Homeostasis

Homeostasis, read pg
817, SOLOMON
TEXTBOOK
Temperature
Blood pressure

Homeostasis
Osmotic pressure

“steady state”

A process of maintaining
constant physical and
pH value
[sugar]
chemical factor within an
[salt] internal body environment
WHY? Why is homeostasis important?
• Biochemical reactions are controlled
by enzymes.
– Changes in pH and temperatures
– affect the rate of enzymes-controlled
reactions, denature the enzymes and
proteins
• Water moves in and out of cells by
osmosis
– Maintaining constant water potential in
the interstitial fluid, avoid cellular
 Mechanism of Homeostasis
• All homeostatic mechanisms
– use negative feedback to maintain a constant
value (set point)
• Feedback system (feedback loop)
– A cycle of events, status of a body condition is
monitored, evaluated, changed, remonitored,
reevaluated
• Negative feedback
– Whenever a change occurs in a system, the
change“Regulatory
trigger a corrective
mechanismmechanism
maintainto
start, brings the system
homeostasis back negative
through to normal
feedback loops”
 Negative feedback
• Applies to biological system, electronic circuits
(e.g. central heating system, oven, air-conditioner
system)
– When your oven gets too hot, heating switches off; allows
the oven to cool down.
– Eventually it will get cold, the heating will switch back in,
so raising the temperature once again.
• In a system controlled by negative feedback, the
set level is never perfectly maintained, but
constantly fluctuate/ oscillates within the set point.
Constant value
 Homeostasis
• Internal conditions vary, but always within
relatively narrow limits.
• Hormone-controlled homeostatic
mechanism, significant time-lag before
corrective mechanism can be activated.
– It takes times for protein synthesis to
commence, the hormone to diffuse into the
blood stream and for it to circulate around the
body and take effect.
3 components in homeostatic control
mechanism
Detect
1. Receptors changes

Define
2. Control changes
centre
Triggers appropriate
corrective actions

3. Effectors Execute the

changes
Homeostasis

is achieved by:
Negative feedback
Types of feedback
(1) Negative feedback

(2) Positive feedback

 Negative feedback
For example,
– If the human hypothalamus detects a
high blood temperature
– it send nerve impulses to sweat glands,
which increase sweat output and cause
evaporative cooling.
– When the body temperature returns to
normal, no additional signals are sent.
Receptors (Hypothalamus, skin) > Control center (Hypothalamus)
> Effectors (muscles/sweat glands/BV)
• Positive feedback
– Occurs when a change in some variable causes
a reaction which increases that change.
– pushes changes further in the same way,
strengthen or reinforce a change in the body’s
controlled conditions
For example :Uterine contraction
During childbirth, the baby’s head press against
receptors near the opening of the uterus,
stimulates uterine contractions which cause greater
pressure against the uterine opening, heightening the
contraction, which causes still greater pressure.

Positive feedback brings childbirth to completion.

Receptors (stretch-sensitive nerve cell in cervix) > Control center
(brain, release oxytocin) > Effectors (muscles in wall of uterus
contract more forcefully)
Examples of homeostasis control
system
– Temperature homeostasis
(Thermoregulation)
– Blood glucose homeostasis
– Blood water homeostasis
(osmotic conc. of blood;
osmoregulation)
>Will discusses in Chapter:
Excretion
Temperature homeostasis

Thermoregulation
> Is the regulation of body
temperature

References: pg
822
 Thermoregulation
• Classification based on the source of
heat in determining body temperature
– use metabolic heat to regulate body
temperature: Endotherms
– use environmental energy and behavioral
adaptations to regulate its body
temperature: Ectotherms
• Behavioral adaptation: hibernation
• E.g. lying in the sun when cold, moving
into shade when hot
 Ectotherms and Endotherms
• Ectotherms (Ecto-: outside)
– Absorb heat from their surrounding

– most invertebrates, fishes,

amphibians, and reptiles
• Endotherms (Endo-:
inside/within)
– Derive heat from metabolic proceses
Honeybees are
– birds and mammals endotherms
– Have homeostatic By adjusting
mechanism metabolic rates in
their flight muscles,
honeybees are able
Benefits of homeostatic control (Birds and
mammals)
• Become less dependent on the external
environment
– able to control changes in its internal
environment to compensate for changes in
external conditions.

