HEALTHY HABITS:
Healthy habits change your life.
https://rb.gy/qm6cbt
The Ultimate Healthy Habits Ebook⚡️
"The Ultimate Healthy Habits Ebook" is your go-to guide for transforming your lifestyle. It covers nutrition, fitness, sleep, and mindfulness, offering simple, actionable tips to help you build lasting, healthy habits for a better life.
https://bitly.cx/MoRg
Keto Desserts - High Converting Keto Desserts Offer
Book (printed).
"Keto Desserts" is a high-converting printed book packed with delicious, low-carb dessert recipes that fit perfectly into a keto lifestyle. Satisfy your sweet tooth without compromising your diet!
https://bitly.cx/WrAJ
Home Doctor – BRAND NEW!
Book (printed)
"Home Doctor – BRAND NEW!" is a printed book offering practical medical advice for treating common health issues at home. It includes step-by-step guides, natural remedies, and essential tips for everyday emergencies and ailments.
https://bitly.cx/QqkC
12 Fitness Videos
Downloads.
"12 Fitness Videos" is a comprehensive video series designed to help you achieve your fitness goals. Featuring a range of workouts from beginner to advanced, these videos provide effective, easy-to-follow routines for every fitness level.
https://rb.gy/b01vbi
Lost Frontier Handbook
Book (printed).
The "Lost Frontier Handbook" is a printed guide that teaches essential survival skills and self-reliance techniques from a bygone era. Learn to thrive off the grid with practical advice on homesteading, foraging, and more.
https://rb.gy/jle6zd
Herbs For Health - Only Herbal Remedies Offer!
EBooks.
"Herbs For Health" is a unique guide focusing solely on herbal remedies. Discover natural, effective treatments for common ailments using herbs. This offer provides a wealth of knowledge on holistic healing and wellness.
https://rb.gy/ujlkti
Silence Tinnitus and Hearing Issues with Zeneara!
Supplements - Health.
"Silence Tinnitus and Hearing Issues with Zeneara!" offers a natural supplement designed to support ear health and reduce tinnitus symptoms. Experience relief with this carefully formulated blend of herbs and nutrients.
https://bitly.cx/mLHve
EMFDEFENSE™ Negative Ions Sticker
The EMFDEFENSE™ Negative Ions Sticker is designed to protect you from harmful electromagnetic frequencies (EMF) by emitting negative ions. Easy to apply on devices, it helps promote wellness and balance in everyday environments.
https://rb.gy/38zkvk
SurvivalMD
Book (printed)
"SurvivalMD" is a printed guide that provides essential medical knowledge for emergency situations when professional help isn't available. Learn practical, life-saving medical skills to manage health crises during disasters and off-grid living.
https://bitly.cx/mw6D
Old School New Body
EBooks
"Old School New Body" is an ebook program designed to help you lose weight, build muscle, and slow aging using proven, old-school fitness techniques. It features easy-to-follow workouts and nutrition tips for lasting re
Healthy habits change your life.
https://rb.gy/qm6cbt
The Ultimate Healthy Habits Ebook⚡️
"The Ultimate Healthy Habits Ebook" is your go-to guide for transforming your lifestyle. It covers nutrition, fitness, sleep, and mindfulness, offering simple, actionable tips to help you build lasting, healthy habits for a better life.
https://bitly.cx/MoRg
Keto Desserts - High Converting Keto Desserts Offer
Book (printed).
"Keto Desserts" is a high-converting printed book packed with delicious, low-carb dessert recipes that fit perfectly into a keto lifestyle. Satisfy your sweet tooth without compromising your diet!
https://bitly.cx/WrAJ
Home Doctor – BRAND NEW!
Book (printed)
"Home Doctor – BRAND NEW!" is a printed book offering practical medical advice for treating common health issues at home. It includes step-by-step guides, natural remedies, and essential tips for everyday emergencies and ailments.
https://bitly.cx/QqkC
12 Fitness Videos
Downloads.
"12 Fitness Videos" is a comprehensive video series designed to help you achieve your fitness goals. Featuring a range of workouts from beginner to advanced, these videos provide effective, easy-to-follow routines for every fitness level.
https://rb.gy/b01vbi
Lost Frontier Handbook
Book (printed).
