The Nervous System Flashcards
What are the components of the Peripheral Nervous System?
- Nerves
(connects the CNS to the other tissues in the body)
What does a bundle of neurones together in the PNS make?
A nerve
Give examples of uses of the nervous system
- Movement
- Sensation
- Memory
- Balance
- Language
- Behaviour
- Aging
- Sleep
- Sweating
- Hormone control
- Healing + immune system
What is the purpose of the somatic nervous system?
Guides your voluntary movements.
What is the name of the specialist receptor that connects the nervous system to the muscles?
Motor end plate
Ganglion.
Collection of cell bodies
Fasciculus.
Cluster of axons forming a recognisable bundle
Funiculus.
Bundle of axons forming a raised bump on the surface of the CNS (especially in the spinal cord)
Tract.
Cluster of axons with similar functions
Nucleus.
Cluster of cell bodies with similar functions
Cell body.
Contains nucleus and all the things needed to sustain the metabolic activity of the neuron
Dendrites.
- Processes of cell membrane radiating from cell body in various directions
- Predominantly receive information and send it to the cell body
Axons
- Long tubular extension of the cell membrane and cytoplasm
- Extends towards atarget
- Sends information away from the cell body
Plasmalemma.
Semipermeable membrane of the neuron
Neurons.
Convey information by conducting electrical signals (action potentials)
– but use chemical information to pass messages from one neuron to the next (synapse)
Nerve fibre.
The axon + surrounding Schwann cell
Nodes of Ranvier.
Junctions between Schwann cells
Oligodendrocytes.
Specialist cells that perform myelination in the CNS
Schwann cells.
Specialist cells that perform myelination in the PNS
Myelin.
Lipid (fatty) sheath that wraps around axons
Unipolar
Autonomic nervous system:
- one single process
- axon emerges from cell body and branches into dendrites.
Bipolar.
Functionally specialised sensory cells.
- Two processes form from the cell body, one an axon that carries information to CNS, dendrites that convey information from periphery.
Psuedounipolar.
Certain sensory cells (i.e. touch or stretch).
- Bi-polar which fuses to form one axon from cell body
- One branch goes to periphery (to sensory receptors)
- Other to spinal cord
Multipolar.
Predominate form in our nervous system.
- Single axon, and typically many dendrites around cell body.
- Number dendrites correlates with number of synaptic connections
