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MODULE 3 PREVIEW
Our nervous system plays a vital role in how we think, feel, and act. Neurons, the basic building blocks
of the body’s circuitry, receive signals through their branching dendrites and cell bodies and transmit
electrical impulses down their axons. Chemical messengers called neurotransmitters traverse the tiny
synaptic gap between neurons and pass on excitatory or inhibitory messages.
The central nervous system consists of the brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system
consists of the somatic nervous system, which directs voluntary movements and reflexes, and the
autonomic nervous system, which controls the glands and muscles of our internal organs.
Hormones released by endocrine glands affect other tissues, including the brain. The most influential
endocrine gland, the pituitary gland, releases hormones that influence growth, and its secretions also
influence the release of hormones by other glands. The nervous system directs endocrine secretions,
which then affect the nervous system.
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES
1. To describe the structure of neurons and explain how they communicate.
2. To discuss the nature of the nervous system.
3. To describe the endocrine system and its intimate connection to the nervous system.
MODULE GUIDE
Introductory Exercise for Modules 3 and 4: Fact or Falsehood?
NOTE: Beginning with this module, the Fact or Falsehood? exercises appear at the beginning of each related group of modules
(e.g., prior to Modules 5, 7, and 11).
1. Explain why psychologists are concerned with human biology.
Everything psychological is simultaneously biological. We think, feel, and act with our bodies. By
studying the links between biology and psychology, biological psychologists are gaining new clues to
sleep and dreams, depression and schizophrenia, hunger and sex, stress and disease.
Lectures: Web Sites: Sources for Teaching Neuroscience and Behavior; Phrenology
Films/Videos: Brain and Nervous System—Your Information Highway; Journey to the Centers of the Brain; The Brain: Our
Universe Within
Neurons and Neural Impulses
2. Describe the structure of a neuron, and explain how neural impulses are generated.
A neuron consists of a cell body and branching fibers: The dendrites receive information from sensory
receptors or other neurons, and the axons pass that information along to other neurons. A layer of fatty
cells, called the myelin sheath, insulates the fibers of some neurons and helps speed their impulses.
A neural impulse fires when the neuron is stimulated by pressure, heat, light, or chemical messages from
adjacent neurons. Received signals trigger an impulse only if the excitatory signals minus the inhibitory
signals exceeds a minimum intensity called the threshold. The impulse, called the action potential, is a
brief electrical charge that travels down the axon rather like a line of dominoes falling. During the resting
potential, the fluid interior of the axon carries mostly negatively charged atoms (ions) while the fluid
outside has mostly positively charged atoms. Then, the first bit of the axon is depolarized, and the
electrical impulse travels down the axon as channels open, admitting atoms with a positive charge. When
these channels close, others open and positive atoms are pumped back out, restoring the neuron to its
polarized state.
Lecture: Multiple Sclerosis and Guillain-Barré Syndrome
Exercise: Using Dominoes to Illustrate the Action Potential
Film: The Addicted Brain
Transparencies: 12 A Motor Neuron; 13 Action Potential
PsychSim: Neural Messages
Neural Communication
3. Describe how nerve cells communicate, and discuss the impact of neurotransmitters and drugs on human
behavior.
When electrical impulses reach the axon terminal, they stimulate the release of chemical messengers
called neurotransmitters that cross the junction between neurons called the synapse. After these
molecules traverse the tiny synaptic gap between neurons, they combine with receptor sites on
neighboring neurons, thus passing on their excitatory or inhibitory messages.
Different neurotransmitters have different effects on behavior and emotion. For example, release of
acetylcholine, the neurotransmitter found at every junction between a motor neuron and skeletal muscle,
causes the muscle to contract. The brain’s endorphins, natural opiates released in response to pain and
vigorous exercise, explain the “runner’s high” and the indifference to pain in some injured people.
