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Homeostasis and the Kidney

Hormonal Control of Water Balance: ADH and Osmoreceptors

  • 3 things to know
  • A2 Unit 3

Overview

How osmoreceptors in the hypothalamus detect water potential, how ADH from the posterior pituitary acts on the collecting duct through aquaporins, and the urine produced after drinking, sweating or alcohol.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Suggest why drinking alcohol increases the volume of urine produced.

Key term

What detects a change in the water potential of the blood?

Key term

How do osmoreceptors respond when the water potential of the blood falls?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Where is antidiuretic hormone made, and from where is it released into the blood?

    Model answer

    It is made by neurosecretory cells in the hypothalamus and released into the blood from the posterior pituitary gland.

  2. 2

    How does antidiuretic hormone reach the posterior pituitary gland?

    Model answer

    It passes down the axons of the neurosecretory cells from the hypothalamus and is stored in their endings in the posterior pituitary until it is released.

  3. 3

    What detects a change in the water potential of the blood?

    Model answer

    Osmoreceptor cells in the hypothalamus.

  4. 4

    How do osmoreceptors respond when the water potential of the blood falls?

    Model answer

    Water leaves them by osmosis so they shrink, and this stimulates the hypothalamus to bring about the release of more antidiuretic hormone.

  5. 5

    Which parts of the nephron are the target of antidiuretic hormone?

    Model answer

    The distal convoluted tubule and, principally, the collecting duct.

  6. 6

    Describe how antidiuretic hormone increases the reabsorption of water.

    Model answer

    It binds to receptors on the cell surface membrane and, through a second messenger inside the cell, causes vesicles carrying aquaporins to fuse with the membrane, so the wall becomes more permeable and water passes out by osmosis into the medulla and back into the blood.

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