 Hey everybody, Dr. O, and this is favorite to talk about the ovaries. So we'll cover oocyte production and follicle production in more detail in another video. I just want to talk about the ovaries themselves now and we'll introduce those topics. So the ovaries are what are known as the female gonads. So remember, when you hear gonads, you might think of the male, but the gonads are the organ that produces sex hormones and gametes, and that's what the ovary is in females. The gamete that the ovaries produces, the oocyte or the egg, and the sex hormones would be your female sex hormones, primarily estrogen and progesterone. So we'll talk about the hormones a lot more later. Anatomically, you'll see where they sit here. The ovarian ligament is what attaches the ovary to the uterus. The broad ligament just kind of helps hold everything in place. One thing that I find kind of interesting, and we'll cover this more in the video on the uterine tube, but the ovary is not actually connected directly to the uterine tube. There's a small space there, which means that upon ovulation, an oocyte could leave the ovary and not actually enter the uterus. It could enter the endowment pelvic cavity. So it's just kind of interesting there. So here we see just a simple drawing of the ovary. It's broken up. The outside of the ovary is the cortex. That's going to be the stroma or the connective tissue, the bulk of the anatomy of the structure itself. The medulla will be the inner part. That's going to be where your blood vessels and lymphatic vessels and nerves are going to be. So you have an outer cortex and an inner medulla, just like adrenal glands and many other structures we've talked about so far. But the reason the ovaries are so important is because what's happening inside of them. This is going to be where the follicles are developing. So the follicles are going to be what develop and mature. And inside a follicle, you would have the oocyte. So it's very important to note that you're not just producing eggs and spitting out eggs. You're producing these mature follicles. And as you see on the right hand side during ovulation, a follicle is rupturing out of the ovary. Because yes, you need the oocyte. That's the cell that's actually fertilized to produce a zygote and then a baby. But the leftovers from the follicle becomes an endocrine organ. So we'll cover that later called the corpus luteum. So it's very important to note that, that it's not just eggs being released or oocytes being released from the ovaries. It is the follicle, which has an oocyte inside of that. So we'll come back to that in much more detail later. Here we see the ovarian cycle. Notice that a typical ovarian cycle last 28 days. And this should be somewhat predictable. Obviously, there's nothing predictable about humans. There's not a textbook human being. But if you follow this 28 day cycle from menarche, the first menstrual cycle in puberty, all the way to menopause, you should see ovarian cycles working along with menstrual cycles. So the processes that you're seeing up here during the follicular phase of the ovarian cycle, the follicle is developing. So you see that there were actually, it says selected tertiary follicle because there were many follicles that were developing. This is the one that developed the most and had the most hormones emanating from it. And it became the winner. So we have the selected tertiary follicle and that it's going, during ovulation, it's going to rupture out of the ovary. And then it's going to release that oocyte and that the leftover from the follicle is gonna be the corpus luteum, which will produce for probably 10 to 12 days, will produce progesterone to help initiate and maintain pregnancy. If there's not a pregnancy and the hormone levels drop to normal, this corpus luteum will disappear become the corpus albicans and it'll degrade and then there won't be a pregnancy and the cycle will start over the next month. If there is a pregnancy, then these progesterone, these sex hormone levels will stay elevated to maintain the pregnancy and ovulation will shut off because you've already got a baby in the uterus. A couple of terms here. So again, we'll cover these in more detail, but oogenesis would be the production, the genesis of a functional egg and then you have folliculogenesis, the development of the follicles. These two things are gonna be happening in concert. All right, so that is a quick overview of the ovaries. We'll look at those pathways in more detail in a little bit. All right, I hope this helps. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.