The peripheral nervous system is further divided into....
Somatic nervous system
Autonomic nervous system
What makes up the Autonomic Nervous System
Sympathetic nervous system
Parasympathetic nervous systems
Nervous system
Collection of neurons across the body that detects information from the environment and processes this, then directs the body to take action via the muscles and glands
Central nervous system (CNS)
Responsible for our complex processing
Brain: the centre of all conscious and most unconscious processing
spinal cord: this receives and transmits information
Peripheral nervous system (PNS)
The portion of the nervous system that is outside the brain and spinal cord
Primary function is to connect the brain and spinal cord to the rest of the body and the external environment
Components of the peripheral nervous system
Somatic nervous system
Autonomic nervous system
Somatic nervous system (SNS)
Connects the central nervous system with the senses
Composed of sensory nerve pathways bringing information to the CNS from sensory receptors
Composed of motor nerve pathways which control bodily movement by carrying instructions towards muscles
The Autonomic nervous system acts largely unconsciously
It controls bodily arousal, body temperature, homeostasis, heart rate and blood pressure
Composed of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems
The Sympathetic Nervous System is involved in preparing the body for fight or flight, so causes increased arousal (e.g. increase in heart rate and blood pressure, pupil dilation, reduction in digestion and salivation)
The parasympathetic nervous system is used to return our body back to its normal state after the fight or flight response, so leads to decreased arousal
Under normal conditions there is a balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems in order to maintain homeostasis