Question

Lab 7: Integumentary System

Study skin diagrams, models, & slides, plus functions of integumentary structures

Answer 1

The integumentary system comprises the skin and its appendages acting to protect the body from various kinds of damage, such as loss of water or damages from outside. The integumentary system includes hair, scales, feathers, hooves, and nails.

It has a variety of additional functions;

It may serve to waterproof, and protect the deeper tissues, excrete wastes, and regulate body temperature, and is the attachment site for sensory receptors to detect pain, sensation, pressure, and temperature. In most land vertebrates with significant exposure to sunlight, the integumentary system also provides for vitamin D synthesis.

Skin	Functions: chemical and mechanical barrier, biosynthesis, control of body temperature, sensory Layers: Epidermis (Stratum Basale, Spinosum, Granulosum, Lucidum, Corneum) and dermis (papillary, reticular).
Hair	Types: vellus and terminal Structure: Follicle and bulb (shaft, inner root sheath, outer root sheath, glassy membrane)
Nails	Nail plate, nail folds, nail matrix, nail bed, hyponychium
Secretory glands	Sweat glands: eccrine (most numerous, covering almost the entire body) and apocrine (only in the axilla and genitalia) Sebaceous glands: Cover the entire body and secrete sebum (oily and fatty)
Subcutaneous tissue (hypodermis)	Adipose tissue that increases skin mobility, insulates the body, and acts as a shock absorber
Blood supply	Direct cutaneous: From the main arterial trunks Musculocutaneous: From intramuscular vasculature after piercing muscles and spreading in the hypodermis Fasciocutaneous: From perforating branches located deep to the deep fascia
Innervation	Pacinian corpuscles, Meissner corpuscles, specific stimuli receptors