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ANS: Parasympathetic System

Automatic Nervous System: Focusing on Parasympathetic System

In the Automatic Nervous System (ANS), different bodily functions are controlled without the conscious effort of a person controlling these functions. Many functions throughout the body are controlled by this system. Things that are controlled by the ANS includes digestion, heart rate, and urination. Under this system, there is the sympathetic “fight or flight” and the parasympathetic “rest and digest”. The activation of the sympathetic system will then lead to the parasympathetic system. After being aroused by something (surprised or scared), the parasympathetic system calms the body down. It does this by regulating aspects such as heart rate will be slowed, muscles relax, and pupils constrict. It is essential for the body to get back into the state of being “calm” in order to carry out of functions and daily activities.

This diagram above further compares the differences of parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. Both systems effect the whole body, even including the gallbladder and salivation. Different responses are activated from either the brain or the spinal cord. One nerve cell is located in the brain or spinal cord, and the other nerve cell is located on a specific organ. As viewed in the image, for the sympathetic nerve cells, they tend to be located near the spinal cord, whereas for the parasympathetic nerve cells tend to be located near the organ.

Activating the parasympathetic nervous system is essential to ensuring that people feel more at ease. I am often stressed from the simplest of different things. When I did track in high school, especially before a meet, I often would experience the typical systems that are controlled by the sympathetic nervous system. My whole body would start to sweat, as well as my heart rate would increase so high it would make it hard for me to breathe. After the race, my body would slowly resume back, and my heart rate would go down. With further research, I noticed the impact that the parasympathetic nervous system can have can on my body. Overtime, I became accustomed to both the race and exercising from practice. Therefore, the intensity of my symptoms decreased. For instance, while my heart rate began to speed up as I was walking to my race, this was much better than the symptoms I experienced before. Training my body to be more at ease can have many benefits. Being in a more rested state of mind can lead to many benefits, such as a lower blood pressure, better sleep, and heart rate variability.

Works Cited

Low, Phillip. “Overview of the Autonomic Nervous System – Brain, Spinal Cord, and Nerve Disorders.” Merck Manuals Consumer Version, Merck Manuals, www.merckmanuals.com/home/brain,-spinal-cord,-and-nerve-disorders/autonomic-nervous-system-disorders/overview-of-the-autonomic-nervous-system.

“Introduction to the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS).” introduction_to_the_ans [TUSOM | Pharmwiki], tmedweb.tulane.edu/pharmwiki/doku.php/introduction_to_the_ans.

Wede, Josh. “Lecture 4- Neurons and Neurotransmitters.” The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 18 Sept. 2019. Lecture.

Selective Attention and the Military

An interesting topic that Psych100 has covered is the idea of selective attention. Defined by the textbook for the class, selective attention is “the ability to focus on some sensory inputs while turning out others.” Using selective attention is used by almost every person on a daily basis; from trying to pay attention to a conversation with friends in a crowded bar to focusing on what a professor is saying when students sitting behind your seat are having a side conversation, selective attention is critical. No person is able to give their full attention to all of stimuli constantly present in our world so we all focus on limited parts of the environment and not the “whole picture.” I thought this concept was explained in an interesting way that brought me back to my training when I was in the military.

Going on a combat patrol can be one of the most exhilarating and terrifying moments while deployed. When military members are taught about the procedures of being a patrol, there is a strong emphasis on the decision making process. The decision making process is broken down into the acronym of OODA loop. It stands for “Observe, Orient, Decide, Act” with the loop symbolizing that this process should be ran constantly within the service member’s head. Selective attention can be applied to this process in a few ways. The primary link is the selective attention mindset that is adopted when a service member “Observes” an act or situation that is a change from the cultural or societal baseline. For example, if a patrol walked into a city market that is normally busy and buzzing with the members of the city and finds that the market has been completely evacuated, this would trigger the “Observe and Orient” aspect. The selective attention kicks in and the service member is training to focus on the anomaly at hand, in this instance an empty market. This could be both a good and bad habit. On the good side, it allows the patrol to allocate their full attention to the anomaly and expedites the “Decide” act of OODA loop. On the bad side, this selective attention could be used against them as a sort of distraction from the actual threat. If the market was emptied because there was going to be an enemy ambush, the selective attention aspect could potentially hurt the patrol by not taking in the full situation and a potential for the enemy to deviate from the ambush that is perceived to happen. Resources could be allocated to handling the empty market situation and that is when a coordinated attack could happen across the city, intensifying the attack by not having a quick reaction from the service members.

I believe that selective attention and its comparison to OODA loop is important selective attention should be taught to military members that may face similar scenarios in the future to prevent “tunnel vision” and allow for the entire environment to be perceived in a conscious manner.

