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Pathology: Cell injury and adaptation · Cellular Adaptations

How cells respond to stress by growing, multiplying, shrinking or changing type, and when those adaptations become a path to disease.

For learning, not medical advice: for your own health, ask a doctor or another qualified professional.

Pathology · 27 questions

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1. A weightlifter's skeletal muscles enlarge after months of training. What mainly explains the growth?

  1. Metaplasia into a stronger tissue
  2. Hyperplasia of new muscle fibers
  3. Hypertrophy of existing fibers
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Answer: Hypertrophy of existing fibers

Adult skeletal muscle fibers divide very little, so they respond to heavier workloads by making more contractile proteins and growing larger.

2. The uterus enlarges dramatically during pregnancy. How does its smooth muscle achieve this?

  1. Hyperplasia alone
  2. Hypertrophy alone
  3. Both hypertrophy and hyperplasia
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Answer: Both hypertrophy and hyperplasia

Under estrogen and progesterone, uterine smooth muscle cells both enlarge and multiply, a classic example of the two adaptations occurring together.

3. Years of untreated high blood pressure thicken the left ventricle wall. What is happening to the heart muscle cells?

  1. They multiply to share the load
  2. They shrink and are replaced by fat
  3. They enlarge to pump harder
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Answer: They enlarge to pump harder

Adult cardiomyocytes have very limited ability to divide, so pressure overload is met mainly by hypertrophy of the existing cells.

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