Are anatomy and physiology the same thing?

Question

You are often required to take both anatomy and physiology together, but what is the difference?

Answer 1

Hello!

Excellent question - they're very closely interrelated disciplines.

Anatomy primarily aims to describe how organs, muscles, and bones are arranged. For instance, anatomy classes will describe how muscles connect different bones and what happens to joints when these muscles contract. Students would be expected to identify/name these muscles and bones if shown a diagram or body. They will also ask students to identify and understand the broad function of other structures such as nerves and blood vessels (e.g. this nerve activates this muscle; this blood vessel brings blood to that muscle) or organs such as the pancreas or liver (e.g. the liver and pancreas work together to aid in digestion).

Physiology, on the other hand, is all about homeostasis, the concept that the body aims to maintain balance. For instance - how does your body cool you down when you're too hot? What if you're too cold? Both sweating and shivering are your body's effort to maintain a steady body temperature. Physiology will go into depth on how individual cells in each tissue may contribute to maintaining balance in other systems (e.g. if you drink too much or too little water, your body will adjust to keep a certain level of water in your body by making you thirsty or making you urinate more/less). Physiology will discuss the specific cells in the kidneys that make that happen, and the specific chemical processes that enable this function.

Like other answers mentioned, both benefit from knowing just a little about the other.

Tl;dr: If anatomy is 'what' the body is, physiology is 'why' it works.

Answer 2

While anatomy and physiology often overlap, they are not the same subject of study.

Anatomy focuses on the structure of the body. This includes things like the various bones and their features, muscles and their insertions, and similar subjects.

Meanwhile, physiology focuses on function of various organs. For example, there is often a physiology class focusing on how the kidneys filter the blood.

Despite the subjects being different focuses, they do tend to overlap, as I stated earlier. This is due to how the structure of something in the body often corresponds to its function, allowing one to learn both at the same time.

I hope this helps!

Answer 3

Anatomy and physiology both pertain to the structure of an organism, but no they are not the same thing. Anatomy covers the identification of structures and their scientific names. Physiology explains the function of the structures. It is beneficial to have an understanding of anatomy before learning physiology because they build on one another. The next step in the progression after physiology would be learning pathology or how substances or outside influences can impact the physiology and benefit or harm the body.