The "Lost Frontier Handbook" is a printed guide that teaches essential survival skills and self-reliance techniques from a bygone era. Learn to thrive off the grid with practical advice on homesteading, foraging, and more.
https://rb.gy/jle6zd
Herbs For Health - Only Herbal Remedies Offer!
EBooks.
"Herbs For Health" is a unique guide focusing solely on herbal remedies. Discover natural, effective treatments for common ailments using herbs. This offer provides a wealth of knowledge on holistic healing and wellness.
https://rb.gy/ujlkti
Silence Tinnitus and Hearing Issues with Zeneara!
Supplements - Health.
"Silence Tinnitus and Hearing Issues with Zeneara!" offers a natural supplement designed to support ear health and reduce tinnitus symptoms. Experience relief with this carefully formulated blend of herbs and nutrients.
https://bitly.cx/mLHve
EMFDEFENSE™ Negative Ions Sticker
The EMFDEFENSE™ Negative Ions Sticker is designed to protect you from harmful electromagnetic frequencies (EMF) by emitting negative ions. Easy to apply on devices, it helps promote wellness and balance in everyday environments.
https://rb.gy/38zkvk
SurvivalMD
Book (printed)
"SurvivalMD" is a printed guide that provides essential medical knowledge for emergency situations when professional help isn't available. Learn practical, life-saving medical skills to manage health crises during disasters and off-grid living.
https://bitly.cx/mw6D
Old School New Body
EBooks
"Old School New Body" is an ebook program designed to help you lose weight, build muscle, and slow aging using proven, old-school fitness techniques. It features easy-to-follow workouts and nutrition tips for lasting re
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hi, we're back at the microscope. We've been working our way through the gastrointestinal
00:09tract, a tube that runs all the way through us. We've looked at the esophagus and the
00:13stomachs and now we're at the small intestine. The small intestine has got three parts, duodenum,
00:19jejunum, and ileum. And we'll look at all three of those and we'll compare them. So
00:24the small intestine, what we're going to do is we're going to relate the cells and the
00:28structures that we see under the microscope to the different functions. So the small intestine
00:33has got different jobs to do than the stomach had and the esophagus had. And we'll see that
00:37reflected in the anatomy. And I said that the gastrointestinal tract is a tube that
00:44runs all the way through us and it's made up of layers of cells and tissues and that
00:49organisation and those layers are the same all the way through. So we'll look at that
00:53layout first, but parts of those layers change depending upon function. So really today we're
01:01going to focus on the epithelium, the mucosa, how that changes through the small intestine
01:08and why it changes through the small intestine. Remember that this is supposed to be a slow
01:14visual look at these cells. I want to start wide and zoom in. I want to build up a picture
01:22in your mind of how these cells and tissues were arranged so that you can then relate
01:26that to your understanding of the gross anatomy of this tube running through us. And then
01:30you have a better picture, a better understanding of the anatomy and then how all of it works.
01:37All right. That's the aim. Otherwise, you just look at pictures in a textbook, which
01:42would be a lot quicker. All right. What have I got? I've got where the stomach becomes
01:56the duodenum. I've got jejunum and I've got ileum. So we'll start with the duodenum and
02:08we should look at, we'll look at the layers first, the overview, right? I should probably
02:15clean this slide. Okay. So this is on the lowest power. Oh, that is so cool. Straight
02:40away. So there's the inside. So this is the duodenum. Remember the stomach has, it's used
02:50acid to switch on some proteases and it's been churning up the food and then it squirts
02:56a little bit of its contents into the duodenum. So the duodenum then has to, okay, so the
03:02job of the small intestine is to absorb nutrients. The duodenum has a little bit of a special
03:07problem in that, well, at this stage we're still digesting, but also it's getting acidic
03:13contents from the stomach. So acidic stuff can be damaging, right? So what we're seeing
03:18here, here is the inside, the lumen. This is where the food is. So this is the, this
03:23is the epithelium. This is the mucosa here. Oh my, we can see so much in there. That's
03:28beautiful. And look, we've got these little fingery projections. So these are the villi.
