Tissue Lab Write-Up

In the tissue lab conducted today, I looked at twelve different types of tissue samples under microscopes, including all four types of tissues. For each tissue sample, I recorded the slide name, magnification, tissue type, and drew a detailed sketch of the sample. After drawing a sketch of the sample, I related the tissue sample to the text written on an informational poster. Through this lab, I learned about the general structures of connective, epithelial, muscle, and nervous tissue, and the differences between them.
From lectures in class, I learned that skeletal muscle tissue had a rod-like structure, smooth muscle had a spindle-shaped structure, and cardiac muscle had a branch-like structure, which matched my observations of the muscle tissue samples. However, I expected the nervous tissue to be shaped with branches on all sides, but I saw circle-shaped cells in large clusters in the microscope.
From my observations, muscle tissue is red, long, and skinny. Depending on the type of muscle tissue, these long cells branch out or stay straight as rods. For nervous tissue, there is a small cluster of cells with branches coming off. Next, for epithelial cells, there are several different shapes (squamous, columnar, cuboidal) of cells and different layers , usually with a base of cells on the bottom. For connective tissue, there are many different types: bone, blood, cartilage, etc. All of these connective tissues look different, so there is no one structure/look to connective tissue.
There are very definitive connections between the anatomy of a tissue and its location/function. For example, nervous tissue is a cluster of cells and that has many branches around it. These branches function to relay signals to other nerves, somewhat like a domino effect. Since there are many branches on each nerve, it allows for the relaying of signals very quickly and efficiently. Another example of a connection between the anatomy of a tissue and its location/function is bone, a specialized type of connective tissue. In compact bone especially, the cells are very tightly packed together, with very little space in between the cells. The structure is so dense because it is made of 80% minerals and 20% matrix. From this tissue lab, I learned lots about the difference among the four types of tissues!