Liver, Gallbladder and Pancreas: Introduction

00:00 The liver, gall bladder, and pancreas are very important components of the digestive system. And I'm going to describe the histological structure in this lecture. At the end of the lecture, I'd like you to understand the structure of the liver, its blood supply, the structure of the hepatic lobule, and what the hepatocytes do. And also, we're going to look at the various specializations at the surface of the hepatocytes, the space of Disse, and the bile canaliculi, and what their functions are. We're going to look at the gall bladder, on how it stores and concentrates bile. And also, you need to understand the exocrine components of the pancreas and the control of the secretion of these cells as a general mechanism for controlling the secretion from salivary glands. The liver is very very important, and I've listed there the sorts of functions that the hepatocytes do.

01:04 The hepatocytes are the only cell in the liver that does all the roles of the liver, apart from a few macrophages and other very minimal numbers of cells.

01:17 The gall bladder concentrates bile, and the pancreas secretes digestive enzymes.