Slide Set: 9: Digestive System Flashcards
What is mass balance in the digestive system
To maintain homeostasis, the volume of fluid entering the GI tract by intake or secretion must equal the volume leaving the lumen.
4 processes of the digestive system
- Digestion: Chemical and mechanical breakdown
- Absorption: Movement of material from GI lumen to ECF
- Motility: movement by muscle contraction
- Secretion: hormones and enzymes
Primary function of the digestive system
–Transfer nutrients, water, and electrolytes from ingested food into body’s internal environment
–Ingested food is essential an energy source and for supplies for the building blocks of tissues
Salivary glands
sublingual
submandibular glands
parotid glands
Chyme
The stomach continues digestion that began in the mouth by mixing food with acid and enzymes to create chyme.
What happens to the products that are digested and absorbed?
- absorbed
- move into the blood or lymph for distribution
- waste remaining leaves the body through anus
esophagus
a narrow tube that travels through the thorax to the abdomen.
stomach
a baglike organ that can hold as much as 2 liters of food and fluid when fully (if uncomfortably) expanded.
The stomach is divided into three sections:
fundus
body
pyloric region
pylorus
opening between the stomach and the small intestine is guarded by the pyloric valve.
what is the function of pyloric valve
thickened band of smooth muscle relaxes to allow only small amounts of chyme into the small intestine at any one time.
small intestine is divided into three sections:
- duodenum
- jejunum
- ileum
What happens in the large intestine?
water and electrolytes are absorbed out of the chyme to form feces
rectum
distension of the rectal wall triggers a defecation reflex.
anus
Feces leave the GI tract through the anus, with its external anal sphincter of skeletal muscle, which is under voluntary control.
The GI tract wall consists of four layers:
(1) mucosa
(2) submucosa,
(3) muscularis externa
(4) serosa.
Mucosa layers
- mucous membrane
- lamina propria
- muscular mucosa
The entire wall is crumpled into folds called ____ in the stomach, and ____ in the small intestine.
rugae
plicae
The intestinal mucosa also projects into the lumen in small fingerlike extensions known as _____
villi
Where is submucosa found and what is its function?
The layer of the gut wall adjacent to the mucosa, the submucosa, is composed of connective tissue with larger blood and lymph vessels
muscularis externa consists primarily of two layers of smooth muscle: (functions)
- inner circular layer –> contraction decreases diameter of lumen
- outer longitudinal layer –> shortens the tube
Motility in the gastrointestinal tract serves two purposes:
- moving food from the mouth to the anus
- mechanically mixing food
- mixing maximizes exposure of the particles to digestive enzymes by increasing particle surface area.
What happens during peristalsis? how does it propagate?
- wave movements
- circular muscles contract just behind bolus
- contraction pushes the bolus forward
- circular muscles are relaxed
- receiving segment then contracts
how do segmental contractions occur, which muscles are involved and what is the purpose
- segments of intestine alternately contract and relax.
- In the contracting segments, circular muscles contract while longitudinal muscles relax.
- Alternating segmental contractions churn the intestinal contents, mixing them and keeping them in contact with the absorptive epithelium.