Introduction

Information about the outside world as well as the inner workings of the body speeds to and from the brain through nerves. Nerves are bundles of the long, tubelike extensions of nerve cells. Impulses fired through them uniquely convey information throughout the body. Nerve impulses travel only in one direction. If information from the stomach, for example, is transmitted to the brain through one nerve, action orders from the brain cannot travel back to the stomach over the same nerve. Another must carry the return message. Sensory nerves carry information from the sense organs and other body receptors to the central nervous systemthe brain and spinal cordfor processing. Then motor nerves carry the processed information from the central nervous system to the glands and muscles for appropriate action. Nerves also can be classified as afferent and efferent. Afferent nerves feed input signals to the central nervous system for processing. Efferent nerves carry processed signals from the central nervous system to appropriate body areas for action. Spinal nerves are pairs of sensory and motor nerve bundles that emerge from the spinal cord. Sensory spinal nerves send information from the sense organs and the body receptors to the central nervous system, and motor spinal nerves transmit messages to the muscles. Cranial nerves are a group of 12 pairs of sensory, motor, or mixed (having separate sensory and motor fibers) nerves that connect with the brain stem and the lower parts of the brain. Autonomic nerves are motor nerves only. They regulate a great variety of bodily functions. For example, they innervate the smooth muscles of the blood vessels, the heart muscle, and the smooth muscles of the digestive system. The autonomic nervous system is divided into sympathetic nerves and parasympathetic nerves. Ordinarily, the two kinds counteract each other. If a sympathetic nerve triggers muscle contraction, for instance, a parasympathetic nerve orders muscle relaxation. Sympathetic nerves emerge from about the last three quarters of the spinal cord and connect with other sympatheic neurons in a chain of ganglia running parallel with the spinal cord. Fibers from these ganglia join with spinal nerves and others to reach the limbs and organs they serve. Sympatheic ganglia are also located near the major organs in the abdomen. Parasympathetic fibers are found in cranial nerves III, VII, IX, and X. Some also emerge from the tail end of the spinal cord. The most important parasympathetic nerve is the vagus, or cranial nerve X, because it sends fibers to many parts of the body. Sympathetic nerves usually prepare the body for such emergencies as temperature extremes, lack of water, or physical harm. On the other hand, parasympathetic nerves usually keep the body running smoothly with a minimum outlay of energy.

Makeup of Nerve Cells

Nearly all neurons, or nerve cells, have the same general structure. They usually have a round or pyramid-shaped cell body. From it sprouts a branched tree of individual dendrites and a long

tube called an axon. Some axons are only thousandths of an inch long, while others reach several yards. In some neurons, particularly sensory ones, dendrite-like parts link directly with the axon instead of the cell body, and the cell body is connected to a branch of the axon. Neurons contain the molecular machinery common to all cells (see Biochemistry). When not too severely damaged, neurons in peripheral nerves can regrow. Nerve cells are so specialized, however, that they can no longer reproduce by cell division. And even regrowth is impossible in the central nervous system. This is why severe damage to the brain or spinal cord is permanent and can result in muscle or limb paralysis. Messages to activate those structures cannot be carried past the point of injury. The brain also has a class of cells called glia. Glial cells are shaped to fit into the spaces between neurons. They stabilize the brain's neural circuits and also supplement the metabolic processes of neurons.

Synapses Connect Neurons

A neuron connects with others in a neural circuit through synapses. A typical synapse is so small that many can be made between nerve cells. For example, any neuron may receive thousands of synaptic contacts from others and, in turn, may send out the same number of axon branches. Because the human nervous system contains billions of neurons (more than 10 billion are in the brain alone), scientists have a difficult job unraveling the wiring plan. Each neuron is surrounded by a membrane. Thus, every synapse has the following components: the presynaptic membrane of the axon; the postsynaptic membrane of the dendrite, or cell body; and the tiny gap between them called the synaptic cleft.

