Biology › Nervous coordination, receptors and muscles

Nervous coordination, receptors and muscles

Unit B14 · 6 lessons.

Notes

Illustrated notes for each topic in this unit, with worked examples and a checklist of objectives.

• Organisation of the nervous system
  The central and peripheral nervous systems; the somatic and autonomic divisions, with sympathetic set against parasympathetic; the gross structure of…
• Receptors: transduction and the reflex arc
  The sequence from stimulus to response, the spinal reflex arc and the three neurones in it, taxes and kineses as simple responses, receptors as…
• The action potential and its propagation
  The resting potential and how the sodium-potassium pump and differential permeability establish it, depolarisation, repolarisation and…
• The synapse: transmission, and why it runs one way
  The structure of a cholinergic synapse; the sequence from arriving impulse through calcium influx, vesicle fusion, diffusion and receptor binding to…
• Muscles and movement: the sliding-filament model
  Skeletal muscle structure from muscle to myofibril to sarcomere, the sliding filament mechanism with the roles of calcium, tropomyosin, ATP and the…
• Brain imaging, development and learning
  How CT, MRI, fMRI and PET scans work and what each shows about the brain; the critical period in visual development and Hubel and Wiesel's…