Communication between cells is key to organism-level regulation of the internal environment to maintain health, that is, nearly constant internal conditions (homeostasis). Outline and compare the intercellular communication pathways that function to provide homeostasis
Intercellular communication occurs largely through the nervous system and the endocrine system. In general, the nervous system performs short-term "crisis management," whereas the endocrine system regulates longer-term, ongoing metabolic processes. Ideally, the nervous system communicates by an impulse over an axon to a neuron or some other effector. This is a very fast and spatially specific process. In contrast, the endocrine system relies on blindly sending out chemical messages to the whole body through the blood and interstitial fluid. This process is slow, and relies on the response of a different target cell.
You might also like to view...
The erectile tissue around the urethra is the corpus ________.
Fill in the blank(s) with the appropriate word(s).
When the tidal volume is large, as during exercise, the Bohr reflex is triggered to prevent over-inflation of the lungs
a. True b. False Indicate whether the statement is true or false
Under normal conditions, ___________ is the only plasma protein that might be found in the urine, due to its small size, but it is rarely found in the urine
Fill in the blank(s) with correct word
Receptor molecules
A. are nonspecific. B. are always lipids. C. attach to the synaptic cleft. D. determine whether a neurotransmitter will be excitatory or inhibitory. E. are not attached to ligand-gated channels.