Detective Garrison returned to police headquarters and, after reading the medical examiner’s complete report, began the process of writing his own explanation of what happened to the Underhills. As he wrote, he thought about all that had happened and began to wonder about the physiology associated with the couple’s death. The level of alcohol found by the medical examiner was high but was not necessarily sufficient to cause their death, but was it a contributing factor? Sam knew that Lasix was used to treat high blood pressure and that both alcohol and heat will reduce blood pressure, but he was unsure of the mechanism. He decided to go to Noletown University and talk to Renee Volenbach, a physiologist in the biology department, in her office in the McWhirter Biology building. Renee patiently explained her answer to each of the following questions posed by the detective.
Put yourself in the role of Detective Garrison. You must now write a report explaining what Renee might have said with regard to the above questions. You should use all of your knowledge about blood pressure and the information from this case to explain each of the following aspects of blood pressure and discuss their relation to the above questions. Describe the role of the nervous system, adrenal glands, kidneys and pituitary as appropriate to the relation of each of the seven factors listed below:
Originally published at http://www.sciencecases.org/blood_pressure/blood_pressure3.asp
Copyright © 1999–2009 by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science. Please see our usage guidelines, which outline our policy concerning permissible reproduction of this work.
