“The Nervous System, part 1: Crash Course A&P #8”:

1. Hank has a recurring dream about a guy in a ____________________________________ suit.

2. The nervous system is to the body what ______________________________________________ is to NASA.

3. All that is your nervous system can be boiled down into three basic functions:

__________________________→__________________________→__________________________

4. The nervous system has two major parts:

● The __________________________________ nervous system (CNS) houses the brain and spinal cords.
● The __________________________________ nervous system (PNS) contains all of the nerves that branch
off from the brain and spine. It has two parts as well:
o The __________________________ (afferent) division picks up sensory stimuli.
o The __________________________ (efferent) division sends directions from the brain to the
muscles and glands. This division is further broken down into:
▪ The _________________________ nervous system which rules your skeletal muscles.
▪ The _________________________ nervous system which controls your involuntary
functions (heartbeat, breathing, etc.). This division is broken down further still:
● The _______________________________ division mobilizes the body into action.
● The _______________________________ division calms the body down.

5. Most of the heavy lifting of the nervous system is done by the ________________________________________.

6. All neurons:
● Are the LONGEST SHORTEST lived cells in your body.
● CAN CANNOT be replaced.
● They have huge _________________________________________.

7. All neurons have the same basic structure:

● The ________________________________________ is the neurons life support.

● The ________________________________________ are the branch-like listeners that extend from the cell body.
● The ________________________________________ is the talking part: it sends messages out from the cell body.

8. Neurons are describe based on which way an impulse travels through a neuron in relation to the brain and spine:
● Sensory neurons carry messages from sensory receptors and sends them TO AWAY FROM the central
nervous system. Most are unipolar.
● Motor neurons carry messages TO AWAY FROM the central nervous system and out to the rest of the
body. Most of these are multipolar.
● Interneurons live in the central nervous system and transmit messages __________________________ the central
and peripheral nervous systems. They are the most abundant neurons and are mostly multipolar.
“Central Nervous System: Crash Course A&P #11”:
1. Broca’s aphasia leaves the affected with ________________ ability to understand speech but ____________ability to
produce intelligible words. This affliction can sometimes be treated by teaching patients to _______________.

2. When it comes to your brain, everything is __________________________________________.

3. The central nervous system’s main roles are ______________________________________ sensory information from the
peripheral nervous system and ____________________________________ both conscious and unconscious activity.

4. The __________________________ sorts out all of the information and gives orders. The ___________________________
conducts two way messages from your brain and the rest of your body and governs basic muscle reflexes that don’t need your
brain to work.

5. Your brain is divided into _________________________________________ that may, or may not, interact with each other
to produce a given action.

6. The three lower sections of the fetal brain, the mesencephalon, the metencephalon, and the myelencephalon go on to
form the _______________________________________________ (which helps coordinate muscle activity) and the
____________________________ (which plays a vital role in relaying information to and from the body) in the adult brain.

7. The brain stem has three parts: the midbrain, the _________________________, and the medulla oblongata. Of these
three parts, it’s the __________________________________that carries out higher functions.

8. The diencephalon, which houses things like the thalamus and hypothalamus and part of the limbic system, is sometimes
referred to as the ______________________________________.

9. During development, the telencephalon undergoes the biggest changes, becoming the __________________________.

10. It (#9) is made up of the wrinkled, outer layer of gray matter called the __________________________________ and the
inner, squishy layer of white matter beneath it. It rules our _______________________________ movements and our most
advanced tricks.

11. The two hemispheres communicate through myelinated axon fibers called the ___________________________________.

12. The hemisphere has various lobes:

● The _____________________________ lobe governs muscle movement, motor skills and cognitive function.
● The _____________________________ lobe processes visual cues.
● The _____________________________ lobe processes the sensations of touch, pain, and pressure.
● The _____________________________ lobe helps sort out auditory information, including language.

13. Your brain would be pretty useless without the ________________________________ nervous system.
“Peripheral Nervous System: Crash Course A&P #12”:
1. The more isolated your brain gets, the _________________________________ it gets.

2. Your ______________________________ nervous system puts your brain in touch with the physical
environment and allows it to respond.

3. The __________________________________ nerve receptors spy on the world for the central nervous system
and each type responds to different kinds of stimuli.

4. Nociceptors are receptors that only fire to indicate _________________________________.

5. Pain itself is a pretty subjective feeling, but we all have the same ______________________________________.

6. Every neuron has a membrane that keep positive and negative charges separated. Stepping on the tack opens
the gates in the membrane, building potential until it reaches -55 mV at which point an
___________________________ is triggered and the sensory neuron passes the message along.

7. Complete the table below as Hank describes the completion of a reflex arc.

Receptor senses a
____________________

Sensory neuron transmits a signal up

the PNS to the
________________________
______________________________
decodes the signal

___________________ neuron sends

directions back to the site of the stimulus

_____________________ cells respond

by contracting or secreting

8. Lifting your foot when you step on a tack is an ____________________________ (or intrinsic) reflex action: a
super fast motor response to a starting stimulus.
9. It’s not until the pain signals reach the ____________________________ that you consciously register it.

