Open Post #2: What is Physiology?

I’m writing this post because I want to be clear on what physiology actually is just for clarification for my readers. You may not know exactly what physiology is, but hopefully you do after reading this!

Physiology is the study of life and the normal functions of living organisms and their parts. Studying physiology is amazing because we get to learn and see how humans function. Basically, we can understand how we live the way we do because of our bodily functions! Physiology is important because it gives us information on life and how our bodies work. We can learn how our organs work together and interact with each other to perform normal, everyday functions that we may not even think about. Physiology also lets us learn how to identify diseases and find ways to treat or cure those diseases. Without physiology, we wouldn’t know how our own bodies work or how we can improve them.

You may be thinking: “So, physiology is basically just anatomy, right?”, however, that is not the case. Anatomy is the STRUCTURE of living things, while physiology looks at these structures and their FUNCTIONS. Anatomy shows what it is and physiology shows what it does. These are very similar and they relate very closely, but they are slightly different.

Below, you see two different pictures. The picture on the top demonstrates anatomy and the picture on the bottom demonstrates physiology. The one on the top demonstrates anatomy because it only shows where each lobe is and what it is called. The one on the bottom, however, shows where each lobe is, what each is called, and it tells you some of the functions and other mechanisms of each lobe in our brain. Physiology goes into a lot more detail about the functions, but I don't want to bore you with lengthy definitions!

Photo credit: www.cancer.ca

Photo credit: www.biomed.brown.edu

Physiologists are always working to find new discoveries about the body. They do lots of research in labs, the field, libraries, space, etc. They are always looking for answers and new information on bodily functions, diseases, cell functions, how humans interact, our environment, and many other subjects. However, studying physiology doesn’t mean you have to become a researcher, there are many other career paths that can be taken with a degree in physiology. I’m not going to talk about career paths in this post because it is not the focus, but keep your eyes open for my post about careers in physiology!

Newman, Tim. "What Is Physiology? Anatomy and Biological Systems." Medical News Today. MediLexicon International, n.d. Web. 7 Feb. 2016. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/248791.php

"What Is Physiology?" American Physiological Society. American Physiological Society, n.d. Web. 7 Feb. 2016.http://www.the-aps.org/mm/careers/ugrad/what-is-physiology