The Best Episodes of Crash Course Anatomy & Physiology

In this episode of Crash Course, Hank introduces you to the complex history and terminology of Anatomy & Physiology.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

In this episode of Crash Course Anatomy & Physiology, Hank gives you a brief history of histology and introduces you to the different types and functions of your body's tissues.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Today on Crash Course Anatomy & Physiology, Hank breaks down the parts and functions of one of your body's unsung heroes: your epithelial tissue.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

On today's episode of Crash Course Anatomy & Physiology, Hank continues our exploration of tissues, with an introduction to your connective tissues.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Today Hank wraps up our look at Connective Tissues with a discussion of its various types and a breakdown of what you can and can't easily break down. Also chicken.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Anatomy & Physiology continues with a look at your biggest organ - your skin.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Today Hank wraps up this look at your integumentary system and all the hard work it does protecting you from and helping you interact with the world around you.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Today Hank kicks off our look around MISSION CONTROL: your nervous system.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

What do you and a sack of batteries have in common? Today, Hank explains.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

We continue our tour of the nervous system with a look at synapses and the crazy stuff cocaine does to your body.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Today Hank talks about your central nervous system. In this episode we'll explore how your brain develops and how important location is for each of your brain's many functions.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

It is now time to meet the system that helps your crazy brain stay in touch with the outside world. We follow up last week's tour of the central nervous system with a look at your peripheral nervous system, its afferent and efferent divisions, how it processes information, the reflex arc, and what your brain has to say about pain.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Hank takes you on a tour of your two-part autonomic nervous system. This episode explains how your sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system work together as foils, balancing each other out. Their key anatomical differences - where nerve fibers originate and where their ganglia are located - drive their distinct anatomical functions, making your sympathetic nervous system the "fight or flight" while your parasympathetic nervous system is for "resting and digesting."

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Hank tries not to stress you out too much as he delves into the functions and terminology of your sympathetic nervous system.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

This week we are looking at your parasympathetic division, which is the "resting and digesting" unit. Unfortunately, learning about this de-stressing division also involves a whole lot of memorization. Don't worry, though - we've got some mnemonic devices to help you out!

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Hank resists the urge to devour a slice of pizza so that he can walk you through the way we experience our major special senses. It all boils down to one thing: sensory cells translating chemical, electromagnetic, and mechanical stimuli into action potentials that our nervous system can make sense of. Today we're focusing on smell (olfaction) and taste (gustation), which are chemical senses that call on chemoreceptors. As usual, we'll begin with a quick look at how these things can go wrong.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Crash Course A&P continues the journey through sensory systems with a look at how your sense of hearing works. We follow sounds as they work there way into the ear where they are registered and transformed into action potentials. This mechanism not only helps you hear but also helps maintain your equilibrium.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Next stop in our tour of your sensory systems? VISION. With a little help from an optical illusion, we take a look inside your eyes to try to figure out how your sense of vision works -- and how it can be tricked.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Today Hank explains the skeletal system and why astronauts Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko are out in space studying it. He talks about the anatomy of the skeletal system, including the flat, short, and irregular bones, and their individual arrangements of compact and spongy bone. He'll also cover the microanatomy of bones, particularly the osteons and their inner lamella. And finally he will introduce the process of bone remodeling, which is carried out by crews of osteocytes, osteoblasts, and osteoclasts.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

We continue our look at your bones and skeletal system, skipping over the silly kid's song in favor of a more detailed look at your your axial and appendicular skeleton. This episode also talks about the structural and functional classifications of your joints and the major types of body movement that they facilitate.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

We're kicking off our exploration of muscles with a look at the complex and important relationship between actin and myosin. Your smooth, cardiac, and skeletal muscles create movement by contracting and releasing in a process called the sliding filament model. Your skeletal muscles are constructed like a rope made of bundles of protein fibers, and that the smallest strands are your actin and myosin myofilaments. Its their use of calcium and ATP that causes the binding and unbinding that makes sarcomeres contract and relax.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Hank calls in a friend to do his push ups for him today to explain how skeletal muscles work together to create and reverse movements. Hank and Claire also demonstrate the role size plays in motor units, the three phase cycle of muscle twitches, and how the strength and frequency of an impulse affects the strength and duration of a contraction. This episode also explains twitch summation, tetanus, and isotonic vs. isometric movements.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Hank begins teaching you about your endocrine system by explaining how it uses glands to produce hormones. These hormones are either amino-acid based and water soluble, or steroidal and lipid-soluble, and may target many types of cells or just turn on specific ones. He will also touch on hormone cascades, and how the HPA axis effects your stress response.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

In the second half of our look at the endocrine system, Hank discusses chemical homeostasis and hormone cascades. Specifically, he looks at the hypothalamus-pituitary-thyroid axis, or HPT axis, and all the ways your body can suffer when that system, or your hormones in general, get out of whack.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

Your heart gets a lot of attention from poets, songwriters, and storytellers, but today Hank's gonna tell you how it really works. The heart’s ventricles, atria, and valves create a pump that maintains both high and low pressure to circulate blood from the heart to the body through your arteries, and bring it back to the heart through your veins. You'll also learn what your blood pressure measurements mean when we talk about systolic and diastolic blood pressure.

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A