Histology of Esophagus and Stomach: Introduction

00:00 The histology of the esophagus and the stomach will be explained in this lecture. And also, these histological components and descriptions will be related to the function of these two organs. At the end of this lecture, I'd like you to know the characteristics of the wall of the gut. It's very important that you can identify each of the components of the wall of the gut, and to realize that the main component that changes all the way along the gut tube is the mucosa.

00:41 In this lecture, I'm going to talk about the mucosa of the esophagus and the stomach.

00:48 But in other lectures, I'm going to talk about the mucosa of all other parts of the digestive system. I'm going to also briefly mention that there are endocrine cells in the mucosa all the way along the gut. There's also cells there as part of the immune system. And also, a lot of the muscular layers of the gut are controlled by an independent nervous system, the enteric division of the nervous system. It's independent of the brain and the spinal cord. So hopefully, at the end of this lecture, you will appreciate all these details.

01:37 The esophagus is very important because it carries the food that's broken down partially, mechanically at least, in the oral cavity into the stomach. And then the stomach is then further physically broken down because of the mixing activity in the stomach produced by the muscular walls of the stomach.

01:59 And also, there's chemical digestion going on in the stomach as well.

02:03 The stomach is also a very special mucosa because it contains a number of different secretory cells that produce various secretory products that aid in the chemical digestion of the food or the chyme in the lumen of stomach.

02:24 So it's important that you understand all these concepts.