MED0028 - HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY 1

courses

ID:

MED0028

Duration (hours):

72

CFU:

SSD:

FISIOLOGIA

Year:

2025

Date/time interval

Primo Semestre (07/10/2024 - 20/12/2024)

Course Objectives

Physiology studies the human vital functions and analyses he mechanisms through which the organism realizes ad maintains its internal homeostasis at molecular, cellular and tissue level in spite of the modification of the surrounding environment.
The objective of the Course Human Physiology 1 will be to provide graduates with all the information necessary to understand, from a biophysical-quantitative point of view, the functioning of the various organs and systems of the body under normal conditions and their control by the nervous system central and autonomous and endocrine system.

Dublin descriptor 1: knowledge and understanding
Students must learn the basics of biophysics and the functioning of cells, tissues and organs in physiological conditions;

Dublin descriptor 2: applied knowledge and understanding
Students must use the acquired knowledge to understand complex and integrated physiological mechanisms.

Dublin descriptor 3: independent judgment
Ability to reason about the correlation between structure, biophysical behavior and the function of organs and systems.
Dublin descriptor 4: communication skills
Capability to clearly describe the discussed issues by using the adequate technical language.

Dublin descriptor 5: ability to learn
Ability to associate quantitative and functional parameters with changes in physiological conditions.

Course Prerequisites

To be admitted to the final exam of Human Physiology 1 it is not necessary to possess a positive evaluation of the exams of Human Anatomy and of Biochemistry, but it is strongly advised

Teaching Methods

Teaching will be given through frontal lessons. With the aid of images, schemas, graphs and biophysical analysis of the functioning mechanisms of cells, tissues and organs, the student will be driven to the comprehension of the different but integrated physiological processes

Assessment Methods

The evaluation of the attainment of the objectives foreseen by the integrated Course is performed through a final exam on all issues presented in the detailed program of the Courses of Human Physiology 1 and Human Physiology 2. The exam consists of a multiple choices test of 40 questions delivered through a PC with a score of 0.725 for each correct answer and - 0.25 for each wrong or missing answer. The positive outcome (score higher than 18/30) allows to be admitted to the oral evaluation, consisting of 4 open questions, 2 on the program of Human Physiology 1 and 2 on the program of Human Physiology 2. The whole exam aims at defining the knowledge and the degree of comprehensions of the human physiological mechanisms, the capacity to apply knowledge and comprehension and the learning capacity of the issues dealt with in the two aggregated Courses.
The final score of the exam of Human Physiology will be obtained as the average between the evaluations of the exams of Human Physiology 1 and Human Physiology 2.

The course will deal with the basic physiology topics of transport, the electrical phenomena of membrane, with the related physical laws and their demonstration. Subsequently, the basic cellular electrophysiology aspects that characterize the excitable cells will be tackled, to then pass to a systematic vision of the afferent, efferent systems of the central and peripheral nervous system, as well as the autonomic nervous system. We will then deal with topics concerning the functional subdivision of the encephalic areas, the specific function of each of them and an overview of the most advanced cognitive processes such as language and memory.