Exam 6: February 20-24 Flashcards
what are the opposite impacts that the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems have?
opposites
they’re part of the autonomic branch of the efferent PNS
pupils: dilate vs. contract
cardiac output: increase vs. decrease
bronchiole: relax vs. contract
digestive activity: increase vs. decrease
what is another name for the PNS?
sensory nervous system
what is the function of the sensory nervous system?
to detect and relay information to the CNS
PNS is the eyes and the ears for our CNS - the CNS Is encased in bone so it’s very isolated so needs info to be brought to it
need to also look at what’s happening inside your body as well as outside of your body! you were generating heat and were cool on the way to class but because you were working those muscles and doing equation 2 more to generate heat, when you got here and were in a warmer environment you get hot because of the internal heat you generated
what part of the reflex template is our sensory nervous system?
the first part!
we have a stimulus being detected by a receptor and our afferent system is taking the info to our CNS
what is a stimulus?
a detectable change
what are modalities? what are examples?
we only detect certain things in certain ranges
modalities are the things that our body actually pays attention to and has receptors for and can register changes in
ex. heat, light, pressure, temperatures, chemicals
other things in the environment could be detected – we don’t register the same things as other organisms – we can’t detect changes in CO in our environment
how does our sensory nervous system detect changes?
via receptors but within limits
the receptors won’t be able to detect all changes, just sufficient amounts = adequate
you either have a modality for something or you don’t but then within that modality you have a range of adequacy
what kinds of receptors does our sensory nervous system have?
1) photoreceptors
2) mechanoreceptors
3) thermoreceptors,
4) osmoreceptors
5) chemoreceptors
6) nociceptors
what are photoreceptors?
register light
what are mechanoreceptors?
register pressure and stretch
what are thermoreceptors?
register heat and cold
what are osmoreceptors?
register changes in concentration of solutes in the ECF
what are chemoreceptors?
register changes in a specific compound like Na or Ca
what are nociceptors?
detect tissue damage by cutting open or heating cells
what are the types of receptor design in the sensory nervous system?
1) directly by afferent neuron
2) receptor cell to afferent neuron
what does a receptor design that is directly by afferent neuron in the sensory nervous system entail?
our afferent neuron is acting as the receptor and as the afferent pathway
what does a receptor design that is receptor cell to afferent neuron in the sensory nervous system entail?
a separate cell is the receptor cell and then the afferent neuron takes the information from it so it’s just acting as the afferent pathway here
what type of receptor design in the sensory nervous system is faster?
directly by afferent neuron
what receptor design is typically seen in the sensory nervous system?
receptor cell to afferent neuron due to trade offs
when we try to make the afferent neuron do different things and be capable of registering very specific stimuli and not other ones, we’re asking it to do two very different things at the same time
when there’s a separate receptor cell they can do their individual jobs better even though that takes a little more time you get more precise information
however, where speed is important our system will use a receptor that is directly by afferent neuron
what is sensory transduction?
taking a change in our environment and changing it into something our CNS can interpret
key information is turned into a code for the CNS so that it knows what it is that changed, how much it changed, and where that change is
location is important so you know to go away from a fire for example
what is signal transduction?
taking a chemical in our body and turning it into response in the cell
different from sensory transduction!
what are the components of sensory transduction?
intensity and location
what is the intensity coding component of sensory transduction?
you start with a variable stimuli which is just different stimuli of different amounts
the stimuli are registered by a receptor and them changed into a graded potential → a smaller stimulus gives us a smaller graded potential
graded potentials decrease with distance so they won’t go all the way to the brain so if the graded potential is big enough, it triggers an AP
the AP triggers the exocytosis of neurotransmitters where the afferent talks to the interneurons in our CNS
brain registers numbers of NTs
what is the relationship between graded potentials and AP in relation to intensity coding?
when a stimulus is changing into a graded potential, it doesn’t stay as a graded potential because they decrease with distance and wouldn’t be able to get all the way to the brain
our neuron is an excitable cell that can help us travel distance because they are capable of action potentials!
if the graded potential is large enough to be a threshold potential, it will trigger an action potential
the number of AP made is based on the size of the graded potential aka how long the graded potential can stay above the threshold potential to trigger more AP
a bigger stimulus gets a larger graded potential which gets us a higher frequency of AP