somatic

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adjective

Of or relating to the human body: bodily, corporal, corporeal, fleshly, personal, physical. See body/spirit.

Pertaining to the body.

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1. pertaining to or characteristic of the body or soma.
2. pertaining to the body wall, not the viscera.

• s. afferent system — the system of sensory neurons scattered around the body and responding to pain, touch, temperature and other external stimuli.
• s. cell — see somatic cell.
• s. cell count (SCC) — measurement of somatic cells in milk. An indication of mastitis. See also linear score.
• s. cell hybridization — fusion in the laboratory of two different populations of somatic cells.
• s. mutation — see somatic mutation.
• s. myoneural junction — see myoneural junction.
• s. nerves — nerves supplying the body wall and limbs.
• s. pain — pain emanating from muscles, skeleton, skin; pain in the parts of the body other than the viscera.
• s. sensation — central perceptions of sensory stimuli from the body wall and limbs include touch, temperature, tickle, itch, pain, conscious proprioception.
• s. theory — this postulates that very few immunoglobulins are inherited but there is great diversification in differentiating somatic cells.

Derived from soma, meaning the body, as distinguished from the mind. Pertains to the framework of the body as distinguished from the viscera; hence the term somatic nerves describes the nerves associated with the musculoskeletal function of the muscles of the body.

Look up somatic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The term somatic (from the Greek σωματικός) means 'of the body' - relating to the body. In medicine, somatic illness is bodily, not mental, illness.

The term is often used in biology to refer to the cells of the body in contrast to the germ line cells which usually give rise to the gametes (ovum or sperm). These somatic cells are diploid containing two copies of each chromosome, whereas the germ cells are haploid as they only contain one copy of each chromosome. Although under normal circumstances all somatic cells contain identical DNA, they develop a variety of tissue-specific characteristics. This process is called differentiation, through epigenetic and regulatory alterations. The grouping of like cells and tissues creates the foundation for organs.

Somatic mutations are changes to the genetics of a multicellular organism which are not passed on to its offspring through the germline. Many cancers are somatic mutations.

Somatic is also defined as relating to the wall of the body cavity, particularly as distinguished from the head, limbs or viscera.

It is also used in the term somatic nervous system which is the portion of the vertebrate nervous system which regulates voluntary movements of the body.

See also

• Somatics
• Somatic theory
• Somatic marker hypothesis
• Soma (biology)

References

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