The Nervous System You and your brain

Directions & Materials You will need a piece of notebook paper and a pencil. Read through each slide and follow the directions. Complete anything that has a *next to it You will hand in all your data for today for a grade. Do what is expected and do the best you can!

What is the Nervous System? If you think of the brain as a central computer that controls all bodily functions, then the nervous system is like a network that relays messages back and forth from the brain to different parts of the body. Basically, the brain is the command center for your body, and the spinal cord is the pathway for messages sent by the brain to the body and from the body to the brain. The spinal cord runs from the brain down through the back and contains threadlike nerves that branch out to every organ and body part. *Click here and explore the interactive diagram.*

How the Nervous System Works - Neurons The nervous system depends a lot on tiny cells called neurons. The brain has billions of neurons, and they have many specialized jobs. For example, sensory neurons take information from the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin to the brain. Motor neurons carry messages away from the brain and back to the rest of the body. All neurons, however, relay information to each other through a complex electrochemical process, making connections that affect the way we think, learn, move, and behave.

Intelligence, learning, and Memory. At birth, the nervous system contains all the neurons you will ever have, but many of them are not connected to each other. As you grow and learn, messages travel from one neuron to another over and over, creating connections, or pathways, in the brain. It's why reading seemed to take so much concentration when you first learned but now is second nature: The pathways became established.

Your Senses None of your senses… What you see What you hear What you taste What you touch What you smell …Would be useful without the processing that occurs in the brain.

The Brain The brain serves as the center of the nervous system. The brain takes in information, processes information, decides what to do with that information, and tells the body to do it.

Brainy Facts Human brain operates 24 hours a day. An adult human brain is about 3 lbs. or 1,300 g. of gooey, slimy, wobbly gelatinous stuff. The brain is 75% water. The brain represents @ 2% of total body weight. An elephant brain weights 6,000 g. A cat brain weights 30 g.

The Brain is Divided The brain is divided into 2 halves called hemispheres. The right side of your body is controlled by the left side of your brain. The left side of your body is controlled by the right side of your brain.

*Let’s watch some brainpop! Log onto: www.brainpop.com Username: kyrene Password: brainpop *Watch the movies titled: Brain Nervous System Neurons Dreams

Active Learning Questions: These will be on your worksheet. You will need to read through the rest of the presentation to help you answer each of the questions

Right or Left hand. Which hand you use to do the following tasks *Right or Left hand? Which hand you use to do the following tasks? (imagine each process) Write your name Use Scissors Kick a ball Step onto a mat Look through a tube Cup your ear to listen to a whisper Listen through a wall

Which one are you? Left Brain or Right Brain Left Side Looks at parts, then the whole Completes tasks in order Deals with reality Likes rules Logical Sees cause & effect Controls feelings Prefers talking & writing Very planned Right Side Looks at wholes; then parts Completes tasks randomly Deals with imagination Does not like rules Analogical Looks for patterns and similarities Free with feelings Prefers drawing & manipulating objects Spontaneous

Stroop Effect Named after J. Ridley Stroop. *Name the color of the words, do not read the words. See how fast you can do it.

Why is it hard to do? The words have a strong influence over your ability to say the color. The brain perceives a problem with the difference in with what the words say and the color of the words. *Try taking this test click here

*Can you read this? According to research at Cambridge University, it doesn't matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be in the right place. The rest can be a total mess and you can still read it without problem. This is because the human mind does not read every letter by itself, but the word as a whole."

The Brain The brain is enclosed and protected by the bones of the skull, or cranium. There are three parts of the brain: A. Medulla- Control center for involuntary activities: breathing, heartbeat, circulation & digestion. B. Cerebrum- Higher processes: thinking, learning, imagination, and the five senses. C. Cerebellum- Physical coordination; Controls voluntary muscle movement, maintains balance and muscle tone.

Sensory Memory Takes in information long enough to decide whether to: Moves it to short term memory Acts on it Discards it as extra information ***lasts only 2-3 seconds

Short-term Memory Sometimes called the working memory. Information only stays here for a short period, depending on how often you use it.

Long-term Memory Used to recall important and unimportant information for very long periods. The more you use information in short-term, the more likely it is to become long term. Holds: Skills Facts Birthdays Faces

P-S-B-F-E-X-U-F-O-V-I-P-L-A *Look at these letters for one minute and try to memorize them then click to the next silide… P-S-B-F-E-X-U-F-O-V-I-P-L-A

Click here for a stop watch! Write down every letter you can remember on your worksheet where provided and put your pencil down. You have 30 seconds Click here for a stop watch!

P-S-B-F-E-X-U-F-O-V-I-P-L-A Check your answer P-S-B-F-E-X-U-F-O-V-I-P-L-A Write down how many you got correct in a row.

Click here for a stop watch! Now, I will regroup the letters to give them meaning. You have one minute to study again. PS-BF-EX-UFO-VIP-LA Click here for a stop watch!

Click here for a stop watch! Write down every letter you can remember and put your pencil down. You have 30 seconds. Click here for a stop watch!

*Optical Illusions Review the optical illusions on the next few slides. Answer the questions marked with an * for each illusion. Does this image look like a shelf full of potpourri warmers, or a line of yellow faces who cannot believe what they’re seeing?

Optical Illusion #2 *Which box is darker: A or B?

Optical Illusion #3 While box A seems noticeably darker, it probably wouldn't be an illusion if the answer were that simple. In fact, the two boxes are actually the exact same color. Do you see the difference now? See for yourself:

Optical Illusion #4 *Does this image look like a shelf full of potpourri warmers, or a line of yellow faces who cannot believe what they’re seeing?

Optical Illusion #5 *Where are these black dots coming from?

#5 explained… As the eye makes tiny, rapid movements, black dots appear to "scintillate" in the intersections of the white lines. Just as with the illusory motion image, the effect only works when the eyeball is moving slightly, scanning the image.

Optical Illusions #6 Why do you think you can only see certain aspects of each illusion?

Eye-Brain Connection While you definitely can't see without your eyes, nothing would make sense without input from the brain. Our eyes transmit a tremendous amount of information back to the brain, and it requires too much brain power to process all of it. In order to make the job easier, the brain has devised shortcuts to understand what it is seeing. Shadows, perspective, and color are all clues the brain uses in order to make decisions about what it is looking at. Research is ongoing to determine how the brain is tricked by these images and understanding how perception of these images differ could provide a wealth of data about the origins of motion perception itself.