Male Reproductive System

hi everyone dr mike here in this video we're going to go through an overview of the male reproductive system the purpose of the male reproductive system is to produce and supply sperm when we look at the external anatomy you see two things you see that of the penis and the scrotum inside of the scrotum is the testes and this is where we should begin our discussion because the testes is the site of sperm production so let's begin we'll look at the scrotum itself now the scrotum is sac that houses the testes now testes plural t-e-s-t-e-s the testes is side of sperm production now if we were to have look at the testes and have look inside you'll find that it's made up of these individual lobes and within each lobe you're going to find something called seminiferous tubules so these are just convoluted tubes inside each of these lobules of the testes and if you have look within these tubes there's two major cell types that you should be aware of first cell type are the ladies cells the second cell type are the setoli cells now what do these cells do within the testes specifically at the seminiferous tubules the latex cells produce testosterone and the setoli cells produce something called androgen binding protein androgen binding protein also known as now and androgen is male sex hormone i.e testosterone so it binds to testosterone if they bind together what they do is they promote the production of sperm sperm production now this is important because you're going to have signals coming from the brain specifically from these glands that sit underneath the hypothalamus in the brain called the pituitary glands and the pituitary gland has two lobes and anterior and posterior the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland releases hormone anterior pituitary releases something called gonadotropins there's two types of gonadotropins there is luteinizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone now once male hits puberty these hormones begin to be released luteinizing hormone i've drawn in red as you can see luteinizing hormone stimulates the latex cells think of the and the the follicle stimulating hormone stimulates the sertoli cells they produce testosterone and antigen binding protein respectively and sperm production begins in the seminiferous tubules of the testes sperm is starting to be produced this is happening at puberty now this the sperm that's produced is transported into this structure here that lines the outside of the testes called the epididymis the epididymis and the role of the epididymis is to store sperm mature sperm and then transport sperm into this next tube which is called the vas deferens also known as the ductus deferens vas deferens also known as the ductus deferens so if you've ever heard of vasectomy so if male no long no longer wants to produce children they can have vasectomy ectomy is suffix means to cut so they cut the vas deferens so vas deferens or duct stefan that is intact will transport sperm via the ductus difference you can see it loops around you can see it loops around the bladder here that's the bladder which is part of the urinary system not the reproductive system and then it joins together with gland here now this gland is called this gland is called the seminal vesicle and this seminal vesicle or seminal vesicles what that does is it produces really important fluid it actually produces two-thirds of the volume of two-thirds of the volume of semen and one of its major components is that of fructose which is an energy source so fructose very similar to glucose is what sperm uses as its energy source each your fruit gentlemen so seminal vesicles produce this sperm produce this fluid the seminal fluid it mixes with the sperm that's coming from the testes via the ductus deferens and it enters the ejaculatory duct the ejaculatory duct right here now you can see the ejaculatory duct will merge together with part of the urethra which is coming from the bladder and it forms the prostatic urethra now this structure here is the prostate not prostrate which means to lay down but prostate the prostate you can see houses both the ejaculatory duct which is coming from the seminal vesicles and from the vas deferens but also the urethra and the urethra is going to be sharing pipe that houses urine but also this semen which has sperm and also the fluid from the seminal vesicles now the prostate what isn't drawn here is the rectum which means the rectum sits right next to the prostate and that's why digital examination of the prostate can occur occur because you can feel the prostate you can feel its size you can feel its hardness and you can feel its texture is it lumpy or bumpy or whatever it may be because as males age the prostate grows and as it grows the tissue and cells develop and it can impede and squeeze on the urethra which makes it very difficult to urinate and so this is known as prostatic hyperplasia then from the prostate we have the urethra and the urethra travels through the penis and you can see the penis here now the penis is made up of spongy form tissue at the very end of the penis we've got what's called the glands penis now it's made up of spongiform tissue and what happens is this when it's time for erection and ejaculation so erection and ejaculation needs to occur in order to eject that sperm into the vagina of the female when we look at erection think of the word point when you think of ejaculation think of shoot point and shoot why because the for erection is going to be parasympathetic nervous system the parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for erection and the is sympathetic nervous system that is responsible for ejaculation the parasympathetic nervous system will tell the blood vessels to dilate blood enters the penis and it compresses the vein so blood can't leave so the erection is blood filling the spongiform tissue of the penis then the ejaculation is coming from stimulating the sympathetic nervous system telling the smooth muscle of this tube to contract pushing the sperm and the semen through and this is quick run through our overview of the reproductive system of males