 So the adrenal glands are major players in the endocrine system, and they actually are also not entirely endocrine structure. So first of all, guess what this little thing right here is. If I were to draw the rest of it in a very odd manner, that's a kidney, but of course it's a kidney. It's a little strange, but that's what its intention is. The adrenal glands sit on top of the kidney. They're actually surrounded in kidney fat and very well protected on top of those little kidneys hanging out there. It's made of two distinct zones. We have the adrenal cortex, and the cortex is the outer part of the adrenal gland, and the cortex is true endocrine tissue. The medulla, the adrenal medulla, is not endocrine tissue at all. In fact, it's actually neural tissue. So like the pituitary gland, the adrenal gland is both endocrine and neural tissue. The medulla of the adrenal gland produces... Well, it makes sense if you think about it as nervous tissue. It basically produces neurotransmitter, neurotransmitters that are involved in a sympathetic nervous response. So think about, I mean, we've spent a huge amount of time talking about the autonomic nervous system and sympathetic responses versus parasympathetic responses. And the medulla, the adrenal medulla gets a message. It's actually like an autonomic ganglion. It gets a message from the central nervous system that, oh, Dektor, something big is about to go down, and it dumps epinephrine and norepinephrine, which are basically adrenaline, directly into your blood supply. We got a lot of strategies in the sympathetic nervous system to get the message out fast if you see a bear. The adrenal medulla is another amazing strategy for getting the message out there fast. In fact, maybe you've noticed this before, all the times that you've seen bears, especially since we talk about bears all the time in this class. But perhaps you've noticed that when you have a sympathetic nervous response, you see the bear or whatever the thing is that is frightening you. It often, like the situation passes, the danger is gone, and yet you're still super amped. That's because your adrenal medulla dumped in a whole doodoo load of epinephrine and norepinephrine into your blood, and it's still circulating. Like it takes time for that message to get out there. It also takes time for that message to go away. You stay amped after a sympathetic nervous response, even though the stimulus is no longer there. So, okay, we know what the adrenal medulla does. What about the adrenal cortex? Well, the adrenal cortex has three layers, and we're going to start, I'm just going to be like, like a, like a this, one, two, three. And you're going to remember that because I've made a mess on this page and I don't have enough room to write about my three layers. So I'm going to go superficial to deep, and I'm not going that way, and I'm not going that way either. I guess, can I go up? Nobody knows where I'm going. That's where I'm going. There's one up. Up is a good direction to always go. All right, let's talk about our layers. You know they have names. We can actually see them in the microscope. So when we do the lab, we're going to look for our layers of the adrenal gland. You can see them, and then you're going to associate the layer with the name and the hormone that is produced, the example hormone. Okay, superficial layer number one is called the zona glomerulosa. Now, before our next exam, you are actually going to learn about a structure called the glomerulus. The glomerulus is found in the kidney, and so zona glomerulosa produces a hormone called aldosterone. And aldosterone, guess who the target is? The kidney. Aldosterone affects the kidney. And it actually affects the P that you produce, the layer in that you create. It affects how much sodium is in there and how much potassium is in there and good stuff like that. It won't be hard. Once we get to the kidney, it won't be hard to remember zona glomerulosa producing a hormone that's affecting the kidney because you will know a lot about the glomerulus. Zona middle layer is called zona fasciculata. Fasciculata. Fasciculata, bring me a latte, please. Maybe I've had too many lattes. Please, fasciculata. I'm not sure how we're going to exactly remember this from sick lattes, but this is a biggie. The middle layer produces cortisol. It produces other stuff. I'm just throwing out there the most commonly known hormone that is produced. And the zona glomerulosa also produces other stuff. But cortisol is a hormone that is released during a stress response and it stimulates glucose out pouring into your blood and energy to run away from the bear. Okay, that's cool. Cortisol actually impacts the target of cortisol is lots of stuff. Lots of tissues have receptors for, lots of organs have receptors for cortisol. And my third layer is called, oh, lordy, zona reticularis, reticularis. And of course, another reticular something. Zona reticularis is the deepest one and it's producing sex hormones. And it's actually mostly androgens. And when we talk about the nervous system, we'll talk a little bit about the, some of the other places where you get sex hormones. Like, actually, we're going to talk about that in here. The reticularis and the testes also produce sex hormones. In the ladies, most of the sex hormones produced here are androgens, which are like testosterone and dehydrioacrysm. And so we actually have cells that turn those androgens into estrogen so that we don't get super buff. But we totally did the entire adrenal gland. How do you feel? The next thing we're going to talk about are we're going to like glump together a whole bunch of other true endocrine organs. But obviously if I'm glumping them all together, we're probably not going to do a lot of detail on those guys. All right.