Teratology and How it Occurs

Contextualizing the Reality of Teratology Teratology is the study of physical abnormalities. Such abnormalities occur naturally through physiological means, although the environment and environmental factors -- which can impact an organism's biology and physiology -- plays a part in this study as well. Typically, teratology is concerned with physical deformities in organisms. Initially, such deformities pertained to people, although this particular discipline has evolved to include virtually any sort of living organism. Moreover, teratology is considered with the manifestation and fostering of physical abnormalities throughout the various stages of life.

Typically, these deformities begin during the process that occurs immediately after conception in which organisms are developing. However, it can also extend through periods of puberty, and can encompass virtually any stage of life prior to death. It is critical to note that when discussing the natural origin of the deformities that are a part of this science, the environment can play a considerable part in the creation of these abnormalities. For instance, waste, toxicities, radiation etc.

can drastically change one's environment, and thus make creatures that are part of that environment procreate with a number of differences distinct from those creatures that are procreating in a different sort of environment. Teratology is concerned with all of these different aspects of deformities. Although there are a variety of different principles associated with teratology, there are six fundamental ones that operate at the core of this discipline.

The most capital of these principles is the tenet that the likelihood of abnormality depends on the type of conception and the way in which such a conception interacts with the environment (Aston, 2014). The second principle relates to the developmental stage of an organism being conceived and its relationship to any transformative agents within the environment. Some points in the development stage are more vulnerability to agents than others, quite simply.

The third principle is that agents of teratology produce specific effects on developing organisms and on certain parts (such as tissues) in order to engender the physical abnormality process. The fourth principle is that there are a number of different factors associated with the exposure of an organism to agents that account for teratology. These include the point of contact between the two, the nature of that contact, length of time, etc.

Once that agent has interacted with an organism so that deformation occurs, there are only four possible outcomes: the end of life, physical deformity, retarded growth, and functional problems (Aston, 2014). Lastly, the greater the influence (both in degree, quantity, and instance of occurrence) of agents that produce physical deformity, the more likely and severe the manifestations of abnormality will become. There are a couple of different hereditary causes for congenital malformations that are associated with teratology. The first of these is simple genetics.

Quite simply, if a mother or father has some sort of congenital deformity, then there is a greater likelihood that his or her progeny will have a similar, or perhaps a different, sort of deformity. The same concept applies to having a history of congenital deformity in one's family -- it leaves the young produced by members of that family more susceptible to such a congenital deformity. Another one of the more eminent causes of congenital malformations based on hereditary is attributed to genetic diseases.

There are a number of different genetic diseases that can result in such deformity, including those that pertain to defects for single genes, multiple genes, and for defects associated with chromosomes. As with most genetic factors, some traits (and the likelihood for physical manifestation of genetic information) are dominant whereas others are recessive. Chromosomal abnormalities have a good likelihood in manifesting in some sort of abnormality. There is actually a fair amount of prenatal diagnostic procedures that are used in identifying congenital aberrations.

These can include both invasive and non-invasive methods, and can be performed at varying stages during an expectant mother's pregnancy. Some of the non-invasive techniques are more effectives during the latter stages, or at least during the middle stages, of pregnancy. These include conventional ultrasound assessments, magnetic resonance imaging, as well as radiography (Marino and Ramos, 2015). Invasive techniques typically involve fetal visualization methods including embryoscopies and any number of fetal tissue sampling techniques.

In the case of the utilization of an embryoscopy or a fetoscopy, medical personnel are actually able to see directly inside a woman's uterus via a "fiberoptic telescope" (Morris, 2015) to evaluate various characteristics of the fetus or the embryo, respectively. Depending on certain environmental and hereditary factors, either an.