L.1 - homeostasis Flashcards
What is the Greek meaning of homeostasis?
- same & steady
What does homeostasis refer to?
- Any process that living things use to actively or dynamically maintain.
- Fairly stable internal body conditions (so called ‘steady state’) necessary for survival even though the external environment changes continuously.
What does steady state mean?
Fairly stable internal body conditions necessary for survival
What are homeostatic control systems?
- The compensation mechanisms that help maintain a stable internal environment.
What are proteins protected by?
- by homeostatic mechanisms.
- it protects the integrity of the protein products of gene translation.
What does the tertiary structure of a protein result from?
- Results from the folding of amino acid chains (hydrogen bonds and Vanderwall’s forces)
- These forces are sensitive to change in the environment surrounding the proteins such as acidity, temperature, osmotic potential.
What does it mean when a protein is denatured?
- It means the proteins shape alters to a point that they are nonfunctional or irreversibly damaged as they cannot tolerate the degree of change in internal environment.
Accumulation of damaged proteins is responsible of what 2 diseases?
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
What disrupts homeostasis?
- the changes to the internal and external environments.
What are examples of changes to the external and internal environment that can disrupt homeostasis?
- external environment: intense heat or lack of oxygen
- internal environment: drip in blood glucose due to lack of food
What are the forms of disruptions that can happen to the external and internal environment?
- mild and temporary (balance is quickly restored)
- intense and prolonged (loosening or severe infections)
What does homeostatic control require?
- Communication within the body and this is accomplished mainly by the nervous and endocrine systems which use electrical impulses and hormones to carry information.
Are homeostatic mechanisms reflex or not- reflexive?
- they are reflexes that occur subconsciously
What is a variable?
- And the factor or condition being regulated such as temperature or blood pressure.
What are some of the components of a homeostatic control mechanism?
- receptor/sensor
- afferent pathway
- set point or reference value
- integrator/control center
- efferent pathway
- effector
What is a receptor & what does it do? Give an example.
- a body structure that monitors changes in a variable
- it sends input to the control centre through afferent pathways.
- An example would be the nerve ending of the skin in response to temp change.
What is the control centre and what is it’s function?
- control center is the brain (hypothalamus)
- it determines the set point/reference value for a variable such as normal body temperature range.
- it evaluates input received from the receptors and generates output command
- gives off nerve impulses and hormones