Introduction to the Connective Tissue

00:01 This lecture is about connective tissue and general connective tissue. So I am going to cover the basic features of connective tissue. Later on we will talk about more specialised connective tissue such as cartilage and bone. Connective tissue is widespread throughout the body.

00:21 It is everywhere except inside the brain and the spinal cord. What we need to learn during this lecture is the connective tissue consists of cells, fibres and matrix.

00:38 And depending on which one of those three components dominates, dictates the type of connective tissue. So you need to understand the sorts of cells that make up connective tissue, the sorts of fibres in connective tissue and also the nature of the matrix because that will help you learn how connective tissues become very specialized in very different parts of the body. There are different fibres in connective tissue and I will go through these fibres and it is important that you understand when these fibres are needed, what their structural specifications are and therefore what role they have in various connective tissues. There are also lots of cells in connective tissue. Some of these cells are resident cells.

01:32 They live in the connective tissue. Other cells wander in from the blood. So in this lecture, I will concentrate on those that are resident in the connective tissue and in the later lecture, we will talk about the cells that wander in from blood and we will talk about what functions they have there.

01:53 Now as I've mentioned in the start, connective tissue is everywhere. If you want to travel anywhere in the body, go along connective tissue channels. And that is exactly what pathogens do, bacteria and all those sorts of pathogens that can cause damage to parts of the body.

02:13 It is where the immune response occurs in the body. It is where the war against invading pathogens occurs. So later on when we talk about the immune system, we will understand that in connective tissue that is the place where we have the inflammatory responses and the immune responses. Connective tissues support the body. Bone and cartilage are typical examples.

02:43 And it is also the area or the region where the transfer of information, nutrients and oxygen occurs between blood vessels and the working cells in all parts of the body.