03:32So if we go from here, we see the mucosa. So we've got epithelium and laminoprotein
03:37here supporting that. Don't worry, I'm just rushing through briefly now. I'll do this
03:39in more detail in a moment. And then we've got a supporting submucosa and some thin muscle
03:47there. And then we've got two layers of muscle, the muscularis externa. And then on the outside,
03:54we've got the serosa. We've got all the adventitious, the connective tissue that's holding all this
03:59together. In terms of the small intestine, a lot of the small intestine is very mobile.
04:04So it needs to move around. That's what the peritoneum is for. That's what the serosa
04:07is for. With the duodenum, it's mostly retroperitoneal, so it's mostly fixed in place. But hey, look
04:13at me doing way too much detail already. But the layers then, the mucosa, submucosa, muscularis
04:23externa, and serosa, same as we saw in the esophagus, same as we saw in the stomach.
04:31So the two layers of muscularis externa, we have longitudinal and circular muscle there
04:36to do with peristalsis, squeezing the contents along the intestine. The submucosa here, wow,
04:44that looks quite busy, doesn't it? There's a lot going on here. That looks pretty excellent.
04:48And we'll talk about that in a moment. But then as we go towards the epithelium again,
04:55so these are villi. These finger-like projections are villi. Oh, this is actually not the lowest
05:03power. There's the lowest power. That's better, isn't it? You can tell how well I prepare
05:10for these. You can see these villi, these finger-like projections. And depending upon
05:16the plane of section, they might look a little bit different. Now, these villi are going
05:21to look a little bit different as we go through the small intestine. And that submucosa is
05:25going to look a little bit different as well. So villi are, what we're looking at here is
05:31we're looking at folds in the epithelium, aren't we? So the epithelium, or folds in
05:37the mucosa, the epithelium is a single layer of cells. And we'll see when we look closer
05:43that it's a single layer of columnar epithelial cells. And these cells are going to be called
05:48enterocytes or absorptive cells. That's their job. They're absorbing nutrients. They're
05:53actually also producing digestive enzymes and tools to help with digestion. But these
06:00villi will be about half a millimetre long or a millimetre long or a millimetre and a
06:05half long, depending upon exactly where you are in the small intestine. Okay, this is
06:10going to sound a little bit gross, but as an anatomist, when you open up the small intestine
06:15and you put your gloved finger on the internal surface of the small intestine, it feels
06:20like velvet. It's very, very soft because you're feeling millions, billions of these
06:28little villi projecting into the lumen. So it feels super soft. So those are the villi.
06:33Okay, so let's zoom back in again. So this magnification, I'm looking at my four times
06:41objective. I've got 10 times magnification here, so 40 times magnification to my eyes.
06:45The magnification is going to be a little bit different to you depending upon what size
06:48screen you've got. If I jump up to the 10 times objective, which we were looking at
06:52just now, you can see what I was talking about. So that's the epithelium there. So the epithelium
07:04is following the surface there. What we're looking at here with the villi is maximising
07:11surface area. So for absorption of nutrients, for absorption of molecules to occur from
07:17inside the small intestine to the blood vessels or, spoiler, some lymphatic vessels, those
07:27molecules just need to pass through as thin a layer as possible. So that's why we have
07:33this simple column epithelium. If I jump up to my 20 times objective and give you a little
07:39bit more light, can you see that those cells on the surface are tall cells, so they are
07:58columnar. There is a single layer of cells, so it's a simple columnar epithelium. And
08:03can you see the fringing, the edging on the surfaces of those cells? So those enterocytes
08:10are responsible for helping with digestion and then taking digestive molecules across
08:15them and into the layer deep to them, which is the lamina propria, the connective tissue.