• Able to live in a wider range of habitats or

in areas with variable conditions.
• Can increase or decrease the metabolic
rate of its body according to its
requirements.
• A controlled internal environment enables
 Thermoregulation
• Our response in encountering hotter
and colder condition is voluntary.
– Too hot, switch on air-conditioner or
move into shade.
– Too cold, put extra clothes on or turn on
the heater.
• When these response are not
enough, the thermoregulatory centre
is stimulated, involves autonomic
nervous system (A.N.S.), responses
are all involuntary.
 Thermoregulation
• In humans, body temperature is
controlled by the thermoregulatory
centre: Hypothalamus
• Hypothalamus receives input from
two sets of receptors:
– Receptors in the hypothalamus (monitor
the temperature of the blood as it
passes through the brain).
– Receptors in the skin (monitor the
external temperature).
 Thermoregulation
• When body temperature rises,
– The erector muscles relax, hairs lie flat
against the skin, no longer trapping air,
allowing more heat to be lost by radiation.
(radiation: heat transfer from body to air)
– The dermal blood vessels dilate and the
sweat glands are stimulated into vigorous
secretory activity.
– Evaporation of sweat from skin surface
dissipates
Heat body
transfer from the heat
body to and cools
the surroundings, thecooling
evaporative body,
thus preventing overheating.
• When the external environment is cold,
– Impulses to the erector muscle attached to
your hair follicles contract, which made your
hairs stand, trapping air.
– dermal blood vessels constricted. This causes
the warm blood to bypass the skin temporarily
and allows skin temperature to drop to that of
the external environment.
– Shivering: involuntary shuddering contractions
of the skeletal muscles, effective in increasing
body temperature, muscle activity produces
large amounts of heat.
– Enhance thyroxine (thyroid gland) and
adrenaline (adrenal gland) release: increases
the metabolic rate.
 Openings of
Nerve sweat glands
Capillary endings

Stratum
corneum Melanocyte
Epidermis (pigment cell)
Stratum
basale Hair erector
muscle
Dermis Hair shaft
Sensory receptor
(Pacinian
Subcutaneous corpuscle)
tissue
Artery
Hair follicle
Vein Sweat gland Sebaceous
gland
• In mammals, the integumentary system
– Acts as insulating material
Fig. 39-1, p. 829
(a) Erector muscle (b) Erector muscle
contract relax
Vasodilation and vasoconstriction
• Vasodilation of cutaneous blood vessels
– Blood flow in the skin increases, facilitating heat
loss.

• Vasoconstriction of cutaneous blood vessels

– Blood flow in the skin decreases, lowering heat
loss.
– Blood is restricted to deep body areas and
largely bypasses the skin.
– The skin is separated from deeper organs by a
Restriction
layerblood flow to the skin
of insulating for a brief period(fatty)
subcutaneous is not a tissue,
problem ,
but if prolonged exposure to very cold weather, skin cells deprived of
heat loss reduced.
oxygen and nutrients begin to die. This extremely serious condition is
called frostbite.
 Sweat glands secrete
sweat that evaporates,
cooling the body.

• In humans, the
Thermostat in
hypothalamus
activates cooling
hypothalamus mechanisms. Blood vessels
in skin dilate:
(underside part of the capillaries fill

* with warm blood; Body temperature

Increased body
vertebrate forebrain), temperature (such as heat radiates from
skin surface.
decreases;
thermostat
when exercising
shuts off cooling
– Contains a group of nerve or in hot surroundings)
mechanisms.
cells that function as Homeostasis:
Internal body temperature
a thermostat 36–38°C
Body temperature
increases; Blood vessels in Decreased body *
thermostat skin constrict, temperature
shuts off warming diverting blood (cold
mechanisms. from skin to surroundings)
deeper tissues
and reducing
heat loss
from skin
surface.
Figure 40.21: Thermostat in
The thermostat function of Skeletal muscles rapidly
hypothalamus
contract, causing shivering,
the hypothalamus in human which generates heat.
activates
warming
thermoregulation mechanisms.
 SUMMARY

Mechanism of body temperature

• Heat-loss mechanisms
– Skin hairs lowered
– Vasodilation of cutaneous blood vessels
(skin arterioles dilate)
– Enhanced sweating

• Heat-promoting mechanisms
– Skin hair raised, trapping air
– Vasoconstriction of cutaneous blood vessels
(skin arterioles constrict)
– Shivering
– Glands secreting adrenaline and thyroxine
 EFFECT:
Increase in Increase sweating,
blood Detected by Vasodilation,
temperature hypothalamus Hairs lay flat