Sister Falls Off Her Bike: Autonomic Nervous System

Concept: Autonomic Nervous System

The autonomic nervous system is part of the peripheral nervous system which has motor and sensory neurons. These neurons have the role of connecting the central nervous system to all of the other parts of the body. The autonomic nervous system has control over the self-regulated action that takes place in a person’s organs and glands (Wede).

There are two parts of the autonomic nervous system: sympathetic and parasympathetic. The sympathetic nervous system is arousing and is commonly referred to as “fight or flight,” while parasympathetic nervous system is calming and referred to as “rest and digest.” These two parts work together because the sympathetic nervous system gets the body ready for movement and the parasympathetic nervous system works to calm the body after the movement. The sympathetic nervous system prepares the body for action by dilating pupils, speeding up the heartbeat, stopping digestive activity, stimulating glucose to be released, and as well as the secretion of epinephrine and norepinephrine. The parasympathetic nervous system does nearly the opposite by contracting the pupils, slowing the heart rate, and stimulating digestive activity (Wede).

Experience: Sister Falls Off Bike

One experience I had that relates to the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems is when my little sister fell off of her bike. I was outside with my dad when I was 10 years old and I watched my little sister biking as she hit a rock and flew off of the bike. Immediately my sympathetic system took over and prepared my body for movement in response to the stressful situation. I felt fear as my heart started to immediately beat faster and my pupils dilated. My autonomic system was preparing my body to run over and see if my sister was okay. In addition to increasing my heartbeat and pupils dilating, my digestive activity was stopped, glucose was released, and secretion of norepinephrine and epinephrine were stimulated. This all occurred so that I could respond to the stressful situation and focus on helping her.

After my dad and I ran over to my sister, we saw that she had a huge cut on the bottom of her chin, and we needed to take her to the hospital. At the hospital she needed to get 5 stitches on her chin, and I held her hand the entire time. Once I realized that she was going to be okay, my parasympathetic system started working to calm down my body and bring me back to my regular state. Specifically, my heartbeat was slowed down, my pupils contracted, and digestive activity was stimulated again. My body returned to its regular state once I realized that the stressful situation was over and that my sister would be okay.

Sister with stitches.

References

Wede, J. (n.d.). Psychology.

Psychodynamic Connection

Our everyday behavior and feelings are dramatically affected by unconscious motives and early development. Most behavior and feelings have an unconscious cause which as adults are directly reflected off of personal childhood experiences. One of my childhood friend’s parents attempted to get a divorce while she was only nine. She begged them to give their relationship another chance (so they did), which ultimately ended up negatively impacting her family in the long run. She would sit in couples therapy with her parents and listen to them fight. She also experienced watching them argue, smoke, obsessively drink, and even physically harm each other at times. Being a child and witnessing your family members go through a rough patch can be traumatizing early on. About five years later her father had moved out and divorced her mother. She then began isolating herself from her mutual friends and would even skip classes at school for a couple weeks at a time. Initially, we all thought she was just sick, yet a couple years down the road, she arrived to school missing her eyebrows and eyelashes. This was a serious concern to all of our peers, considering the day before she had all of her hair present. I never ended up asking her what had happened and continued to move on with my day. Looking back on the situation, I should have made an effort to talk to her and see if she was okay. Eventually, she sat me down and explained to me that she had developed a hair pulling disorder called Trichotillomania, and described pulling out her hair as “relaxing.” She continued to say it wasn’t just her eyebrows and eyelashes, it was the hair on the back of her head as well. She claimed it started when she would overhear her parents fighting as a young girl but it seemed to become more of an involuntary impulse as the years went on without correction. Trichotillomania is a mental disorder that involves irresistible urges to pull out hair from your scalp, eyebrows, and other areas of the body, despite trying to stop. Although she goes to extreme measures to cover up the bald spots on her head, they’re still there and will always act as a reminder of those hard times. The psychodynamic perspective focuses on how specific childhood incidents reflects on adult behavior, which is clearly shown through my childhood friend’s experience.

Fight-or-Flight Blog #1

Human bodies are known to do amazing things from simply having the five senses all the way to women being able to create babies. But, one underrated task that the human body is gifted with, is the ability to “fight-or-flight”. Many people don’t realize that our reaction to a dangerous or startling situation is purely instincts because of our sympathetic nervous system. Without our sympathetic nervous system, our reaction to a situation where we need to act fast would most likely be a failure and could potentially leave someone or something in trouble.

The sympathetic nervous system is a part of the involuntary nervous system and is in charge of regulating many body functions such as heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, digestion, and so on. During high-intensity situations, neurons in the body cause different reactions by making different muscles take action. Neurons are not the only thing that causes the body to react, because when “fight-or-flight” kicks in a wave of hormones take over the body and send blood rushing to the heart, which then speeds up heart rate, breathing, and alertness.

