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Neuro-Muscular Junction Activity for Outreach
Instructor’s guide for elementary school students
Spring 2009
General Concepts Covered:
The brain controls everything we do.
The brain tells the muscles when to contract.
The brain communicates with muscles by sending messages down nerves.
Neurotransmitters are used to send the signal between the nerve and the muscle.
SfN Core concepts covered:
2. Neurons communicate using both electrical and chemical signals.
b. Action potentials are electrical signals carried along neurons.
c. Synapses are chemical or electrical junctions that allow electrical signals to
pass from neurons to other cells.
3. Genetically determined circuits are the foundation of the nervous system.
b. Sensory circuits (sight, touch, hearing, smell, taste) bring information to the
nervous system, whereas motor circuits send information to muscles and glands.
8. Fundamental discoveries promote healthy living and treatment of disease.
c. Neuroscience research has formed the basis for significant progress in treating
a large number of disorders.
d. Finding cures for disorders of the nervous system is a social imperative.
National Science Education Standards:
Unifying Concepts and Processes
Systems, Order, Organization
Evidence, Models, Investigation
Form & Function
Life Sciences for Elementary
Characteristics of Organisms
Life Cycles of Organisms
History and Nature of Science
Science As Human Endeavor K-12
Personal and Social Perspectives
Science and Technology in Local Challenges
Specific Objectives:
At the end of the unit, students should be able to Explain that muscles are controlled by the brain
 Describe how spinal cord injury causes paralysis
 Explain that scientists study how the brain communicates to the muscles
Student Products:
None planned
Format:
Once class of elementary school students. Less than 20 students is best.
One to two instructors
One approx. 20-minute period
Materials:
2-4 ft cardboard arm with blown up glove attached for
hand. Use string attached to forearm for students to
pull and raise the hand.
Plastic golf balls for neurotransmitters
See pictures below.
Implementation Plans:
Set up:
Ask the students to sit in a circle on the floor.
Ask them to point to their brain and explain that
the brain controls everything they can do.
Have them “make a muscle” by flexing their
bicepts. Ask, how does your brain make your arm
do that? How does it make your muscle get so
big and strong?
Explain the brain sends a connection called a
nerve down the spine and to the muscles.
How about people who can’t move their
muscles?
Some people have to be in wheelchairs because
they can’t use their brain to move their muscles.
Sometimes that happens because the connection
between the brain and muscles is broken.
Tell them we will do an activity that shows us
how the brain talks to the muscles.
The demo:
Have one student volunteer to be the brain.
Have him or her stand on one side of the room
(make sure he/she can see the “arm”).
Set up the arm with 2-4 students standing on the
bicept. Have the student in front grab the strings
to move the arm up and down.
Identify 3-4 students to be the synaptic vesicles.
They each get to hold a few golf balls. Position
them 3-4 feet from the bicept students.
Line the rest of the class up between the brain
and the synaptic vesicles.
Acting out neurotransmission at the
neuromuscular junction.
Thinking about muscles…
Setting up the NMJ complete with
docked vesicles containing Ach…
When the signal travels down the
nerve, neurotransmitter is released
and the arm moves!
Explain that the brain will decide when to send the signal to move the arm. The students
in the nerve will squeeze hands to send the signal to the vesicles. Only when they are
tapped by the last student in the nerve, can they release their golf balls to the muscle!
Students forming the bicept grab a golf ball and then tap the student holding the string.
When the student is tapped, he/she pulls the strings and moves the arm.
Let the students celebrate, and then review the sequence.
Try again but with a spinal cord injury.
Cut the nerve by separating students and try to move the arm again in the same way.
Explain that this is what happens to people with injuries in their spinal cord and that
scientists like YOU are working on ways to fix this problem.
Bring the class back to the circle on the floor and ask them to talk about what they learned.
Enjoy!