Scientific Sources
Click on a term to expand its definition and description.
Description:
The Human Developmental Anatomy Center (HDAC), part of the Research Collections division of the National Museum of Health & Medicine, acquires and maintains collections pertaining to general developmental anatomy and neuroanatomy. HDAC maintains and archives the largest collection of human and comparative developmental material in the United States, in such a way as to make them most useful for research activities, yet preserve them for future generations of researchers. The HDAC houses the original Carnegie Stages of Human Embryonic Development (see below), the history of the science of human embryology, and the institutionalization of the Carnegie Stages in 1942.
http://www.medicalmuseum.mil/index.cfm?p=collections.hdac.index
Description:
There is international agreement among embryologists that human development during the embryonic period be divided into 23 stages. These have come to be known as the Carnegie Stages Of Human Embryonic Development. The Carnegie Stages are the most reliable sources for accurate scientific facts of sexually reproduced human beings – the gold standard.
http://www.medicalmuseum.mil/?p=collections.hdac.anatomy.index
Description:
The Carnegie Chart standardizes the well-known scientific facts of human embryology during the embryonic period, which begins at the beginning of fertilization through slightly more than 8 full weeks post-fertilization. It is composed of 23 Stages of development of the early human being.
http://www.medicalmuseum.mil/assets/documents/collections/hdac/developmental_stages_in_human_embryoes.pdf
Description:
The International Nomenclature Committee on Human Embryology , i.e., the Terminologia Embryologica Committee consists of about 20-25 human embryologists from around the world, and has operated internationally and updated the Carnegie Stages continuously since 1942 to the present. The committee is part of the International Federation of Associations of Anatomists (IFAA). It is one of the committees on anatomical terminologies , Federative International Programme for Anatomical Terminology (FIPAT).
http://www.unifr.ch/ifaa/Public/EntryPage/ViewTE/TEe02.html
(Takes you to Page 8; use buttons at top to move to Page 10 to arrive at description of Carnegie Stages 1-5 in Chart.)
http://www.ifaa.net/index.php/fipat
Description:
The International Federation of Associations of Anatomists (IFAA) published the Terminologia Embyologica in 2013. Terminologia Embryologica is the official lexicon of anatomical terminology, and in accordance with universal convention deals with the entire period up to birth only in the human being. It covers all of intra-uterine ontogeny and also a few key features of postnatal development.
Published by THIEME Verlag, Stuttgart. For details see
www.thieme.de or
www.thieme.com.
A digital copy of the contents of Terminologia Anatomica, Terminologia Histologica and Terminologia Embryologica as published in books produced by IFAA is available at this link,
http://www.unifr.ch/ifaa/
Description:
The overall goal of the Virtual Human Embryo (VHE) project is to increase understanding of human embryology and to encourage study of human embryonic development by providing students and researchers with reliable resources for human embryo morphology. The Digitally Reproduced Embryonic Morphology (DREM) component is funded by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHHD) to produce digital images of the serial sections from representative embryos in the Carnegie collection.
http://virtualhumanembryo.lsuhsc.edu/
Description:
A 14,250-page, illustrated atlas of human embryology, which presents all 23 Carnegie Stages of development during the 8-week embryonic period. This $3.2 million, 11-year initiative engaged a team led by Dr. Raymond F. Gasser—one of the leading embryologists of the last half century. The overall aim of the project is to make the Carnegie collection, which is housed at the HDAC, accessible for research and teaching of human embryology.
http://www.ehd.org/virtual-human-embryo/
Description:
Internationally recognized human embryology textbooks that are, as professionally required, in concert with the Carnegie Stages and the International Nomenclature on Human Embryology, and include the full Chart of the Carnegie Stages in their texts.
Human Embryology Textbooks
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Quote(s) from the Authors:
“Embryonic life commences with fertilization, and hence the beginning of that process may be taken as the point de depart of stage 1.”
http://publicationsonline.carnegiescience.edu/publications_online/developmental_stages.pdf
http://www.medicalmuseum.mil/assets/documents/collections/hdac/stage01.pdf
Quote(s) from the Authors:
“Although life is a continuous process, fertilization … is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte.” “The zygote is characteristic of the last phase of fertilization and is a unicellular embryo.”
Quote(s) from the Authors:
“The sex of the future embryo is determined by the chromosomal complement of the spermatozoon … Through the mingling of maternal and paternal chromosomes, the zygote is a genetically unique product of chromosomal reassortment.”
Quote(s) from the Authors:
“[W]e begin our description of the developing human with the formation and differentiation of the male and female sex cells or gametes, which will unite at fertilization to initiate the embryonic development of a new individual.”
Quote(s) from the Authors:
“Human pregnancy begins with the fusion of an egg and a sperm,… Finally, the fertilized egg, now properly called an embryo, must make its way into the uterus … .”
Quote(s) from the Authors:
“Human development is a continuous process that begins when an oocyte (ovum) from a female is fertilized by a sperm (or spermatozoon) from a male.”