The 5 branches of Anatomy (and their characteristics)

These are the different branches of anatomy as a scientific discipline.

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. So far, 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 as far as global biodiversity is concerned.

Taxonomy and phylogenetics are the front lines when it comes to classifying living things, because so much life without organization would be scientific chaos. Humans have devised terms such as families, orders, genera and many others to encompass all living things around us based on their genetics and shared ancestry.

Even so, there are other essential sciences that work more "behind the scenes", classifying and describing the functional mechanisms of life around us and even ourselves. We speak of anatomy, and today we tell you all its branches and characteristics..

What is anatomy?

At a general level, we can define anatomy as the science that studies the structure of living beings. the structure of the living beings, that is to say, the location and disposition of its 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 a descriptive analysis of the organic parts of living beings, the understanding of each of the "points" requires the integration of their 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 ancillary 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. Let's get to it.

1. Human anatomy

As its name suggests human anatomy is the science that deals with the study of the macroscopic structures of the human body.. In general, our species feels more 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 appreciations regarding the term because, for example, the cells of our body are the task of cell biology, the tissues of histology and the metabolic pathways/relationship between elements of physiology and biochemistry. Human anatomy studies us on the basis of "systems" and "apparatus", 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 are the followingamong which we find the following:

• Systematic/descriptive anatomy: studies the body at the level of systems and apparatus.
• Regional anatomy: studies 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 of study, as it studies the characteristics of the superficial morphology of the body (the relief of a bone, for example).
• Functional anatomy: studies the purpose of the structures. "The form makes the function".

We could go on listing divisions of human anatomy for lines and lines, as we leave 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 effectively.

2. Animal anatomy

The 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 most experts in this subject are zoologists, because during the training period in this specialty they learn anatomical generalities 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 because the former lacks its own skeletal structures.

3. Plant anatomy

Plant anatomy integrates studies at the cellular (cell biology) and tissue (histology) levels in plant and algal taxa to study and describe the meristems and meristems of plants and algae. to study and describe the meristems and other structures specific to this phylum. In this case, anatomy, cell biology and histology are practically indistinguishable, since we do not usually speak of organs and systems as such, but of specialized tissues and cellular organizations.

4. Comparative anatomy

Comparative anatomy is an area of biology that studies the similarities and differences between the various morphological structures of organisms. We enter 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 the kinship between species.

In addition to these "trees of life", comparative anatomy allows us zoologists to try to understand why a living thing is the way it is. For example, if two species come from the same ancestor and share bone structure, why has the aquatic one evolved a fin-like limb and the other an arm? Despite sharing the same anatomical basis (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 it, the human being was able to lay the foundations of taxonomy before diving into the world of genetics.

5. Pathological anatomy

Pathological anatomy is the branch of medicine that deals with the study, diagnosis and medicine that deals with the study, by means of 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 address the patient's disease properly.

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

• Inflammation: diseases ending in -itis, such as appendicitis.
• Degeneration: diseases ending in -osis, such as osteoarthritis.
• Uncontrolled cell growth: cancers, i.e. terms ending in -oma, such as melanoma.

Concluding remarks

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 at the clinical level. The anatomical study of the human being requires a multidisciplinary intervention of various branches, not an "assembly line".not an "assembly line" in which one specialist is dedicated to a cell and another to a tissue.

On the other hand, comparative anatomy, plant and animal anatomy are not interchangeable with any other scientific discipline. Even so, comparative anatomy has also lost a lot of strength today, since genetic analysis (especially of mitochondrial DNA and other techniques) is used to establish phylogenetic relationships between taxa of living beings. Even so, all these tools have been essential historically, all these tools have historically been essential to establish the basis of multiple scientific disciplines at the historical level..

Summary

As you may have read in these lines, anatomy is a science that is divided 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 animal and plant anatomy may seem to be in disuse today, they are still essential tools for describing the physiological characteristics of species that are discovered every year, for example. In anatomy lies the morphological description of everything that surrounds us.

Bibliographic references:

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• Anatomy, medlineplus.gov. Retrieved December 29 from https://medlineplus.gov/spanish/anatomy.html.
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