Anatomy and Physiology Terms

Being reachable from outside the body is what makes this organ unusual, because its surface cells can be sampled and examined directly.

The muscles, bones, and joints that make up the area of the body between the neck and the abdomen.

A type of cell that makes neurohormones (chemicals that are made by nerve cells and used to send signals to other cells) and releases them into the blood.

A part of the middle layer of the wall of the eye.

A closed loop that delivers oxygen and fuel to every cell and carries away what those cells no longer need.

The heart and its network of vessels, a closed loop delivering oxygen and fuel to tissue and carrying waste away.

The only bony strut between the arm and the trunk, lying under thin skin where it can be seen and felt along its whole length.

A type of cell that looks clear inside when viewed under a microscope.

Because separate brain networks handle memory, attention and language, one of them can fail while the others carry on working normally.

The only bony strut holding the arm away from the chest, and one of the most frequently broken bones at any age.

Contents can spend a day or more here, which is what makes the colon the place where water is reclaimed and bacteria flourish.

Tube-like gland found in the lining of the colon and rectum.

A colon polyp is an abnormal growth on the inner lining of the colon that is usually benign but occasionally becomes cancerous.

One short segment of the plumbing that drains bile, defined entirely by the two junctions at either end of it.

The comparison of the structure (anatomy) of one animal or plant with the structure of a different animal or plant.

Clarity is bought at a price: with no blood supply the tissue stays transparent, but it must take oxygen from tears and air.

If the nucleus is the archive, this is the factory floor, and pathologists read the two compartments against each other as a ratio.

Breathing runs automatically because this muscle answers a signal from the phrenic nerves, which arise high in the neck.

The digestive system is a continuous tract of organs, aided by the liver and pancreas, breaking food into nutrients the body can absorb and use.

A single tube open at both ends, so its contents count as outside the body until they cross the lining.