Biology 5090

Chapter 14 – Coordination and control

14.1 Mammalian nervous system
14.2 Mammalian sense organs
14.3 Mammalian hormones
14.4 Homeostasis
14.5 Temperature control
14.6 Blood glucose control

There are two ways through which our body coordinates and responds:

1. Nerve impulses in nervous system

2. Hormones in endocrine system

14.1 Mammalian nervous system

Role - Coordination and regulation of body functions

Both intentional movement and autonomic reflexes are carried out by the body’s nervous
system.

The nervous system controls movement by sending electrical signals known as nerve
impulses along a network of specialised nerve cells called neurons.

Nerve impulses:
Nervous impulses are electrical signals that pass along neurons to transmit information to and
from the brain. This allows coordinated movement and a constant internal environment to be
maintained (homeostasis).

The nervous system is made up of two major systems:

I. The central nervous system (CNS) – Brain and spinal cord. The CNS comprises of the brain
and spinal cord. The nerves emerge out of the CNS to make the peripheral nervous
system. Nerve fibers and receptors make the PNS.

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II. Peripheral nervous system (PNS) – Nerve fibers and receptors make the PNS.The nerve
fibers are made up of nervous cells, known as neurons. The receptors are sensory cells.
Sensory cells are present in the nose, eyes, tongue, skin, and ears.

Structure of a motor neuron

Relationship between nervous system, nerves and neurons

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Neuron:
- A neuron is a nervous cell that helps carry impulses.
- It is a specialized cell that changes its shape due to its function.

- Neurones have a long fibre (axon)

This means
- body
The cell that less
if the neuron time is the
contains wasted transferring the impulse from one cell to
nucleus.
another
- The axon is insulated by a fatty sheath with small uninsulated sections along
it (called nodes)
- This means that the electrical impulse does not travel down the whole axon,
but jumps from one node to the next
- Their cell body contains many extensions called dendrites
- This means they can connect to many other neurones and receive impulses
from them, forming a network for easy communication

There are three different types of neurons.

➢ Sensory neuron:
Sensory neurons carry impulses from sense organ to the brain (CNS).

➢ Relay neuron (connector):

Carries impulse slowly across spinal cord. Relay neurons connect a sensory neuron to a
motor neuron in a reflex arc

➢ Motor neuron (effector):

Motor neurons carry information from the brain (CNS) to the effector (e.g. muscle)

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Dendrides are nerve fibers that take the message towards the cell body, while the axons are
nerve fibers that take the message away from the cell body.

We have various sense organs in our body. Sense organs have the ability to detect certain sensory
stimuli.

• Skin - touch i.e. pain, pressure, temperature etc.

• Eyes - light
• Nose - smell
• Ears - noise
• Tongue - taste

When these sense organs detect stimuli, they send raw information to the brain (CNS) via nervous
impulses in the sensory neurons.

The brain then interprets the information. If an action is required, then the brain will send
impulses to the relevant muscles via motor neurons to carry out this action. These muscles can
be identified as ‘effectors’.

Effector:
The structure that carries out an action (response) to deal with initial stimulus, it can be a
muscle or gland.
Receptor:
A cell or organ that receives a stimulus and converts it into electrical impulse

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Voluntary & Involuntary Responses

• A voluntary response – aware/conscious decision to carry out a particular action and

it initiate with the brain
• An involuntary (or reflex) response does not involve the brain as the coordinator of the
reaction and the person is not aware you have completed it until after you have carried
it out. As the brain is not involved on a conscious level, they are automatic and fast.
(E.g. swallowing, peristalsis and heartbeat)

Reflex Actions:

It is an automatic, involuntary reaction our body provides in response to danger.

Important: As these reflex reactions must occur almost instantly to protect the organism, the
nervous impulse does not travel to the brain.

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The Reflex action starts from the receptors i.e. taste, sight, pressure, touch, hearing receptors.
All the receptors under the skin are closely associated with the sensory neuron. If we feel a touch,
receptors send messages to sensory neurons, which transmits the message to the relay neuron
to the motor neuron. Lastly, it reaches the effector which respond accordingly.

Reflex arc:
1. A stimulus, such as heat from a flame, is detected by receptors.
2. The receptor sends an impulse down the sensory neuron to the spinal cord.
3. The relay neuron in the CNS passes the impulse to the motor neuron.
4. The impulse travels along the motor neuron to an effector (e.g. a muscle), which
reacts to remove the organism from the danger.

