Welcome to the Introduction to the Ovary!
This is the first in a series of short educational guides to this wonderful organ. For a fun visual learning experience I recommend watching my 3 minute video above.
After watching/reading you will learn:
Where are the ovaries?
The ovaries are paired organs located at the ends of the fallopian tubes within the reproductive system. This system is positioned in the pelvis. Typically, schematics of the reproductive system show the fallopian tubes and ovaries out to the sides like a bull with horns - however - a more accurate representation can be shown from the side where the uterus tilts slightly toward the front of the body with the ovaries positioned behind.
What is the function of the ovary?
The ovaries have two main functions. The first is for the production of hormones. These hormones are important for initiation and development of puberty, for whole body health, to prepare the uterus for implantation of an embryo and to maintain pregnancy following implantation.
The second major function of the ovary is for fertility. Ultimately, this organ is responsible for producing mature, fertilizable eggs.
Keep coming back to yourIVFbaby to learn more in depth about all of these functions!
Ovary Anatomy
Let’s take a deeper look inside the ovary. Imagine we cut the ovary down the middle so we can see its cross-section. Here we can see the ovary has two main compartments - the cortex and the medulla. The cortex is the outer 1mm of the ovary and the medulla is the inner region. You can think of the ovary like an orange where the peel represents the cortex and the inside fruit represents the medulla. These regions are important because they contain different cell types and they differ in physical properties. Much like the orange peel, the ovarian cortex is much stiffer and more dense than the inner portion, the medulla which is softer and more flexible.
Like most things in biology the physical properties of an organ - or the anatomy - is related to its function - its physiology. We will learn more about how the differences in the cortex and medulla effect what is going on in the ovary in the next lesson.
Cortex and Medulla Components
The inner medulla contains blood vessels, lymphatic vessels, nerve fibers and immune cells.
The cortex and the medulla both contain follicles! The cortex houses smaller more immature follicles whereas in the medulla you can find larger growing follicles. Follicles are the functional unit of the ovary. This means that they are responsible for those two major ovarian functions - producing hormones and fertility.
Next time…
Join me next time where we will talk all about follicles - what they are, their lifecycle and cool images!
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References
Slide 1 - front facing anatomy
Slide 1 - anatomy in pelvis video
Slide 7 - what is in the medulla
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