Summary: The Peripheral Nervous System

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The central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS) assist in creating a healthy and functional individual. Consisting of the brain and spinal cord, the CNS manages thought processes, deciphers sensory information, and regulates movement (Husney, 2014). In order to link the rest of the body to the CNS, the PNS is comprised of a network of nerves that ultimately enable communication throughout the whole body. Together, the systems retrieve information from the body and its surrounding environment, and as a result the body is able to facilitate a suitable approach or action (Healthline Media, 2015).

As a fundamental, but basic component structured in the CNS, a neuron’s main responsibility is to transmit information around …show more content…
The identification of over 100 neurotransmitters has been performed by scientists, acetylcholine being one associated with muscle contractions and memory (Cherry, 2016). Acetylcholine transmits between motor nerves and the skeletal muscle, resulting in a synapse where the nerve terminal is apposed to a cell membrane. When released, the neurotransmitter generates chemical events, hence the occurrence of depolarisation (Cuthbert, 2001). This ultimately contributes to a voluntary response made by the muscles, and it is therefore a part of the somatic nervous system (Boundless, 2016). Transmitting information from and to the external environment through the use of neurons and intracellular and intercellular signalling, creates a process referred to as neuronal signalling (Stufflebeam, 2008).

Densely packed with neurons, the cerebral cortex, also referred to as ‘grey matter’, is split into two hemispheres. Four types of lobes are located in the cerebral cortex, the frontal, occipital, parietal, and temporal lobes, whose functions are shown in figure 1.— (Bailey, 2016). The temporal lobe is responsible for areas of visual perception and is the primary auditory pathway. In order to understand sound it must first travel through auditory pathways where sound is decoded (Hear It,
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