Urinary system Flashcards
Important functions of the kidney:
- Maintain the _______ consistency of the blood
- ______ many litres of fluid from the blood and return most _______ and ________ to the bloodstream
- Send ______, metabolic _______ and excess ______ out of the body
chemical
filter, water, solutes
toxins, metabolic wastes, excess water
What are the main waste products of the kidneys?
Where do each come from?
Urea - amino acids
uric acid - nucleic acids
creatinine - by-product of creatine phosphate in the muscles
What are the organs, from top to bottom of the urinary system.
Include some blood vessels that supply the kidney (not afferent and efferent/vasa recta).
Adrenal gland, renal artery, renal vein, renal hilum, kidney, ureter, urinary bladder, urethra.
What is the renal hilum?
Similar to the hilum in the lungs, entranceway for blood vessels and the ureter.
What does the ureter do?
Shuttles kidney filtrate to the urinary bladder.
Where are the kidneys located?
retroperitoneally
Lateral to T12-L3 vertebrae
What surrounds the kidney?
What is it made out of?
What is its function?
Renal capsule
Dense irregular CT
Binds to posterior abodminal wall - keeps it affixed and stable
Helps to maintain shape and inhibit the spread of infection
What is a kidney laceration?
Ripped off the posterior abdominal wall.
The kidneys are not even with each other. Why?
The liver pushes the kidney down on the right side.
Internal gross anatomy of the kidney:
- The outer part is called the ______ ______
- interior to this is the _______ _________
- Each part of the above is organized as a ________ __________
- A renal ______ is a chamber through which urine passes
- The _______ ______ surround the apex of the renal pyramids and converge to form ______ ________
renal cortex renal medulla renal pyramid calyx minor calicies major calicies
What is a nephron?
Functional unit of the kidney, makes urine.
Drainage of the kidney occurs through what?
Renal vein
What is the main function of the kidneys?
What is needed to achieve this end?
Filter the blood - need intimate blood supply/contact with blood vessels to achieve this.
Need a dedicated blood supply throughout the nephron
Describe blood flow in a nephron.
In your answer, describe what a glomerulus is and how the kidney is also a portal system.
Blood flows into the glomerulus (a tuft of capillaries) through the afferent arteriole.
Blood leaves the glomerulus through the efferent arteriole.
The efferent arteriole forms the peritubular capillaries which then form the renal vein.
The kidney is a portal system, there are two capillary beds. Instead of having a portal vein, the efferent arteriole is located between the two.
The second capillary bed is the vasa recta or peritubular capillary.
What is a uriniferous tubule?
What is it composed of?
Set of tubules that produce urine.
Nephron - which consists of the renal corpuscle and renal tubules
Collecting duct
The collecting duct is involved in ________ urine.
concentrating
What are the steps in the production of urine?
1 - Glomerular filtration
2 - Tubular resorption (conservation)
3 - Tubular secretion
What is glomerular filtration?
Filtrate of blood leaves the glomerulus and enters the uriniferous (kidney) tubules
What is tubular resoprtion or conservation?
Most nutrients, water, and essential ions are reclaimed from the kidney tubules, back into the blood.
99% of filtrate
What is tubular secretion or elimination?
Active process of removing undesirable molecules from the blood.
1% actually removed
Where is urine produced?
In the nephron
Describe blood flow through a typical nephron starting from the arcuate artery. and ending at the cortical radiate vein.
In your answer provide the processes of urine formation and describe the portal system in the kidneys.
Blood flows from the arcuate artery into the cortical radiate artery (which branches off of it).
Blood then enters the afferent arteriole into the glomerulus, where glomerular filtration occurs, blood is filtered into the kidney tubules.
Next, blood flows to the efferent arteriole.
Essential products are actively resorbed from the kidney tubules into the blood and wastes are secreted into the kidney tubules, to become urine.
Blood flows to the peritubular capillaries and drains into the cortical radiate vein.
The portal system is from one capillary network, the glomeruli, to the secon, the vasa recta. The connecting blood vessel is not a vein but the efferent arteriole.