ervous a ndocrine Systems guide for Reading It is one o'clock on a Sunday morning. Suddenly, fheryou read the folowing you find yourself face to face with a horrible-looking. Berane, you will be able fo creature. You let out a scream and wake yourself out E of a deep sleep. As you become more awake, you a The Nervous System realize that it was all just a dream. The creature was ¥ Descive the functions of not real. But your reaction to confronting the crea: is wemty the suuctsos ofa (ure certainly was! Your heart pounded thunderously neuron in your chest. Your breathing rate almost doubled, B cecnibe aneweimpulse, 224 YOur body was covered with perspiration. Even eee nea though you now know it was only a dream, your System whole body seemed ready to respond by running eetine stuctures ofthe -282¥ from or fighting the terrible creature central nervous aystom Unknown to you, your nervous system and en- fand give their functions. docrine system were at work. Together, they control your body's activities. Parts of your nervous system— Describe the peripheral 5) nervous system and its the brain, nerves, and sense organs—obtain informa- = i 52 function. tion from the outside world. In turn, they alert your 3-3 The Senses endocrine system to flood your bloodstream with 1m Summarize the functions chemicals. The chemicals cannot tell whether or not of five sense organs. the threat is real. But that really does not matter, 64 The Endocrine System because a day may come when, faced with real dan- B List eight endocrine ger, you will be glad that these two systems are work- glands and give the ing automatically. To find out how the nervous and function of each, endocrine systems perform their jobs, in any kind of B Explain the negative- situation, turn the page. feedback mechanism. Journal Activity You and Your World Imagine that you have to do without one of your sense organs for a da. Which one would you choose to give up? In your journal, Ist ive everyday tasks you would creinarly do using this sense ergan. Then describe how the absence ofthis sense organ would affect these tasks ‘A young person having @ scary dream m13tGuide for Reading Focus on you read. > What are the functions of the nervous system? > How does a nerve impulse travel through @ neuron? ions as Figure 6-1 The nervous system controls and monitors all body activitias—from the most simple to the most cor mplex. 6-1 The Nervous System You look up at the clock and realize that you have been working on this one particular math prob- Jem for more than half an hour, ‘Why am I having such a hard time solving this problem?” you ask yourself. Soon your mind begins to wander. Your thoughts turn to the summertime when you will no longer worry about math problems. Suddenly, the solution comes to you! This example, which may sound familiar, shows one of the many remarkable and often mysterious ways in which your nervous system functions. The nervous system receives and sends out information about activities within the body. It also monitors and responds to changes in the environment. ‘The extraordinary amount of information that your body receives at any one time is flashed through your nervous system in the form of millions of messages. These messages bring news about what is happening inside and outside your body—about the itch on your nose, or the funny joke you heard, or the odor of sweet-potato pie. Almost immediately, your nervous system tells other parts of your body what to do—scratch the itch, laugh at the joke, eat the pie In the meantime, your nervous system monitors (checks on) your breathing, blood pressure, and body temperature—to name just a few of the pro- cesses it takes care of without your awareness. The simple act of noticing that the weather is getting cooler is an example of the way the nervous systemmonitors what is happening around you. The way the nervous system responds to this change is to make you feel chilly so you put on warmer clothes. By performing all its tasks, the nervous system keeps your body working properly despite the constant changes taking place around you. These changes, whether they happen alll the time or once in a while, are called stimuli (singular: stimulus) To help you better understand what a stimulus is, imagine this situation. An insect zooms toward your eye. You quickly and automatically blink to avoid damage to your eye, In this case, the insect zooming toward you is the stimulus and the blinking of your eye is the response. Although some responses to stimuli are involun- tary (not under your control), such as blinking your eyes and sneezing, many responses of the nervous system are voluntary (under your control). For example, leaving a football game because it begins to rain (stimulus) is a voluntary reaction. It is a conscious choice that involves the feelings of the moment, the memory of what happened the last time you stayed out in the rain, and the ability to reason. So you can see how important the nervous system is to you. From the instant you are born, the ner vous system controls and interprets (makes sense of) all the activities going on within your body. Without your nervous system, you could not move, think, laugh, feel pain,, or enjoy the taste of a wonderfully Juicy taco Figure 6-2 A nervous system enables organisms to respond to stimull, or changes in the environment. In humans, the stimulus could be rain failing during a football game. The response could be opening umbrellas and donning rain gear, leaving the game, or both. In bears, a stimulus could be the sight of a salmon. What could the response be? - | A Speedy Message | Messages in the nervous | system travel at a speed of | 120 meters per second. How. | many seconds would ittake a. | | | nerve message to travel 900 meters? 1440 meters?