08:20And inside that lamina propria, we can see some long streaky things. We get a hint of
08:26some vessels in there. So there are capillaries in there, small arterioles, small venules,
08:32and a lacteal. Inside the villus is maybe one or two lymphatic vessels. So the enterocytes are
08:43passing the molecules that have been digested, broken down as small as possible across themselves
08:48and then into the blood vessels and the lymphatic vessel inside the villus. So that, can you see how
08:55that villus is giving more surface area? So if we didn't have that villus, you wouldn't have very
09:01many enterocytes, right? But because we've got lots of villi, we've got lots more enterocytes,
09:06we've got lots more surface area, digestion becomes a lot more efficient. This is really
09:10important. So in some diseases then, where you lose the villi, where you lose these cells,
09:15thinking about celiac disease, how are you going to digest and absorb your nutrients? You're not
09:22going to get your nutrients, are you? And we can see some pink blobs in there. Those are goblet
09:31cells. Goblet cells are making mucus. So the mucus is important here. We see mucus all the way
09:36through this tube of the gastrointestinal tract. It's a bit of a lubricant, keeps everything moving,
09:41also protects the epithelium a little bit. But there's more to the mucus story here,
09:48which we'll get to in a moment. But like I say, nutrients get absorbed across the enterocytes and
09:56passed into the capillaries inside the villus. Now, the thing about the lacteal, so the lymphatic
10:05system is draining fluid from the tissues of the body. Your tissues of your body need to be wet,
10:11right? They need to have the right amount of fluid, the right amount of salts, all that stuff for
10:14your cells to function. So the lymphatic system is draining fluid from the tissues of the body
10:20and returning it to the cardiovascular system. Now, here in the small intestine, they have a
10:24very special job. So some digested fats pass across the enterocytes and into the lacteal.
10:32So fats are not, not all the fats are passing into the blood. Most of the fat, I think most of the
10:38fats is the right way of putting that, are passing into the lacteal, passing into the lymphatic vessel
10:45inside the villus. And then that, so lymphatic fluid is normally very watery with some protein
10:55in there. So around the area, around the level of the small intestine, the lymph becomes cloudy
11:01because it has fat in it. This was actually how the lymphatic system was first discovered,
11:07noticed, identified, because up in the abdomen, there's a, there's like a larger dilation of
11:15lymphatic vessels called the cisterna chyli. And you can imagine if you've got tiny little
11:20lymphatic vessels with a clear fluid running through them, they're almost impossible to see.
11:25But after fat from the small intestine has passed into the lymphatic system, you've now got lymphatic
11:33vessels with a cloudy liquid inside them. And the cisterna chyli is a bigger structure. So the
11:38fats pass into the cisterna chyli up the thoracic duct. And then up here in the left venous angle,
11:45where the subclavian vein and the internal jugular vein meet, somewhere up there, that's where the
11:51thoracic duct drains the lymph from most of the body back to the cardiovascular system. That's
11:56where these absorbed fats then go back into the blood. And then they're going around the blood
12:01and the liver and other tissues can deal with them. So that's very special, I think.
12:06When we look at the, so this is a villus, plural villi. So a villus is made up of lots of cells,
12:18right? If I go to a higher power, so now we're using the 40 times objective,
12:26how bright do we want it? Each cell has microvilli. Okay, we can see that quite nicely
12:40there, I think. So the enterocytes, they have a cell membrane and the surface of the cell membrane,
12:47where the nutrients are, is folded. And those tiny, tiny, tiny folds are microvilli. So a
12:56cell has microvilli, lots of cells make up a villus. And what we're seeing with the microvilli
13:04is again, an increase in surface area, more surface area. Because remember, we're actually
13:09looking at quite a big scale here. We're looking at cells, molecules are much, much smaller. So
13:15the tiny folds that we can't really see here, we can just kind of see a border, we can just see an
13:19edge there, right? That microvilli. So the microvilli increase the surface area of the cell
13:24membrane of the enterocyte, helping put digestive molecules into the lumen and helping take
13:33digested, broken down molecules into the cell, across the cell, and into the capillaries and
13:42the lacteals. Okay, so that's two of the cells of the mucosa covered. The epithelial cells,
13:56simple columnar, and the goblet cells. Now, can we see, okay, well, maybe we need to zoom out a
14:02little bit and talk about the structure a bit more. What we're actually seeing with villi,
14:06because we're going to go a little bit deeper and see if we can find at least one of the other
14:11two cell types. What you've got to imagine with the villi is you've kind of got to imagine a plane,
14:16as in like a surface to the small intestine. And then villi are extending up into that. And then
14:24from that plane, there are holes going into the plane. And down there, there are crypts,
14:30intestinal crypts, or the crypts of Lieberkuhn. When we looked at the stomach, we saw gastric
14:36pits. So again, we had a flat surface, holes in the surface, and so millions and millions of holes,
14:41and then little crypts, or little pits as they were in the stomach, crypts in the small intestine.
