Head | |
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![]() The head of a meerkat | |
Details | |
Identifiers | |
Latin | caput |
TA98 | A01.1.00.001 |
TA2 | 98 |
FMA | 7154 |
Anatomical terminology |
A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals may not have a head, but many bilaterally symmetric forms do, regardless of size.
Heads develop in animals by an evolutionary trend known as cephalization. In bilaterally symmetrical animals, nervous tissue concentrate at the anterior region, forming structures responsible for information processing. Through biological evolution, sense organs and feeding structures also concentrate into the anterior region; these collectively form the head.
The human head is an anatomical unit that consists of the skull, hyoid bone and cervical vertebrae. The term "skull" collectively denotes the mandible (lower jaw bone) and the cranium (upper portion of the skull that houses the brain). [ clarification needed ( The skull can also be described as being composed of the cranium, [1] [2] )]
Sculptures of human heads are generally based on a skeletal structure that consists of a cranium, jawbone, and cheekbone. Though the number of muscles making up the face is generally consistent between sculptures, the shape of the muscles varies widely based on the function, development, and expressions reflected on the faces of the subjects. [3]
Proponents of identism believe that the mind is identical to the brain. Philosopher John Searle asserts his identist beliefs, stating "the brain is the only thing in the human head". Similarly, Dr. Henry Bennet-Clark has stated that the head encloses billions of "miniagents and microagents (with no single Boss)". [4]
The evolution of a head is associated with the cephalization that occurred in Bilateria some 555 million years ago.
In some arthropods, especially trilobites, the cephalon, or cephalic region, is the region of the head which is a collective of "fused segments". [5]
A typical insect head is composed of eyes, antennae, and components of mouth. As these components differ substantially from insect to insect, they form important identification links. Eyes in the head found, in several types of insects, are in the form of a pair of compound eyes with multiple faces. In many other types of insects, the compound eyes are seen in a "single facet or group of single facets". In some cases, the eyes may be seen as marks on the dorsal or located near or toward the head, two or three ocelli (single faceted organs). [6]
Antennae on the insect's head is found in the form of segmented attachments, in pairs, that are usually located between the eyes. These are in varying shapes and sizes, in the form of filaments or in different enlarged or clubbed form. [6]
Insects have mouth parts in various shapes depending on their feeding habits. Labrum is the "upper lip" which is in the front area of the head and is the most exterior part. A pair of mandibles is found on the backside of the labrum flanking the side of the mouth, succeeded by a pair of maxillae each of which is known as maxilliary palp. At the back side of the mouth is the labium or lower lip. There is also an extra mouth part in some insects which is termed as hypopharynx which is usually located between the maxillac. [6]
Though invertebrate chordates – such as the tunicate larvae or the lancelets – have heads, there has been a question of how the vertebrate head, characterized by a bony skull clearly separated from the main body, might have evolved from the head structures of these animals. [7]
According to Hyman (1979), the evolution of the head in the vertebrates has occurred by the fusion of a fixed number of anterior segments, in the same manner as in other "heteronomously segmented animals". In some cases, segments or a portion of the segments disappear. The head segments also lose most of their systems, except for the nervous system. With the progressive development of cephalization, "the head incorporates more and more of the adjacent segments into its structure, so that in general it may be said that the higher the degree of cephalization the greater is the number of segments composing the head". [8]
In the 1980s, the "new head hypothesis" was proposed, suggesting that the vertebrate head is an evolutionary novelty resulting from the emergence of neural crest and cranial placodes. [9] [10] In 2014, a transient larva tissue of the lancelet was found to be virtually indistinguishable from the neural crest-derived cartilage which forms the vertebrate skull, suggesting that persistence of this tissue and expansion into the entire headspace could be a viable evolutionary route to formation of the vertebrate head. [7]
The heads of humans and other animals are commonly recurring charges in heraldry. [11] Heads of humans are sometimes blazoned simply as a "man's head", but are far more frequently described in greater detail, either characteristic of a particular race or nationality (such as Moors' heads, Saxons' heads, Egyptians' heads or Turks' heads), or specifically identified (such as the head of Moses in the crest of Hilton, or the head of St. John the Baptist in the crest of the London Company of Tallowchandlers). [11] [12] Several varieties of women's heads also occur, including maidens' heads (often couped under the bust, with hair disheveled), ladies' heads, nuns' heads (often veiled), and occasionally queens' heads. The arms of Devaney of Norfolk include "three nun's heads veiled couped at the shoulders proper," and the bust of a queen occurs in the arms of Queenborough, Kent. [11] Infants' or children's heads are often couped at the shoulders with a snake wrapped around the neck (e.g. "Argent, a boy's head proper, crined or, couped below the shoulders, vested gules, tarnished gold," in the arms of Boyman). [11]
One of the ways of drawing sketches of heads—as Jack Hamm advises—is to develop it in six well-defined steps, starting with the shape of the head in the shape of an egg. The female head, in particular, is sketched in a double circle design procedure with proportions considered as an ideal of a female head. In the first circle, the division is made of five sections on the diameter, each section of five eyes width. It is then developed over a series of ten defined steps, with the smaller circle imposed partially over the larger circle at the lower end at the fourth stage. Eyes and chins are fitted in various shapes to form the head. [13]
Leonardo da Vinci, considered one of the world's greatest artists, drew sketches of human anatomy using grid structures. His image of the face drawn on the grid structure principle is in perfect proportion. [14] In this genre, using the technique of pen and ink, Leonardo created a sketch which is a "Study on the proportions of head and eyes" (pictured).
