L7 - Kidney

Vocabulary flashcards based on the kidney lecture transcript.

Renal

Relating to the kidney.

Extracellular Fluid

Fluid outside the cells in which the kidneys maintain composition and volume, particularly in the blood.

Mass Balance

Concept where everything that comes into the body has to leave the body again, otherwise it will accumulate.

Filtration

The process by which the kidney removes a whole lot of things from the blood.

Reabsorption

The process by which the kidney puts most of the filtered substances back into the blood from the urine.

Erythropoietin

A hormone produced by the kidneys that stimulates the production of red blood cells.

Renal Cortex

The outermost layer of the kidney.

Renal Medulla

The inner region of the kidney.

Nephron

The functional subunit of the kidney; there are many in each kidney.

Renal Pyramids

Bundles of tubes that gather together and funnel urine into the renal pelvis.

Renal Pelvis

A large drain that takes all of the urine that's being made across all of the kidney and funneling it down into the ureter where it's going to be transported out of the kidney towards the bladder.

Renal Corpuscle

The location where there is an interface between a tiny blood vessel and part of the nephron, where material leaves the blood and goes into the nephron.

Proximal Convoluted Tubule

The section of the nephron nearby to the start of the nephron, near to where the blood interfaces with the nephron where a lot of the reabsorption occurs. Site of reabsorption of 70% of what was removed from the blood.

Loop of Henle

The part of the nephron that goes down into the medulla. Specialised function is to reduce water content of the urine.

Descending Limb

The side of the Loop of Henle where the urine is moving downwards.

Ascending Limb

The side of the Loop of Henle where the urine is coming back up again.

Distal Convoluted Tubule

The section of the nephron that is further away because it's later on in the tube, it's further from where the material entered the nephron.

Collecting Duct

A further tube where multiple nephrons' urine that's being made is now coming out of the distal convoluted tubule into that tube.

Glomerulus

A tangle of very small capillaries within the renal corpuscle.

Bowman's Capsule

Part of the nephron, that is what is absorbing the material that comes out of the glomerulus

Ultrafiltration

The process of moving material out of the blood vessel into the Bowman's Capsule due to hydrostatic pressure.

Podocyte

A cell that kind of looks like a big sort of octopus, it has a cell body with its nucleus and has these long sort of tentacles called feet, and those tentacles are wrapped around the vessels of the glomerulus.

Glomerular Filtration Rate

Concentration in urine * urine flow rate (ml/min) / Concentration in blood

Inulin

A substance that can be injected into a vein, it doesn't interact with the body at all, it just moves around in the bloodstream to calculate the rate of filtration through the glomeruli in that person's kidneys

Creatinine

Something that the body makes naturally as a byproduct of the breakdown of muscles that can be used to calculate the rate of filtration through the glomeruli in that person's kidneys

Microvilli

Little tiny hair like structures that Increase the surface area of the cells lining the inner layer of the proximal convoluted tubule to allow more absorption.

Co-transport

A process where a substance is moved along with another substance; in the kidney, glucose is moved with sodium. An active transport process, requiring energy.

Aldosterone

A hormone produced by the adrenal gland in response to low blood pressure. Increases the reabsorption of sodium in the distal convoluted tubule and in the collecting duct, therefore increasing blood volume because water follows sodium passively.

Antidiuretic Hormone (ADH)

A hormone released by the hypothalamus in response to high blood solute concentration; it acts on the kidney's collecting duct to increase water reabsorption, by increasing insertion of aquaporins into collecting duct walls, the reabsorption of water increased blood volume.

Vasopressin

Another name for the hormone Antidiuretic Hormone (ADH)

Renal Threshold

A concentration of a certain substance in the bloodstream where if that concentration gets higher than that threshold in the bloodstream, that substance will appear in a person's urine

Urea

A byproduct of protein metabolism that is removed via the kidney

Urochrome

A breakdown, a byproduct of dead red blood cells found in the liver, that gives urine its yellow color.