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Abdomen

Pancreas

How to spot it. An elongated gland lying across the back of the upper abdomen, its head cradled by the duodenum.

What it does. Secretes digestive enzymes into the duodenum and releases insulin and glucagon into the blood.

Where it sits. Its duct joins the bile duct before entering the duodenum; its tail reaches the spleen.

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NEET points

Class 11 · Unit V · Human Physiology · Chemical Coordination and Integration

  • A heterocrine or composite gland: the exocrine acini make pancreatic juice, the endocrine islets of Langerhans make hormones.
  • About one to two million islets. The α cells secrete glucagon, which raises blood glucose; the β cells, roughly 70 per cent of the islet cells, secrete insulin, which lowers it.
  • Pancreatic juice carries trypsinogen, chymotrypsinogen and procarboxypeptidase inactive, with amylase, lipases and nucleases. Enterokinase from the intestinal mucosa activates trypsinogen to trypsin, and trypsin then activates the others.
  • Insulin acts mainly on hepatocytes and adipocytes; prolonged hyperglycaemia from its lack is diabetes mellitus.

Chapter numbering moved when NCERT rationalised its books in 2023 and the NTA has revised the NEET syllabus since, so this maps by unit and title. It is a study aid, not a syllabus.

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Built on the open-source Human Atlas by Ashe Magalhaes. Anatomy from BodyParts3D (© The Database Center for Life Science, CC BY 4.0) and the HuBMAP Human Reference Atlas (CC BY 4.0). Those datasets keep their own licences and attribution; the application code is MIT.