Pancreatic islets by scarce alpha, delta and PP cells in the periphery, human islets display alpha and beta cells in close relationship with each other throughout the cluster. Islets can influence each other through paracrine and autocrine communication, and beta cells are coupled electrically to six to seven other beta cells (but not to other cell types). The paracrine feedback system of the pancreatic islets has the following structure: A large number of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) regulate the secretion of insulin, glucagon and somatostatin from pancreatic islets, and some of these GPCRs are the targets of drugs used to treat type-2
History of beliefs about the human body is important to understanding histories of coercion and control, sex and gender, and other important but culturally varied aspects of human experience. Another prominent voice in the field at the same time was Caroline Walker Bynum, whose 1988 "Holy Feast and Holy Fast" became a landmark study. Both Bynum and Porter noted that during the 1980s Western history of the body research drew on post-structuralist thought, such as Michel Foucault's ideas of biopolitics and biopower, which emphasised that state power is not abstract, but exercised through and over human bodies. But both expressed a concern that research was focusing too