In this pathway the cell creates our chemical, the hormone and releases it into the bloodstream or the lymph system. And then that hormone travels over a very long distance, it circulates in our blood before it actually binds onto our target cell and affects that target cell in some way or form. So the endocrine system uses the endocrine signaling pathway. It contains endocrine glands that synthesize our hormones. But how many hormones do we have? Well, we have many different hormones and all these different types of hormones that we're going to discuss in the next several lectures can be broken down into three categories.