14:48That's something people commonly mix up. Gastric pits, intestinal crypts. So we've got villi
14:57sticking up and intestinal crypts going down. So what's in those intestinal crypts? That's the 3D
15:03shape you kind of need to imagine, and it's almost impossible to demonstrate.
15:07Maybe we can see, we get a sense there maybe? A bit more light. It's difficult to imagine the
15:22plane of section, but we can kind of see we've got some villi sticking up, and then we've got,
15:28can you see, we've got these intestinal crypts down here. So these deeper parts, and over here.
15:39So we've got the villi up there, sticking up, and then we've got the intestinal crypts going down.
15:45It's quite a difficult thing to imagine. And remember that these intestinal crypts are kind
15:49of tubes, really. So of course, because they're wiggly tubes, depending upon the plane of section,
15:54they might look like, they might look like a nice long tube like that one there, or they might look
16:03like a whole bunch of circles and ovals like they do here. All right, let's go down. What's in the
16:13intestinal crypts? That looks like quite a good one, right? And can you see how, as we go down
16:21the intestinal crypts, we're getting closer to the next layer, the submucosa? Let's zoom in again.
16:32What I'm looking for are paneth cells, really. So the other two cell types are paneth cells and
16:39enteroendocrine cells. Now the enteroendocrine cells, I'm not really going to point out,
16:46but they're involved in signaling and controlling what the cells are doing,
16:49what the small intestine is doing by signaling locally. The paneth cells, now they tend to be
16:55down in the crypts and they're very granular. What about that one? So that's my 20 times,
17:09this is my 40 times objective. Look down here, can you see, so we're at the bottom of the crypts
17:19here, and we've got some cells with lots of granules in them. So down here we've got paneth
17:25cells, which have a role in dealing with pathogens, because of course we're taking external things and
17:31passing them through the body. So the immune system needs to be pretty careful here. And we've
17:36got enteroendocrine cells down here, which are managing the functions of the cells in different
17:42regions of the GI tract, keeping it all organized and controlled. We've still got some goblet cells
17:46down here. Also down here we have stem cells. Now, so you see what the cells here look like,
17:55down in the bottom of the intestinal crypts? Well, let's go back up to the surface
18:02and look how the epithelial cells, the enterocytes, the absorptive cells,
18:13that's all the same cell type, three different names, sorry. They look quite different, right?
18:20But these cells on the surface here, they're lost, I think these are lost, they last like three to
18:26five days. So they're constantly being replenished by stem cells down in the crypts. So the stem
18:33cells in the crypts keep producing new epithelial cells, which grow up to the surface and are lost,
18:38just like we see on the skin, right? The surface of the skin is lost, new cells from below come up
18:43to replace them. Which means that if you have something like celiac disease, if you have a
18:50disease where the cells here are injured, destroyed, you lose your enterocytes, you lose
18:57your villi, you still have a population of cells down in the crypts which will rebuild all of this,
19:11which is incredibly important because the small intestine is vital for life,
19:15you cannot live without your small intestine. So that's what's going on here.
19:21Right, much of what I have said, looking at the duodenum, will apply to the other parts of the
19:28small intestine. But I said that each region is a little bit special, so we have to think about
19:35the different functions. So the small intestine is about digestion and absorption of nutrients.
19:42But the duodenum is receiving stuff from the stomach, so acidic contents. Now what we see here
19:50so up here we've got the epithelium, we have the supporting lamina propria,
19:58and there will be a little bit of smooth muscle in there, that muscularis mucosa layer. But deep
20:03to that here we're looking at the submucosa. And this is quite special, looks quite different in
20:09the duodenum. Here we are looking at Brunner's glands. Brunner's glands produce mucus, they
20:16produce a slightly alkaline mucus. So we see the glands down in the submucosa but they duct up
20:23into the, onto the surface of the epithelium. So the epithelium up here then is covered by
20:30the alkaline mucus secreted by the Brunner's glands down here, which buffers the acidic
20:38pH of the contents coming from the stomach, protecting the cells of the duodenum.
