week 1 Flashcards
Why is inflammation a vital function of your innate immune system?
- helps alert your tissues and help avoid further damage.
- helps heal injury or infection
What are characteristics of acute inflammation?
- comes on rapidly, within a few minutes and is short-lived.
- resolves within a few hours or days.
- body will return to a state of balance.
What are the characteristics of chronic inflammation?
- may begin like acute inflammation but linger for months or years.
- may stay active even after initial threat is eliminated.
- may occur due to no apparent injury or disease.
- causes the body to attack/destroy nearby tissues/organs.
What are differences between acute and chronic inflammation?
- acute comes on rapidly (within minutes) and chronic lingers for months or years.
- acute resolves within few hours or days and chronic stays active even after initial threat is eliminated.
- acute allows body to return to state of balance and chronic may cause body to attack/destroy nearby tissues/organs.
- acute occurs due to injury and chronic may occur due to no apparent injury or disease.
- cardinal symptoms are different.
- different immune responses and cells.
What are the similarities between acute and chronic inflammation?
- both have cardinal signs of inflammation (redness, warmth, swelling, pain, limited ROM) - chronic also have different ones.
What causes inflammation?
Inflammation is triggered when cells that make up tissue are injured or die.
What are some examples of the causes of inflammation?
- physical injury (blunt trauma, traction, cuts).
- heat, cold, chemicals, radiation, UV light.
- infections.
- foreign bodies.
- autoimmune diseases.
What are autoimmune diseases?
The immune system can become maladaptive.
They can become suppressed –> cannot mount proper response.
They can become excessive responses –> attacks own cells/tissues.
What are examples of autoimmune diseases?
- multiple sclerosis
- asthma
- celiac disease
- eczema/psoriasis
- rheumatoid arthritis
What are characteristics of the innate immune response?
- occurs when injury or cell damage.
- 1st line of defense.
- fast (responds within hours).
- system you are born with.
- specific stimulus will elicit identical response (in individual).
- regulates tissue repair following injury.
What are characteristics of the adaptive immune response?
- we develop during our lifetime.
- takes more time develop (response is in days).
- responses vary greatly between individuals.
- can become maladaptive (e.g. autoimmune conditions).
What cells are involved in the innate immune system and what do they do?
- mast cells - release histamines, cytokines, prostaglandins to initiate increase blood flow and vascular permeability.
- neutrophils and macrophages - phagocytise or ingest or degrade debris and produce inflammatory molecules.
- cytokines - chemical messengers in inflammation (pain) and they can be pro-inflammatory or anti-inflammatory
What cells are involved in the adaptive immune response and what do they do?
- lymphocytes (T-cells + B-cells) - recognize specific antigen and produce antibodies against specific antigens –> last a long time in the body.
What are the cardinal signs of acute inflammation?
- pain
- redness
- immobility or loss of function/decreased ROM
- swelling
- heat
What is the physiological process of heat?
tissue injury causes capillary widening because mast cells, prostaglandins and histamine increase blood flow and vascular permeability which causes heat.
