Study sheet: Anatomy and Biomedical Science Foundations

📋 Course Outline

1. Anatomical Foundations and Organization
2. Anatomical Position and Directions
3. Major Organ Systems
4. Biomedical Science and Cellular Basics
5. Organelles and Cell Structure
6. Membrane Transport and Energy
7. Genetic Information and Cell Division
8. Enzymes Homeostasis and Disease

📖 1. Anatomical Foundations and Organization

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Anatomy : the scientific study of body structure, including what body parts are made of, where they are located, and how they are arranged in relation to one another

★ Must-know

📌 Anatomy studies structure, whereas physiology studies how those structures function.

• 🔄 The organizational sequence is:
  1. chemical
  2. cellular
  3. tissue
  4. organ
  5. organ-system
  6. organism

Further detail

• The four major tissue types are:
  • epithelial tissue
  • connective tissue
  • muscle tissue
  • nervous tissue

💡 Memory Hook

Anatomy = structure; physiology = function

📖 2. Anatomical Position and Directions

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Anatomical position : standing upright and facing forward with the head facing forward, arms at the sides, palms facing forward, and feet pointing forward

★ Must-know

📌 Superior means toward the head and inferior means toward the feet; anterior means toward the front and posterior means toward the back.

📌 Medial means toward the body’s midline and lateral means away from the midline; proximal means closer to a limb’s attachment point and distal means farther from it.

Further detail

• The elbow is proximal to the wrist, while the wrist is distal to the elbow.

💡 Memory Hook

Proximal is nearer attachment; distal is farther away

📖 3. Major Organ Systems

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Cardiovascular system : consists primarily of the heart, blood, and blood vessels and transports oxygen, nutrients, hormones, carbon dioxide, and metabolic waste while helping regulate temperature and support immune responses
• Respiratory system : exchanges gases, with oxygen moving from the alveoli into the blood and carbon dioxide moving from the blood into the alveoli for exhalation
• Nephron : the microscopic functional unit of the kidney
• Hormone : a chemical messenger produced by the endocrine system that travels through the bloodstream and affects target cells

★ Must-know

• The 11 major organ systems include the cardiovascular, respiratory, nervous, skeletal, muscular, digestive, urinary, endocrine, immune and lymphatic, reproductive, and integumentary systems.

• The nervous system includes the brain and spinal cord in the central nervous system and nerves outside them in the peripheral nervous system.

📌 Skeletal muscle is generally voluntary and attached to bones, cardiac muscle is found in the heart, and smooth muscle is found in organs such as the intestines and blood vessels.

• The digestive system breaks food into absorbable molecules, with carbohydrates becoming simple sugars, proteins becoming amino acids, and fats becoming fatty acids and other components.

Further detail

• The four heart chambers are:

  • right atrium
  • right ventricle
  • left atrium
  • left ventricle

• The skeletal system provides support, protection, movement, mineral storage, and blood-cell production, while the muscular system produces movement and helps maintain posture.

• The integumentary system includes skin, hair, nails, sweat glands, and sebaceous glands, and the skin has epidermis, dermis, and subcutaneous tissue layers.

💡 Memory Hook

Air, blood, signals, support, movement, digestion, filtration, hormones, defense, reproduction, protection

📖 4. Biomedical Science and Cellular Basics

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Biomedical science : combines biology and medical science to understand how the human body works and what happens when normal biological processes become disrupted
• Cell : the basic structural and functional unit of life, and human cells specialize in functions such as communication, contraction, oxygen transport, digestion, blood-glucose regulation, and defense

📝 Essential Points

• Biomedical sciences include anatomy, physiology, cell biology, molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry, microbiology, immunology, pathology, pharmacology, and neuroscience.

💡 Memory Hook

DNA mutation → altered protein → altered cell function → tissue dysfunction → possible disease

📖 5. Organelles and Cell Structure

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Cell membrane : a selectively permeable phospholipid bilayer containing proteins and other molecules that separates the cell from its external environment and controls entry, waste removal, ion concentrations, communication, and recognition

★ Must-know

• The nucleus contains most cellular DNA, and its nucleolus helps produce components needed to form ribosomes.

• Mitochondria produce much of the cell’s ATP and are especially important in heart muscle cells, skeletal muscle cells, and neurons.

