UNIT 1

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

 Structure and Functioning of
the Neuron

Mrs Umang Bharti

Lecturer
Department of Psychology
Government College for Girls, Ludhiana
 NERVOUS SYSTEM
 We will explore a complex system of cells, chemicals, and
organs that work together to produce behavior, thoughts,
and actions.
The first part of this complex arrangement is the nervous

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department

system, a network of cells that carries information to and
from all parts of the body.
 The field of neuroscience is a branch of the life sciences
that deals with the structure and functioning of the brain
and the neurons, nerves, and nervous tissue that form the
nervous system.
 Biological psychology, or behavioral neuroscience,
is the branch of neuroscience that focuses on the biological
bases of psychological processes, behavior, and learning,
and it is the primary area associated with the biological
perspective in psychology.
 STRUCTURE OF THE NEURON: THE
NERVOUS SYSTEM’S BUILDING BLOCK

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
 NEURON
 Most cells have three things in common: a nucleus, a
cell body, and a cell membrane holding it all
together.

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
 The neuron is the specialized cell in the nervous
system that receives and sends messages within that
system.

 Neurons are one of the messengers of the body, and

that means that they have a very special structure.
 PARTS OF THE NEURON
•“Tree-like,” or “branch,” and this structure does indeed look like the
branches of a tree
Dendrites • Receive messages from other cells.

• The dendrites are attached to the cell body, or soma.

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
• The word soma means “body.”
Soma
• The part of the cell that contains the nucleus and keeps the entire cell alive
and functioning.

• A fiber attached to the soma, and its job is to carry messages out to other
cells.
Axon

• The end of the axon branches out into several shorter fibers that have
swellings or little knobs on the ends.
• May also be called presynaptic terminals, terminal buttons, or synaptic
Axon knobs
Terminals
• Responsible for communicating with other nerve cells.
 GLIAL CELLS
Neurons make up a large part of the brain but they are not the
only cells that affect our thinking, learning, memory, perception,
and all of the other facets of life that make us who we are.

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
The other primary cells are called glia, or glial cells, which serve
a variety of functions.

Some glia serve as a sort of structure on which the neurons

develop and work and that hold the neurons in place.

Other glia are involved in getting nutrients to the neurons,

cleaning up the remains of neurons that have died, communicating
with neurons and other glial cells, and providing insulation for
neurons.
 Two special
types of glial
cells

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
Oligodendrocytes Schwann cells
(produce myelin for the neurons (produce myelin for the neurons
in the brain and spinal cord - the of the body - the peripheral
central nervous system) nervous system)

Generate a layer of fatty

substances called myelin
 MYELIN SHEATH
Myelin wraps around the shaft of the axons, forming an
insulating and protective sheath.

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
Bundles of myelin-coated axons travel together as “cables” in
the central nervous system called tracts, and in the peripheral
nervous system bundles of axons are called nerves.

Myelin from Schwann cells has a unique feature that can serve
as a tunnel through which damaged nerve fibers can reconnect
and repair themselves.

Unfortunately, myelin from oligodendrocytes covering axons in

the brain and spinal cord does not have this feature, and these
axons are more likely to be permanently damaged.
 NODES AND ELECTRICAL
IMPULSE
 Myelin sheath not only insulates and protects the neuron, it
also speeds up the neural message traveling down the axon.
 The places where the myelin seems to bump are actually small
spaces on the axon called nodes, which are not covered in

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
myelin.
 Myelinated and unmyelinated sections of axons have slightly
different electrical properties. There are also far more ion
channels at each node.
 Both of these features affect the speed the electrical signal is
conducted down the axon.
 When the electrical impulse that is the neural message travels
down an axon coated with myelin, the electrical impulse is
regenerated at each node and appears to “jump” or skip
rapidly from node to node down the axon. That makes the
message go much faster down the coated axon than it would
down an uncoated axon of a neuron in the brain.
 GENERATING THE MESSAGE WITHIN
THE NEURON: THE NEURAL IMPULSE
• Not currently firing a neural impulse or message—is actually
electrically charged.
Neuron at • Inside and outside of the cell is a semiliquid (jelly-like)
Rest solution in which there are charged particles, or ions.

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
• Diffusion, the process of ions moving from areas
of high concentration to areas of low
Diffusion concentration, and
and • Electrostatic pressure, the relative electrical
Electrostatic charges when the ions are at rest.
Pressure

• The cell membrane itself is semipermeable.

• This means some substances that are outside the cell can
enter through tiny protein openings, or channels, in the
Cell membrane, while other substances in the cell can go
Membrane outside.
 INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE CELL
Many of these channels are gated—they open or close based on the
electrical potential of the membrane—more about that in a minute.

Inside Outside
the cell the cell

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
A concentration of both
smaller positively charged Lots of positively charged
potassium ions and larger sodium ions and negatively
negatively charged protein charged chloride ions.
ions.

The negatively charged protein But they are unable to enter the
ions, however, are so big that cell membrane when the cell is
they can’t get out, which leaves at rest because the ion channels
the inside of the cell primarily that would allow them in are
negative when at rest. closed.

