I believe knowledge is power and what is more powerful than understanding how your body works. You probably heard about the nervous system in biology class, a long time ago for some. So the topic of this month is a little refresher of what the nervous system is and how it works.
What we call the nervous system is the brain, the spinal cord and the nerves.
The Nervous System is the first structure developing in utero, before a heart beat.
The Nervous system controls what we think and feel, how we learn and remember, and the way we move and talk. But it also controls things we're less aware of — like the beating of our hearts and the digestion of our food.
Think of the brain as a central computer that controls all the body's functions. The rest of the nervous system is like a network that relays messages back and forth from the brain to different parts of the body. It does this via the spinal cord, which runs from the brain down through the back. It contains threadlike nerves that branch out to every organ and body part.
What Are the Parts of the Nervous System?
The nervous system is made up of the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system:
The brain and the spinal cord are the central nervous system. (CNS)
The nerves that go through the whole body make up the peripheral nervous system. (PNS)
Bone protects the CNS from injury. It safeguards your skull or cranium the same way shells protect the soft bodies of snails and turtles. Vertebrae are the bones protecting your spinal cord. Unlike the skull which can’t bend, your vertebrae are flexible. The flexibility is why you can twist at the waist or curl up in a ball.
No type of boney armor surrounds your PNS. For example, have you ever had your arm fall asleep? When it does, you may not be able to move it or even to feel it for a minute or two. That happens because it’s been in one position too long and you have temporarily pinched a nerve. The pinch occurs due to lack of protection. That nerve is part of the PNS.
The central nervous system is like a computer that controls the body's functions, and the nerves are like a network that relays messages to parts of the body.
How Does the Nervous System Work?
The basic workings of the nervous system depend a lot on tiny cells called neurons. The brain has billions of them, and they have many specialized jobs. For example, sensory neurons send information from the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin to the brain. Motor neurons carry messages away from the brain to the rest of the body.
All neurons, however, relay information to each other through a complex electrochemical process, making connections that affect the way we think, learn, move, and behave.
1.Intelligence, learning, and memory.
As we grow and learn, messages travel from one neuron to another over and over, creating connections, or pathways, in the brain. It's why driving takes so much concentration when someone first learns it, but later is second nature: The pathway became established.
In young children, the brain is highly adaptable. In fact, when one part of a young child's brain is injured, another part often can learn to take over some of the lost function. But as we age, the brain has to work harder to make new neural pathways, making it harder to master new tasks or change set behavior patterns. But with stimulation, what we call neuroplasticity stills occur. That's why many scientists believe it's important to keep challenging the brain to learn new things and make new connections — it helps keeps the brain active over the course of a lifetime.
Memory is another complex function of the brain. The things we've done, learned, and seen are first processed in the cortex. Then, if we sense that this information is important enough to remember permanently, it's passed inward to other regions of the brain (such as the hippocampus and amygdala) for long-term storage and retrieval. As these messages travel through the brain, they too create pathways that serve as the basis of memory.
2.Movement.
Different parts of the cerebrum move different body parts. The left side of the brain controls the movements of the right side of the body, and the right side of the brain controls the movements of the left side of the body. When you press your car's accelerator with your right foot, for example, it's the left side of your brain that sends the message allowing you to do it.
3.Basic body functions.
A part of the peripheral nervous system called the autonomic nervous system controls many of the body processes we almost never need to think about, like breathing, digestion, sweating, and shivering. The autonomic nervous system has two parts: the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.
The sympathetic nervous system prepares the body for sudden stress, like if you witness a robbery. When something frightening happens, the sympathetic nervous system makes the heart beat faster so that it sends blood quickly to the different body parts that might need it. It also causes the adrenal glandes at the top of the kidneys to release adrenaline, a hormone that helps give extra power to the muscles for a quick getaway. This process is known as the body's "fight or flight" response.
The parasympathetic nervous system does the exact opposite: It prepares the body for rest. It also helps the digestive tract move along so our bodies can efficiently take in nutrients from the food we eat. We call it as well the rest and digest system.
What health-related functions does the nervous system regulate?
As you have seen, the nervous system relates to nearly every aspect of our health and well-being. It’s involved in something as simple as closing your eyes to managing more complex processes such as critical thinking.
Other functions regulated by the nervous system include:
Aging
Body temperature
Brain growth/development
Breathing/heartbeat
Healing/rehabilitation
Hunger/thirst/digestion
Learning/memory
Movement/balance/coordination
Puberty/reproduction/fertility
Sensations – touch and hearing and the mental processes of interpretation
Sleep
Stress/bodily responses to stress
Thought and emotions
