2.70) Nephron Structure

Describe the structure of a nephron, to include Bowman's capsule and glomerulus, convoluted tubules, loop of Henle and collecting duct.

Nephron - functional unit of the kidney which does the filtration and composition of blood.

The renal artery is a branch of aorta that takes blood into the kidney. 

The kidney then filters the blood and the content which are removed are called urine which goes down the structure called ureter to be collected in to bladder.

The filtered blood exits in the blood vessel called renal vein and is returned to the vena cava.

If we slice the kidney open, we can see...

The outer region of the kidney is called the cortex (lighter color.)

The middle region is called medulla (with slightly darker color).

The innermost layer is a space called the pelvic region (slightly colored), which is where the urine collects and is drained down the ureter. 

The difference in color is because kidney is made of millions of different tubes. 

The tube starts on the edge of the medulla and grows through the medulla directly outward to the cortex. As it travels up the cortex, it whines back in and out of the medulla, until it reaches a dead end. The deadened structure is called Bowman's capsule.

The tubular structure is called the nephron

(according to the diagram below)

Above the dotted line is the cortex region, and below is the medulla region. 

At the end of the tube is will grows into the pelvic region where and is where urine emerges. 

The tube is made up of twisted section called convoluted tubules and the tube which connects the convoluted tubules into the pelvic region is called the collective duct. 

The part the dips back into the medulla is called the Loop of Henle

The Bowman's capsule is the dead end structure in which contains tight knot blood vessels called glomerulus.

The first twisted section is known as the proximal convoluted tubules (PCT).

The second twisted section is know as the Distal convoluted tubules (DCT).

It is the arrangement of the nephron which gives us the difference in color between regions in the kidney. There are millions of nephron in a single kidney.