But because the outside sodium ions are positive and the inside ions are
negative, and because opposite electrical charges attract each other, the
sodium ions will cluster around the membrane. This difference in
charges creates an electrical potential.
Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
of Psychology
RESTING POTENTIAL

Think of the ions inside the cell as a baseball

game inside a stadium (the cell walls). The
sodium ions outside the cell are all the fans in the
area, and they want to get inside to see the game.

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
When the cell is resting (the electrical potential is
in a state called the resting potential, because
the cell is at rest), the fans are stuck outside.

The sodium ions cannot enter when the cell is at

rest, because even though the cell membrane has
all these channels, the particular channels for the
big sodium ions aren’t open yet.
 ACTION POTENTIAL
But when the cell receives a strong enough stimulation from another cell
(meaning that the dendrites are activated), the cell membrane opens up those
particular channels, one after the other, all down its surface, allowing the
sodium ions (the “fans”) to rush into the cell.

That causes the inside of the cell to become mostly positive and the outside of

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
the cell to become mostly negative, because many of the positive sodium ions
are now inside the cell—at the point where the first ion channel opened.

This electrical charge reversal will start at the part of the axon closest to the
soma, the axon hillock, and then proceed down the axon in a kind of chain
reaction.

This electrical charge reversal is known as the action potential because the
electrical potential is now in action rather than at rest.

Each action potential sequence takes about one thousandth of a second, so the
neural message travels very fast—from 2 miles per hour in the slowest,
shortest neurons to 270 miles per hour in other neurons.
Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
of Psychology
What is happening to the parts of
the cell that the action potential

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
has already left behind?

How does the cell get the “fans”

back outside?
Remember, the action potential means that the cell is now positive inside and
negative outside at the point where the channel opened.

Several things happen to return the cell to its resting state.

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
First, the sodium ion channels close immediately after the action potential has
passed, allowing no more “fans” (sodium ions) to enter.

The cell membrane also literally pumps the positive sodium ions back outside
the cell, kicking the “fans” out until the next action potential opens the ion
channels again. This pumping process is a little slow, so another type of ion
gets into the act.

Small, positively charged potassium ions inside the neuron move rapidly out of
the cell after the action potential passes, helping to more quickly restore the
inside of the cell to a negative charge.

Now the cell becomes negative inside and positive outside, and the neuron is
capable of “firing off ” another message. Once the sodium pumps finish
pumping out the sodium ions, the neuron can be said to have returned to its
full resting potential, poised and ready to do it all again.
 THRESHOLD FOR FIRING
Each neuron is receiving many signals from other neurons.

Some of these signals are meant to cause the neuron to fire, whereas

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
others are meant to prevent the neuron from firing.

The neuron constantly adds together the effects of the “fire” messages
and subtracts the “don’t fire” messages, and if the fire messages are
great enough, the threshold is crossed and the neuron fires.

When a neuron does fire, it fires in an all-or-none fashion. That is,

neurons are either firing at full strength or not firing at all—there’s no
such thing as “partial” firing of a neuron.

Example - turning on a light switch.

Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
of Psychology
 SENDING THE MESSAGE TO OTHER
CELLS: THE SYNAPSE
• A number of little sac-like structures in the presynaptic terminal.
Synaptic
Vesicles

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
• Inside the synaptic vesicles are chemicals suspended in fluid, which
are molecules of substances.
Neurotrans
mitters • They are inside a neuron and they are going to transmit a message.

Synapse or • Between the axon terminal and the dendrite of another neuron is a
the fluid-filled space.
Synaptic
Gap

• The surface of the dendrite next to the axon contains ion channels
that have receptor sites, proteins that allow only particular
Receptor
molecules of a certain shape to fit into it.
Sites
 Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
of Psychology
THE SYNAPSE
 EXCITATORY SYNAPSES AND INHIBITORY
SYNAPSES

 The neurotransmitters found at various

synapses around the nervous system can either
turn cells on (called an excitatory effect) or turn

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
cells off (called an inhibitory effect), depending
on exactly what synapse is being affected.
 Note: It’s not the neurotransmitter itself that is
excitatory or inhibitory, but rather it is the effect
of that neurotransmitter that is either excitatory
or inhibitory at the receptor sites of a particular
synapse.
 Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
of Psychology
NEUROTRANSMITTERS: MESSENGERS OF
THE NETWORK
 CLEANING UP THE SYNAPSE: REUPTAKE
AND ENZYMES
The neurotransmitters have to get out of the receptor sites before the next stimulation can
occur.

Some just drift away through the process of diffusion, but most will end up back in the
synaptic vesicles in a process called reuptake. (Think of a little suction tube, sucking the

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Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
chemicals back into the vesicles.)

That way, the synapse is cleared for the next release of neurotransmitters.

Some drugs, like cocaine, affect the nervous system by blocking the reuptake process.

There is one neurotransmitter that is not taken back into the vesicles, however. Because ACh
is responsible for muscle activity, and muscle activity needs to happen rapidly and continue
happening, it’s not possible to wait around for the “sucking up” process to occur.

Instead, an enzyme (a complex protein that is manufactured by cells) specifically designed to

break apart ACh clears the synaptic gap very quickly (a process called enzymatic
degradation.) There are enzymes that break down other neurotransmitters as well.
Mrs Umang Bharti, Lecturer, Department
of Psychology
THANK YOU 