The Action Potential

Nerves, unlike telephone wires with which they are compared, generate their own self-amplified electrical signalsthe nerve impulses. The electrical sign of a nerve impulse is an action potential (AP), and it is generated when a neuron undergoes electrical change. Electrically charged ions are in varying concentrations inside and outside a cell, causing a voltage difference on each side of the cell membrane. In a resting neuron the voltage difference is called the resting potential. The inside of a neuron at rest is electrically more negative than the outside, usually by between 50 and 100 millivolts (mV). In this condition the nerve membrane is polarized. When a voltage change brought on by a stimulus depolarizes the membrane, either of two things happens. If the stimulus is strong enough to breach a critical threshold level, an action potential is fired. If not, the voltage drops back to the resting potential.

An action potential moves along an axon at speeds of up to ten yards per second. The voltage change and depolarization at one end of the axon flows to the next point, where the event is duplicated, and so on down the axon until the AP reaches the axon terminals. Scientists have a fairly clear idea of how APs form in a neuron. When a portion of the membrane is depolarized, special channels in it open and allow an inward rush of sodium ions, which are in higher concentration outside the cell. Then when the positively charged sodium ions flow into the negatively charged neuron interior, they cause further depolarization by making the interior electrically more positive. This, in turn, opens more channels, allowing more sodium ions to rush in. Once opened, however, the sodium channels slowly close in spite of the depolarization that originally made them open. Channels for outgoing potassium ions are also in the neuron membrane. They, too, open during depolarization but more slowly than the sodium channels. When the potassium channels finally open, positively charged potassium ions flow to the outside of the cell, where they are in lower concentration. As they leave the cell, they hasten the return of the neuron's voltage to its resting level, and the interior again becomes electrically more negative than the exterior. APs travel faster in some neurons than in others. This is because some have fatty myelin separating short segments of bare axon that are called nodes of Ranvier. In a myelinated axon the action potential jumps from one node to the next instead of traveling along the entire length of the axon as it must in an unmyelinated axon.

Action at the Synapse

When a nerve impulse gets to the axon terminal, it triggers the release of a special neurotransmitter chemical from tiny synaptic vesicles into the synaptic cleft. As packets of neurotransmitter spread throughout the synaptic cleft, some transmitter molecules come into contact with receptor molecules in the postsynaptic membrane of the next neuron and merge into a transmitter-receptor complex. This complex then changes its shape and permits an inflow of sodium ions in some neurons and an outflow of potassium ions in others. More ions now flow through the postsynaptic membrane, causing a voltage change. When sodium-ion permeability is increased, incoming positively charged sodium ions depolarize the neuron by raising its internal voltage. By contrast, when potassium-ion permeability is increased, outgoing potassium ions hyperpolarize the neuron by lowering its internal voltage. These chemically induced voltage changes are called postsynaptic potentials (PSPs). The positive-going ones are excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs), and the negative-going ones are inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (IPSPs). EPSPs can produce action potentials. IPSPs oppose their production. Simple addition allows information to pass from one neuron to another. If an EPSP occurs just before a prior one had died away, it simply adds to the tail of the earlier one. By contrast, IPSPs subtract from the sum of EPSPs. A typical neuron might receive both kinds of PSPs from a thousand other neurons, all of which are producing about ten action potentials a second. A neuron's voltage at any given moment, therefore, reflects all the summation activities of a thousand inputs. As the inputs arrive they are

rapidly added to or subtracted from the total neuron voltage. If enough EPSPs overcome the IPSPs, the neuron fires an impulse. If IPSPs predominate, it does not. What would normally happen if a depolarizing stimulus acted on a neuron continuously? After the first AP was generated a brief pause would ensue during the refractory period as the ion channels and other nerve-cell operations returned to normal. Then a second AP would form, then another pause, then a third AP, and so on, as long as the stimulus was there. A steady but spaced train of APs would run at a frequency of so many per second, speeding up or slowing down as the intensity of the above-threshold stimulus increased or decreased. This frequency constitutes the code by which commands are sent throughout the body.