Everyone will most likely experience the “fight-or-flight” response at some point in their life, and my experience came particularly early. I was in 8^thgrade at the time, and it was very early in the morning because I was getting ready to go off to school. My dad had just gotten ACL surgery but still insisted to get up to make me breakfast, even though I told him he’d be safer in bed. Yet, with his stubborn attitude, he was up and making my breakfast within 15 minutes. It was just him and I home so there wasn’t much happening, it was a pretty quiet morning. But of course, that quickly came to an end when he paused dead in his tracks. I glanced over and didn’t think much of it until he told me that he suddenly got pretty dizzy. As he took a seat at our high-top kitchen table, it didn’t take long for his eyes to roll back into his head and his body to go completely limp, smashing the hard floor and hitting his head on a nearby end table on the way down. This is where my “fight-or-flight” reaction kicked in immediately, it took a split second to realize what I had to do, my heart was racing, and I began to sweat. Even though I had never dealt with that type of situation before, I somehow knew how to react. I ran over to elevate his head as much as I could to get more blood flowing, and made sure there were no other injuries as I called 911. Without my sympathetic nervous system, my instinctive reaction wouldn’t have been as prepared, or even prepared at all. With major chaos my situation felt like it lasted a lifetime, even though it was truly only a couple of minutes, my reactions were too fast that I didn’t even have time to process or think about what was happening, my only goal was to help my dad. A persons “fight-or-flight” reaction within the sympathetic nervous system is extremely underrated because without that I wouldn’t have been able to give my dad the help he needed.

Lanese, Nicoletta. “Fight or Flight: The Sympathetic Nervous System.” LiveScience, Purch, 9 May 2019, www.livescience.com/65446-sympathetic-nervous-system.html.

Neurotransmitters and their effect on the brain: Dopamine and Parkinson’s Disease

What are Neurotransmitters?

It’s a well-known fact that neurotransmitters have a profound impact on the brain. But how exactly do they work? Neurotransmitters are chemical substances released in vesicles at the end of a nerve fiber (at the terminal branches of an axon) with the arrival of a nerve impulse. They diffuse across the gap between two neurons, also called the synaptic gap or cleft, and are received by receptors on the receiving neuron (at the dendrite), which transfers the impulse from one nerve to another. The image below shows this process in greater detail.

Image 1: Neurotransmitters and the Synaptic Cleft

It helps to think of neurotransmitters and receptors like a lock and key mechanism: receptors act like locks, accepting some neurotransmitters and rejecting others that don’t “fit”. Neurotransmitters are the “key” that fits into its designated receptors. After a receptor accepts a neurotransmitter, it begins a chain reaction of events that locally charges the cell membrane, sending a signal along the length of the neuron and on to the next.

Dopamine and Parkinson’s Disease

Now that we have a basic understanding of how neurotransmitters work, we can discuss what effects a neurotransmitter imbalance would have on the brain. The neurotransmitter dopamine has pathways involved with Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s is considered a degenerative disorder and begins when cells in the part of the brain known as the substantia nigra begin to die. These nerve cells are responsible for dopamine production and relay messages that control body movement. In some people, these dopamine-producing nerve cells begin to die. When approximately 80% of dopamine is lost, symptoms such as tremors, slow movement, stiffness and loss of balance occurs in the body.

Parkinson’s is the second most common age-related disease after Alzheimer’s disease. It is estimated that 7-10 million people worldwide suffer from Parkinson’s, including my grandmother. As I’ve visited her frequently over the years, I’ve watched her symptoms manifest in several ways. She walks slowly and with a shuffling gait and relies on her walker to get around the house. Her hands often tremble even when she is not cold or scared and sometimes, she stutters in her speech. These are all classic symptoms of Parkinson’s as they all relate to a loss of motor function. This is likely because of the lack of dopamine in her brain. Her body movement is interrupted because the cells in the substantia nigra are unable to send nerve impulses as frequently between the spinal cord and the brain due to the lack of dopamine.

Image 2: Dopamine levels in a normal and a Parkinson’s affected neuron

Treating Parkinson’s Disease

While the initial cause of cell death in the brain remains unknown, scientists have been using their knowledge of dopamine and its pathways to create drugs that mimic how dopamine is supposed to work in the brain. My grandmother has recently begun using one of these drugs, which are also known as Dopamine-receptor agonists, to treat her symptoms. Like dopamine, they fit into the receptors that receive dopamine and are able to complete the neural pathway the leads to smooth body movement. The diagram below shows how dopamine agonists mimic the effects of dopamine.

Image 3: How dopamine-agonists mimic dopamine in the brain

While agonist drugs can help ease the symptoms of diseases like Parkinson’s, it is our hope that researches will soon be able to identify the source of this degenerative disease. One thing is certain: we must never underestimate the importance of neurotransmitters and their effect on our body and mind.

