Nervous System

Pain,pleasure,being tickled is all apart of the wonderous nervous system. Laced through out the body the networks of cells communicate to stimulate muscles or glands to do various tasks. The nervous system is made mostly up of neural tissue but also has blood vessels and connective tissue. There are two different cells type: nerve cells and neuroglial cells. The Nerve cells are made to react to physical and or chemical changes to their surroundings. The communication of the cells is all started when the the small cells called dendrites receive the input and theen a longer process called a nerve fiber or axon carries the information away from the cell in the form of nerve impulses. When all the axons are bundled up this is what you call a nerve. Almost a coating over the Axon is what is called Myelin sheath which is a higher proportion lipid that contains a cytoplasm
Another important part of the nervous system are the small spaces between the neuron and the cell,which is called a synapse. Most of the job the nerouvs system has is to send and recieve messages between neurons and the other cells at the synapse. The conveyor belt of this whole nervous system is what you would call neurotransmitters. There are also organs in the nervous system that are split into two groups. One of the groups is called the central nervous system and it is made up of the brain and the spinal cord. THe other groups is called the peripheral nervous system and it is composed of nervous and is connected to the central nervous system. Sensory receptors gather information by detecting changes though out the body and also on the outside of it. They detect and monitor things like light,sound,remperature and oxygen concentration.Sensory receptors convert the information they recieve and then transmitt or send the information to the central nervous system. When they reach the CNS they come together to create sensations that help to produce thoughts.There are also motor functions of the nervous system and they are carried out by impulse carrying neurons that head to the central nervous system to help muscles contract in response to stimulation.

The diagram above shows the shape of the cell in simple form. As you can see the neuron is made up of dendrites on the edge that are almost tentacle like. Also you can see the axon that carries information to the axon endings. Lastly you see the myelin sheath that wraps around the axons almost like a bandage.

The next activity we did was we were assigned partners and had to put together a project on the nervous system. In our group we chose to go over how marijuana and alcohol effects the brain. From this assignment I learned many things including the part of the brain that is most effected by drugs and alcohol and how the brain is effected. I also learned about the short and long term effects of the two of those substances on the brain. Here is the link for the presentation that we did as a group.