Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Fertilization was not understood in antiquity. Hippocrates believed that the embryo was the product of male semen and a female factor. Aristotle held that only male semen gave rise to an embryo, while the female only provided a place for the embryo to develop, [5] a concept he acquired from the preformationist Pythagoras.
Pregnancy is the period of time during which the fetus develops, dividing via mitosis inside the uterus. During this time, the fetus receives all of its nutrition and oxygenated blood from the mother, filtered through the placenta , which is attached to the fetus' abdomen via an umbilical cord .
Progesterone, secreted by the corpus luteum, inhibits the follicular growth and maintains the pregnancy. The endocrine system coincides with the menstrual cycle and goes through thirteen cycles (and thus thirteen LH spikes) during the course of normal folliculogenesis.
The trophoblasts secrete fluid into the blastocoel. The resulting increase in size of the blastocyst causes it to hatch through the zona pellucida, which then disintegrates. [5] This process is called zona hatching and it takes place on the sixth day of embryo development, immediately before the implantation process. The hatching of the human ...
In response to the signals, the gonads produce hormones that stimulate libido and the growth, function, and transformation of the brain, bones, muscle, blood, skin, hair, breasts, and sex organs. Physical growth —height and weight—accelerates in the first half of puberty and is completed when an adult body has been developed.
Human chorionic gonadotropin is a glycoprotein composed of 237 amino acids with a molecular mass of 36.7 kDa, approximately 14.5kDa αhCG and 22.2kDa βhCG. [4]It is heterodimeric, with an α (alpha) subunit identical to that of luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), and a β (beta) subunit that is unique to hCG.
Anisogamy is the form of sexual reproduction that involves the union or fusion of two gametes which differ in size and/or form. [12] The smaller gamete is considered to be male (a sperm cell), whereas the larger gamete is regarded as female (typically an egg cell, if non-motile).
Thus, spermatogenesis is the male version of gametogenesis, of which the female equivalent is oogenesis. In mammals it occurs in the seminiferous tubules of the male testes in a stepwise fashion. Spermatogenesis is highly dependent upon optimal conditions for the process to occur correctly, and is essential for sexual reproduction .