Lectures: The Brain’s Inner Workings CD; Endorphins; Parkinson’s Disease and Awakenings
Exercises: Neural Transmission; Web Site: Neural Transmission
Video: The Addicted Brain; Module 5 of The Mind series; Module 30 of The Brain series
Transparencies: 14 How Neurons Communicate; 15 Agonists and Antagonists
When the brain is flooded with opiate drugs such as heroin and morphine, however, it may stop
producing its own natural opiates, and withdrawal of these drugs may result in pain until the brain
resumes production of its natural opiates. Researchers have used this information about neurotransmitters
in the brain in their efforts to create therapeutic drugs, such as those used to alleviate depression and
schizophrenia. Some drugs (agonists) mimic a natural neurotransmitter, while others (antagonists) block
its effects. Still others work by hampering the neurotransmitter’s natural breakdown or reabsorption.
The Nervous System
4. Identify the major divisions of the nervous system, and describe their functions, noting the three types of
neurons that transmit information through the system.
Neurons communicating with other neurons form our body’s primary system, the nervous system. The
brain and spinal cord form the central nervous system (CNS). The peripheral nervous system (PNS) links
the central nervous system with the body’s sense receptors, muscles, and glands. The sensory and motor
neurons carrying this information are bundled into the electrical cables we know as nerves.
Lecture: Spinal Cord Repair
Exercise: Reaction-Time Measure of Neural Transmission and Mental Processes
Transparency: 16 The Functional Divisions of the Human Nervous System
Video: The Brain
Sensory neurons send information from the body’s tissues and sensory organs inward to the brain and
spinal cord. Interneurons of the brain and spinal cord process the information. Motor neurons carry
outgoing information from the central nervous system to the body’s tissues.
The somatic nervous system of the peripheral nervous system controls the movements of our skeletal
muscles. The autonomic nervous system of the peripheral nervous system is a dual self-regulating system
that influences the glands and muscles of our internal organs. The sympathetic nervous system arouses;
the parasympathetic nervous system calms.
Video: The Autonomic Nervous System
Transparency: 17 The Dual Functions of the Autonomic Nervous System
5. Contrast the simplicity of the neural pathways involved in reflexes with the complexity of neural
networks.
Reflexes, our automatic responses to stimuli, illustrate the spinal cord’s work. A simple reflex pathway is
composed of a single sensory neuron and a single motor neuron, which often communicate through an
interneuron. For example, when our fingers touch a hot stove, information from the skin receptors travels
inward via a sensory neuron to a spinal cord interneuron, which sends a signal outward to the arm
muscles via a motor neuron. Because this reflex involves only the spinal cord, we jerk our hand away
before the brain creates an experience of pain.
Transparency: 18 A Simple Reflex
Neurons in the brain cluster into work groups called neural networks. The cells in each layer of a neural
network connect with various cells in the next layer. With experience, networks can learn, as feedback
strengthens or inhibits connections that produce certain results. One network is interconnected with other
networks, which are distinguished by their specific functions.
Video: The Brain
The Endocrine System
6. Describe the nature and function of the endocrine system and its interaction which the nervous system.
The endocrine system’s glands secrete hormones, chemical messengers produced in one tissue that travel
through the bloodstream and affect other tissues, including the brain. When they act on the brain, they
influence our interest in sex, food, and aggression. Compared to the speed at which messages move
through the nervous system, endocrine messages move more slowly but their effects are usually longerlasting. The endocrine system’s hormones influence many aspects of our lives, including growth,
reproduction, metabolism, and mood, keeping everything in balance while responding to stress and
internal thoughts. In a moment of danger, the adrenal glands release
hormones that increase heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar, providing us with increased energy.
The pituitary gland is the endocrine system’s most influential gland. Its secretions influence growth and
the release of hormones by other endocrine glands. Under the brain’s influence, the pituitary triggers the
sex glands to release sex hormones. These may in turn influence both the brain and behavior and thus
reveal the intimate connection of the nervous and endocrine systems.
Lecture: The Endocrine System
Transparency: 33 The Major Endocrine Glands
Videos: Endocrine Control—Systems in Balance; Hormones and the Endocrine System; Module 2 of The Brain series, 2nd ed.