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Anatomy and Physiology I

Anatomy and Physiology II

A and P Web Resources

Course Logistics

Intro/Body Plan

 Tissues/Skin Nervous System Musculo-Skeletal Limbs/ Movement Head/Neck Brain

NERVOUS SYSTEM

("terribly simple, but simply terrible")

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Vertebral column

  1. Know anatomy of individual vertebrae and regions of vertebral column--cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacral
  2. Understand formation of vertebra, intervertebral discs and relationship to notocord during embryonic development
  3. Visualize in three dimensions the relationship between vertebral column, spinal cord and spinal nerves
  4. Know which vertebrae bear ribs and the anatomy of the joints/articulations between vertebrae and ribs

Spinal cord

  1. Visualize in three dimensions the relationship between vertebral column, spinal cord and spinal nerves
  2. Understand what kinds of neurons make up a spinal nerve.  Appreciate the scale, size, and number of neurons in each spinal nerve
  3. Analyze how spinal cord and spinal nerves show basic organization of nervous system:  two modalities--sensory and motor; two types of destinations--somatic and visceral--each with distinct neuron configuration

Neurons and their function

  1. Visualize neuron basic structure, size, shape, processes, location in spinal cord, spinal nerve
  2. Understand propagation of action potential as basic neuron function
  3. Know role of other nervous tissue cells
  4. Understand synapses or connections between neurons.  Reason why they form, how they contribute to nervous sytem function and how they work
  5. Know the basic elements of a "motor unit" and what it is able to accomplish in the body

 
BACKGROUND AND PREPARATION
  1. Review chapters 7, 12, 13, 15, 16 in Martini text
  2. Get Body Smart Nervous System section [link]
  3. Check out "Neuroscience for Kids" website--it's the best! [link]
  4. See animation on vertebral column regions [link] [need Martini text website access--link]
  5. See animations on Neurons and Synaptic Activity [link] [need Martini text website access--link]
ACTIVITIES
  1. Class presentation:  Nervous System I--Organization of Peripheral Nerves, Spinal Cord, Vertebral column [PPT download]
  2. View animation on vertebral column regions [link]
  3. Animation of messages traveling through components of spinal nerve [link] [need Martini text website access--link]
  4. Animation of reflex arc in spinal cord [link] [need Martini text website access--link]
  5. Millionaire Game--Spinal Cord [PPT download]
  6. Class presentation:  Nervous System II--focus on meninges, autonomics [PPT download]
  7. Nervous System Worksheet [Word download]
  8. Animations of autonomic innervation from spinal cord and brain to targets [link] [need Martini text website access--link]
  9. Millionaire Game--Autonomics [PPT download]
  10. Autonomic Jeopardy Game [PPT download]
  11. Class presentation:  Neurons and neural tissue [PPT download]
  12. Animation of action potential in neuron [link]
  13. Nervous System Interactive Crossword Puzzle [link]
  14. Millionaire Game--Nervous System [PPT download]
LAB
  1. Wish List for Vertebral Column and Spinal Cord lab [Word download]
  2. Use bones and skeletal material to learn anatomy of vertebral column and axial skeleton (Lab manual Exercise 4--vertebral column)
  3. Understand relationship between spinal cord, vertebral column and the role of the meninges
  4. Dissect spinal cord on fetal pigs and view cadaver demonstration of spinal cord
  5. Learn anatomy and function of spinal cord, spinal nerves and reflexes (Lab Manual Exercise 10)
  6. Wish List for Neuron Anatomy and Physiology lab [Word download]
  7. Neuron anatomy and physiology (Lab Manual Exercise 9)
  8. Fun neuron models--do at home! [link]
  9. View neurons and other nervous tissue in microscope.  Great nervous system images [link]
  10. Virtual Leech Neurophysiology Lab (from Howard Hughes Medical Institute) [link]
  11. Reflex and reaction times lab [link]
  12. Touch Experimental Lab [PDF student download][link to website background][teacher guide][Sensory Homunculus images]

 

WEB RESOURCES

"Neuroscience for Kids" website--it's the best! [link]

BBC Interactive Body Games--try the nervous system [link]

Nice overview of Nervous System [link]

Get Body Smart Nervous System section [link]

Action potentials--lots of details!! [link]

Great nervous system images [link]

 

 

 

DO YOU LIKE TO THINK IN SEQUENCES?  DID YOU LEARN THE ALPHABET ALL IN A ROW...OR DO YOU LIKE SEPARATING THE VOWELS AND CONSONANTS?

 

I can imagine a compendium notebook construction for what we've done on the nervous system that just takes our basic reflex example--the finger on the hot stove and arm pulling back--and maps it out from start to finish.  Maybe it would be on a big piece of butcher-block paper, or the backside of an ancient scroll (this does, after all, embody everything we can do as humans) or a bunch of sheets taped together:  First the sensory neuron interacting with the Merkel cells on the skin, details of how the action potential is triggered to send a message down the sensory neuron,  a sense of the scale of the axon, its excitable cell membrane, the surrounding Schwann cells with their myelin forming the myelination or myelin sheath....onto the cell body of the sensory neuron, its location in the dorsal root ganglion, maybe some details of that ganglion, its relation to the spinal cord, on up through the dorsal root into the spinal cord, a cross section of the cord, its gray and white matter, its relation to the vertebral column....then something about "command central," the black box of how the message is processed, at the spinal cord level, maybe back up to the brain (details on that later), then the response...a motor neuron triggered at its cell body, the location of that cell body (back to the spinal cord), the way the action potential (repeat) travels down the motor neuron axon,, the makeup of the spinal nerve where that axon is located, the different types of neurons that would/could/should be in the spinal nerve (maybe an aside on visceral/autonomic motor neurons--sympathetics and parasympathetics--where they're located) and then the motor message arrives at the muscle, the terminal of the axon and its synapse (neuro-muscular junction) with the muscle cells that it triggers to contract--taking us right into the next topic for this part of the semester...how muscle cells work.

 

 

   

 

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