Tissues and Histology

What the page covers

This unit sits in the Foundations of Anatomy strand of Anatomy. It brings together material on the main tissue types: epithelial, connective, muscle and nervous. Many resources also reach into bone, cartilage, cell junctions and glands.

Where to start

Begin with the quiz The Extracellular Matrix. It asks about the two main components of the matrix and the fibrous proteins found in it. Then try the quiz on connective tissue, which checks collagen and elastin fibres through fill-in-the-blank questions.

For a broad overview, the flashcards on Classification Of Tissues ask how many primary tissue types the body has and which glands count as epithelial.

Epithelium and identification

• The Epithelial Tissue flashcards ask you to identify simple cuboidal, simple squamous, simple columnar, pseudostratified and stratified squamous tissue.
• The Tissue Identification deck covers transitional, smooth muscle, loose reticular, loose adipose and dense regular tissue.
• The mind map Tissues: Epithelium sets out simple epithelium, squamous, cuboidal and columnar types with their functions and locations.

Using quizzes and maps together

1. Read a mind map, such as the one on fluid connective tissue, which covers blood and lymph.
2. Take a quiz on the same topic and note what you missed.
3. Return to the map for those gaps.
4. Run through a flashcard deck to fix the names and structures.

Teachers can use the Chapter 5 quiz based on Saladin's Anatomy and Physiology as ready-made classroom practice, since it separates epithelial tissue from muscle tissue.

Make it your own

Once you have worked through a few resources, try sketching your own mind map of the four tissue types and see what you can fill in from memory.