This seventh edition of Seeley’s Essentials of Anatomy and Physiology is the result of extensive analysis of the text and evaluation of input from anatomy and physiology instructors who have thoroughly reviewed chapters. The authors are grateful to these professionals and have used their constructive comments in a continuing effort to enhance the strengths of the book. This edition brings a new team of authors along with a fresh look at what students need in the one-semester anatomy and physiology course. All of the beloved features listed previously have been retained, but the text is now tighter and flows more logically, and the art has been enhanced and customized to better fit the one-semester course, aligning perfectly with accompanying explanations.

Improved Art—Visualizing Relationships between Structure and Function
The effectiveness of the art has been improved in several ways in this edition. Many figures have been enhanced for clarity. Some of the figures have been heavily revised to help students more easily understand concepts:

• Homeostasis figures have been improved by making the explanations within boxes more succinct, reducing the number of boxes and arrows, and adding helpful illustrations. These changes contribute to a cleaner, less intimidating look to these important figures. We’ve kept the "Start Here" icon and color-coded arrows to make it easier to follow the events occurring when a variable increases or decreases. These simplified flow charts succinctly map out key homeostatic events, giving students a quick and effective summary of the mechanisms described in the text.
• Most of the Process Figures have been fine-tuned to make them clearer and easier to follow. When appropriate, additional numbered circles have been added to the corresponding explanations so readers can easily make connections between the text and the parts of the figure. These process figures provide well-organized, self-contained visual explanations of how physiological mechanisms work. They help students learn processes by combining detailed illustrations with parallel descriptions of the major features of each step.
• Many new tables have been added to the seventh edition.
• Over forty figures have been improved in this edition to present more current information, achieve consistency, coordinate better with the text, or improve comprehension (a complete listing of changes is available on the textbook’s accompanying website).
• Colored marginal tabs now visually indicate the different body systems and help facilitate easier navigation of the textbook.

The end result of all of these art changes is a beautiful, accurate, up-to-date art program that has been scrutinized and approved by our peers, and fully supports the hallmarks of clarity, ease of comprehension, and critical thinking that this text emphasizes.

Refined and Updated Textual Copy—Organizing Information in a Logical Sequence
Textual changes to this edition were made always with the guiding principle of "Will it enhance the learning experience for the student?" in mind. The order of topics in each chapter remains unchanged, however the authors have added new research findings, implemented suggestions from reviewers who teach anatomy and physiology, and carefully examined the existing text to improve the book in the following ways:

• Lists of diseases formerly found in the Clinical Focus boxes have been transferred to succinct tables following the appropriate boxed readings.
• The writing style has been tightened to present clearer explanations.
• Terminology has been made more consistent throughout the text and the illustrations.
• New information applicable to the discipline has been researched, validated, and included where appropriate.
• Factual data has been checked and updated, or corrected, if necessary.
• Several explanations have been expanded to make the topics easier for students to understand.
• Predict Questions and Critical Thinking Questions have been updated.