What is Cartilage? Video Lecture | Science for Grade 6

cartilage is this fantastic tissue that
makes up that flexible part of your ear
the end of your nose and the cushioning
between your joints it's also what the
skeleton of animals like sharks and rays
are made up of if you're an athlete
understanding the basics of cartilage
will help you prolong your career here's
what you need to know first cartilage is
a connective tissue like muscles and
bones yet they're also very different if
you break a bone or tear a muscle you
know it right away because it's full of
nerves cartilage that doesn't have
nerves
so you won't know you damaged your
cartilage unless it affects the
underlying bone also those bones and
muscles will heal cartilage not so well
but to get why we first need to
distinguish between a few different
types of cartilage there's elastic
cartilage which is very flexible and
found in places like your ear then
there's Highland cartilage that is super
smooth and tough it has minimal
flexibility but it's glassy smooth
surfaces keep our joint sliding smoothly
then there's fibrocartilage this
cartilage is tough and flexible but not
particularly smooth it's found in places
like your mini sky and the
intervertebral discs many people have
this idea that cartilage doesn't ever
heal or grow back in truth it can but
very very slowly like other tissues
cartilage is made up of cells these are
known as chondrocytes now when other
tissues get damaged they are able to
essentially migrate to the wound and
divide and multiply rapidly chondrocytes
can't do that easily for two reasons
first they're found in a thick matrix so
it's hard for them to migrate to new
areas secondly there are no arteries or
veins in the cartilage meaning there's
no blood supply to help feed and nourish
the multiplying cells the limited supply
they get through diffusion just isn't
enough for the rapid growth that is
needed let's take this example so say
you suffered a joint injury like
ruptured ligaments menisci et cetera
this destabilizes the joint which in
turn affects the cartilage in the long
term by wear and tear this process can
take a year or a decade after injury but
it's not reversible the early changes in
cartilage are hard to feel since there
are no nerves but after losing most of
the cartilage the two highly innovative
bones are exposed and begin to rub
against each other and
really hurts at this point the doctor
can only medicate the pain since most of
the cartilage is gone if detected early
sometimes doctors will try to encourage
cartilage to grow back in the area by
putting a bunch of holes in the
underlying bone that penetrate the bone
marrow
they call this Micro fracture this
essentially provides a blood supply and
allows some stem cells in the bone
marrow to migrate to the injured area to
regrow some cartilage the problem is
that it's not that nice smooth hyaline
cartilage that we want it's essentially
scar tissue like fibrocartilage it does
help protect the bone but it's not as
smooth as we'd all like and thus doesn't
work as well since the goal is that nice
smooth cartilage doctors have a few
other advanced cartilage repair
techniques often they'll take grafts
from elsewhere either your own cartilage
or from a cadaver but you can't just
take the cartilage you take a plug that
consists of the cartilage and the bone
the implanted bone will heal quickly
with your bone and hopefully lead to a
successful operation the problem with
this is that your body may reject the
tissue coming from another patient or if
she'd take the cartilage from another
part of your joint then you leave a new
hole in your joint for future repairs
scientists are working on growing these
plugs from our own cells for instance
one technique could be to take adult
stem cells from your own fat cells that
can turn into bone and cartilage then
through different techniques tell those
cells to either turn into bone or
cartilage and then insert that whole
thing back into the damaged area so if
you're an active individual here's the
key be kind to your joints and cartilage
you only have so much and while it does
have some healing potential it's not
much
also if you injure your joint go to a
trained orthopedic doctor right away
it'll be a lot easier to salvage your
cartilage if you detect the damage early
then if you wait until it's mostly gone
thanks for watching this sport ology
short make sure to check out this video
on cartilage repair basics and I highly
recommend this playlist with the sports
science videos from our collaboration
with ortho Carolina here where we're
trying to educate everybody about the
basics of their body the idea that I
might not be able to run again
simply because the cartilage in my knee
is messed up is frustrating if you're
like me and your knees messed up you
want to fix it and you need to know
about cartilage to do that and you need
to know what your options are for
cartilage repair that's what we're going
to talk about today