Why does the liver grow back but other organs can’t?
In: Biology
One of the reasons is that the liver is homogeneous in its structure. You cut a piece of the liver, put it under a microscope; and then cut a different piece of the liver in the other end of the organ, also put it under a microscope; and they are identical. It’s an organ that is completely homogeneous, its structure is all the same. So in order to grow, it just has to reproduce its basic miscroscopic pattern.
Other organs can’t do that because they are not homogeneous. You try the same with the heart, brain, kidneys, and they are different depending on what piece of the organ you take. They function as macroscopic machines, while the liver functions as a microscopic machine (its function lies in the microscopic structure/pattern that is reproduced homogeneously across the entire organ).
Now, the other organs that are also mostly homogeneous are the lungs, but despite their structure being mostly homogeneous in the microscopic level, they do function as a macroscopic machine, unlike the liver. The functioning of the lungs lies in the relation between the pressure of the liquid that is on the outside bag that contains them, and the pressure of the air inside them, and it depends on the height of the part of the lungs you consider, so they don’t function homogeneously. They are all the time expanding and contracting, and while their structure is mostly the same across the entire organ, there are some minor differences depending on location which can’t be replicated by a local growing.
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