What is Peripheral Tissue

[skaai]

First of all, my apologies if I didn't use the search function correctly, I tried but found nothing that even comes close to answering my question, so if I should have "tried harder" please feel free to point out some useful tips.

Now, my question sounds basic, but for the life of me, Google Scholar, Google, Wikipedia and everywhere else I turn (including my digitized textbooks on all of this) seem to assume I know what "peripheral tissue" is because any search I do for it only goes on to discuss the effects of things on peripheral tissue and few ever go in depth as to what it really is or what its distinguished from.

The reason for my question is i'm reading a journal article (Hoffer, 1984, Metabolic effects of very low calorie diets) and in a few parts of the article, the author is discussing whole body alanine flux during low calorie diets and first proposes that plasma alanine turnover is reduced during fasting:

"similar percentage declines have been obtained upon direct measurement of the tissue release of essential amino acids in prolonged fasting man. Alanine release from peripheral tissues diminishes to a similar extent, reflecting the diminution of net protein breakdown in the periphery with consequently less nitrogen transfer to the liver for urea synthesis."(751)

In his conclusion, he comes back to this by explaining that :

"When taken together with the leucine results, this suggests that although protein turnover in the body as a whole is relatively well maintained with very low calorie diets, skeletal protein turnover may be markedly affected. The peripheral tissues are a major source of whole body alanine flux."(757)

Now, the point of those quotes wasn't to bog you down with the details of the study (though its totally engrossing and I'd be happy to discuss its details with anyone interested) but rather with placing the word "peripheral tissue" within enough context so that you can figure out what he means by that.

Why?
Because although most books assume I know this, some talk about peripheral tissue as if its nervous tissue somewhere away from the brain. Others talk abut it as cells that are not part of the epithelium. Others say peripheral tissue is the organs in the thorax. Yet others talk about the arms and legs when talking about peripheral tissues, and the botany books don't get me any closer.

If anyone would be so kind as to help me, here is what i hope to learn:

1. What exactly are peripheral tissues in general? or is there a "default' meaning when somone says this?
2. Are peripheral tissues in contrast to some other tissues? (like "central tissues" or something?)

Thank you so much and hopefully this question wasn't posted in the wrong forum but i thought you folks would be knee deep in this stuff

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[plauto]

I would think that in your article peripheral tissues refers to skeletal muscle tissue as opposed to the liver. "Peripheral" does not usually have an absolute meaning, it's just relative to whatever you're examining at the moment

 

[Morsetlis]

It's the tissues around whatever. In this case I would agree that it seems to be skeletal muscle.

 

[skaai]

thank you guys!

it makes sense that they would be talking about muscle tissue as some of the discussion already discusses the topic, but rather offhandedly. I guess i was thrown off because every time i looked for tissue, i didn't find it.. I guess i should have realized it was a relative term of location.
🙂