The Greek “genesis” means “emergence” and is used as a medical term for the emergence of diseases as well as for physiological processes of new formation. In this context, embryogenesis, which describes the genesis of human life, plays a particularly important role.
What is genesis?
The Greek “genesis” means “origin.” In this context, embryogenesis plays a role in particular, describing the genesis of human life. Diseases arise in different ways. For example, while one is of inflammatory origin, the other is of traumatic origin. Equally well, a pathological phenomenon can have an immunological cause or be of as yet unexplained origin. The medical term genesis is used synonymously with the cause or origin of a disease. Literally translated, the Greek word “genesis” means origin. Etiology deals with the genesis of diseases. Pathogenesis is to be distinguished from this medical discipline, which, in addition to the genesis, also deals with the development of diseases in their further course. The expression of the genesis plays in the context of the evolution biology besides for the emergence of life a role. The biogenesis is for example the emergence and development of living beings. Ontogenesis is the development from a fertilized egg to an individual and adult living being, and embryogenesis corresponds to the biological process of embryo formation. In a broader sense, the term genesis is used by medicine for all processes that involve development or give rise to something new.
Function and task
Genesis in the evolutionary-biological sense helps humans to take shape in the first place. For example, embryogenesis is divided into the pre-embryonic phase between the first and third weeks of pregnancy and the embryonic phase between the fourth and eighth weeks of pregnancy. In the pre-embryonic phase, the zygote develops into the blastocyst. This process is also known as blastogenesis. Three germ layers then form, known as the endoderm, mesoderm, and entoderm. The cells have thus undergone initial differentiation and are divided into inner, middle and outer layers. In the embryonic phase, the embryonic organ systems are formed. In addition to embryonic heart development, embryonic liver development, for example, takes place in this phase. Embryogenesis encompasses processes such as gastrulation and neurulation. During neurulation, for example, the later nervous system is formed. Thus, the zygote develops into a human being during embryogenesis as the initially omnipotent cells differentiate into the individual body tissues. The pre-embryonic and embryonic phases are followed by the developmental step of fetogenesis. This step begins in the ninth week and includes organ development with morphogenesis. In evolutionary biology, morphogenesis refers to all the shaping processes that help a living being to develop its individual form. During fetogenesis, the tissues also differentiate. This process is also known as histogenesis. After fetogenesis, the embryo already has a distinctly human shape. The organs gradually take on an autonomous function that corresponds to their physiologically planned final function. The individual phases in the development of the zygote into an independent human being are, in summary, cell development, nidation, embryogenesis and fetogenesis. Early embryogenesis can be further divided into the formation of the primitive streak, gastrulation, chorda dorsalis development, neurulation, and somite development, as well as curvature movement and pharyngeal arch development. With morphogenesis and histogenesis, embryogenesis ends in the context of fetogenesis.
Diseases and disorders
During elaborate genesis processes, such as embryogenesis, errors can always occur. For this reason, there is some risk of malformations during embryogenesis. Errors in embryonic cell differentiation and cell division are triggered either by genetic dispositions or by infectious diseases, toxins, drugs, radiation or the like. Severe malformations caused by embryogenetic errors are among the most common causes of miscarriage during pregnancy. In the sense of the cause of origin, the genesis also plays a role clinically for any disease.Many diseases are still of unknown origin. A disease of autoimmune genesis corresponds to a disease in which the immune system is directed against its own body by misprogramming, as is the case, for example, with the autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis (MS ). Diseases of degenerative genesis are characterized by cell atrophy, such as Parkinson’s disease. Metabolic genesis refers to disease causes in the metabolism and is indicated, for example, for the disease Wilson’s disease. In neoplastic genesis, on the other hand, the cause of the disease is associated with uncontrolled cell growth. In the case of a traumatic genesis, the primary cause of the clinical picture is again an injury. In clinical practice, the genesis thus indicates for each clinical picture what the individual symptoms are causally attributable to. A disease can be of different genesis at the same time. MS, for example, has an autoimmune inflammatory genesis. Etiology identifies the genesis of a disease by three different categories. The first of these is known as causa. This allows causal reasons for disease development to be determined for well-studied medical phenomena. When a specific cause is given, the disease occurs, so to speak. The second category of etiology is somewhat more uncertain. It is also known as contributio. Here, there is still a strong connection between cause and consequence. If there is a specific cause, the disease does not necessarily occur, but is documented to occur more frequently. The third category of etiology is called Correlatio. This category plays a role primarily for diseases without a clearly researched cause-consequence relationship. Correlatio means, with respect to genesis, that a person with disease A sometimes possesses trait B. However, whether trait B is actually causally related to disease A remains unclear.