There are two types of effectors:

1. Muscles: They contract and relax, for e. g. In knee jerk.
2. Glands: They release secretions, for e.g. Pancreas secretes insulin when there is high glucose
concentration in the blood.

Synapses:
A synapse is a junction between two neurons. The synapse forms a gap called a synaptic cleft
between the presynaptic neuron and the postsynaptic neuron.
The function of a synapse is to ensure a single direction of neuronal transmission.

Explanation:
neuron 1 :- pre-synaptic neuron and neuron 2 :- post-synaptic neuron

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1). An impulse arrives at the synapse

2.) A chemical (neurotransmitter) is released from vesicles
3.) The chemical diffuses across the synapse
4.) The chemical has the correct shape to fit into the receptors on the next neuron
5.) Impulse is stimulated in the next neuron
6.) Chemical is reabsorbed back into neuron.

Unidirectional movement of nerve impulses:

Synapses ensure unidirectionality of nervous impulses, as the vesicles containing the

neurotransmitter are only present in the presynaptic neuron, whilst the receptors are only
present in the postsynaptic neuron, thus the impulse cannot travel backwards

Question: think how drugs and stimulants can affect the synapses.

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14.2 Mammalian sense organs

Sense organs are a group of receptor cells that respond to a specific stimulus, like light, sound,
touch, etc.

Eye

The eye can move in the socket independently.

• Cornea – Refracts light

• Lens – Focuses light onto the retina
• Iris – Controls pupil size
• Pupil – Controls the amount of light entering the eye
• Optic nerves – Carries impulses to the brainn
• Retina – Contains light receptors called rods (responsible for night vision) and cones
(responsible for colour vision)
• Fovea – An area of the retina where most of the light is focused on, and has a very high
density of cones

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Pupil reflex

The pupil of the eye can expand and contract to control the amount of light that enters
the eye. This action is carried out by two sets of muscles, circular muscles and radial
muscles, which work antagonistically.

At low light intensities, the pupil dilates to allow more light to enter the eye by relaxing
the circular muscles and contracting the radial muscles.

At high light intensities, the pupil constricts to limit the amount of light entering the eye by
relaxation of the radial muscles and contraction of the circular muscles. This is to prevent
the eye being damaged by the bright light.

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Accommodation

Accommodation is how the lens changes shape in order to fine focus the light directly onto the
fovea. It does so by bending/refracting incoming light rays so that it converges onto the
fovea. The shape of the lens, as well as its curvature, is altered to change the way light is refracted
onto the retina, focusing the image.

Focusing a distant object: ciliary muscles

are relaxed and suspensory ligaments
contract. This allows suspensory
ligaments to pull tightly on each side of
the lens. The lens therefore becomes
stretched and thin. A thin lens has less
power, and therefore bends light less.

Focusing near object: The ciliary muscles

contract whilst the suspensory ligaments
relax, making the lens fatter and curved.
To focus on distant objects, the ciliary
muscles relax whilst the suspensory
ligaments contract, making the lens
thinner and less curved.

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14.3 Mammalian hormones

➢ Hormones are chemical substances produced by the glands. They are always carried in
the blood, and they alter the activity of one or more specific target organs.
➢ Glands are body organs that secrete some kind of hormones or chemicals. These then
diffuse into the blood in blood plasma, targeting the specific organ. These glands are
known as endocrine glands.

This system helps to control growth, metabolism and homeostasis, among other functions.

(a) the adrenal glands – produce adrenaline

(b) the pancreas – produces insulin and glucagon
(c) the pituitary gland – produces follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone
(LH)
(d) the testes (in males) – produce testosterone
(e) the ovaries (in females) – produce oestrogen and progesterone

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Adrenaline:
Adrenaline is a hormone secreted by the adrenal gland in 'fight or flight' situations. It is secreted
at times of extreme fear, happiness, anxiety, phobia or tension. Its target organs are heart lungs,
eyes and the skin.

Effects of adrenaline:

- Increased heart rate

- Increased blood glucose concentration
- Increased vasodilation in muscles
- Dilated pupils, therefore more light can enter the eyes
- Paler skin as blood is diverted away from it
- Increased metabolic rate as more glucose reaches the body for respiration
- Increased respiration rate

These effects last for a short time. If it lasts for a long time, the person may experience headaches,
stomach aches, slow motion, and high blood pressure.

