiac cycle — a non-redundant bridge here.
structural · Structural removal simulation — not a historical or causal counterfactual.
75% of its relationships cross field boundaries, reaching 10 other disciplines — unusual in a discipline where most concepts stay within their field.
structural · Structural graph analysis — not a claim of importance, causation or history.
Directly enables 1 concept; following enables/causes relations, 3 concepts are downstream across 4 disciplines.
structural · Follows only enables/causes dependency edges — not general relatedness.
Currently dark in the atlas: no key date stored · 4 of 4 of its relations lack claim-level evidence.
atlas representation · Describes the current Thinking OS representation, not the state of the world.
cross-field
1 within-field, 3 cross-field
Strengths & constraints
Strengths
- Cross-disciplinary connector — 75% of its relationships cross field boundaries. structural
Constraints
- Evidence coverage currently thin in the atlas — few of its relationships carry claim-level evidence. atlas representation
- Non-redundant bridge — removing it severs a sampled route between neighbouring clusters. structural
- No dated history stored — the atlas records no key date for this concept. atlas representation
Conditions
- Read structurally — most of its relationships carry no external evidence yet, so claims here are graph-derived. structural
Dependency radial
What this concept builds on (left) and what it makes possible (right) — derived from dependency and causal relations.
Seen through each discipline
How this concept sits in each of its fields — derived from its real connections in the graph, not asserted.
Through this lens it connects to Gas exchange.
Related ideas to explore
Concepts that look related but are not yet connected here — candidates for a connection to reason about, not established links.
This idea also appears in…
The same structure shows up in other disciplines. These are real recurrences drawn from the graph — a starting point for asking “what carries over, and what changes?”
Networks50 disciplines · 37 concepts
Stocks and flows41 disciplines · 35 concepts
Concepts
shares a mental model · explicitly analogous · crosses a discipline boundary
shares a mental model · shares a mental model
shares a mental model
shares a mental model
shares a mental model
shares a mental model
Mental models at work here
Networks
A set of parts connected so that a change in one can spread to others through the links.
Follow the links: who is connected to whom, and what can travel along those connections?
Stocks and flows
A stock is an amount that accumulates; flows are the rates that add to or drain it. The stock changes only when inflow and outflow differ.
Think of a bathtub: the water level (stock) rises or falls depending on the tap (inflow) and the drain (outflow).
- Connects 4 other ideas across 2 disciplines.
- A cross-disciplinary bridge — its connections reach into 10 other fields.
- Most of its connections are of the “Kind & structure” kind.
- It exercises 2 reusable thinking patterns.
Derived from the graph’s real structure — observations, not a score.
Sources
- Wikipedia (English & German editions) verifiedmoderate evidence
- Wikidata verifiedmoderate evidence
- Biology 2e (OpenStax) (2018) verified