Sec 31.3: Immune Responses Flashcards
What are the two types of immune responses?
Specific and nonspecific responses
What are nonspecific responses?
They are immune responses that happen in the same way to every pathogen
What are specific responses?
They are immune responses that occur on a cellular level and are slightly different for each pathogen
What are the types of nonspecific responses?
Inflammation and Fever
What are the types of specific responses?
Cellular immunity and Humoral Immunity
What is inflammation?
It is a nonspecific response characterized by swelling, redness, pain, itching, and increased warmth at affected site
When does inflammation occur?
When pathogen enters the body and body’s other tissues become damaged
When does inflammation begin?
When mast cells or basophiles release chemicals called histamines in response to pathogen invasion
What do histamines do?
They cause cells in blood vessels to spread out
What happens after histamines are released?
Fluids move out of the blood vessel and into surrounding tissues, and white blood cells squeeze out of capillaries and move to site of infection, where they fight it off until swelling stops and tissue repair begins
When does fever begin?
When mast cells or macrophages release chemicals that cause the hypothalamus to increase the body’s temperature
What is low fever and what does it do?
Low fever is around 37.7 c, and it stimulates the production of interferons and increases the activity of white blood cells by increasing the rate at which they mature
What does increasing the rate of white blood maturity do?
It accelerates the body’s fighting off of infection
What is high fever and what does it do?
High fever is more than 39 c, and it causes the hypothalamus to be unable to regulate body temperature, and enzymes that control chemical reactions in the body stop functioning
What are antigens?
They are protein markers on the surfaces of cells and viruses that help the immune system identify a foreign cell or virus