- Body fluid compartments, concentration, density, osmotic pressure, saline and physiological solutions. Blood functions, hemometry.
- Cell electrophysiology, Nernst's law, resting membrane potential, the action potential and its propagation, refractory period. Time constant and space (length) constant.
-Synapses, neurotransmitters; role of Ca2+. Post-synaptic receptors; excitatory and inhibitory post-synaptic potentials, synaptic integration.
- The motor unit and muscle action
- Sensory Physiology. Receptors, receptor potential, generator potential and action potential, neural coding.
Somatosensory system, epicritic and protopathic sensibility. Touch: mechanoreceptors, tactile discrimination, dermatomes, sensory pathways.
Proprioception: muscle spindles, afferent and efferent innervation, gamma circuit. Golgi tendon organs. Spinal reflexes.
Thermal sensitivity.
Pain sensitivity: nociceptors, sensory pathways, gate control theory, endogenous opioid system.
Visual perception: optics and lenses, lenses of the eye, visual accommodation, refractive errors, retina organization.
Hearing.
Vestibular system: semicircular canals and otoliths.
Chemical senses: smell and taste.
- Motor control: motor cortex and motor homunculus, descending pyramidal and extra-pyramidal motor pathways; voluntary movement; cerebellum.
- Skeletal muscle: neuromotor unit, muscle contraction; types of muscle fibers. Motor and braking action, biomechanical mechanisms of elastic and contractile elements. Isometric and isotonic contraction. Twitch, clonus and tetanus. Length-tension curve and tension-velocity plots.
- Association cortex areas, functional specialization of cortical areas, hemispheric dominance.
- The autonomic nervous system and the hypothalamus.
- Sleep physiology, hypnogram, stages of REM and non-REM sleep.
- Cardiovascular system. Blood, haematocrit, haemostasis and coagulation. Heart, cardiac pacemaker, electrocardiogram (ECG). Cardiac mechanics, heart valve dynamics, Frank-Starling law, cardiac output.
Blood circulatory System: blood volume; hemodynamics, laminar and turbulent blood flow, Poiseuille's law; relationship between vessel’s cross-section, blood velocity and average pressure. Pulse wave, arterial pressure and resistance in systemic and pulmonary circulation.
Bernoulli's law. Orthostatic (postural) hypotension. Microcirculation, capillary fluid exchange, interstitial fluid, Starling's equation, lymphatic system. Control of heart activity and cardiac output. Pulmonary circulation, regional distribution of lung perfusion.
- Respiratory system: atmospheric and alveolar air, gas partial pressure, lung volumes. Subatmospheric intrapleural pressure, pneumothorax, lung and chest-wall relaxation pressure-volume plots, pulmonary surfactant. Respiratory cycle, pulmonary and alveolar ventilatory flow. O2 consumption and CO2 production, respiratory quotient. Alveolar gas equation, alveolus-capillary gas exchange, transport of O2 and CO2 in the blood. Nervous and chemical regulation of respiration.
- Urinary system: glomerular filtration, renal blood-flow autoregulation. Clearence of PAH, inulin, and glucose. Proximal tubule, reabsorption, and maximum tubular reabsorption capacity. Henle’s loop, tubular fluid and interstitial osmolarity, counter-current exchange and vasa recta. Distal convoluted tubule and collecting duct, control of fluid and solutes resorption (aldosterone and vasopressin). Control of body fluid osmolarity, volume and blood pressure.
- Acid-base regulation, physiological buffer systems, Henderson-Hasselbach equation, acidosis and alkalosis, blood pH regulation by respiratory and renal systems.
- Metabolism, nutrients, caloric value of food, oxygen consumption, heat release and caloric equivalents for O2, basal metabolic rate, specific dynamic action (of food). Temperature regulation: heat production and heat loss in human body, conduction, convection, radiation, evaporation; sweat.
- Gastrointestinal physiology: human digest