The 5 Branches Of Anatomy (and Their Characteristics)
According to recent studies, there are approximately 8.7 million species of living beings on our planet, although the figure could be between 3 and 100 million. For now, humans have described 1,400,000 animals and almost 324,000 plants, which is why it can be said that we have barely scratched the tip of the iceberg in terms of global biodiversity.
Taxonomy and phylogenetics are the first lines when it comes to classifying living beings, since so much life without organization would be true chaos on a scientific level. Humans have devised terms such as families, orders, genera and many others to encompass every living being that surrounds us based on their genetics and shared ancestors.
Even so, there are other essential sciences that work more “undercover”, classifying and describing the functional mechanisms of the life that surrounds us and even ourselves. We talk about anatomy, and today we tell you all its branches and characteristics
At a general level, we can define anatomy as the science that studies the structure of living beings, that is, the location and arrangement of their organs and the connection/relationship that exists between them Certain branches, in addition to describing these morphological attributes, compare them between taxa.
Although anatomy is responsible for carrying out a descriptive analysis of the organic parts of living beings, understanding each of the “points” requires the integration of its functionality and relationship with the environment. This is why, in many cases, anatomy and physiology (also called comparative anatomy) are practically inseparable. Developmental biology, physical anthropology and histology (study of tissues) are also accessory sciences on which this discipline relies.
What are the branches of anatomy?
Once we have circumscribed this term at a general level, we are ready to describe the X branches of anatomy and their characteristics. Go for it.
As its name indicates, Human anatomy is the science that is responsible for studying the macroscopic structures of the human body In general, our species has a greater predilection for what concerns it directly and, therefore, it is usually the branch of anatomy that is taught the most in schools and institutes. It is the first point of union that we all experience with the world of anatomy.
It is necessary to make certain appreciations regarding the term because, for example, the cells of our body are a task of cellular biology, the tissues of histology and the metabolic pathways/relationship between elements of physiology and biochemistry. Human anatomy studies us based on “systems” and “devices”, placing special emphasis on each of the macroscopic organs or central axes that make them up.
At the same time, Human anatomy can be divided into many other sub-disciplines among which we find the following:
We could continue listing excisions of human anatomy for lines and lines, since we left out terms such as bioscopic, clinical, surgical and applied anatomy, for example, which are used in the medical field to diagnose or treat a patient. an effective form.
2. Animal anatomy
Science that studies the number, structure, size, shape, arrangement, location and relationships of the different internal and external parts of animals From personal experience, we can say that the majority of experts on this topic are zoologists, since during the training period in this specialty anatomical generalities are learned about all the animal phyla on the planet.
It is interesting to know that a specialist in animal anatomy does not describe the body of all living beings, but rather the organs and characteristics of the phylum or taxon in which they have specialized. For example, the body of a nematode has little to do with that of a bird, especially since the former lacks its own skeletal structures.
plant anatomy integrates studies at the cellular level (cellular biology) and tissues (histology) in the taxa of plants and algae to study and describe the meristems and other specific structures of this phylum. In this case, anatomy, cell biology and histology are practically indistinguishable, since we do not usually talk about organs and systems as such, but rather about specialized tissues and cellular organizations.
4. Comparative anatomy
Comparative anatomy is an area of biology that studies the similarities and differences between the different morphological structures of organisms. We entered headlong into disciplines such as taxonomy or phylogeny because, before the development of genetic and molecular study techniques, comparative anatomy was the only tool available to infer relationship between species.
In addition to these “trees of life,” comparative anatomy allows zoologists to try to understand why a living being is the way it is For example, if two species come from the same ancestor and share a bone structure, why has the aquatic species developed a fin-shaped limb and another an arm? Despite sharing the same anatomical bases (same evolutionary origin, they are homologous), the purpose and external arrangement of these limbs are completely different.
Terms such as homology, plesiomorphy or apomorphy come from the comparative anatomical study of living beings. Thanks to him, human beings were able to lay the foundations of taxonomy before immersing themselves in the world of genetics.
5. Pathological anatomy
Pathological anatomy is the branch of medicine that deals with the study, through morphological techniques, of the bases of the deterioration of organs and tissues of human nature It is a functional unit of medical care, further removed from terms of a purely biological nature. The ultimate goal of this specialty is the correct diagnosis of biopsies, surgical specimens, cytology and autopsies to adequately address the patient’s illness.
According to this discipline, 3 specific events promote cellular degeneration at the level of human tissues:
Final appreciations
At the human level, dividing the branches of the anatomy of our species into arbitrary parameters is relatively unhelpful, since differentiating between “macroscopic” and “microscopic” when describing a tissue or the diseases that can degrade it is not very relevant to clinical level. The anatomical study of the human being requires multidisciplinary intervention from various branches not an “assembly line” in which one specialist is dedicated to a cell and another to a tissue.
On the other hand, comparative, plant and animal anatomy are not interchangeable with any other scientific discipline. Even so, today, comparative anatomy has also lost a lot of strength, since genetic analyzes (especially mitochondrial DNA and other techniques) are used to establish phylogenetic relationships between taxa of living beings. Even so, All these tools have been historically essential to establish the foundations of multiple scientific disciplines at a historical level
Summary
As you may have read in these lines, anatomy is a science that splits into completely different branches. The study of a worm has nothing to do with the description of the organs and systems or the specific pathologies of a human being, for example.
Although it seems that animal and plant anatomy is out of use today, they continue to be essential tools to describe the physiological characteristics of the species that are discovered every year, for example. The morphological description of everything that surrounds us lies in anatomy.
