Kuang Serena Y
Department of Foundational Medical Studies, Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, Rochester, MI, United States.
Front Physiol. 2023 Aug 11;14:1234214. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2023.1234214. eCollection 2023.
Homeostasis of the internal environment has been considered the central organizing concept of physiology. However, current definitions of it in textbooks and online teaching sources do not sufficiently reflect how homeostasis serves its central unifying role. Meanwhile, scientific understanding of the functions of the body's structures at multiple levels (molecular, cell, tissue, organ, organ system, and organism) has advanced significantly, but the understanding of homeostasis is still in the same place. In this article, the author describes some issues and insufficiencies in teaching about homeostasis in physiology education and proposes that homeostasis needs to be understood in terms of four dimensions rather than a simple definition: internal, functional organization; functional manifestation; mechanism; and effect or consequence. Each dimension has two subdimensions or sides. Throughout the elucidation of these dimensions and subdimensions, the original meaning of homeostasis is reinforced, what is lost in current understanding of homeostasis becomes clear, some insufficiencies mentioned above are supplemented, new insights into homeostasis develop, and how the four dimensions of homeostasis can be applied to physiology education is exampled. This new, comprehensive conceptualization advances the understanding of homeostasis and can facilitate teaching and learning about homeostasis and physiology.
内环境稳态一直被视为生理学的核心组织概念。然而，目前教科书和在线教学资源中对其的定义并未充分反映稳态是如何发挥其核心统一作用的。与此同时，对身体多个层面（分子、细胞、组织、器官、器官系统和生物体）结构功能的科学理解有了显著进展，但对稳态的理解仍停留在原地。在本文中，作者描述了生理学教育中稳态教学的一些问题和不足，并提出需要从四个维度而非简单定义来理解稳态：内部功能组织；功能表现；机制；以及效应或后果。每个维度都有两个子维度或方面。在对这些维度和子维度的阐释过程中，稳态的原始含义得到强化，当前对稳态理解中缺失的部分变得清晰，上述一些不足得到补充，对稳态有了新的见解，并举例说明了稳态的四个维度如何应用于生理学教育。这种新的、全面的概念化推进了对稳态的理解，并有助于稳态和生理学的教学与学习。
