The 5 branches of Anatomy (and their characteristics)

According to recent studies, on our planet there are approximately 8.7 million species of living beings, although the figure could be between 3 and 100 million. By now, humans have described 1,400,000 animals and almost 324,000 plants, which is why it is You can say that we have barely scratched the tip of the iceberg as far as global biodiversity is concerned. refers.

Taxonomy and phylogenetics are the first front lines when classifying living beings, since so much life without organization would be a real chaos at a scientific level. Humans have devised terms such as families, orders, genders and many more 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 "behind the scenes", classifying and describing the functional mechanisms of life that surrounds us and even ourselves. We talk about anatomy, and today we tell you all its branches and characteristics.

Related article: "The 12 systems of the human body (and how they work)"

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What is anatomy?

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.

Despite the fact that anatomy is in charge of carrying out a descriptive analysis of the organic parts of beings living, the understanding of each of the "points" requires the integration of its functionality and relationship with the environment. That 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.

1. Human anatomy

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 most taught in schools and institutes. It is the first point of connection that we all experience with the world of anatomy.

It is necessary to make certain observations regarding the term because, for example, the cells of our body are a task of cell biology, tissue histology and metabolic pathways / relationship between elements of physiology and biochemistry. Human anatomy studies us on the basis of “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 more, among which we find the following:

Systematic / descriptive anatomy: studies the body at the level of systems and apparatus.
Regional anatomy: study the human body by body regions. If the thorax is studied, it is necessary to describe all the structures included here.
Surface anatomy: an essential area in the study, as it studies the characteristics of the surface morphology of the body (the relief of a bone, for example).
Functional anatomy: study the purpose of the structures. "Form does function."

We could continue listing excisions of the human anatomy during lines and lines, because we left in the ink terms such as anatomy bioscopic, clinical, surgical and applied, for example, which are used in the medical field to diagnose or treat a patient in a effective.

You may be interested in: "The 25 main organs of the human body"

2. Animal anatomy

Science that studies the number, structure, size, shape, arrangement, situation and relationships of the different internal and external parts of animals. From personal experience, we can say that the majority of experts on this subject are zoologists, since during the formative period in this specialty, anatomical generalities are learned about all the animal phyla of 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.

3. Plant anatomy

Plant anatomy integrates studies at the cellular (cell biology) and tissue (histology) level in plant and algal taxa 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 there is no usually speak of organs and systems as such, but of specialized tissues and organizations cell phones.

4. Comparative anatomy

Comparative anatomy is an area of biology that studies the similarities and differences between the different morphological structures of organisms. We go headlong into disciplines such as taxonomy or phylogeny, then, before the development of study techniques genetic and molecular, comparative anatomy was the only tool available to infer the relationship between species.

In addition to these "trees of life," comparative anatomy allows zoologists to try to understand why a living being is how it is. For example, if two species come from the same ancestor and share 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 disposition of these extremities are completely different.

Terms such as homology, plesiomorphy or apomorphy come from the comparative anatomical study of living beings. Thanks to him, the human being was able to lay the foundations of taxonomy before immersing himself in the world of genetics.

5. Pathological anatomy

Pathological anatomy is the branch of the medicine that deals with the study, by means of morphological techniques, of the bases of the deterioration of the 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, cytologies and autopsies to address the patient's disease properly.

According to this discipline, 3 specific events promote cellular degeneration at the level of human tissues:

Inflammation: diseases that end in -itis, such as appendicitis.
Degeneration: these are diseases that end in -osis, such as osteoarthritis.
Uncontrolled cell growth: cancers, that is, terms that end in -oma, such as melanoma.

Final remarks

At the human level, splitting 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 too relevant at the level clinical. The anatomical study of the human being requires a multidisciplinary intervention of 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, and to this day, comparative anatomy has also lost a lot of strength, since genetic analyzes are used (especially mitochondrial DNA and other techniques) to establish phylogenetic relationships between taxa of beings alive. Even so, all these tools have historically been essential to establish the foundations of multiple scientific disciplines at the historical level.

Resume

As you may have read in these lines, anatomy is a science that is divided into completely different branches from each other. 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 are in disuse today, they are still tools essential to describe the physiological characteristics of the species that are discovered each year, for example. In anatomy lies the morphological description of everything that surrounds us.

Bibliographic references:

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