20:44And then as you pass along the small intestine away from the duodenum, you don't have this acid
20:49problem to deal with anymore, so we don't find Brunner's glands, and they're in the submucosa
20:53there. And can you see the muscle surrounding all that as well? Okay, so we've looked at the
21:02duodenum. That's what the villi look like here. You know, they're cool, they exist. Villi,
21:08intestinal crypts, submucosa,
21:14muscle, cirrhosa. Okay, so how does the duodenum compare to the jejunum?
21:23All right, okay, what is, what's the job of the jejunum, or jejunum, if you prefer? Well,
21:31remember that the duodenum is also receiving secretions from larger glands. The pancreas
21:37puts exocrine secretions into the duodenum to help with digestion. We have the liver putting
21:43things into the duodenum from the bile duct, right? So the duodenum, there is some absorption
21:51going on, still a lot of digestion. As we move into the jejunum, still some digestion, lots of
21:57absorption. Here we're going to try and absorb as many of these digested molecules as possible,
22:02right? All right, what does this look like? It looks, it's upside down. That's probably not
22:08helpful, right? Let me turn it around so it's in the same orientation as the last one. Oh yeah,
22:15beautiful, perfect. Right,
22:24we can see, we can see, I don't know, so we can see villi, they're looking pretty fat now. So
22:31we've got the villi, we've got the intestinal crypts, but that looks like a villus as well,
22:38right? This shape here, it's not. This is one of the, we always call them plicae circularis
22:47because that's the plural, plica circularis, I guess. So this is another surface area adaptation.
22:54Inside the small intestine, particularly inside the jejunum, it's folded up. So we've got big
23:02folds covered in, those are the plicae circularis, and then we have little villi projections,
23:09and then from the cells we have little micro villi projections. We have surface anatomy, sorry,
23:13we have surface area, surface area, surface area adaptations to maximise the surface area.
23:20So that there is a plicae circularis, and we are, oh look, see, no sign of the Brunner's glands in
23:28the submucosa. So can you see that folded shape? And these are called plicae circularis because
23:37this fold will run in a ring around the small intestine. It's one of the ways you can identify
23:42the small intestine on x-ray radiographs is by looking for these lines. So plicae circularis,
23:52these villi are sideways, but
23:59villi, same epithelium. We're looking at simple, single layer, simple columnar epithelium, again,
24:09some more enterocytes. They're still helping with digestion. They're really busy with absorption.
24:14The goblet cells on this particular stain are red, which is nice. So we see lots of goblet cells.
24:19We see lots of goblet cells. And then you can see the crypts over here. And in the crypts,
24:24we have the same cells we saw before, the stem cells, paneth cells, enteroendocrine cells.
24:29And then the mucosa then is made up of those epithelial cells.
24:36And there's other cells being supported by the lamina propria. And that's the connected tissue
24:42that we're seeing making this shape here. And we can see some larger blood vessels in there as well.
24:48So mucosa, big villi, short crypts, not much of the submucosa. We can see, probably,
25:02we can see the muscularis mucosa there. And then we have the two muscle layers of the muscularis
25:07externa and a little bit of cirrhosis there, maybe. Maybe imagine there's a bit of cirrhosis
25:13there. So again, same organisations we saw elsewhere. The main difference, then, is look
25:23how the epithelium is different. Again, we're thinking about a function,
25:27really, really maximising surface area now to maximise absorption. So that's the jejunum.
25:32OK, so we see what the jejunum looks like. The last part of the small intestine is the
25:46ileum. OK, what's happening in the ileum then? Well, hopefully, the jejunum has done most of
25:52the absorption. It has absorbed most of the nutrients, the fats, the carbohydrates, the
25:57proteins. The ileum, so good. This is the right way around. What are we seeing here? Well, this
26:09hardly looks the same at all. I think we can see the villi, but the villi are less prominent.
26:17Then we've got these big purpley patches here. What on earth are those? Well, those are Peyer's
26:22patches. Then we've got the muscle there and the cirrhosis. Let's jump in. Let's have a look.
26:33Let's jump into a slightly higher power. Looks good. Well, there's a nice clean villus there.