NORM Control of body temperature

NORM
(Blood
temperature)

EFFECT:
Decrease sweating,
Decrease in
Detected by Vasoconstriction,
blood
hypothalamus Hairs raised,
temperature
Shivering
Blood glucose homeostasis

Read pg 1043
 Blood glucose homeostasis

• Glucose is a major fuel for cells

• Its metabolism, regulated by
hormone action
 Glucose regulation pg 955
1 When blood glucose
level rises, the pancreas
secretes insulin, a
hormone, into the blood.
2 Insulin enhances the
β-cells uptake of glucose in body
cells and stimulates the liver
Hyperglycemic and muscle cells to store
glucose as glycogen. As a
STIMULUS: result, blood glucose level
Blood glucose drops.
level rises
after eating.

Homeostasis:
Blood glucose level
4 Glucagon promotes 90 mg/100 mL
the breakdown of Hypoglycemic
glycogen in the
liver and the STIMULUS:
release of glucose Blood glucose
into the blood, level drops 3
increasing blood below set point. When blood glucose
glucose level. level drops, the pancreas
secretes the hormone
α-cells glucagon into the blood.
Figure 41.3
Increase in Detected by β EFFECT:
blood glucose Increase in
cells (islets of √ Enhances the
Langerhans in insulin
uptake of glucose
secretion
the pancreas) in body cells.
√ Stimulates the
liver and muscle
cells to store
glucose as
glycogen.
NORM
NORM
(Blood
glucose) Control of blood glucose concentration

EFFECT:
Glucagon promotes
the breakdown of
Decrease in Increase in glycogen in the
blood glucose Detected by liver and the
glucagon
α cells of release of glucose
secretion
pancreas into the blood
 Control of blood glucose
INSULIN
concentration
GLUCAGON
• A hormone produced • A hormone produced
by the β cells of the by the α cells of the
islets of Langerhans in islets of Langerhans in
the pancreas. the pancreas.

• Secretion is stimulated • Secretion is stimulated

by the rise in blood by the fall in blood
glucose. glucose.

• Speeds up the rate at • breakdown of glycogen

which glucose is taken in the liver.
into liver and muscle
cells from the blood, • Stimulates the
stored as glycogen. formation of glucose
from other molecules
 THREE sources of blood glucose

• Digestion of carbohydrates in the

diet
• Breakdown of glycogen
(glycogenesis)
• Conversion of non-carbohydrate
compounds (gluconeogenesis)
 The pancreas secretes insulin and
glucagon
• Blood glucose concentration, controlled
by the pancreas
• Pancreas has
– Glucose receptor cells, which monitor the
concentration of glucose in the blood
– Endocrine cells (called the Islets of
Langerhans), which secrete hormones.
∀ α-cells: secrete the hormone, glucagon
∀ β-cells: secrete the hormone, insulin
 Insulin and glucagon:
control of blood glucose
• Insulin stimulates
– The uptake of glucose by body cells and
– The conversion of glucose to glycogen in liver
and muscle cells.
– Therefore, decrease blood glucose
• Glucagon stimulates
– The breakdown of glycogen to glucose in the
liver (glycogenolysis)
– In extreme case, stimulate the synthesis of
glucose from pyruvate
– Therefore, increases blood glucose
Antagonistic effects of glucagon and insulin are vital to glucose
homeostasis, management of both fuel storage and fuel consumption by
body cells.
What happen the
mechanism
……….go awry?
 Diabetes mellitus
• Diabetes is a disease caused by a
failure of glucose homeostasis
– Type I diabetes
– Type II diabetes
 Type I diabetes
Appears during
childhood, disability to
produce insulin
• Insulin-dependent diabetes or early
onset diabetes
• Due to an autoimmune disorder,
killing off the β-cells
• Treatment: Insulin injection
 Type II diabetes
Mostly occurs after
age of 40 years

• Non insulin-dependent diabetes or late-

onset diabetes
• Most type II diabetics produce insulin, but
the amount is inadequate or
• The insulin receptors are unable to
respond to insulin, a phenomenon called
“insulin resistance”
• Cause: excess body weight, high sugar
diet, lack of exercise
 Symptoms of diabetes
• Excessive thirst
– Due to osmosis of water from cells to the blood, which
has a low water potential
• Copious urine
– Huge urine output due to excess water in blood
• Poor vision
– Due to osmotic loss of water from the eye lens
• Tiredness
– Due to loss of glucose in urine and poor uptakes of
glucose by liver and muscle cells
• Ketosis
– Abnormal condition of excess ketone bodies (fatty acid
metabolites) production, break down of lipids to supply
energy
• Muscle wasting
THE END
Blood water homeostasis
(Osmoregulation)