Comparison of the endocrine system and nervous system:

Hormonal control:

• Chemical transmission (hormones)

• Blood pathway – hormones travel in the blood
• Slow speeds of transmission
• hormonal response can be long-lasting (long-term effect)

Nervous control:

• Electrical transmission (electrical impulses)

• Nervous pathway – nerve impulses travel along neurons
• Fast speeds
• Nervous impulses are instantaneous and short-lived (short term)

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14.4 Homeostasis

Homeostasis is the maintenance of a constant internal environment in organisms, despite

external changes. This allows the environment to be at an optimum for cells to function.

internal conditions within your body: temperature, blood pressure, water concentration,
glucose concentration…etc. these conditions need to be kept within set limits in order to ensure
that reactions in body cells can function and therefore the organism as a whole can live

Internal conditions must be maintained between set limits and if these limits are exceeded,
negative feedback mechanisms work to correct the change and restore the internal
environment to the optimum.

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14.5 Temperature control

Structure of the skin:

▪ hairs
▪ hair erector
muscles
▪ sweat glands
▪ receptors
▪ sensory neurons
▪ blood vessels
▪ fatty tissue

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Role of insulation in maintaining a constant internal body temperature in mammals

Describe the roles of the hypothalamus and of temperature receptors in the skin in maintaining
a constant internal body temperature in mammals

The human body maintains the temperature at which enzymes work best, around 37°C

If the body temperature was too high, the enzymes may denature and prevent reactions from
occurring. The temperature is regulated by the hypothalamus in the brain, which contains
thermoreceptors. If the temperature moves away from the optimum, a response is triggered
to return the temperature to the optimum.

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Different processes contribute to the maintenance of constant internal body temperature in

mammals:

(a) sweating - sweat evaporates from the skin, reducing the surface temperature
(b) shivering - muscles contract to produce heat
(c) contraction of hair erector muscles – hair erector muscles ‘contract’ when body
temperature decreases. Hair stands up: traps warm air as a layer over the skin
(d) vasodilation and vasoconstriction of arterioles supplying skin surface capillaries - blood
vessels dilate, causing more heat loss to the environment.

● Reactions to a high internal temperature: sweating, vasodilation

● Reactions to a low internal temperature: shivering, vasoconstrictions

14.6 Blood glucose control

Regulating blood-glucose concentration:

The level of glucose in the blood must be maintained as part of homeostasis:

The need to regulate -

● If the level of glucose in the blood is too high:
the water potential of the blood becomes very low, thus water moves out of cells into
the blood by osmosis. This leads to cells shrinking and eventually dying.

● If the level is too low:

water potential is high and thus water moves from the blood into the cells, causing
them to burst. Maintaining a constant blood-glucose level therefore maintains a
constant water potential so no unwanted osmosis occurs. In addition, it means that
there is a reliable source of energy for cells.

There are two hormones that are used to regulate blood-sugar levels: glucagon and insulin.

Both of these are synthesised in cells in the pancreas and are released into the blood from
here when the levels of blood-glucose are too high or too low:

● Insulin is released when blood-glucose concentration is too high. This is detected

in the pancreas. Insulin causes glucose to be converted to glycogen in the liver. This
lowers the concentration of glucose in cells, thus glucose diffuses into cells from the

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blood, lowering the amount of glucose in the blood.

● Glucagon is released when blood-glucose concentration is too low. Glucagon inhibits

glucose being converted to glycogen in the liver and activates an enzyme that
converts glycogen to glucose, making more glucose available to cells. It also decreases
the respiratory rate in cells so that less glucose is used in respiration.

Type 1 diabetes -

People with diabetes cannot produce insulin. Type 1 diabetes is caused by an autoimmune
response in which antibodies attack cells in the pancreas which usually make insulin. This
means that no insulin can be produced. In type 2 diabetes, either not enough insulin is
produced by the pancreas, or the cells do not respond correctly to the insulin.

Treatments:
administration of insulin -Type 1 diabetes is usually treated by patients injecting insulin
themselves.
There are several new treatments being developed, including the use of stem cells and
artificial pancreases, although these treatments will be very expensive.

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