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The skin is one of the largest organs of the body. In humans, it accounts for about 12 to 15 percent of total body weight and covers 1.5 to 2 m 2 of surface area. [1] 3D still showing human integumentary system. The skin (integument) is a composite organ, made up of at least two major layers of tissue: the epidermis and the dermis. [2]
The epidermis, "epi" coming from the Greek language meaning "over" or "upon", is the outermost layer of the skin. It forms the waterproof, protective wrap over the body's surface, which also serves as a barrier to infection and is made up of stratified squamous epithelium with an underlying basal lamina.
The word skin originally only referred to dressed and tanned animal hide and the usual word for human skin was hide. Skin is a borrowing from Old Norse skinn "animal hide, fur", ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *sek-, meaning "to cut" (probably a reference to the fact that in those times animal hide was commonly cut off to be used as garment).
The term is derived from integumentum, which is Latin for "a covering". In a transferred, or figurative sense, it could mean a cloak or a disguise. [2] In English, "integument" is a fairly modern word, its origin having been traced back to the early seventeenth century; and refers to a material or layer with which anything is enclosed, clothed, or covered in the sense of "clad" or "coated", as ...
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Keeled scales of a colubrid snake (banded water snake; Nerodia fasciata). In zoology, a scale (Ancient Greek: λεπίς, romanized: lepís; Latin: squāma) is a small rigid plate that grows out of an animal's skin to provide protection.
The epidermal scutes of the alligator consists of oblong horny scales, arranged in transverse rows; the long axes of the scales are parallel to that of the body.On the tail, except along the mid-dorsal line, and on the ventral side of the trunk and head these scales are very regular in outline and arrangement; on the sides of the head and trunk and on the legs they are much smaller and less ...
Cutaneous receptors are at the ends of afferent neurons. works within the capsule. Ion channels are situated near these networks. In sensory transduction, the afferent nerves transmit through a series of synapses in the central nervous system, first in the spinal cord, the ventrobasal portion of the thalamus, and then on to the somatosensory cortex.