Homeostasis is the ability of the body system to maintain a balance or equilibrium internally against external forces. It is an organism attempt to persistently monitor and adjust internally as the external environment changes. Both animals and human beings require this process to maintain desirable body temperature, blood pressure, and proper levels of nutrients in their body system. Maintaining homeostasis requires that the body correspond with the mechanism and system to establish a favorable and stable internal environment.
The endocrine system performs a significant role in homeostasis since hormones control the operation of body cells. The maintenance and stability of body cells occurs by means of feedback loops that regulate the body’s internal environment. It helps restore back any important deviation from a set point value. The feedback loop basic components include the receptor; also known as a sensor, detects changes in the environment (Suchacki et al., 2017). The control center integrates the information from the receptor, and later sends appropriate signals to the effector. The sensor and control center helps to identify the role of feedback loop to homeostasis.
To maintain homeostasis, an effector organ, causes a significant change, to either increase the change to the system, or decrease the situation, and return it to desirable level. The best example is the kidney which retains water when blood pressure is low in the body. Ways of communication amidst the basic components of feedback loop are essential in order for it to operate effectively which usually happen through hormones or nerves. The maintenance and stability of body cells occur through feedback loops that regulate the body’s internal environment. The feedback loop essential components include the receptor, also known as a sensor, which detects changes in the body
Remember that homeostasis is the ability of the body to maintain stable and balanced internal conditions. When alter in the environment or a stimuli is detected, feedback loops act to keep body system functioning at the ideal point. Feedback is a result or a reaction of a loop that impact or affects the stimulus or input. Typically feedback loops are divided into two types that control physiological system in the human body.
To start with, negative feedback loops are important mechanism to maintain homeostasis in the body. Negative feedback helps reduce or drop an excessive stimulus and maintain the variable within the set point. In other words, if a level increases, the body reacts to bring it down, and if a level decreases, the body reacts to bring it up. For instance, in the maintenance blood glucose level, specific endocrine cells of pancreas sense the level of glucose in the body.
The cells; alpha and beta, react appropriately to maintain an ideal level of blood glucose. If the level of blood glucose is high, pancreatic cells produce hormone insulin into the blood. The insulin relays signals to other organs such as the liver cells, to remove excess glucose, until blood glucose drops to the normal level (Roskoski, 2017). On the other hand, if blood glucose level drops below normal point, pancreatic cells produce hormone glucagon. This hormone helps stored glycogen to be broken down to glucose and increase blood glucose level to the normal range. Negative feedback helps explain why they are predominant mechanism to control blood glucose.
Other example of negative feedback is thermoregulation; the human set point in temperature is 37 degrees Celsius and anything below or beyond this level can lead to disease. Luckily, human body is a self-regulatory system where if body temperatures are high, the brain stimulates vasodilation which allows the sweat glands to release more heat, and blood vessels near the skin surface dilate thus cooling the epidermis (Samanta et al., 2017). In contrast, if the body temperature drops below the normal range and is exposed to cold, the blood stops flowing near the skin cover and allows the heat to be trapped in the body core and prevent heat loss.
Positive feedback increases a change in the physiological process of the body rather than decreasing it. Positive feedback is less common in homeostasis because it accelerates the direction of the stimuli until an endpoint is arrived. For instance, when one is injured, blood from the injured site produces chemical that attracts platelets to aid in clotting. Positive feedback speeds the process of clotting because if more chemicals are released, more platelets will be attracted, and a mass a large clot to cease the bleeding. when mothers’ breastfeeds, the hormone prolactin is triggered by the baby suckles resulting to more milk production.
Positive feedback also occurs during childbearing; oxytocin triggers a labor contraction which pushes the baby against the cervix which eventually dilates to allow the baby to pass. Therefore, positive feedback loop aids to evaluate how the mechanism plays an important role to control physiological systems. In conclusion, homeostasis is important to human survival and functionality; together with feedback loops and their components, body system is able to remain stable and work well.
References
Suchacki, K. J., Roberts, F., Lovdel, A., Farquharson, C., Morton, N. M., MacRae, V. E., & Cawthorn, W. P. (2017). Skeletal energy homeostasis: a paradigm of endocrine discovery. J Endocrinol, 234(1), R67-79. Web.
Samanta, D., Prabhakar, N. R., & Semenza, G. L. (2017). Systems biology of oxygen homeostasis. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Systems Biology and Medicine, 9(4), e1382. Web.
Roskoski Jr, R. (2017). Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and VEGF receptor inhibitors in the treatment of renal cell carcinomas. Pharmacological Research, 120, 116-132. Web.