CHAPTER# 2

Biological Basis of Behaviour

Neuron and its function

Playing the piano, driving a car, or hitting a tennis ball depends, at one level, on
exact muscle coordination. But if we consider how the muscles can be activated
so precisely, we see that more fundamental processes are involved. For the
muscles to produce the complex movements that make up any meaningful
physical activity, the brain has to provide the right messages to them and
coordinate those messages.

Such messages—as well as those which enable us to think, remember, and

experience emotion—are passed through specialized cells called neurons.

Neurons, or nerve cells, are the basic elements of the nervous system. Their
quantity is staggering—perhaps as many as 1 trillion neurons throughout the body
are involved in the control of behavior.

Dendrites: Receivers of incoming signals; branch fibers extending outward from

the cell body.

Soma/Cell body: The cell body containing the cytoplasm and the nucleus of the
cell; cytoplasm keeps it alive. Axon: The nerve impulses travel from the soma to
the terminal buttons through the extended fiber of a neuron i.e., axon.

Terminal buttons: Small bulges at the end of axons that send messages to other
neurons.

Myelin sheath: A protective coat of fat and protein that wraps around the axon.

The myelin sheath also serves to increase the velocity with which electrical
impulses travel through axons. Those axons that carry the most important and
most urgently required information have the greatest concentrations of myelin. If
your hand touches a painfully hot stove, for example, the information regarding
the pain is passed through axons in the hand and arm that have a relatively thick
coating of myelin, speeding the message of pain to the brain so that you can react
instantly.

How neurons Fire

All-or-none law:

Like a gun, neurons either fire—that is, transmit an electrical impulse along the
axon—or don’t fire. There is no in-between stage, just as pulling harder on a gun
trig ger doesn’t make the bullet travel faster. Similarly, neurons follow an all-
or-none law: They are either on or off, with nothing in between the on state and
the off state. Once there is enough force to pull the trigger, a neuron fires.

Resting state:

The state in which there is a negative electrical charge of about :70 millivolts
within a neuron.

Action potential:

An electric nerve impulse that travels through a neuron’s axon when it is set off
by a “trigger,” changing the neuron’s charge from negative to positive.
Where Neurons Meet

Bridging the Gap

A synapse is the junction between an axon and a dendrite. The gap between the
axon and the dendrite is bridged by chemicals called neurotransmitters

Synapse:

The space between two neurons where the axon of a sending neuron
communicates with the dendrites of a receiving neuron by using chemical
messages.

Neurotransmitters:

Chemicals that carry messages across the synapse to the dendrite (and sometimes
the cell body) of a receiver neuron.

Excitatory Message:

The chemical message that makes it more likely that the receiving neuron will
fire and the action potential will travel down its axon.

Inhibitory Message:

The chemical message that inhibits a receiving neuron from firing so that the
action potential does not travel down its axon.

Reuptake:

The reabsorption of neurotransmitters by a terminal button.

Major Varieties of Neurons

1. Sensory Neurons (afferent): they carry messages toward the Central

Nervous System from the sensory receptor cells.
2. Motor Neurons (efferent): they carry messages away from the Central
Nervous System toward the muscles and glands.
3. Inter-Neurons: they relay messages from sensory neurons to other inter-
neurons and/or to motor neurons.

Main Parts of the Nervous System

➢ The Peripheral Nervous System

➢ The Central Nervous System
Central nervous system (CNS):

The part of the nervous system that includes the brain and spinal cord.

Brain:

The center of the nervous system.

The vital organ that is responsible for the functions of seeing, hearing, smelling,
tasting, thinking, feeling, remembering, speaking, dreaming, information
processing, and a lot more.
Parts of the Brain

The brain is made of three main parts:

a. Fore brain

b. Mid brain

c. Hind brain

Spinal cord:

A bundle of neurons that leaves the brain and runs down the length of the back
and is the main means for transmitting messages between the brain and the body.

Peripheral nervous system (PNS)

• Made up of long axons and dendrite

• The part of the nervous system that includes all parts of the nervous system
except the brain and the spinal cord.

Somatic division:

The part of the peripheral nervous system that specializes in the control of
voluntary movements and the communication of information to and from the
sense organs.

controls the voluntary movements of the skeletal muscles.

Autonomic division:

The part of the peripheral nervous system that controls involuntary movement of
the heart, glands, lungs, and other organs.

Sympathetic division:

The part of the autonomic division of the nervous system that acts to prepare the
body for action in stressful situations, engaging all the organism’s resources to
respond to a threat.
Parasympathetic division:

The part of the autonomic division of the nervous system that acts to calm the
body after an emergency has ended.

In daily life situations, both sympathetic and parasympathetic systems work

together to keep us in steady internal state maintaining the homeostasis.

ENDOCRINE SYSTEM

Another of the body’s communication systems, the endocrine system is a

chemical communication network that sends messages throughout the body via
the bloodstream. Its job is to secrete hormones, chemicals that circulate through
the blood and regulate the functioning or growth of the body. It also influences—
and is influenced by—the functioning of the nervous system.

Endocrine system:

A chemical communication network that sends messages throughout the body via
the bloodstream. Hormones:

Chemicals that circulate through the blood and regulate the functioning or growth
of the body.

Pituitary gland:

➢ It is a small gland__ diameter of about 1 centimeter or size of a pea.

➢ The major component of the endocrine system, or “master gland,” which
secretes hormones that control growth and other parts of the endocrine
system.

Pineal:

➢ The pineal gland, also known as pineal body, is found in the brain stem.
➢ It is small and cone-shaped in structure
➢ Makes melatonin, which regulates daily rhythms.