What Physiology is?

what is physiology

i'm going to answer this using an

analogy between a computer and a human

body a computer is made up of parts like a

monitor cpu and a keyboard

an expert who studies these computer

parts is called as an hardware engineer

similarly human body is made up of parts

organs like brain heart kidneys and so on

and a person who studied the structure

of these organs is called as an

anatomist

how a computer will function is

determined by the codes

written in its operating system

similarly the function of human organs

are decided by the genetic codes

in its genome the genome is a collection

of

all the genetic information in an

organism which directs

how the body must work let us consider

an example

one of the function performed by the

computer in front of you now

is playing this video and this function

is an outcome of multiple underlying

processes like

downloading the video decoding it

producing

output to the screen and the speakers

and so on

if you open the task manager you will

see the list of processes running at all

the time

similarly one of the functions performed

by your body now

is watching this video and this function

is made possible by hundreds of

underlying processes like

visual transduction and visual

processing auditory transduction

and processing comprehension memory and

so many other functions at any point of

time

your organs also performing so many

functions like breathing digestion

and so on and each function involves

hundreds of coordinated processes

the focus of human physiology is to

understand this function

and the processes responsible for it

human physiology is the study of

functions in the living system it is the

simplest answer

the aim of physiology is to understand

the underlying mechanisms

or to explain the processes which is

responsible

for the function in other words

physiologists try to answer how the

cells

organ the organ system work and how they

interact with each other to produce a

function at an organism level

what is the word origin you might have

found the resemblance between the word

physics and physiology isn't it

there is a reason for that the word

physiology can be traced back

to ancient greek words physicists and

logos

which means nature and philosophy

respectively

philosophy of study natural philosophy

is the precursor of the natural science

and the natural sciences deals with

study of all natural phenomena

existing in the universe both the living

things and the material universe

so both the physics and physiology are

part of natural sciences physics deals

with the material universe

and the physiology deals with the

function within the living system

the study of all life phenomena is

called as the biology

and a branch of biology which studies

the logic of

life is the physiology the physiologist

are trying to answer

house and the whys of biology

the term physiology itself was coined by

a french physician

gene fennel who suggested as to be

physiologia

in french which is in english physiology

levels of organization in this

physiology course we are going to study

function at various levels of

organization

for example some topics like membrane

transport will be at the cellular level

and some topics like peristalsis

will be at the level of tissue level

like a smooth muscle tissue

and some topics like gastric emptying

will be at the organ level

and the functions like digestion will be

studied at an organ system level

and some functions like say glucose

homeostasis is studied at an entire

organism level which

involves multiple organ systems

this course the chapters are divided

according to the organ system

and our major focus will be on organ

level functions and the organ system

levels

though we are going to discuss some of

the integrated functions also

in this course we are going to focus on

the concepts which are essential for

understanding medicine

this branch is called medical physiology

and it is the foundation for

modern medicine in a human body deviates

from its normal function

it's called as a deceased state a

pathological state

the aim of medicine is to bring back the

body from a deceased

state back to its normal physiology

that is why the study of medicine begins

with the study of its foundation that is

medical physiology

physiology is an experimental science

all our knowledge of physiology comes

from

experimentation and mainly animal

experiments

research in physiology advances our

understandings of detailed mechanisms

that control and regulate behavior

in our human body claude bernard

is considered as the father of modern

physiology

he is the one who is known for promoting

the experimentation in medical sciences

he also gave the concept called as

maintenance of stable

internal environment and that is the

topic