Homeostasis Flashcards
(94 cards)
What are some physiological factors controlled by homeostasis?
- Core body temperature
- Metabolic wastes, particularly carbon dioxide and urea
- Blood pH
- Blood glucose concentration
- Water potential of the blood
- The concentrations in the blood of respiratory gases, oxygen and carbon dioxide
What are three features of tissue fluid that will influence the cell activities?
- Temperature: low temperatures slow down metabolic reactions; at high temperatures proteins, including enzymes and denatured and cannot function
- Water potential: if the water potential decrease, water may move out of cells by osmosis, causing metabolic reactions in the cell to slow or stop; if the water poetical increases, water may enter the cell causing it to swell and maybe burst
- Concentration of glucose: glucose is the feel for respiration so lack of it causes respiration to slow or stop, depriving the cell of an energy source; too much glucose may cause water to move out of the cell by homeosis, again disturbing the metabolism of the cell
What is homeostasis?
Maintaining a relatively constant internal environment for the cells within the body
What is negative feedback?
- A process in which a change in some parameter such as blood glucose level brings about processes which move its level beak towards normal again
- An increase in the factor result in something happening that makes the factor decreases and if there is a decrease in the factor then something happens to increase this factor
What does negative feedback involve?
- A receptor (or sensor) and an effector
- Effectors include muscles and glands
- The receptor detects the stimuli that are involved with the condition (or physiological factor) being regulated
What is a receptor?
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- The body has receptors than detect external stimuli and other receptors that detect internal stimuli
- These receptors send change they detect through the nervous system to a central control in the brain or spinal cord
- This sensory information is known as the input
What is a receptor?
- The body has receptors than detect external stimuli and other receptors that detect internal stimuli
- These receptors send change they detect through the nervous system to a central control in the brain or spinal cord
- This sensory information is known as the input
What is an effector?
An organ or tissue that carries out an action in response to a stimulus; muscles and glads are effectors
What is stimuli?
- A change in the environment that is detected by a receptor and which may cause a response
- Any change in a factor such as change in blood temperature or change in water content of the blood
What is a set point?
The real value of a physiological factor that the body controls in homeostasis
What is a hormone?
A substance secreted by an endocrine gland, that is carried in the blood plasma to another part of the body where it has an effect
What is thermoregulation?
- The control of body temperature and involves the endocrine and nervous systems
- The control of core body temperature
How is the heat that mammals generated released?
- By respiration
- Much of the heat produced by liver cells that have a huge energy requirement for energy
- The heat they produced is absorbed by the blood flowing through the liver and distributed around the rest of the body
What does the hypothalamus do?
- Control blood temperature
- Thermorecpetor cells that monitor the temperature of blood flowing through it and also receives information about temperature of surroundings
- The skin contains receptors and if the core temp decreases, or if the temp receptors in the skin detect a decrease in the temp of the surrounding the hypothalamus sends impulses to activate physiological response
What is the temperature that the hypothalamus records?
- The temperature that the hypothalamus monitors is the core temperature
- The temperature inside the body that remind very close to the set point of 37 degrees in humans and this temperature fluctuates a little, but is kept within very narrow limits by the hypothalamus
What are the physiological responses to cold weather?
- Vasoconstriction:
- Muscles in the walls of the arterioles that supply blood to capillaries never the skin surface contract
- This narrows the lumens of the arterioles and reduces eh supply of blood to the capillaries so that less heat is lost from the blood - Shivering:
- The involuntary contraction of skeletal muscles generates heat which is absorbed by the blood and carried around the rest of the body - Raising body hairs:
- Muscles at the base of hairs in the skin contract to increase the depth of fur so trapping air close to the skin
- Air is a poor conductor of heat and therefore a good insulator
- This is not much use in humans but highly effective for most mammals - Decreasing the production of sweat
- This reduces the loss of heat by evaporation from the skin surface - Increasing the secretion of adrenaline:
- This hormone from the adrenal gland increases the rate of heat production in the liver
What are some behavioural responses brought about by the hypothalamus in cold environment?
- Animals respond by curling up to reduce the surface area exposed to the air and by huddling together
- We respond by finding a source of warmth and putting on warm clothing
What happens when an increase in environmental temperature is detected by skin receptors or the central thermoreceptors?
- The hypothalamus increases the loss of heat from the body and reduces heat production
1. Vasodilation: - The muscles in the arterioles in the skin relax, a flowing more blood to flow through the capillaries so that heat is lost to the surroundings
2. Lowering body hairs: muscles attached to the hairs real so they lie flat, reducing the depth of fur and the layer of insulation
3. Increasing sweat production: sweat glands increase the production of sweat which evaporated on the surface of the skin so removing heat from the body
What are some behavioural responses brought about by the hypothalamus in hot environment?
- Resting or lying down with the limbs spread out to increase the body surface exposed to the air
- We respond by wearing loose fitting clothing, turning on fans or air conditioning and taking cold drinks
What happens when the environmental temperature decreases gradually?
- The hypothalamus relates a hormone which activates the anterior pituitary gland to release thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH)
- TSH stimulates the thyroid gland to secrete the hormone thyroxine into the blood
- Thyroxine increases metabolic rate which increases heat production especially in the liver
- When temperatures start to increase again, the hypothalamus responds by reducing the relates of TSH by the anterior pituitary gland so less thyroxine is released from the thyroid gland
What are two other examples of negative feedback?
Osmoregulation and blood glucose control
What is an example of positive feedback?
- If a person breathes air that has a very high carbon dioxide content, this produces a high concentration of carbon dioxide in the blood
- This is seed by carbon dioxide receptors which cause the breathing rate to increase
- So the person breathes faster taking in more carbon dioxide, which simulates the receptors even more so the person breathes faster and faster
- Positive Feedback is also involved in transmission of nerve impulses
What is positive feedback?
A process in which a change in some parameter brings about processes that move its level further in the direction of the initial change
What is excretion?
The removal of toxic or waste products of metabolism from the body