26:40Let's jump into that villus. So again, we've still got villi. They're not as amazing looking
26:52as we saw in the jejunum. So there are fewer villi. We haven't got the plicae circularis anymore,
26:59have we? All right, this is just a ring. So we haven't got the plicae circularis like we saw
27:08in the jejunum. So there are fewer surface area adaptations, fewer villi. The villi are less
27:15impressive. But the villus itself, it looks pretty similar to the previous
27:22ones we looked at in the duodenum and jejunum in that, again, we've got a single layer of tall
27:30cells with simple columnar epithelium. So these are enterocytes still helping with digestion,
27:38still absorbing nutrients, but they have slightly more specific absorption functions. For example,
27:44these guys are absorbing vitamin B12 at this point. They're absorbing bile salts to be reused.
27:52Bile salts are involved in emulsification of fats and fat digestion. So the ileum is still
27:59absorbing nutrients, but it's absorbing more specific nutrients, right?
28:05The jejunum has done most of the bulk work at this point. And we can still see goblet cells,
28:11loads and loads of goblet cells. And if that's a villus there, we can see,
28:19I think we can see that brush border still, right? So we can see the pinky edge. We can see the
28:27microvilli of these cells. And as we go down, so we don't see a super clear.
28:44So we still have these intestinal crypts, crypts of Lieberkuhn.
28:49But these masses here, and you can see that there's, that they are more stained in the middle
28:57and less stained on the outside. These are Peyer's patches. These are lymphoid nodules. I said that
29:06we're passing external things through the insides of us. So the gut and the gut
29:15So the gut and the epithelium has a really important barrier role. And here we have
29:22Peyer's patches. We have, this is part of the immune system. Here we have cells of the immune
29:27system looking at what's passing through the GI tract and able to mount an immune response to
29:33things that shouldn't be there. Things that you really don't want getting into the true inside of
29:37you. So that's what we mean by Peyer's patches. So we see lots of Peyer's patches in the ileum,
29:44which we didn't see in the jejunum. We didn't see in the duodenum, not like this.
29:49And then actually, if I jump up to a higher power here, look, this is,
29:55these are the muscle layers here, but they look, and this particular specimen, I don't know what
30:01animal this is from, they look, they look pretty weedy. But we do still have two layers of muscle
30:09here. So this is the muscularis externa again. So the same pattern, the same layer, as we've seen
30:14earlier in the GI tract, just thinner, but we have a circular layer of smooth muscle cells,
30:20and we have a longitudinal layer of smooth muscle cells. And on the outside, you're just getting a
30:26hint of the staining of the cirrhosis there. But we're not seeing it too clearly. But again,
30:31and also the submucosa is a bit, it's, it's a bit, it's a bit thin, but in the submucosa,
30:38in other levels, we've said that's where we see blood vessels and nerves. And look,
30:41that's where we're seeing blood vessels and nerves. So again, in the ileum,
30:45mucosa, submucosa, muscularis externa, cirrhosa, the same cells just arranged a little bit more
30:56differently. And that's it. That's the histology of the small intestine. And those are the
31:04differences between duodenum, jejunum, and ileum that everybody talks about. There is no
31:15clear division like, well, we know where the duodenum is, right? It does the curvy thing.
31:22I've done more videos on the gross anatomy of the parts of the small intestines. The duodenum
31:26curves around and we have a point where we say that's where the duodenum becomes the jejunum.
31:31But that's a gross anatomical feature. Boom, we say that's where it changes. But actually,
31:36if you look at the histology, it's a gradual change from across the duodenum to the jejunum.
31:42And there's no clear division between when the jejunum becomes the ileum. But if you look at one
31:47end, as we did here, you can see that the cells and the organisation, the structure is different
31:52in the jejunum to the ileum, but it's a gradual change from jejunum to ileum. There's not a clear
31:58border. Yeah. All right. I hope I didn't go on for too long. Probably did. I hope that was
32:08interesting, though. Classic histology of the small intestine. Like I say, this is an organ
32:12that's absolutely crucial for life. And understanding the histological structure is
32:18crucial to understanding diseases of the small intestine. And these are the cells that are being
32:23affected. And when these cells are destroyed, you can imagine all the knock on effects of
32:28poor digestion of nutrients, poor absorption of nutrients. So you can imagine what happens
32:33in terms of signs and symptoms in the rest of the body. Right. Anywho. See you next week.