Summary of Nervous System

Name : Muhammad Derel Patria Ramadhan

Preliminary
The Nervous system is the organizer's behavior, by taking vast quantities of sensory data
from outside of our body, into our internal system and synchronizing it with every response our
body does, Reflex or intentionally. Our nervous system extends its nerve fibers to every part of
the body to gather every data our body receives and then stimulate the action needed for those
data.
Gross Anatomy and Art
Scientific study of the nervous system began to advance rapidly during the Renaissance
in Europe. Foremost artists of Renaissance period who dissected human bodies included Da
Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Durer. Da Vinci was the first to portray intricate details of
human nerves and the brain with some considerable accuracy in 1490.
The first authoritative publication of fine details of human anatomy was De Humani
Corporis Fabrica (The Fabric of the Human Body) by Vesalius in 1543. His drawings revealed a
cerebral cortex that had many gyri separated by fissures or sulci.
In the 1664, Willis with his Cerebri Anatome described Anatomical dissections of human
brains. There is evidence that Willis and others in this period sought to preserve the brain tissue
with alcohol mixed with vinegar, so that the brain became “soused and pickled.”
History helps us to understand the anatomy of the nervous system. From the depiction of
the nervous system, into the function of every part in our nervous system.
Parts of the Brains
The broad scheme of the human nervous system divided into three main parts.
Central nervous system (CNS), consisting of much of the brain and spinal cord and
controls the movement of muscles attached to the skeleton. It collects information from the skins,
joints, and the muscles themselves, as well as sense organs such as our eyes, ears, and nose.
Many of the movements of the skeletal muscles are under conscious control by the cerebral
cortex at the top of the brain, and their movements are said to be voluntary.
The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) controls the much slower actions of smooth
muscles and glands associated with internal organs, actions that are often performed reflexively
without awareness and are therefore said to be involuntary. The ANS has two divisions, termed
sympathetic and parasympathetic, which usually exert opposite effects. Activation of
sympathetic circuits generally prepare individual for action by accelerating the heart.
Parasympathetic in the other hands is the opposite of sympathetic.
 The CNS and both components of the ANS all rely on activities of the brain and spinal
cord, but they are controlled by separate areas of the brain and spinal cord, although there are
numerous connections between CNS and ANS
Neurons
Just like other parts of our body, our nervous system is made of a billion of small cells.
Including neurons that send electric/chemical signals to other cells over relatively long distances.
Neurons communicate via synapses and generally do not transfer material from one cell to the
next. Neurons maybe have a lot of variety of shapes and sizes. But most neurons share a few
basic features. Such as Soma (cell body) containing the nucleus and ribosomes where proteins
are made, dendrites that receive impulses from other neurons and axon that can extend far from
the cell body and then branch and terminate in synapsis on other neurons or muscles fibers.
Complexity
The complexity of the human brain can be sensed from two facts, the number of neurons
and the number of synapses on just one neuron. The number of neurons in the human brain
approximately around 86 billion.
Neurons are mind-boggling. Careful counts have found that there are sometimes more
than 100,000 spines on just one rat Purkinje cell and there are probably even more in humans. A
single cortical pyramidal cell can have more than 10,000 spines. Small neurons of course harbor
fewer synapses. If there are perhaps 2000 synaptic connections on average for each of the 86
billion neurons, there will be 172,000,000,000,000 synapses in the human brain.
At first glance, the large numbers of cells, synapses, and interconnections do not bode
well for attempts to explain brain function based on just 20,000 different kinds of genes. Of
course, 20,000 is a very large number, but the numbers of neurons and synapses are far greater.
An entire neuron and circuitry are things that exist at a much higher level than the molecular
level where genes reside. Moving downward to the molecular level, matters are very complex
but not impossibly so. What genes do at that level can be reasonably clear.
