WILTIMS #234: Everyone love's a slinky!

Lungs are like a slinky. If you hold a slinky in your hands vertically, the top coils will be widely

spaced out and the bottom ones will be compact. The air sacs of the lung work the same way; higher up they are overfilled with air and at the base they are tiny and densely packed. I already got this concept but I thought the slinky metaphor was easily the best way I'd heard of explaining it. This all becomes very important regarding the ventilation/perfusion (V/Q) ratio gradient in the lungs, which explains a lot of the locational specificity of certain lung lesions.

TIL: Whereas apnea is the complete lack of breathing, hypopnea is merely a reduction in airflow (and is more fun to say!). hi-POP-knee-uh!

The hypoglossal nerve (which controls the muscles of the tongue) fires very slightly ahead of the phrenic nerve (which controls the diaphragm (and thus breathing)) to get the tongue out of the way before a big breath. Alcohol delays the hypoglossal nerve from firing which can cause sleep apnea.