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Biology
The Nervous System

The Nervous System

Photo shows a woman, upside-down with an arched back, going over a horizontal bar at a track and field event.
An athlete’s nervous system is hard at work during the planning and execution of a movement as precise as a high jump. Parts of the nervous system are involved in determining how hard to push off and when to turn, as well as controlling the muscles throughout the body that make this complicated movement possible without knocking the bar down—all in just a few seconds. (credit: Steven Pisano)

When you’re reading this book, your nervous system is performing several functions simultaneously. The visual system is processing what is seen on the page; the motor system controls the turn of the pages (or click of the mouse); the prefrontal cortex maintains attention. Even fundamental functions, like breathing and regulation of body temperature, are controlled by the nervous system. A nervous system is an organism’s control center: it processes sensory information from outside (and inside) the body and controls all behaviors—from eating to sleeping to finding a mate.

Sections

  • Neurons and Glial Cells — the structural components of a neuron, the four main types of neurons, and the functions of different types of glial cells.
  • How Neurons Communicate — the basis of the resting membrane potential, the stages of an action potential and how it propagates, the similarities and differences between chemical and electrical synapses, and long-term potentiation and long-term depression.
  • The Central Nervous System — the spinal cord, cerebral lobes, and other brain areas, and their basic functions.
  • The Peripheral Nervous System — the organization and functions of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and the sensory-somatic nervous system.
  • Nervous System Disorders — the symptoms, potential causes, and treatment of several examples of nervous system disorders.

This chapter is adapted from Biology 2e, Chapter 35: The Nervous System by Mary Ann Clark, Jung Choi, Matthew Douglas, and OpenStax, © OpenStax, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Access the original for free at openstax.org. Each section page records its own changes from the source. Changes: the chapter-opening image is the source’s, re-encoded for the web, with its source alt kept since it already says what the photo shows.

Digestive System RegulationNeurons and Glial Cells