“Autonomic Nervous System: Crash Course A&P #13”:

1. Your autonomic nervous system is the branch of your peripheral nervous system that regulates the functions of
your ________________________________, controls your smooth and cardiac muscles, and your glands. Its
effects on these things are in no way ____________________________.

2. Your autonomic nervous system is run by _________ competing sides.

3. The _____________________________ division of your autonomic nervous system sounds your internal alarm
bells while the _____________________________________ division calms your down and conserves your energy.

4. The nerves of the sympathetic nervous system are “_________________________”, meaning they originate
from between your thoracic and lumbar vertebrae.

5. The nerves of the parasympathetic nervous system are “_________________________”, meaning they
originate from the base of your brain and just above your tailbone.

6. Both parts of your autonomic nervous system require ____________ neurons to work. They are ganglia.
Sympathetic ganglia are found closer to your ___________________________ and parasympathetic ganglia are
found way out from there, near or inside their effector organs.

7. Because the ganglia appear in different parts of your body, their neurons have slightly different forms, namely
the length of their ___________________________.

8. In the sympathetic system, the pregangliotic fibers are much SHORTER LONGER than the
postgangliotic ones. The reverse is true for the parasympathetic nervous system.

9. The structure of each of these systems is related to its ___________________________________.

“Sympathetic Nervous System: Crash Course A&P #14”:
1. Your __________________________ nervous system is the part of your nervous system that responds to stress.

2. Physiological responses to non-immediate stresses are largely THE SAME DIFFERENT as when
you’re fighting for survival.

3. The stress response involves two kinds of chemicals: _________________________ & ____________________.
These can be hard to keep track of when following a sympathetic response because the same substance can have
_____________________________ effects, and sometimes totally opposite effects, depending on _____________
it’s received in your body.

4. You smell smoke. Your brain sends action potentials down your spinal cord and preganglionic axons all the way
to their ganglia. When the signals reach the synapses in the ganglia, the nerve fibers release a neurotransmitter
called _______________________________ (ACh). ACh is what the much of your nervous system uses to
communicate and it stimulates action potentials in the postganglionic neurons (it’s a signal booster). At the end of
the postganglionic neuron a different neurotransmitter is released, which is always _________________________.
This neurotransmitter creates a response in the effector, like opening up blood vessels in muscles.

5. Another way the sympathetic nervous system can get the message out is hormones. Another set of nerves go
from the spinal cord to the ______________________________ glands. These glands release two hormones,
epinephrine and __________________________________, which go through the blood stream to the heart and
lungs and other organs.

6. Norepinephrine is both a neurotransmitter and a hormone. Which one it is depends on _______________ it’s
being used. We describe them differently because they are ____________________________ differently.

7. Norepinephrine works by both stimulating and inhibiting the _________ systems in your body at the _________
time.

8. Norepinephrine works on smooth muscles. Some smooth muscle cells that control blood vessels there are alpha
receptors. When norepinephrine binds to those receptors the muscles ________________________, reducing
blood flow. But on smooth muscles on other blood vessels there are beta receptors. When norepinephrine binds
to those receptors the muscles ________________________, increasing blood flow.
9. Since your body’s response is a full body response every time, it can be pretty taxing, throwing parts of your
body into overdrive while depriving others of ________________________ and _______________________.

“Parasympathetic Nervous System: Crash Course A&P #15”:

1. Part of what keeps your heart under control is the parasympathetic nervous system, often thought of as the
____________________________________ part of your nervous system.

2. The ________________________________ nervous system deals with the crisis of now while the
_______________________________ nervous system deal with everything else.

3. A big difference between the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems is that in the parasympathetic
nervous system the postganglionic cells release _______________________________ rather than norepinephrine.

4. The biggest anatomical difference between these two systems has to do with the physical networks that they
form throughout your body. The vast majority of the parasympathetic nerves never go through the ___________.

5. There are __________ cranial nerves. The table below has some helpful information about them.

Name Function Sensory, Motor, or both?

1 Olfactory Takes scent information to the brain S
2 Ocular Takes visual information to the brain S
3 Oculomotor Controls 4 of 6 muscles that control eye movement M
4 Trochlear Controls a single muscle of the eye M
5 Trigeminal Innervates the face and jaw muscles B
6 Abducens Stimulates some of the eye muscles M
7 Facial Operates muscles that make facial expressions B
8 Auditory Takes audio information to the brain S
9 Glossopharyngeal Leas to tongue and pharynx B
10 Vagus Controls the heart and digestive tract B
11 Spinal Accessory Has to do with moving your head and your shoulders M
12 Hypoglossal Allows you to swallow and talk M

6. If you’re gonna commit one of those cranial nerves to memory, it should be the ___________________ nerve.

7. The functions of the vagus nerve are mostly VOLUNTARY INVOLUNTARY

8. When you mow down half a pizza, your stomach sends signals from your stomach to your brain, telling it that
it’s full. In response, your brain sends other messages down your vagus nerve, triggering other parasympathetic
responses like:
● ____________________________________ your heart.
● Putting some _____________________________ back into storage.
 ● Reducing all of the _________________________ that your sympathetic system was pumping out.

9. Most of the time, our SYMPATHETIC PARASYMPATHETIC tone is dominant.