Body (biology)
The body ( Middle High German body , korper ; from Latin corpus 'body') is in the biological sense the materially appearing form of a living being, with which it is set apart from its surroundings, regardless of whether it is alive or not. This material structure can be described morphologically according to form and appearance, examined for components and connections as a structure and understood as the result of processes compared for possible functions.
If a living body is considered or if it is alive as a body , then the behavior of an animal or human body can also be related to non-material phenomena of an individual such as feelings and thoughts or the possibility of consciousness . For example, material or physical states (of body or body) can be contrasted with psychological or mental states (of soul or spirit) and, in an attempt to equate them, can be understood as a “body-mind problem” ; their possible connection is seen as psychosomatic with a different perspective and certain restrictions .
In the case of unicellular organisms or the individual cells in the tissue of a multicellular organism, their shape is often referred to as "cell body" (with regard to cytokinesis ) or "cell body" (sometimes without cell processes ), or as soma or, in the case of nerve cells, as perikaryon (minus the cell nucleus ) .
Anatomy deals with the structure of bodies, while physiology deals with body functions and the metabolic processes that take place within a body . The Biochemistry describes and explores the chemical processes and their molecular basis at the level of a body or a cell.
Dead bodies or corpses are also referred to as corpus in humans and as cadavers in animals .
literature
- Ernst Seidl u. a .: body knowledge. Knowledge between eros and disgust. MUT, Tübingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-9812736-1-8 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ in Brothers Grimm : German dictionary , retro-digitized available as DWB ; Entry under BODY m.
- ↑ Benninghoff: Macroscopic and microscopic anatomy of humans, volume 3. Nervous system, skin and sensory organs. Urban and Schwarzenberg, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-541-00264-6 , p. 8.