Anatomy: Nervous System and Special Senses

Nervous System

-send messages from parts of body to brain and vice versa

-regulates thoughts, memories, movement, feelings, learning

Neurons

-cells that communicate with each other to coordinate everything the nervous system needs to do

glial cells

-hold neurons in place, supply nutrients , differentiate, and destroy pathogens

neurotranmission

-carry messages from one neuron to next

-how neurons communicate through release of neurotransmitters

central nervous system (CNS)

-consists of brain and spinal cord

-receiving, processing, and responding to sensory information

lobes in brain

frontal (controls planned movements)

temporal (auditory processing)

parietal (process different sense coming from body)

occipital (visual cortex)

deep brain structures

thalamus: takes sensory info and relays signals to brain

hypothalamus: homeostasis of the body

hippocampus: managing memories and transferring short-term memories into long-term

amygdala: process fear

cerebellum: smooth movements and balance

pons and medulla: (the brainstem) subconscious processes

spinal cord

-send signals from brain to peripheral nerves and take peripheral info back to brain

sensory and motar pathways

-somatosensory and motor systems: sense things in environment, process them in brain, and make motor decisions about what you perceive

peripheral nervous system (PNS)

-the working part of nervous system

-delivers signals to brain

dividing up nervous system

-somatic ns

-autonomic ns: sympathetic and parasympathetic branches

-sympathetic ns: turned on during fight or flight

enteric nervous system (ENS)

-related to GI tract

-input into appetite and thirst

sensing with NS

-somatic senses: found throughout body

mechanoreceptors

-ability to detect various things (4 main groups)

proprioceptors

-tell you how you’re moving

-3 main: muscle spindles, golgi tendon organs, and joint receptors

nociceptors

-detect pain

visual sense

-eyes detect light in patterns and convert it to electrochemical impulses

-rods and cones in retinal cells

auditory sense

-converts mechanical sound waves into electrochemical messages that go to brain

sense of taste

-chemical sense detected by saliva

sense of smell

-chemical sense triggered by odorants