Sensing and Reacting to Information

Humans and other organisms have receptors that respond selectively to stimuli in the environment. Photoreceptors in the eyes, for example, respond to light but not to sound. Each receptor contains special sensory neurons with mechanisms capable of producing a generator potential, a depolarization (or sometimes a hyperpolarization) triggered by an outside stimulus. Like PSPs, the generator potentials send a coded frequency of action potentials to the rest of the nervous system. Axons synapse with muscle cells. In turn, a depolarized muscle cell generates an action potential that causes it to contract. The strength of contraction depends on the number of nerve APs sent to the muscle per second. Thus, the nervous system's code is decoded by the action of individual muscle fibers. By controlling muscle contraction and body movements, the nervous system influences response to information from inside as well as outside the body.

Nervous Disorders
Neurology is the study of the nervous system and the diseases that can affect it. Physicians who specialize in treating nervous disorders are called neurologists. Disorders of the human nervous system are characterized by an array of symptomsfrom slight disturbances in personality to tragic crippling, blinding, and often fatal diseases. There is a variety of causes of nervous disorders, some hereditary and others infectious. The nervous system may, for example, be invaded by such disease-producing agents as bacteria and viruses. Disease symptoms are related to the infection site and the type of invading agent. There are two basic groups of infections meningitis and encephalitisdepending on whether the coverings (the meninges) or the functioning elements, such as the neurons of the brain, are mainly affected. Alzheimer's disease, almost unheard of until the 1980s, is now recognized as the major single cause of senility, or senile dementia. The symptoms of the disease almost always include shortterm memory loss, disorientation, and difficulty with abstract thinking. Persons with Alzheimer's disease are unable to produce normal amounts of the chemical acetylcholine. They are, however,

usually alert until the later stages of the disease. It is estimated that a total of about 75 percent of demented individuals are stricken with Alzheimer's disease. Rabies, or hydrophobia, is usually transmitted to humans by a bite from an animal infected with the rabies virus. Humans vaccinated during the incubation period of the virus, ten to 50 days, normally do not develop the disease. Shingles, or herpes zoster, is caused by infection with the Varicella-zoster virus, which is also the chicken pox virus. It attacks the nerve endings and forms small blisters on the skin surface supplied by the affected nerves. Tetanus, or lockjaw, is caused by infection with the bacterium Clostridium tetani found in soil and manure. It enters the nervous system through an open wound and thrives in an anaerobic environment. Incubation is from two days to several weeks, and the common early symptom is stiffness of the jaw muscles. Syphilis is a contagious venereal disease caused by infection with the bacterial spirochete Treponema pallidum. The infection may occur years before the disease is diagnosed. In later stages, lesions form in the brain. Penicillin and other antibiotics are used as treatment. (See also Sexually Transmitted Disease.) Leprosy, or Hansen's disease, a chronic infectious neurological disease, is often curable when caught in the early stages. It is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae, which produces lesions in the skin, mucous membranes, and peripheral nerves. (See also Leprosy.) Demyelinating diseases result in the loss of the nerves' myelin sheath. Nerve fibers cannot properly conduct impulses without this sheath, so function is altered. The most common demyelinating disease is multiple sclerosis, usually referred to as MS. The cause of multiple sclerosis is undetermined, and treatments vary. It is characterized by relapses and remissions. Epilepsy is a nervous disorder of recurrent convulsive seizures in which consciousness is lost or impaired. Epilepsy can result from a wide variety of diseases and injuries. Compression of the spinal cord, nerve roots, or peripheral nerves is often caused by neurological diseases. A slipped disk, certain cancers, tuberculosis of the spine, and arthritis can also cause this affliction. Motor and neuromuscular disorders can disturb the movements of muscles under the direct control of motor neurons in the brainstem and spinal cord. During myotonia, muscles do not relax after contraction; the cause is unclear. Parkinson's disease is characterized by rigidity of the muscles, a masklike face, speech difficulties, and tremors. Huntington's chorea, a hereditary disorder of nerve cell clusters in the brain, involves shrinkage of such brain parts as the cerebral cortex. Poliomyelitis, or polio, has almost completely disappeared since the introduction of the Salk and Sabin vaccines in the 1950s, although cases still appear in people who are not properly

vaccinated. It is caused by a virus that attacks motor neurons. The World Health Organization is attempting to eliminate polio worldwide by the year 2000. (See also Biochemistry; Biophysics; Brain and Spinal Cord; Disease, Human.)