📌 Ribosomes synthesize proteins, rough endoplasmic reticulum processes proteins destined for secretion, membranes, or certain organelles, and smooth endoplasmic reticulum supports lipid production, detoxification, calcium storage, and certain metabolic processes.

Further detail

• The Golgi apparatus modifies, sorts, and packages proteins and lipids for transport to destinations inside or outside the cell.

• Lysosomes digest damaged cell components, foreign materials, macromolecules, and cellular waste, while peroxisomes support fatty-acid metabolism, detoxification, and hydrogen-peroxide handling.

• The cytoskeleton consists of microfilaments, intermediate filaments, and microtubules that support cell shape, movement, internal transport, cell division, and organelle organization.

💡 Memory Hook

A cell as a factory: nucleus plans, ribosomes build, ER processes, Golgi ships, lysosomes recycle

📖 6. Membrane Transport and Energy

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Active transport : uses cellular energy to move substances against their concentration gradients, as in the sodium-potassium pump

📝 Essential Points

📌 Diffusion moves particles from higher to lower concentration, osmosis moves water across a selectively permeable membrane, and facilitated diffusion moves molecules through membrane proteins without directly using cellular energy.

📌 Endocytosis brings material into a cell inside a membrane-bound vesicle, whereas exocytosis releases vesicle contents outside the cell when the vesicle fuses with the cell membrane.

• Aerobic cellular respiration uses nutrients and oxygen to generate ATP while producing carbon dioxide and water as major products.

💡 Memory Hook

Passive transport follows gradients; active transport uses energy against gradients

📖 7. Genetic Information and Cell Division

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Transcription : the process of making RNA from a DNA template, primarily in the nucleus of eukaryotic cells
• Translation : occurs at ribosomes, where mRNA is read and transfer RNA helps assemble amino acids into a protein

📝 Essential Points

📌 A gene is a segment of DNA containing information for a functional product, DNA is packaged into chromosomes, and humans typically have 46 chromosomes arranged in 23 pairs in most body cells.

• 🔄 The central information flow is:
  1. DNA
  2. RNA
  3. protein

📌 Mitosis produces daughter cells with essentially the same chromosome number as the original cell, whereas meiosis produces reproductive cells and reduces chromosome number by half.

💡 Memory Hook

DNA → RNA → protein; mitosis maintains chromosome number, meiosis halves it

📖 8. Enzymes Homeostasis and Disease

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Enzyme : a biological catalyst that speeds up a chemical reaction without being consumed and interacts with particular substrates because of its specific structure
• Homeostasis : the maintenance of relatively stable internal conditions despite changes inside or outside the body

★ Must-know

• Homeostatic regulation controls temperature, blood glucose, blood pressure, blood pH, water balance, electrolytes, and calcium concentration, usually through negative feedback.

• 🔄 A disease pathway can proceed through:

  1. DNA change or environmental factor
  2. altered protein or function
  3. cellular dysfunction
  4. tissue or organ effects

• 🔄 The levels of organization proceed from:

  1. atoms
  2. molecules
  3. organelles
  4. cells
  5. tissues
  6. organs
  7. organ systems
  8. human organism

Further detail

• Temperature, pH, substrate concentration, enzyme concentration, and inhibitors can affect enzyme activity.

💡 Memory Hook

Disrupted regulation → altered cellular function → tissue and organ effects

📊 Synthesis Tables

Major Directional Terms

Term	Meaning	Example or contrast
Superior / inferior	Toward the head / toward the feet	Superior contrasts with inferior
Anterior / posterior	Toward the front / toward the back	Anterior contrasts with posterior
Medial / lateral	Toward the midline / away from the midline	Medial contrasts with lateral
Proximal / distal	Nearer / farther from limb attachment	Elbow is proximal to wrist
Superficial / deep	Nearer the surface / farther beneath the surface	Superficial contrasts with deep

Cellular Information and Transport

Process	Direction or location	Energy requirement
Diffusion	Higher to lower concentration	No direct cellular energy
Osmosis	Water across a selectively permeable membrane	No direct cellular energy
Facilitated diffusion	Through membrane proteins down a gradient	No direct cellular energy
Active transport	Against a concentration gradient	Uses cellular energy
Endocytosis / exocytosis	Into the cell / outside the cell via vesicles	Vesicle-based transport