I really enjoyed studying the anatomy of the abdominal cavity and I am so glad I got to study it. It was a subject that I personally enjoyed a lot, as well as many others in my class, and I believe it was definitely one of my best exams. The human body is just fascinating because there are so many different things that can go wrong with it, and it is so amazing that we are able to go our whole lives without any major issues.
“The abdominal cavity is located between the thoracic and pelvic cavities. It is where the intestines, liver, stomach, spleen, pancreas and kidneys are located.” (Abdominal Cavity- Anatomy of the Abdominal Cavity – A blog about the abdominal cavity.) This really helped me to understand where everything was located within the abdominal cavity, as well as what everything did or contributed in different situations. For instance, if you are not consuming enough water daily you will feel tired because your kidneys won’t be working properly; this means they can’t filter out all of your blood effectively and therefore your blood becomes thicker to move around your body. When this happens you will feel tired and overall not well.
This blog has given me a better understanding of how everything works together
This blog is a place where I can share my knowledge of the structure and function of the abdominal cavity. I will likely post articles regarding the central nervous system, peripheral nervous system, and musculoskeletal system.
The purpose of this blog is to provide the reader with a better understanding of the human body. Knowledge is power, and as humans, we can be empowered by knowing how our bodies work. I hope you find this blog useful!
The abdominal cavity of an adult is the region of the body that lies between the thorax and the pelvis. It is a potential space and not a continuous one, i.e. it is composed of many separate compartments formed by the diaphragm above, the pelvic floor below, and lateral abdominal walls laterally.
The most common cause of abdominal pain is acute viral gastroenteritis (stomach flu). Other causes are peptic ulcer disease, appendicitis, pancreatitis (inflammation of pancreas), colitis etc.
Here you can find information about anatomy and physiology of the gastrointestinal tract in humans. You will also find various articles about digestive system written from an anatomical and physiological point of view. Additional articles are added on a regular basis.
The abdominal cavity is a somewhat confusing area of the human body. The diagram above is a great depiction of its anatomy, and it helps to show what each organ does.
The largest part of the abdominal cavity is the space that is between the organs and contains blood vessels, nerves, and muscles that help the organs to do their jobs. This space is called the “abdominal cavity”.
Towards the upper end of the abdominal cavity are two large hollow organs known as the stomach and the intestines. Both are hollow tubular organs, meaning they have a long slit down their length that allows food to pass through it with ease. Food enters one end of these organs via the esophagus and exits out of their other end via another hollow tube called an “anus.”
A little way below this are some smaller hollow tubular organs including the liver, gallbladder, pancreas, and spleen. These organs remove toxins from our blood supply in order for us to be healthy.
These organs remove toxins from our blood supply in order for us to be healthy.
When drawing the abdominal cavity, I’ve noticed that the organs don’t always lie in the same direction on all sides. The heart, for instance, appears to be tilted to the right in the front view and to the left in the side view. The stomach is higher on the right than on the left. And so on. I’m pretty sure this is accurate.
I don’t know how this happens, but I do know that you can see it if you look at yourself naked in a mirror or have a friend draw your outline from memory.* Here’s a sketch of my naked body as viewed from above, with labels showing how things are oriented in different views:
It’s not obvious why there should be this kind of asymmetry, but it does make sense if you realize that gravity has tilted everything from its original starting position.
The spine and ribs are all curved slightly outward; pushing them back into their original position would require some force. This is what’s happening when your back “hangs” in an odd way after sleeping on a bed that’s too soft.
If you lift up your arms, everything inside also moves up slightly toward your shoulders.* If you’re standing up straight, your intestines are leaning slightly forward because they’re being pulled down
The abstract and superficial anatomy of the abdomen is described in the previous post. This post focuses on the deep and visceral anatomy.
The visceral organs are enclosed within the abdominal cavity, a space bounded by the bony thorax, pelvis, spine, diaphragm, peritoneum and ligaments. The abdominal organs include the spleen, liver, stomach, small intestine (duodenum through ileum), colon (ascending through transverse through descending), cecum and appendix. The urinary bladder is retroperitoneal.
We will be discussing the abdominal contents of a male cadaver around 60-70 years of age. The female abdomen is similar but smaller to allow for childbearing.
Lungs
The outer walls of the lungs are fused with the inner walls of the top part of each pleural sac (the lining between chest wall and lung). The lung itself is surrounded by a fluid-filled membrane called pleura which allows it to move against the chest wall when breathing occurs. The pleura also produces a lubricating fluid to reduce friction from breathing.
The space between each lung and its pleural sac is known as a costodiaphragmatic recess. In normal situations these recesses are obliterated except for
The human body is a beautiful, complicated thing. It’s certainly not something that you can understand from a single diagram. And the more you learn about the intricacies, the more complicated and beautiful it becomes.
How can you make a picture that conveys this complexity and beauty? Well, for starters, you might try drawing what you see . . . .
The image above is from a series of drawings by Dutch artist Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972), who made a career out of distilling mathematical principles into images that are simultaneously beautiful and mind-bogglingly complex. He was particularly interested in the mathematics of tessellations — how to fill a plane with shapes (not necessarily polygons) so that each shape is surrounded by others of the same kind, but no space is wasted. The drawings explore various ways to divide up the plane, and how shapes interact with each other on different levels.
Or they would explore those ideas if they were actually intended as explorations of those ideas. Which they’re not. Depending on your interpretation, they are instead:
— A demonstration of logical paradoxes or mathematical impossibilities.
— An illustration of visual illusions specific to Escher’s style.
— A demonstration of