Module 1 The Nervous System

Big Picture

Big Picture

You are at a gathering with your friends and a person across the room catches your eye. You notice their smile and can hear their laugh from across the room. You decide you want to communicate with this person, so you walk across the room to say “ hi”. You notice that you’re breathing faster, your heart is pounding, and your hands are clammy. You are introduced and you shake hands. Without thinking, you yank your hand away from the handshake that’s hurting your sprained finger. You’re so embarrassed! Your body is communicating even if you didn’t want it to! You stammer out a hello and they say hello back. You can see from their body language that they are nervous as well. Whether you end up with a friend, or someone who rejected your attempts at communication will ultimately be up to you.

 

While you may have felt like your nervous system was not working correctly because you could not control what your body was communicating, it was in fact responding and working to regain homeostasis. You take a deep breathe and the unconscious parts of your nervous system bring your heart rate back to normal.

 

In this Module you will learn about the many ways your Nervous System communicates with your body to speed you up, slow you down, and establish homeostasis.
 
In this module, you will explore how the body communicates through the nervous system? 

 

To do this, you will need to explore the following focusing questions:

• How is the nervous system organized? How do its parts communicate with one another? What could interrupt this communication?

• What are the main structures and functions of the brain? How does the brain establish communication? What happens when this communication it is interrupted?

• What are the main features of the spinal cord? What role does the spinal cord play in the communication and coordination of the rest of the body?

• What are the features of the building blocks of the nervous system?

• What information about our environment do the sensations of touch, smell and taste communicate to our nervous system in order to maintain homeostasis?

• What are the major parts of the eye? How do they function? How do they support the integrated act of seeing?

• What are the major parts of the ear that facilitate your response to sound and facilitate your ability to maintain balance within the changing environment?

• How does the structure of a neuron facilitate the reception and transmission of a nerve impulse to the synaptic gap?

• What are the events in the synaptic gap that affect how neurons communicate with each other?