In this video, we're going to continue talking about connective tissue proper as we begin our lesson on dense connective tissue. Dense connective tissue, as its name implies, is named for the dense arrangement of protein fibers in the extracellular matrix. Dense connective tissues are often poorly vascularized, meaning they have very few blood vessels. This is especially true in comparison to loose connective tissues, which, as you may recall from our previous lesson videos, are very well vascularized, meaning they have lots of blood vessels. Since dense connective tissues are poorly vascularized with few blood vessels, they receive relatively few nutrients from blood vessels. This means that they heal relatively slowly upon being damaged or injured, compared to other types of tissues that are highly vascularized and receive ample nutrients from blood vessels, allowing them to heal more quickly. The high and dense fiber content of dense connective tissue, particularly the high amounts of protein fibers and dense arrangement of protein fibers in the extracellular matrix, actually increases the strength of dense connective tissues.
There are three different types of dense connective tissue: dense regular connective tissue, dense irregular connective tissue, and elastic connective tissue. Moving forward in our course, we will talk about each of these three types of dense connective tissues in their own separate videos. It is important to note that these three different types of dense connective tissues differ slightly in their fiber arrangements. We will discuss more about this as we move forward in our course. Notice below is an image of our map of the lesson again on connective tissue. Connective tissues can be grouped into two major classes: connective tissue proper or general or fibrous connective tissue, and specialized connective tissue. We'll talk about specialized connective tissues later in our course. Right now, we're focused on connective tissue proper. We have already covered loose connective tissues, including areolar, reticular, and adipose tissues, in our previous lesson videos.
Here in this video, we're focused on dense connective tissues. Again, there are three types of dense connective tissues: regular dense connective tissue, dense irregular connective tissue, and elastic connective tissue. Moving forward in our course, we will talk about each of these three different types of dense connective tissues in their own separate videos, starting with dense regular connective tissue. This concludes our brief lesson on dense connective tissues, and I'll see you all in our next video to talk more about dense regular connective tissue.