okay so in this video we're gonna talk about the structure of nails nails it turns out are very similarly formed to hair except that they're more scale like modifications of epidermis rather than tubular as you'd find with hair however what is similar between nails and hair is that they're both made of hard keratin nails also act as a protective cover for the distal dorsal surfaces of your fingers and toes or phalanges and the nail itself consists of a free edge nail plate and root which is embedded within the dermis the nail bed is actually the extension of epidermis that you find underneath the keratinized nail plate itself and the nail matrix is the thickened portion of the bed that's responsible for nail growth just like the hair matrix was involved with hair growth so the nail fold is actually a skinful that overlaps the border of the nail on the edges like beside the epiny qiyam is the nail fold that projects onto the surface of the nail body we also call this the cuticle this is the portion of epidermis you'd find kind of proximately on the nail that hangs over on the proximal surface of that nail itself the nails are normally appear pink because of underlying capillaries in the loo Newell's is a thickened nail matrix that appears kind of whitish on the proximal end of your nail now abnormal color and shape of the nails can be an indicator busies a communicator of cardiovascular disease because nails need to be nourished by blood vessels abnormal nail growth can also occur with certain hormonal disturbances or even nutritional deficiencies so what's fascinating you can look at nail health as an indicator of you know overall health now what this slot is showing is basically that the you know an image of a nail here so this is the distal end of a finger or flange e you'd find that here's the nail itself with a free edge the body and then the matrix which would be deeper the root of the nail we have the lateral nail fold on the side we have that epiny key amor cuticle here in the proximal end the Lou Newell's kind of a thickened patch of matrix and if you look at a cross-section here you can see that you know it's superficial to the bone subcutaneous tissue and stratified squamous epithelium but we would call this the nail bed all of this is the nail itself see the free edge of the body in the root the root it can actually trace back towards the matrix remember the matrix is actually the site of new nail growth so this is actually where the cells would divide and incorporate you know those dead keratinocytes full of hard keratin into the growing nail which then pushes outward more distally