An idiom is a phrase or a fixed expression that has a figurative, or sometimes literal, meaning.
The head's function and appearance play an analogous role in the etymology of many technical terms. Cylinder head, pothead, and weatherhead are three such examples.
Anatomy is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its beginnings in prehistoric times. Anatomy is inherently tied to developmental biology, embryology, comparative anatomy, evolutionary biology, and phylogeny, as these are the processes by which anatomy is generated, both over immediate and long-term timescales. Anatomy and physiology, which study the structure and function of organisms and their parts respectively, make a natural pair of related disciplines, and are often studied together. Human anatomy is one of the essential basic sciences that are applied in medicine, and is often studied alongside physiology.
The central nervous system (CNS) is the part of the nervous system consisting primarily of the brain and spinal cord. The CNS is so named because the brain integrates the received information and coordinates and influences the activity of all parts of the bodies of bilaterally symmetric and triploblastic animals—that is, all multicellular animals except sponges and diploblasts. It is a structure composed of nervous tissue positioned along the rostral to caudal axis of the body and may have an enlarged section at the rostral end which is a brain. Only arthropods, cephalopods and vertebrates have a true brain, though precursor structures exist in onychophorans, gastropods and lancelets.
In biology, the nervous system is the highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its actions and sensory information by transmitting signals to and from different parts of its body. The nervous system detects environmental changes that impact the body, then works in tandem with the endocrine system to respond to such events. Nervous tissue first arose in wormlike organisms about 550 to 600 million years ago. In vertebrates, it consists of two main parts, the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS). The CNS consists of the brain and spinal cord. The PNS consists mainly of nerves, which are enclosed bundles of the long fibers, or axons, that connect the CNS to every other part of the body. Nerves that transmit signals from the brain are called motor nerves (efferent), while those nerves that transmit information from the body to the CNS are called sensory nerves (afferent). The PNS is divided into two separate subsystems, the somatic and autonomic, nervous systems. The autonomic nervous system is further subdivided into the sympathetic, parasympathetic and enteric nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system is activated in cases of emergencies to mobilize energy, while the parasympathetic nervous system is activated when organisms are in a relaxed state. The enteric nervous system functions to control the gastrointestinal system. Nerves that exit from the brain are called cranial nerves while those exiting from the spinal cord are called spinal nerves.
Vertebrates are deuterostomal animals with bony or cartilaginous axial endoskeleton — known as the vertebral column, spine or backbone — around and along the spinal cord, including all fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. The vertebrates consist of all the taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata and represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with currently about 69,963 species described.
Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position provides a definition of what is at the front ("anterior"), behind ("posterior") and so on. As part of defining and describing terms, the body is described through the use of anatomical planes and anatomical axes.
The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of three types of bone: cranial bones, facial bones, and ear ossicles. Two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, these two parts are the neurocranium (braincase) and the viscerocranium that includes the mandible as its largest bone. The skull forms the anterior-most portion of the skeleton and is a product of cephalisation—housing the brain, and several sensory structures such as the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. In humans, these sensory structures are part of the facial skeleton.
The sphenoid bone is an unpaired bone of the neurocranium. It is situated in the middle of the skull towards the front, in front of the basilar part of the occipital bone. The sphenoid bone is one of the seven bones that articulate to form the orbit. Its shape somewhat resembles that of a butterfly or bat with its wings extended.