| Figure 6-3 Use the diagram to identify the basic structures in these neurons from the spinal cord. What Is the function of the cel! body? NEURON Celi body fF n é prsonesinals ‘The nervous system is constantly alive with activi- ty. It buzzes with messages that run to and from all parts of the body. Every second, hundreds of these messages make their journey through the body. The messages are carried by strings of one-ofkind cells called neurons, or nerve cells. Neurons are the basic units of structure and function in the nervous sys- tem. Neurons are unique because, unlike most other cells in the body, they can never be replaced. You need not worry about this, however, The number ‘of neurons that you are born with is so large that you will have more than enough to last your entire lifetime, Although neurons come in all shapes and sizes, they share certain basic characteristics, or features You can see the features of a typical neuron in Figure 6-3. Notice that the largest part of the neuron is the cell body. The cell body contains the nucleus (a large dark structure), which controls all the activities of the cell. You can think of the cell body as the switchboard of the message-carrying neuron. Running into this switchboard are one or more tiny, branching, thread- like structures called dendrites, The dendrites carry messages to the cell body of a neuron. A long tail- like fiber called an axon carries messages away from the cell body. Each neuron has only one axon, but the axon can be anywhere from 1 millimeter to more than 1 meter in length!Notice in Figure 6-8 that the axon splits into many featherlike fibers at its far end. These fibers are called axon terminals (ends). Axon terminals pass on messages to the dendrites of other neurons. Axon terminals are usually found some distance from the cell body. There are three types of neurons in your neryous system—sensory neurons, interneurons, and motor neurons. To find out the function of each neuron, wy this activity: Press your finger against the edge of your desk. What happens? You feel the pressure of the desk pushing into your skin. You may even feel some discomfort or paing if you press hard enough. Eventually, you remove your finger from this position. How do neurons enable you to do all this? Spe- cial cells known as receptors receive information from your surroundings. In this activity the receptors are located in your finger, Messages travel from these receptors to your spinal cord and brain through sensory neurons. Your spinal cord and brain contain interneurons. Interneurons connect sensory neurons to motor neurons. It is through motor neu- rons that the messages from your brain and spinal cord are sent to a muscle cell or gland cell in your body. The muscle cell or gland cell that is stimulated by the motor neuron is called an effector. Figure 6-4 One of the body's billions of neurons can be seen in this photograph. The axon is the ropelike structure at the bottom of the photograph. What is the function of the axon? Figure 6-5 There are three types of neurons in the nervous system: sensory neurons, interneurons, and motor neurons. What is an effector? A receptor? Sensory new Resporse: | n muscle‘You have just read that the path of a message, which is more accurately known as a nerve impulse, is basically from sensory neuron to interneuron to motor neuron. But how exactly does a message trav- el along a neuron? And how does it get from one neuron to another neuron? When a nerve impulse > travels along a neuron or from one neuron to another neuron, it does so in the form of electrical and chemical signals. @ An electrical signal, which in simple terms is thought of as changing positive and negative charges, moves a nerve impulse along a neuron (or from one end of the neuron to the other). The nerve impulse enters the neuron through the dendrites and travels along the length of the axon. The speed at which a nerve impulse travels along a Figure 6-6 The tiny gap between neuron can be as fast as 120 meters per second! "wo neurons is called 2 synspse- ‘The way in which a nerve impulse travels from photograph are bubbles that ‘one neuron to another is a bit more complex. Do contain chemicals which pour out you know why? The reason is that the neurons do otine axon minal none raver, not touch one another. There is a tiny gap called a Gross the synapse, and trigger a 7 . : re ee recone) synapse (stiN-aps) between the two neurons. Some neuen, how, the nerve impulse must “jump” that gap. But how? Think of the synapse as a river that flows be- tween a road on either bank. When a car gets to the | Direction of nerve impulse “Bubbles! ‘containing chemicals Tamper Peps coll 135caer, it crosses over by ferry. Then it drives right i onto the road and continues its journey. ‘similarly, a nerve impulse is “ferried” across the apse by a chemical signal. This chemical signal murs out of the ends of the neuron (axon termi- Mis) as the nerve impulse nears the synapse. The Heetrical signal that brought the nerve impulse to {his point shuts down, and the chemical signal takes the nerve impulse aboard, moving it across the apse to the next neuron along its route. Then the chemical signal triggers the electrical signal swinging leg just below your sgain, and the whole process is repeated until the knee. nerve impulse reaches its destination. You can appre- | What happened when you | | | A Reflex Action 4.Sit with your legs crossed so that one swings freely, 2. Using the side of your hand, gently strike your free- Gate how efficient this process is when you consider | struck that area? Describe in that for certain actions, this all happens in a matter words or with a diagram the of milliseconds! path the nerve impulse took as it traveled from your leg to the central nervous system and back to your leg m= What advantage does a reflex have over a response that involves @ conscious choice? 6-1 Section Review [: What are the functions of the nervous system? j What is a neuron? Describe its structure. * Identify the three types of neurons. {, Describe a nerve impulse. Critical Thinking— Making Comparisons 5, In the human nervous system, nerve impulses travel in only one direction along a neuron. : How is this one-way traffic system better than a © two-way traffic system along the same neuron? ee ncRNA RUNES 6-2 Divisions of the Guide for Reading Focus on these questions as Nervous System you read. > What are the two major In the previous section, you learned about the parts of the human nervous neuron as the basic unit of structure and function of system? > What is the function and the nervous system. You also gained some insight EA Sto ne een eoes STEST Eee tronl eal structure of each of the two 1e amazing job neurons do to keep you ‘major parts of the human your body in touch with the world inside and nervous system? around you, Neurons, however, do not act alone. Instead, they are joined to form a complex commu- . nication ‘network that makes up the human nervous Hw 137