Epithelium Epiphany

Ok, so now things are getting a little rough in the tissue section of Anatomy and Physiology I.

The amount of tissue types is pretty daunting. It’s pretty easy to study and remember what’s what, but the problem with epithelium tissue is that the names are so incredibly similar. Check out this quick list for the basic epithelial tissue-types:

1. Simple Squamous Epithelium
2. Simple Cuboidal Epithelium
3. Simple Columnar Epithelium
4. Pseudostratified Columnar Epithelium
5. Stratified Squamous Epithelium
6. Stratified Cuboidal Epithelium
7. Stratified Columar Epithelium
8. Transitional Epithelium

Believe it or not, I think the transitional epithelium and the pseudostratified epithelium are the easiest the remember because they are different than the other six, which are super easy to confuse. It’s easy, however, to describe the structure of each of these epithelial tissues, because the name says it all; check this out:

• Simple means there’s only one layer of cells. We now know the numbers 1-3 are a single layer of cells.
• Stratified means there’s many layers of cells. We now know the numbers 5-7 have multiple layers of cells.
• Pseudostratified says it all. Pseudo means “fake”. Stratified means “many layers of cells”. So pseudostratified means that the cells have the appearance of having multiple layers, however, they do not. It has only one layer of stretched cells resembling a multiple layers.
• Squamous means that the cells are flat. We now know that 1 and 5 are flat.
• Cuboidal means cube-shaped. We now know that 2 and 6 are shaped like cubes.
• Columnar means rectangular-shaped. We now know that 3 and 7 have a rectangular, column-like shape.

Ok, so we know what each looks like. Now how in the world can I remember where each is located? And don’t even get me started on exocrine gland types….

Off the FlashCard Exchange, a great website with tons of flashcards to quiz yourself no matter where you are. Hope I can get this down!

Wish me luck!