Links:

https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/neurotransmitter

https://mayfieldclinic.com/pe-pd.htm

https://parkinsonsnewstoday.com/parkinsons-disease-statistics/

Image 1: https://www.verywellmind.com/the-chemistry-of-depression-1065137

Image 2: https://www.atrainceu.com/course-module/1874200-080_antiparkinson-strategies-module-03

Image 3: https://parkinsonsdisease.net/medications/

Brain’s Plasticity

We learned in class about brain’s plasticity–Brain is sculpted by our genes but also by our experience, some type of injury or illness can modify our brain. Our brain is inborn, and in the past, some psychologists believe the brain can not be altered. But later on, scientists did some research and found that brain has the ability to modify itself due to injury or illness. By modifying, it’s referring to the brain’s ability to modify its own functions in certain areas or its physical structures.

I’ve read a story about a man named Ben, who got into a car accident with a truck (Morgans, 2019). He was sent to the hospital immediately, and then he was put in a coma for a week. When he woke up from the coma, he found that no one could understand him but a Chinese nurse. Surprisingly, he was speaking fluent Chinese to his families when he only learned really basic Chinese in high school. He didn’t realize he was speaking Chinese and was frustrated since people can’t understand him. Luckily, he didn’t forget how to speak English and he was able to communicate with people in English a few hours later. His parents were worried about him, so they asked a neurologist to do a brain check for him. And the neurologist told them due to the car accident, his brain is modified, the left hemisphere is damaged and the right hemisphere now is taking the responsibility of managing language. And according to past experiments and research, English speakers use more of their left hemisphere when Chinese speakers use both hemispheres. And because his left hemisphere is resting, the right brain is managing language, his old Mandarin memory becomes more accessible and his Mandarin becomes more natural than English.

This story showed us the brain’s plasticity–its ability to modify its function due to injury or illness. Because of the car accident, Ben’s brain’s left side was damaged, which drives the brain to modify its old functions on that side and makes the right side to take over it. And this is why Ben becomes more fluent in Chinese than English.

Reference:

Morgans, Julian. “Meet the Guy Who Woke From a Coma Speaking Another Language.” Vice, 28 June 2019, www.vice.com/en_uk/article/3k3w8w/ben-mcmahon-woke-car-accident-coma-speaking-chinese-mandarin-language.

The Sympathetic Nervous System

Within the nervous system is the autonomic nervous system, which then contains the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. These two systems are involuntarily, meaning our body does not have control over what it is performing. The sympathetic nervous system is known as “fight-or-flight”, while parasympathetic is known as “rest and digest”. Even though they are different, these systems still work hand in hand with one another to help control the way our body works. Sympathetic is almost like an alarm clock, as it arouses the body and stimulates the nerves to start working. On the other hand, parasympathetic helps calm the body down, as it brings the body back to its normal state. The sympathetic division is not responsible for physically helping you fight or run, but rather prepares your body for the events it is about to encounter. Meanwhile, the parasympathetic division focuses on influencing our response to the situation so our body can ease back to its usual ways.

When triggered, the sympathetic nervous system carries out certain functions to prepare the body to make a decision within that moment. The symptoms normally experienced in a “fight-or-flight” situation are dilated pupils, accelerated heart rate, rapid breathing, and sweating. With these symptoms, it helps one to see and process information more clearly, transfer more blood to your muscles, and helps fight off whatever it is encountered.

Sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system 3d medical illustration on white background
A “fight-or-flight” moment can be experienced in several different ways by anyone. A time in which I experienced a “fight-or-flight” moment was when I was on vacation in the Bahamas in 2018. My family rented out a yacht for the day to sail through Rose Island for fun excursions, such as snorkeling, tubing, jet skiing, and much more. Though something the cabin members always make their guests do is jump off of the highest level of their boat. My brother and I decided to jump together, and off we went from the third level of the boat. After landing in the water, my brother and I noticed a black/grey figure swimming towards us, realizing it was a Stingray. I immediately felt a rush of adrenaline, my heart rate became rapid, my breathing became intense, my body sweating, and I swam as fast as I could back to the boat. Now having an understanding of “fight-or-flight mode”, I realize that in that moment my body was experiencing all the sympathetic symptoms. My only intention was to swim away as fast as I possibly could from the Stingray, therefore showing the use of the “flight” mode to help reach myself to safety.

Once I got back on the boat my body then went through the effects of the parasympathetic system. My heart rate began to slow down, my breathing was not as intense, my pupils constricted, and my body went back to its normal state. I believe my experience demonstrates one of the purposes of the sympathetic nervous system because it describes a memory of when I was in a stressful situation and had to react in a timely manner by using the “flight-or-fight” method. Experiencing the sympathetic nervous system may not always be enjoyable, but with this system it helps our bodies respond to demanding situations and is essentially responsible for controlling what we do in the moment.

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