Homeostasis of blood volume and

osmolality
 Blood water homeostasis
(Osmoregulation)
• The water potential of the blood must be
regulated to prevent loss or gain of water
from cells.
• Osmoregulation
– Regulates solute concentrations and balances
the gain and loss of water
• Osmoregulation is based largely on
controlled movement of solutes
– Between internal fluids and the external
environment
• Blood water homeostasis (osmoregulation)
is controlled by hypothalamus, which
 1 Osmoreceptors
in hypothalamus Thirst
Hypothalamus

Drinking reduces
blood osmolarity When body
to set point
ADH
Increased
becomes
permeability dehydrated,
Pituitary
gland
the osmotic [ c ]
Distal
of the blood ↑
tubule
Posterior lobe of
the pituitary
H2O reabsorption
STIMULUS: helps prevent further glandADH
The release of ADH is osmolarity
triggered when osmo- increase
receptor cells in the
Collecting duct
Figure 44.16a:
hypothalamus detect an Antidiuretic hormone
increase in the osmolarity
of the blood
(ADH) enhances fluid
retention by making the
kidneys reclaim more
Homeostasis: water
Blood osmolarity
 Low blood water potential
(too little water)
• Hypothalamus controls the sensation of thirst and
it also secretes the hormone ADH (antidiuretic
hormone; a.k.a vasopressin).
• ADH is stored in pituitary gland,
– and its target cells are the distal tubules and collecting
ducts of the kidney nephrons.

• ADH increases the permeability of the epithelium

to water.
• Increased water reabsorption, reduces urine
volume.
 Low blood water potential
(too little water, high osmotic
concentration)

• Osmolarity of the blood subside,

– reduces the activity of osmoreceptor cells
in the hypothalamus
– and less ADH is secreted
 Homeostasis:
Blood pressure,
Increased Na+
volume
and H2O
reabsorption in
distal tubules
STIMULUS:
The juxtaglomerular
apparatus (JGA) responds
Aldosterone to low blood volume or
blood pressure (such as due
to dehydration or loss of
Arteriole
blood)
constriction
Adrenal gland

Angiotensin II
Distal
tubule

Angiotensinogen
JGA
In response to
Renin
production low blood
pressure OR
Renin
blood vol.,
(b) The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) leads to
Figure 44.16b an increase in blood volume and pressure. READ pg 936
 Increase retention
Aldosteroneof Na+ by the
kidneys, greater
fluid retention,
increases blood
vol.
Renin
Angiotensinoge Angiotensin II
n (plasma Vasoconstriction,
protein) increase blood
pressure
 High blood water potential
(low osmotic concentration) > low blood
pressure
• A second regulatory mechanism involves
juxtaglomerular apparatus (JGA), located
near the afferent arteriole that supplies
blood to the glomerulus.

• When the blood pressure/blood volume in

the afferent arteriole drops, enzyme renin
initiates the conversion of angiotensinogen
(a plasma protein) to angiotensin II (a
peptide).
 High blood water potential
(low osmotic concentration) > low blood
pressure
• Angiotensin II
– raises blood pressure by constricting arterioles,
decreasing blood flow to many capillaries
(including those in the kidney)
– Stimulates the proximal tubules of the
nephrons to reabsorb more NaCl and water.
– Stimulates the adrenal glands to release
aldosterone (hormone), that acts on the
nephrons distal tubule, reabsorb more sodium
and water

• This reduces the amount of salt and water

excreted in the urine and consequently
raises blood volume and pressure
• The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone
system (RAAS)
– Is part of a complex feedback circuit that
functions in homeostasis
Juxta- Cortical
medullary nephron
nephron
Afferent
arteriole
from renal
Glomerulus
artery
Bowman’s capsule
Renal
cortex Proximal tubule
Peritubular
capillaries

Collecting
SEM
duct
20 µm
Efferent Distal
Renal
medulla
arteriole from tubule
glomerulus
To
renal
pelvis Collecting
Branch of
renal vein duct
Descending
Loop limb
of
Ascending
Henle limb

Vasa
recta
(d) Filtrate and
(c) Nephron blood flow
THE END