DQ 1

What is the most significant difference between the roles of the peripheral and central nervous systems in shaping behavior?

One of the most significant differences between the peripheral and central nervous systems in shaping behavior is that the central nervous system processes the sensory information that is sent by the peripheral system and decides how to respond.

It consists of brain of the brain and spinal cord executing commands and synthesizing messages that are sent by neural pathways connecting throughout the body by the peripheral nervous system (Kalat, 2016). The spinal cord contains the sensory and motor nerves that communicate with all the sense organs and muscles excluding those of the head.

The peripheral nervous system consists of the somatic and autonomic nervous system. The somatic nervous system holds the axons that relay messages from sense organs to the CNS and from the CNS to muscles. The autonomic nervous system oversees the heart, intestines and organs with cell bodies in brain, spinal cord and along the sides of the spinal cord.
Why?

The spinal cord has segments that send sensory information to the brain with axons receiving motor commands from the brain. Therefore, the sensory input given by the peripheral system are the messengers who carry signals and information about the environmental conditions back to headquarters so that the commander can process, decide and command a response.

The two systems work in tandem to shape behavior because the brain would be unable to respond comprehensively without the input of the peripheral nervous system. And the peripheral nervous system does not process input from all the various sensory neurons and transmission of signals would not be received in entirety so the messages waiting for direction would receive no command and fail to respond appropriately.

Resources

Kalat, J. W. (2016). Biological psychology. (12th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

DQ 1

What is the most significant difference between the roles of the peripheral and central nervous systems in shaping behavior? Why?

The physical makeup of the human body is amazing. The central nervous system is a small part when considering space in the body, but it is massive in its scope. I like to think of it as the central command station.

It is what controls the brain and tells us what to do and when to do it. The peripheral system, by contrast, is what carries the message to the rest of the body and acts out the things needed. An interesting exploration of this concept is the idea of phantom limb pain, where people who have lost a limb still have the ability to feel pain and try and send neural messages to the area (Raffin et al, 2016).

The central nervous system still has the pathways to the limb wired in the brain. That was not removed when the limb was removed. So, while the role of the peripheral system in that case is now limited, the central nervous system remains intact and responds accordingly.

Therefore, when it comes to shaping behavior, the responses of the brain system may not completely correlate with the abilities of the peripheral system. I have often wondered if this is what happens as we age and lose physical ability. I certainly remember what it felt like to do certain things, but I cannot seem to transfer that memory into actual performance by my body.

Raffin, E., Richard, N., Giraux, P., & Reilly, K. T. (2016). Primary motor cortex changes after amputation correlate with phantom limb pain and the ability to move the phantom limb. Neuroimage, 130134-144. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.01.063

DQ 2

The peripheral and central nervous system pathways interact and integrate their functions to create a response to a stimulus. To what extent can the central nervous system be trained to alter the autonomic response? Is further alteration of the autonomic response improbable or undesirable? Why do you believe this is the limit?

One of the main ways we see the central nervous system changing responses is through drug use. For many years I worked with people who were overcoming addiction and trying to return to work after addiction had led to loss of work or other severe consequences.

Many of them spoke of how they felt differently, thought differently, and reacted differently than they had prior to drug use. In this case, it is not a positive thing to have had an alteration to the response system.

I have seen similar circumstances when working with brain injuries as well. Limiting the response is something I would feel is essential to avoid further harm to the body. For instance, the response to move when you are about to burn your hand is a protection. If an autonomic response is altered to a point where this is no longer active, then there can be severe damage done to the body.

However, I do know there are medical conditions that do have these consequences, which I believe are quite undesirable. However, some changes are very desirable. As a musician, I really enjoyed reading about how music during medical treatment influenced heart rate (Santana et al, 2017). I think this is a very complicated issue that could be examined on many fronts.

Santana, M. R., Martiniano, E. C., Monteiro, L. L., Valenti, V. E., Garner, D. M., Sorpreso, I. E., & Abreu, L. d. (2017). Musical Auditory Stimulation Influences Heart Rate Autonomic Responses to Endodontic Treatment. Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine (Ecam), 1-7. doi:10.1155/2017/4847869