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The importance of feedback mechanisms in maintaining physiological balance in organisms.
One importance can be seen in homeostasis in regards to osmoregulation. This involves maintaining the water potential of blood. When our blood's water potential increases, for example, due to increased absorption of water in the large intestines, a water potential gradient is made against osmoreceptors in the hypothalamus. As such receptors have a lower water potential, this causes water from the blood to move down this gradient by osmosis into receptor cells. This stimulates nerve impulses to be sent to the posterior pituitary gland, and now this gland secretes less ADH. Less ADH travels in the blood to the kidneys, so less ADH binds to complementary receptors on the collecting duct and distal convoluted tubule. This means there are less aquaporins in the membrane here, so less water is reabsorbed, causing urine to be greater in volume and more diluted. Finally, water potential in the blood is lowered. This is important as it then ensures an unhealthy water potential is not made against the body cells. As a result, too much water doesn't enter body cells by osmosis, which could have caused our cells to burst. This could have damaged cells, so preventing them from being damaged then prevents them from not being able to do their function effectively for organs.
Another importance can be seen in regards to maintaining blood pH via the autonomic nervous system. Blood pH can potentially fall due to increased respiration releasing carbon dioxide into the blood, as this produces carbonic acid. This decrease can be detected by chemoreceptors in the carotid arteries. This sends nerve impulses to the medulla. The medulla now sends more nerve impulses to the sinoatrial node via the sympathetic nervous system to increase the heart rate. Blood now is increasingly transported to the lungs in a period of time to remove carbon dioxide by breathing it out, which may then lower hydrogen ion concentrations to normal levels. This is important as it prevents enzymes from being denatured. This is as blood pH can affect charges on amino acids, which may then change the position of hydrogen and ionic bonds, leading to changes in the tertiary structure. By preventing this, the active site may remain complementary to the substrate, so enzyme-substrate complexes via the induced fit model may continue to be produced when needed.
It is also important to maintain blood glucose levels, which is done by homeostasis. When this is low, alpha cells in the islets of Langerhans detect this change in the pancreas and secrete more glucagon. This now attaches to complementary receptors on the target cells, which is on liver cells. This now stimulates a cascade of enzyme-controlled reactions, including glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis. Glycogenolysis is when glycogen is hydrolysed by breaking glycosidic bonds to glucose. Gluconeogenesis is when non-carbohydrate organic compounds, including glycerol and amino acids, are converted into glucose. This is all done via the second messenger model (adenylyl cyclase is activated, which converts ATP to cAMP, and this activates protein kinase A), and it raises blood glucose levels. This is important as now enough glucose can be transported to respiring cells for both aerobic and anaerobic respiration. It is used in glycolysis to produce ATP, reduced NAD, and pyruvate in both types of respiration, and the pyruvate produced can be used for further reactions to produce even more ATP via the link reaction, Krebs cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation. This releases ATP, which can now be used for metabolic reactions.
The importance of physiological balance can also be seen in maintaining resting potential in neurons. After an action potential, the potential difference across the membrane of the neurone may be too negative due to hyperpolarisation. To overcome this and maintain a resting potential the sodium-potassium pump is used, where three sodium ions are actively transported out and two potassium ions are actively transported into the neuron each time. The neuron membrane is less permeable to sodium ions, but is more permeable to potassium ions. This means potassium ions are also moved out of the neuron by facilitated diffusion using the potassium ion channels. This net overall movement of positive ions out of the neuron produces a net positive charge outside and a net negative charge inside the neuron. This is important because it then means when a stimulus is detected and the membrane becomes more permeable to sodium ions by opening sodium ion channels, depolarization can occur, and when the generator potential reaches the threshold, an action potential can be produced. This means impulses can be very quickly sent to the CNS, which could then ensure nerve impulses are sent quickly to effectors to engage in a response. This is important to protect tissues against potential damage.
Another importance can also be explored via thermoregulation. When the body's temperature decreases, it is detected by thermoreceptors in the skin and central receptors in the hypothalamus. This then stimulates a negative feedback mechanism. Impulses are sent by the hypothalamus to trigger a range of responses. Vasoconstriction occurs where blood vessels become smaller in diameter, so less energy is lost by blood flow. Hair on the skin also stands straight to trap air, which acts as an additional layer of insulation for our body to minimise further heat loss. Skeletal muscles also contract to cause shivering to release energy by respiration and warm up our body. This combined effect can raise our body's temperature to optimum levels. This is important to ensure there is enough kinetic energy in the substrates and enzymes to collide with enough energy to overcome the activation energy and for the reaction to occur. An example of this can be seen in digestion where enzymes, for example amylase, need to collide with substrates such as starch to be able to hydrolyse them and then to produce maltose, which can then be further broken down by maltase to release glucose. And this can be absorbed in the ileum into the bloodstream to be transported to respiring cells or to be transported to cells where it can be stored as glycogen, for example in the liver and muscle cells.