Homeostasis
Concept · Walter Cannon · Biology, stage 1: Learn the vocabulary
Homeostasis is the maintenance of a stable internal state while the outside world changes. Body temperature, blood sugar, blood pH, and water balance are all held inside narrow ranges by feedback: a sensor detects a departure from the set point and triggers a response that pushes back toward it. Claude Bernard framed the underlying idea in the 1860s as the constancy of the internal environment; Walter Cannon named it homeostasis in the 1920s.
Why it matters
It explains why organisms are regulated systems rather than passive chemistry, and it is the working model behind most of medicine.
Part of
Sources
- Homeostasis Wikipedia
- Homeostatic Processes for Thermoregulation Nature Education ScitableWorks through one regulated variable in detail, which is the fastest way to see the feedback logic.
- American Physiological Society American Physiological Society
