2B Concious and Unconcious Responses

Question 1

What are concious responses

Answer 1

• intentional and voluntary
• They are initiated by the Brain and responded to by the body by way of skeletal muscle movement
• Conscious responses are carried out by the Somatic Nervous System

Question 2

What are unconcious responses?

Answer 2

• automatic and involuntary.
• There is no conscious awareness and therefore no BRAIN is involved
• The two Unconscious Responses we need to understand are:
  1. Physiological responses of the Autonomic NS
  2. The Spinal Reflex.

Question 3

What is the Physiological Responses of the Autonomic NS?

Answer 3

• The Autonomic NS controls unconscious physiological responses involving visceral (smooth) muscles, organs and glands.
• Visceral muscle is found inside organs such as the heart

Question 4

What is the process of Spinal reflex?

Answer 4

1. A Dangerous or Harmful Sensory stimulus comes into contact with sensory receptors.
2. Sensory neural information travels up Afferent pathways in the Somatic NS to the Spinal Cord.
3. Interneurons in the Spinal Cord relay the sensory signal to a motor neuron as a motor neural signal.
4. This initiates an Automatic and Unconscious motor response.
5. Motor messages are carried down Efferent pathways to the Skeletal Muscles which respond (usually retracting a part of the body to protect it.)

The sensory information continues to travel to the Brain up Afferent pathways.
The Brain independently registers the sensation that triggered the Spinal Reflex (usually pain)m but only AFTER the response has occurred