Fish anatomy is the study of the form or morphology of fish. It can be contrasted with fish physiology, which is the study of how the component parts of fish function together in the living fish. In practice, fish anatomy and fish physiology complement each other, the former dealing with the structure of a fish, its organs or component parts and how they are put together, such as might be observed on the dissecting table or under the microscope, and the latter dealing with how those components function together in living fish.
Neuroanatomy is the study of the structure and organization of the nervous system. In contrast to animals with radial symmetry, whose nervous system consists of a distributed network of cells, animals with bilateral symmetry have segregated, defined nervous systems. Their neuroanatomy is therefore better understood. In vertebrates, the nervous system is segregated into the internal structure of the brain and spinal cord and the series of nerves that connect the CNS to the rest of the body. Breaking down and identifying specific parts of the nervous system has been crucial for figuring out how it operates. For example, much of what neuroscientists have learned comes from observing how damage or "lesions" to specific brain areas affects behavior or other neural functions.
Cephalization is an evolutionary trend in animals that, over many generations, the special sense organs and nerve ganglia become concentrated towards the rostral end of the body where the mouth is located, often producing an enlarged head. This is associated with the animal's movement direction and bilateral symmetry, and cephalization of the nervous system led to the formation of a functional centralized brain in three groups of bilaterian animals, namely the arthropods, cephalopod molluscs, and vertebrates (craniates).
In evolutionary developmental biology, heterochrony is any genetically controlled difference in the timing, rate, or duration of a developmental process in an organism compared to its ancestors or other organisms. This leads to changes in the size, shape, characteristics and even presence of certain organs and features. It is contrasted with heterotopy, a change in spatial positioning of some process in the embryo, which can also create morphological innovation. Heterochrony can be divided into intraspecific heterochrony, variation within a species, and interspecific heterochrony, phylogenetic variation, i.e. variation of a descendant species with respect to an ancestral species.
A parietal eye is a part of the epithalamus in some vertebrates. The eye is at the top of the head; is photoreceptive; and is associated with the pineal gland, which regulates circadian rhythmicity and hormone production for thermoregulation. The hole that contains the eye is known as the pineal foramen or parietal foramen, because it is often enclosed by the parietal bones.
Rostrum is a term used in anatomy for a number of phylogenetically unrelated structures in different groups of animals.
In human anatomy, the neurocranium, also known as the braincase, brainpan, or brain-pan, is the upper and back part of the skull, which forms a protective case around the brain. In the human skull, the neurocranium includes the calvaria or skullcap. The remainder of the skull is the facial skeleton.
The endocranium in comparative anatomy is a part of the skull base in vertebrates and it represents the basal, inner part of the cranium. The term is also applied to the outer layer of the dura mater in human anatomy.
The hyomandibula, commonly referred to as hyomandibular [bone], is a set of bones that is found in the hyoid region in most fishes. It usually plays a role in suspending the jaws and/or operculum. It is commonly suggested that in tetrapods, the hyomandibula evolved into the columella (stapes).
A leg is a weight-bearing and locomotive anatomical structure, usually having a columnar shape. During locomotion, legs function as "extensible struts". The combination of movements at all joints can be modeled as a single, linear element capable of changing length and rotating about an omnidirectional "hip" joint.
The cephalic index of a vertebrate is the ratio between the width and length of its cranium (skull). This ratio does not concern the muzzle or face, and thus is distinct from the craniofacial ratio, which compares the size of the cranium to the length of the muzzle. The two measures are often confused in descriptions of dog breeds.
The evolution of nervous systems dates back to the first development of nervous systems in animals. Neurons developed as specialized electrical signaling cells in multicellular animals, adapting the mechanism of action potentials present in motile single-celled and colonial eukaryotes. Primitive systems, like those found in protists, use chemical signalling for movement and sensitivity; data suggests these were precursors to modern neural cell types and their synapses. When some animals started living a mobile lifestyle and eating larger food particles externally, they developed ciliated epithelia, contractile muscles and coordinating & sensitive neurons for it in their outer layer.
Most bony fishes have two sets of jaws made mainly of bone. The primary oral jaws open and close the mouth, and a second set of pharyngeal jaws are positioned at the back of the throat. The oral jaws are used to capture and manipulate prey by biting and crushing. The pharyngeal jaws, so-called because they are positioned within the pharynx, are used to further process the food and move it from the mouth to the stomach.