Hormone
A hormone is a class of signaling molecules in multicellular organisms that are sent to distant organs or tissues by complex biological processes to regulate physiology and behavior.
At a glance
Key signals
25% cross fields · reaches 5 more
- Biology
- Physiology
- Explanation
- Examples
- Misconception
- Sourced relations 2
- Attribution
Dependencies
What this concept builds on and what it makes possible — derived from the atlas’s dependency, causal and structural relations, not from every related edge.
Enables · leads to
HormoneenablesHomeostasisEstablished
hormone enables homeostasis.
Mechanism: Hormones are chemical messengers that coordinate homeostasis across the whole body, slowly and widely.
- Biology 2e (OpenStax) (2018) verified
System context
Insulinis aHormoneEstablished
Insulin is a hormone.
Mechanism: Released by the pancreas, it travels in the blood to tell cells across the body to absorb glucose.
Structural role & consequence
Interpreted from the current atlas graph — what the connections mean, not just how many there are.
25% of its relationships cross field boundaries, reaching 5 other disciplines — unusual in a discipline where most concepts stay within their field.
structural · Structural graph analysis — not a claim of importance, causation or history.
Directly enables 1 concept; following enables/causes relations, 1 concept is downstream across 4 disciplines.
structural · Follows only enables/causes dependency edges — not general relatedness.
Currently dark in the atlas: 4 of 4 of its relations lack claim-level evidence.
atlas representation · Describes the current Thinking OS representation, not the state of the world.
Structural neighbourhood: 4 → 22 → 104 concepts reachable within 3 hops.
structural · Structural reach — being reachable is not the same as being understood.
cross-field
3 within-field, 1 cross-field
Strengths & constraints
Constraints
- Evidence coverage currently thin in the atlas — few of its relationships carry claim-level evidence. atlas representation
Conditions
- Read structurally — most of its relationships carry no external evidence yet, so claims here are graph-derived. structural
Dependency radial
What this concept builds on (left) and what it makes possible (right) — derived from dependency and causal relations.
Seen through each discipline
How this concept sits in each of its fields — derived from its real connections in the graph, not asserted.
Through this lens it connects to Homeostasis, Neural signal and Endocrine system.
Through this lens it connects to Homeostasis and Neural signal.
Key dates
- 1902Discoveryhormone: discovery recorded 1902. — Wikidata
Related ideas to explore
Concepts that look related but are not yet connected here — candidates for a connection to reason about, not established links.
This idea also appears in…
The same structure shows up in other disciplines. These are real recurrences drawn from the graph — a starting point for asking “what carries over, and what changes?”
Feedback loop47 disciplines · 45 concepts
Concepts
shares a mental model
shares a mental model
shares a mental model
shares a mental model
shares a mental model
shares a mental model
Mental models at work here
- Connects 4 other ideas across 2 disciplines.
- A cross-disciplinary bridge — its connections reach into 5 other fields.
- Most of its connections are of the “Cause & effect” kind.
- It exercises 1 reusable thinking pattern.
Derived from the graph’s real structure — observations, not a score.
Sources
- Wikipedia (English & German editions) verifiedmoderate evidence
- Wikidata verifiedmoderate evidence
- Biology 2e (OpenStax) (2018) verified