Parts of Nervous System

The Nervous system is composed of two parts which then branches into more divisions, the central and the peripheral. Getting deeper into it the peripheral is then divided into two as well. The sensory division, in control of the senses and the motor division, in control of helping us move. The motor division is then separated into the autonomic nervous and the somatic nervous. Branching from the autonomic nervous is the sympathetic, which is responsible for flight or fight response. Then the parasympathetic which is responsible for rest and digest responses. The four characteristics of the Nervous System are complexity, integration, adaptability, and electrochemical transmission. The complexity of the nervous system allows you to integrate and perform the multitude of basic tasks that you complete on a daily basis. It is the nerve cells in the brain that allow you to talk, write, think, as well as things like singing and dancing. Integration is what brings information together, it integrates the information into our systems. It gives us the basic sense of things around us, such as our senses themselves. What we hear, see, taste, smell, and feel. Adaptability is just the ability of the brain and the nervous system to adapt to our surroundings. The flight or fight response is also involved with adaptability. The last characteristic is electrochemical transmission, which is the work of the chemical messengers, and the impulses from the brain are sent to the neurons.

In my opinion I think I would be willing to do without adaptability. I chose adaptability because out of the four it seems like the least crucial part of the nervous system. It is no doubt that all four are important to the nervous system but if I had to chose one to do without, it would be adaptability. Without complexity you would not have the ability to talk, think, write or even sing and dance. Integration brings the information to our system from our senses and I feel like that would alter my living more as well. Electrochemical transmission is the base messenger that sends signals from the brain to the neurons to operate. Which is something to imagine to be without as well. I feel as if adaptability would only affect obviously, the ability to adapt to my surroundings and my flight or fight response.

The implications of being without this part of the nervous system would be my response for survival. As well as being able to change based on my surroundings and certain situations. The flight or fight response is what triggers the brain in a situation to respond to an event, threat, or attack in order to survive. When I think about it, although this may be important there is a rare amount of times I would think I have needed to wire in my flight or fight response with my lifestyle. This may not be the case for other individuals. If there was a circumstance that I would need to survive in a threatening case I would be without adaptability which would result in loss of my flight or fight response. There would be no adrenaline created and I would not have maximum energy delivered to all the cells in my body in hopes to survive. This is all under the control of the sympathetic nervous. This adaptation also speeds up your heart rate and increases your respiration rate in an attempt for you to get out alive. Everything is changing around us and without adaptability, I would be unable to adapt to new surroundings and situations faced with. In life adaptation to change is essential. To function without it would cause for a major fault in growth for any human being. For example, in any situation without being able to adapt based on our surroundings we would not mature, therefore without it you would treat things as if you were an adolescent. In addition to that you wouldn’t gain the specific skills necessary to get you through events in life.

The changes I would have to make in my life is to alter my surroundings. Such as avoiding dangerous life threatening situations. I also feel like staying in an area that stays consistent with the same routine and same environment is dull. The reason for these changes would be so I would not have a reason to have to use my flight or fight responses seeing as I would have to do without them, as well as my ability to adapt to everything around me. I would see this as me living in a small town, with low crime rate, and less urban development. Life like this seems like I would have no room for growth, learning new skills, experiencing crucial things that help individuals in today’s society get to be who they are. I would be unaware to adapt to anything if there were to be a change in my small town. Put into perspective life would be a never ending cycle of the same things, on the same schedule and with no new things to experience. It is a good thing that these four characteristics are integrated in the nervous system or humans would not be as evolved as they are today.