>>Dr. Ketchum: Okay, in this segment we’re going to be discussing the functional anatomy
of the female reproductive system. Okay, so before we begin the functional anatomy, we’re
going to just look at some characteristics of the female reproductive system. So keep
in mind that there are cyclical changes that occur via the menstrual cycle and menstruation.
There’s periods of restricted fertility and that is occurring during ovulation, and
females have a limited gamete production. In other words, females are born with a set
number of oogonia. Oogonia—these are the female gametes. Females are born with a set
number, all right? We don’t make more oogonia throughout life. This is a pool that’s established
at birth, and that’s all the oogonia females will ever have. Okay, so now on to
the functional anatomy of the female reproductive tract.
All right, so to begin with let’s look at the location for the ovaries. And if we just
take a look—so these are—there’s two ovaries, right? We have bilateral symmetry.
So if you divide this image in half here, there’s an ovary on the right and one on
the left. So we’re going to zoom in just on one of these ovaries here. And when we
zoom in on this ovary and we look inside of it, what’s going on within this ovary is
that you have follicles, and within the follicles they will contain developing ovum. We’re
going to talk a lot more about that when we get to the menstrual cycle. So for now, think
about the ovaries in terms of the location for the developing or the maturing ovum.
Once that mature ovum is ready it will leave the ovary and it will travel into the uterine
tube. If fertilization is going to occur, it occurs in the uterine tube. We’ll put
a big X—X marks the spot. That's where fertilization takes place. Then the—either the zygote,
if it’s fertilized egg, correct? Or the mature ovum, whichever the case may be, will
travel to the uterus. If it is a fertilized egg, a zygote, that’s going to be implanted
into the wall of the uterus. I’ll just put a Z in the wall of the uterus. If the developing
or the mature ovum, rather, is not fertilized, it’s going to continue to pass through the
uterus, through the vagina, and out of the body. So that gives you a nice little overview
of what’s going on in the female reproductive tract. We’re going to be looking at details
for each of these structures and looking at how hormones are related and, and how that
ovum develops. How the egg gets fertilized, and if it does get fertilized, how the fetus develops.
So we’re going to be hitting each of those in separate video lectures.
Okay, so these are the functions of the granulosa cells. For right now you’re not going to have a
clue what the granulosa cells are, and so when we discuss the menstrual cycle, please
be sure to come back and look at the functions for the granulosa cells. Okay, now continuing
on then with the reproductive tract of the female. So we’re going to focus momentarily on the
uterus as well as the vagina. And I’m not going to go through and read all of this information
to you, because you can read it. What I want to focus on is the wall of the uterus.
There’s three layers to the wall of the uterus. There’s the outermost layer called
the perimetrium, and that has epithelial cells and some connective tissues. There’s a middle
layer called the myometrium, so you know that’s composed of smooth muscle, and then the most
important layer of all for us is the endometrium. And I say that because when we discuss the
menstrual cycle we will be talking a lot about the endometrium –the most, the innermost
layer of the uterine wall. And then of course over here the vagina, the female
organ of copulation. Lots of smooth muscle associated with that, and lots of glands.
Okay, so I’ll let you read the rest of the information on these slides.
So then we move into the uterine tubes or the fallop—also called the fallopian
tubes. Also called the oviducts. Be sure that you’re familiar with using any of those terms.
Now we talked about the ovum and how it matures in the ovary. So here we have the
mature ovum. Okay, and you don’t quite yet have details on how that happens, but you will soon.
So once you have that mature ovum, it gets transported to the uterine tube and then
to the uterus. So this would be the uterus over here. And remember, the uterine tube
is where fertilization takes place.
We need to talk about the infundibulum and fimbriae. The fimbriae are these finger-like
project—projections. The infundibulum would be located right above the fimbriae, and they help pick
up the ovum that’s been released from the ovary. So once that mature ovum leaves the
ovary, the fimbriae and the infundibulum—they’re going to help move that mature ovum into the
uterine tube. And that’s done through mostly peristalsis initially, and then it turns into
ciliary action that moves that ovum through that uterine tube. And it takes about four
days for that mature ovum to reach the uterus. So that concludes this segment.