Anatomy and Physiology Terms
Body structures, cells, organs, and the processes that keep the human body functioning. Browse definitions and meanings below.
What is anatomy and physiology?
Anatomy is the study of the structures the body is built from, and physiology is the study of how those structures function. The two are taught together because neither makes much sense alone: the shape of a heart valve only matters alongside what it has to do, and the movement of blood only makes sense alongside the chambers it moves through.
Anatomical vocabulary is precise by design. Terms such as anterior, distal and lateral describe position relative to a fixed reference called standard anatomical position, so a description means the same thing whether a person is standing, lying down or on an operating table.
Terms in this topic
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Clinicians divide it into four quadrants or nine regions, because where pain sits narrows down which organ is speaking.
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As a modifier it states where, not what, so an abdominal finding can belong to any of several body systems.
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To flip something in the body from standing by to working, whether a cell, an enzyme or a swallowed drug.
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The outer rind of the gland sitting on each kidney, built in three layers that turn cholesterol into three different classes of hormone.
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The setting in which fuel yields many times more energy, because with oxygen present a cell finishes the job instead of stopping halfway.
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A chemical process in which oxygen is used to make energy from carbohydrates (sugars).
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Anatomy is the branch of biological science that examines the structure of the body and how its parts are organized.
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anterior
/ an-TEER-ee-or /Situated toward the front of the body or a body structure.
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Nearly every artery in the body branches from this one vessel, whose elastic wall keeps blood moving between heartbeats.
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A cell protein that can attach to certain molecules in some cancer cells and may kill the cells.
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Long dismissed as a useless leftover, it is now thought to hold immune tissue and shelter a reserve of gut bacteria.
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Its small bumps are working glands rather than blemishes, and they grow more prominent in pregnancy and breastfeeding.
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An artery is a blood vessel that carries oxygen rich blood away from the heart toward the body's tissues and organs.
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Two opposing divisions, one for action and one for rest, keep heart rate, blood pressure, and digestion balanced without any conscious effort.
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Belonging to the armpit, a small hollow crowded with the nerves, vessels and lymph nodes that serve the entire arm.
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A stack of small bones with shock absorbers between them, rigid enough to carry weight and flexible enough to bend in every direction.
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A branching drainage network that carries a digestive fluid one way and, when it blocks, turns the skin yellow.
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The plumbing that carries bile from liver to gut, and the route gallstones, tumors and infection take to cause jaundice.
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The bladder is a muscular, expandable organ that stores urine between the kidneys and the urethra until it is released from the body.
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Counted as a tissue rather than a fluid, because the cells suspended in it are as much a part of the body as any organ.