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Brain and Behavior

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Psychology 220: Brain and Behavior: The brain’s unique behavior

Brain and Behavior
JoAnn Rissman

08/20/2012
Abstract
“Ouch! That’s really hot!” Forcing your brain to speak to your body is one simple example of how the brain is to human behavior.

“Ouch! Don’t touch that!” This is what is your brain is registering as you touch a hot surface. Your brain is sending a message to your hand that is touching the extremely hot surface, saying “pull away now”. The brain is a wonderful machine that controls all of the body’s functions, the one’s you think about and the one’s you don’t. We are going to take a brief look into these functions and how they benefit ourselves and our lives.

Central Nervous System (CNS)
There are two parts to the CNS, the brain and the spinal cord.
The Brain
The brain is the central hub or better known as the main computer. The brain is the main controller of everything, and the storage of our memories, including the good and bad, our feelings, and who we are as a person. Without the brain we would be a sack of skin, bones, blood and water, with no function(s) or use.

The Spinal Cord
As the brain controls what we do, the spinal cord communicates what to do. The messages travel up and down the spinal cord like a great highway to and from the brain. With points along the spinal column to correspond to the brains desired reaction.

Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)
Here this system uses the CNS to communicate and control all aspects of the human body. It is divided into the Somatic System and the Autonomic System, which in itself is divided even further into the Sympathetic System and the Parasympathetic System. To explain it a little better we will break it down.

Somatic System
Here the highway of nerves and messages travels to and from the sense organs to the skeletal muscles. It controls “Voluntary” muscle movement like

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