9.1 The Digestive Tract Flashcards
How doers the digestive system contribute to homeostasis?
by ingesting food, separating it into chemical nutrients that cells can use, absorbing those nutrients, and eliminating indigestible remains
Where does digestion take place?
digestive tract
What is the digestive tract?
a tube which begins with the mouth and ends with the anus
What is the digestive system?
a type of organ system including the mouth, esophagus, stomach, intestines, and associated organs that receives food and digests it into nutrient molecules
What are the 2 things involved with digestion?
mechanical digestion and chemical digestion
What is mechanical digestion?
begins with the chewing of food in the mouth and continues with the churning and mixing of food in the stomach
What is chemical digestion?
many different enzymes break down macromolecules to small organic molecules that can be absorbed
What is the mouth bounded by?
bounded externally by the lips and cheeks
Why are lips red?
they are poorly keratinized, which allows the blood to show through
What are taste buds?
sensory receptors that occur primarily on the tongue
What happens when taste buds are activated by the presence of food?
nerve impulses travel by way of cranial nerves to the brain
What is the tongue composed of?
skeletal muscle that contracts to change the shape of the tongue
What attaches the tongue to the floor of the mouth?
a fold of mucous membrane on the underside of the tongue
What does the roof of the mouth separate?
the nasal cavity from the mouth, preventing ingested food from entering the nasal cavity
What are the 2 parts of the roof of the mouth?
anterior hard palate and posterior soft palate
What is the difference between the hard palate and the soft palate?
hard: contains several bones
soft: composed of muscle and connective tissue, ends in a finger-shaped projection called the UVULA
What is a cleft palate?
a gap left in 1/700 newborns when bones of the hard palate have not fused during fetal development
What can happen if a cleft palate is not surgically repaired?
can result in problems with feeding speech and hearing due to ear infections
Where are tonsils?
back of the mouth on either side of the tongue, and in the nasopharynx where they are called ADENOIDS
What are adenoids?
tonsils in the nasopharynx
What do tonsils contain?
lymphoid tissue that helps protect the body against infections
What is tonsilitis?
inflammation of the tonsils
What is a tonsillectomy?
a surgical procedure to remove the tonsils when tonsilitis recurs repeatedly
How many pairs of salivary glands do we have?
3
What do salivary glands do?
produce saliva to keep the mouth moist and contains enzymes that begin the process of digesting starch
Where are the salivary glands?
one pair lies on either side of the face immediately below and in front of the ears
one pair lies beneath the tongue
one pair lies beneath the floor of the mouth (ducts from these glands open under the tongue)
What are mumps?
a disease caused by a viral infection that causes the pair of salivary glands on the side of the face to swell
What is the pharynx?
a region that receives air from the nasal cavities and food from the mouth