Brain, Nervous System, and Sensory Systems Basic Functions Presentation

Basic Functions of Brains

  • Brain is one of the most complex and important organ in the body
  • It acts as the human nervous system command center
  • It gets input sent from sensory organs convey output to the body muscles
  • Brain is comprised  of brainstem, cerebellum and cerebrum
  • Cerebellum is situated below the cerebrum and its work is to coordinate balance, maintain posture and coordinate movements of muscles
  • Brainstem contains medulla, pons, and midbrain  and it works as a relay center linking the cerebellum and cerebrum to the spinal cord
  • It does a number of automatic functions which include swallowing, breathing, vomiting, heart rate  control, coughing, body temperature control, sneezing, sleep and wake cycles, and digestion
  • Cerebrum is the biggest part of the brain
  • It has left and right hemispheres which preforms higher functions such as fine movement control, interpreting touch, speech, hearing, and vision, learning, reasoning, and emotions
  • Cerebrum also referred to as cortex contains four lobes  that include temporal love, frontal lobe, occipital lobe and parietal lobe (Mayfield, 2017).
  • Frontal Lobe is related with problem solving, reasoning, parts of speech, planning, emotions, and emotions
  • Parietal lobe is related with stimuli perception, movement, recognition, and orientation
  • Occipital lobe is related with visual processing
  • Temporal lobe is related with recognition of speech, auditory stimuli, ad memory as well as perception
  • Brain also has a sub-cortex region which is situated under the cerebral cortex.
  • This region is categorized into three main parts that include hindbrain or brainstem, forebrain, and midbrain.
  • Brainstem contains of the medulla which is responsible for maintaining  upright posture, reflexes regulation, controlling breathing.
  • It also contains pons which bridges brainstem with midbrain. It is responsible for arousal and sleep monitoring by synchronizing with the automatic nervous system
  • It also comprises of midbrain
  • Midbrains helps in relaying information between the forebrain and hindbrain , particularly information originating from the ears and eyes
  • Midbrain also has reticular formation which is engaged in stereotypical behavior patters such as reflexes, sleeping, and walking
  • Forebrain is  used to process complex information. It contain the cerebral cortex, limbic system, basal ganglia, thalamus and the hypothalamus (General-psychology.weebly.com, n.d.).

Basic function of Nervous System

  • Nervous system refers to a complex group of specialized cells and nerves refers to as neurons which convey signals between various body parts
  • It is basically the electrical wiring on the body
  • Nervous system structurally contains two components which include the peripheral nervous and the central nervous
  • The central nervous system comprises of nerves, spinal cord and brain
  • The peripheral nervous system contains ganglia, sensory neurons, and nerves that link to central nervous system and to each other.
  • Nervous system functionally contains two major subdivisions which include voluntary or somatic component, and the involuntary or autonomic component.
  • The autonomic component regulates specific process of the body that include the breathing rate, and the blood pressure which function with no conscious effort.
  • The somatic component contains nerves which link the spinal cord and the brain with sensory receptors and muscles in the skin.
  • Autonomic component can further be divided into sympathetic  and parasympathetic components  (Zimmerman, 2016).
  • Parasympathetic component manages the body rest and homeostasis.
  • It is also responsible for digest function of the body
  • Sympathetic component manages the response of the body to perceived threat and is  take care of flight or fight reposes.
  • Neurons pass signals via axons to other cell
  • Sensory neuron respond to physical stimuli that include touch sound and light  and convey feedback about the surrounding  environment of the body to the central nervous system
  • Motor neurons situated in the peripheral ganglia or central nervous system convey signals to initiate the glands or muscles  (Ptdirect, 2013).

Basic Function of Sensory System

  • Sensory system refers to a collection of subsystems employed for understanding and detecting the world  in the surrounding
  • It comprises of the nervous system parts which are liable for sensory information processing
  • They include visual system, vestibular system, auditory system, gustatory system, olfactory system and somatosensory system
  • Sensory  system are made of receptors  for sensing the sensory stimuli, the brain parts engaged in sensory perception as well as a neural pathways which link them
  • The steps include stimulation, transduction, transmission and interpretation
  • A  stimulus is  impinged on the accessory structure, stimulus is transduced in sensory receptor into electrochemical impulse, the potential action is transmitted in the sensory neuron, the stimulus is interpreted in the central nervous system
  • Sensory system contains five main receptors that get input, create receptor potentials and generate potential actions with enough summation in the neurons (Mhhe.comn.d.).
  • The five receptors include mechanoreceptors, thermo-receptors, pain receptors, photoreceptors, and chemoreceptors
  • These receptors are triggered by thee  environmental stimuli classes that include chemical, mechanical and thermal and electromagnetic energy
  • Photoreceptors are highly involved in seeing.
  • A human eye contains two forms of photoreceptors which include cones and rods
  • Cones function in bright light while rods works in dim light
  • The visual pathways starts at the retina, photoreceptors are activated by light, and they initiates bipolar cells which signal ganglion cells which initiates ganglion cell  axioms in optic nerve to facilitate image creation
  • Eye is the hearing receptor organ
  • sound waves moves to tympanic membrane via auditory canal where it vibrate
  • In turn ossicles vibrate and convey the vibration for amplification to the oval window
  • Oval window transmit the pressure wave to cochlea via endolymph
  • Basilar membrane is made to vibrate when the sound pass through it from oval window
  • The sound get to round window  where the energy us absorbed by the membrane to block endolymph backwash (Mhhe.com, n.d.).
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