Synaptic Transmission
Transmission of the nerve impulse from one neuron to the next occurs at a special
organelle, a synapse, and involves several kinds of protein molecules, each encoded by a specific
gene. Each protein is synthesized at ribosomes in the neuron cell body and then transported down
the axon to the synapse where it performs a specific task. The transport of newly synthesized
proteins from the cell body to the synapse via microtubules and filaments in the axon is itself a
rather slow process, moving at 5–100mm/ day, depending on the nature of the cargo. For large
neurons that send their axons long distances to a target cell, the journey can require several hours
or more
Each step in the process of synaptic transmission is mediated by one or more proteins
encoded in specific genes. for an example involving the neurotransmitter dopamine (DA). This
scheme is itself a simplification, and many more genes are involved in the process. Nevertheless,
it does convey an impression of the intricate nature of things happening in just one kind of
synapse:
 1. Transport down axon involves neurofilaments (NEFM, NEFL, NEF) and neurotubules
(more than 20 kinds of Tubulin (TUB) genes).
2. Synthesis involves tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) that acts on tyrosine from blood to make
DOPA and then dopa decarboxylase (DDC) that converts it into dopamine transmitter
(DA).
3. Three solute carrier proteins transport it into the vesicle (SLC18A1, 2, 3).
4. Transmitter release involves several genes not shown here.
5. Detection of DA in the cleft can involve five kinds of dopamine receptors (DRD1 to
DRD5).
6. Activation by DA involves the short form of type 2 autoreceptor (DRD2short).
7. Reuptake of DA involves several kinds of solute carrier family 6A proteins (SLC6A3 and
others)
8. Degradation involves monoamine oxidase A or B (MAOA and MAOB) or inactivation
by catechol-Omethyl transferase (COMT).
Gene Expression in Brain
The information contained in a DNA molecule is transcribed into mRNA in the cell
nucleus and then translated into protein in the cell body before being transported to places in the
cell where the protein has a role. A comprehensive database of gene expression has now been
compiled for the mouse and human brains, the Allen Brain Atlas. The levels of expression of
more than 17,000 genes have been documented for more than 168 regions of the human brain.
This rich depository of data is now available for mining by experts adept at statistical analysis,
but potential users are cautioned that it “can be overwhelming for neuroscientists”.
Sensory Input
Information about the environment enters the nervous system via sense organs that detect
stimuli with extraordinary sensitivity and specificity. For examples :
Smell or Olfaction, Odors are detected by special nerve cells in the membrane lining the
nasal cavity. One end of each neuron divides into many fine processes where odor receptors are
located. Olfactory neurons send their axons directly into an extension of the brain, the olfactory
bulb, that is located above the nasal cavity.
Taste, The sense of taste detects specific classes of chemicals in the environment via
taste buds or papillae on the surface of the tongue and in several other organs. There are several
families of taste receptor genes in humans.
Touch, The senses of touch and pain apparently involve relatively few distinct kinds of
receptor molecules compared with odor and taste. Although showing little chemical diversity,
they express great spatial diversity, being widely distributed across the entire surface of the body
and in many internal organs too. The sensory nerve endings near the skin surface conduct signals
to relay neurons in the dorsal root ganglia and then into the spinal cord where they course
upward to relay neurons in the thalamus that terminate on sensory neurons in the primary
somatosensory region of the cerebral cortex. Distinct regions of the body surface are represented
spatiallyin primary somatosensory cortexlike a map, so that the cortex representswhere a touch
occurs and what kind of touch it is.
Pain, m. Pain is a perception that is organized in the cerebral cortex by combining data
from the nociceptors with facts about emotions, stress levels, and even memories about a certain
kind of experience. The experience of pain is usually accompanied by behaviors that express
discomfort and attempts to escape the noxious situation. The degree of pain can be judged with a
rating scale, especially one that is based on the expression of the face.
Motor Output
Most of what we regard as behavior is mechanical motion of the parts of our bodies. This
is as true for lifting a heavy weight or swimming as it is for playing a musical instrument or
checking little boxes in a multiple-choice exam. Muscles attached by tendons to bones in the
skeleton provide the force for most kinds of movements we can observe directly. Those skeletal
muscles have a similar structure, no matter where they are positioned in the body, and their
contractions are initiated by the release of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine from the motor end
plate of motor neurons in the spinal cord.