Anatomy and Physiology Terms

A type of cell that appears in people with Hodgkin disease.

The stage where the brain is busiest and the body stillest, held slack while the eyes dart behind closed lids.

The only body system that can be removed without ending a life, and the only one that stays switched off for years.

Conducting airways carry air without exchanging any gas, and only the final branches of the tree do the actual work of respiration.

Most of its length does no gas exchange at all, which is why a shallow breath moves air without refreshing much of it.

Five vertebrae that stop being separate bones, forming the wedge through which the entire upper body transfers its weight to the legs.

The fluid that keeps the mouth working, protects teeth between meals, and starts breaking down food before it is swallowed.

A gland in the mouth that produces saliva.

Repair rather than regeneration: the body trades the original structure for a fast patch that holds, and the trade is permanent.

The white of the eye is a shell of dense collagen, and its color is one of the easiest clues to read.

An organ deliberately kept outside the body, because the cells it protects cannot do their work at core temperature.

A gland that helps produce semen.

The node a surgeon samples instead of clearing a whole basin, chosen not for being nearest but for being first in line.

An organ or structure that is divided into compartments.

Narrow, muscular and free to swing on its own fold of tissue, this segment collects more than its share of colon problems.

An adjective doing heavy lifting in reports: it can mean bone, or muscle attached to bone, depending on the noun.

Small describes width rather than length, since this is by far the longest stretch of the digestive tract, several times the large intestine.

A ring of muscle whose resting state is closed, opening only when the body signals that something should pass.

The bones, muscles, tendons, and other tissues that reach from the base of the skull to the tailbone.

A cable of nervous tissue about as thick as a finger, and considerably shorter than the bony canal that houses it.