What is homeostasis?

Answer 1

WHAT IS HOMEOSTASIS?
Homeostasis is the maintenance of a constant internal environment (the immediate surroundings of cells) in response to changes in:

the changing conditions of the external environment.
the changing conditions of the internal environment.


Homeostasis is a self adjusting mechanism involving feedback where the response to a stimulus alters the internal conditions and may itself become a new stimulus.

Homeostasis works to maintain the organism's internal environment within tolerance limits - the narrow range of conditions where cellular processes are able to function at a level consistent with the continuation of life.

Answer 2

Homeostasis is the property of an open system, especially living organisms, to regulate its internal environment to maintain a stable, constant condition, by means of multiple dynamic equilibrium adjustments, controlled by interrelated regulation mechanisms. The term was coined in 1932 by Walter Bradford Cannon from the Greek homoios (same, like, resembling) and stasis (

Answer 3

Homeostasis is the property of an open system, especially living organisms, to regulate its internal environment to maintain a stable, constant condition, by means of multiple dynamic equilibrium adjustments, controlled by interrelated regulation mechanisms.

Answer 4

Homeostasis is the balance of metabolic rate, nutrition and energy in the body. Nothing is out of place (like not having to use the bathroom).

Answer 5

Homeostasis, from the Greek words for "same" and "steady," refers to any process that living things use to actively maintain fairly stable conditions necessary for survival. The term was coined in 1930 by the physician Walter Cannon. His book, The Wisdom of the Body, describes how the human body maintains steady levels of temperature and other vital conditions such as the water, salt, sugar, protein, fat, calcium and oxygen contents of the blood. Similar processes dynamically maintain steady-state conditions in the Earth's environment.

Homeostasis has found useful applications in the social sciences. It refers to how a person under conflicting stresses and motivations can maintain a stable psychological condition. A society homeostatically maintains its stability despite competing political, economic and cultural factors. A good example is the law of supply and demand, whereby the interaction of supply and demand keeps market prices reasonably stable.

Homeostatic ideas are shared by the science of cybernetics (from the Greek for "steersman"), defined in 1948 by the mathematician Norbert Wiener as "the entire field of control and communication theory, whether in the machine or in the animal." Cybernetic systems can "remember" disturbances and thus are used in computer science to store and transmit information. Negative feedback is a central homeostatic and cybernetic concept, referring to how an organism or system automatically opposes any change imposed upon it.

For example, the human body uses a number of processes to control its temperature, keeping it close to an average value or norm of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. One of the most obvious physical responses to overheating is sweating, which cools the body by making more moisture on the skin available for evaporation. On the other hand, the body reduces heat-loss in cold surroundings by sweating less and reducing blood circulation to the skin. Thus, any change that either raises or lowers the normal temperature automatically triggers a counteracting, opposite or negative feedback . Here, negative merely means opposite, not bad; in fact, it operates for our well being in this example. Positive feedback is a response to change from the normal condition that increases the departure even more.

For example, if a person's temperature is raised to about 107 degrees Fahrenheit, the negative feedback systems stop operating. A person with a high fever has hot, dry skin if they do sweat to help cool it. Not only have the negative feedback systems shut down in such a case; the increased temperature speeds up the body chemistry, which causes the temperature to rise even more, which in turn speeds up the body chemistry even more, and so forth. This vicious cycle of positive feedback, a "runaway" process, can only end in death if not stopped.

It is important to emphasize that homeostatic reactions are inevitable and automatic if the system is functioning properly, and that a steady state or homeostasis may be maintained by many systems operating together. For example, flushing is another of the body's automatic responses to heating: the skin reddens because its small blood vessels automatically expand to bring more heated blood close to the surface where it can cool. Shivering is another response to chilling: the involuntary movements burn body tissue to produce more body heat..

Answer 6

Well homeostasis is a self regulatory mechanism of our body

Answer 7

a term used in systems thinking to describe the action of negative feedback processes in maintaining the system at a constant equilibrium state.

Answer 8

it's the hormonal balance of the body....

For eg, when one is expose to a cold environment, it will keep the internal & external body balance by shivering. And it will not decrease due to the temperature, the body will still mantain it's temperature at 37C.

Answer 9

The state of things being as they are without changing - that is a state of sameness

Answer 10

Equilibrium.