Motor neuron

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s disease is a motor neuron disease that causes degeneration of neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is not a single disease, but a clinical diagnosis for many different pathophysiologic diseases that share a common factor of progressive loss of motor neurons and break down of the motor neuron system. ALS is known by upper and lower motor neuron degeneration. As the upper motor neurons deteriorate, the cells “suffer from a retrograde…

coordination of voluntary water movement. The cerebellum is involved in the coordination of voluntary motor movement, balance and equilibrium and muscle tone. It is located just above the brain stem and toward the back of the brain. It is relatively well protected from trauma compared to the frontal and temporal lobes and brain stem. damage to the cerebellum can lead to: 1) loss of coordination of motor movement (asynergia), 2) the inability to judge distance and when to stop (dysmetria), 3)…

talked about neurons in the brain. Neurons transfer information to muscle, nerve cells and glands. These programs focused on how neurons play a big role in memory as well as humans cognitive abilities. In the TED talk video neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel spoke about why the human brain is different compared to mammalian brains. Scientists in the past thought that the number of neuron in the brain was depended on the actual brain size. Therefore, the larger the brain the more neurons…

7 cranial nerve pairs out of 12 pairs in human nervous system function more or less in speech or hearing; these are the cranial nerves V (Trigeminal), VII (Facial), VIII (Vestibulocochlear), IX (Glossopharyngeal), X (Vagus), XI (Spinal Accessory), and XII (Hypoglossal). These have particular roles other than assisting speech or hearing. Furthermore, most clinical tests for cranial nerve functions neither are recommended to be performed by speech and hearing pathologists, nor are they related to…

cellular and molecular level, like interactions between neurons and glia. History of the field The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, from ancient Egypt, represents the first known record of a neuroanatomy study. It dates to around 1600 BCE. It was the Greek philosopher Alcmaeon who first understood that it is not the heart, but the brain in charge of human body and the senses. Alcmaeon’s work dates to the 5th century BCE. Other scientists…

and the motor structure. The brain does control the voluntary muscle movement, but it works in conjunction with the spinal cord. It is now accepted that the motor patterns and rhythms governing locomotion in mammals are controlled by an area of the spinal cord known as the Central Pattern Generator (CPG) (Kiehn, 2006). The neural circuits in the CPG get activated by a signal through the descending locomotor commands coming from neurons in the brainstem and midbrain. After that, the neurons in…

sensory receptors (Ireland, 2012) in her skin sent the message that it was hot. The sensory neuron is responsible for carrying the information. This is an afferent neuron, because it is taking the message to the central nervous system. The message is carried through the peripheral nervous system to the spinal cord. Once it reaches the spinal cord, association neurons pass the message to motor neurons. Motor neurons, which are efferent, carry the message back to move. This chain is called a…

become more apparent with the help of a strong and productive nervous system; this would include any change in emotion, memory or the environment. Neurons are known as the messengers of the body. They are the nerve cells that send messages through the nervous system, while the nerve impulses send coded electrical signals from the neuron. The motor neurons carry the brain and spinal cord impulses, to the muscles and the glands, while the sensory…

spinal nerves branching out into designated regions of the body. The inner region of the spinal cord consists of gray matter. Within the gray matter, afferent neurons terminate from sensory receptors in the body and efferent neurons originate. The efferent neurons travel away from the spinal cord to form synapses with skeletal muscles. These neurons use the same spinal nerves, however afferent axons group together in dorsal roots and efferent axons group together in ventral roots. The outer…

It also represents a sense organ, such as an eye. The nervous system also contains neuroglial or glial cells which are not neurons and usually outnumber the neurons at a ratio of 10 to 1. The typical peripheral glial cells surrounding the axons are referred to as Schwann cells and are useful in myelination. The microglia, oligodendrocytes, and astrocytes form the central glia and are associated…