Brain Reflection Paper

This chapter really allowed me to dig deeper into the most intricate organ in our body, the brain. Not only did I learn the various structures and functions of the parts of the brain and nervous system, but I also learned how these affect our behavior. At first, when I began reading the chapter in the textbook, some of the information was overwhelming and everything started mixing together. After performing the lab online, I was able to understand the concepts better while answering many questions I had developed while reading. One of my favorite things about the lab was how they asked questions based on examples. Instead of solely asking textbook questions, they incorporated real life situations to make me think. They would come up with different patient scenarios and I would have to decide what their problem was and what part of the body was being affected. One of the questions asked was “Leroy is a football player who suffered a head injury during a practice. He now has difficulty using a sewing needle to sew a button on a shirt. Leroy most likely had damage to his ______?” After reading this …show more content…
This helped me visualize the process as I watched a stimulus generate a neural signal that traveled from the hand to the spinal cord, which relayed it to the brain. The brain produced a response signal after processing information from incoming neurons. This signal was relayed to another neuron after reaching the spine. Finally, this new neuron carried the signal to the muscles which caused the arm to respond. I also was able to watch how a neuron responds to a stimulus, the path the action potential takes, and how neurons communicate with other neurons. Afterwards I was able to answer the questions: “What is the basic anatomy of a neuron?” “How does a neuron send a signal?” and “How do neurons communicate with each