Nervous System and Special Senses

Lab 5- The Nervous System and Special Senses

Objectives

When you have finished this lab you should be able to:

Define all of the bold terms in the text, and/or identify red terms on a specimen.

Identify all of the parts highlighted in red for the sheep brain and the eye specimens, and give their function.

Identify the parts of a spinal cord section.

Explain how a reflex arc works.

Identify the types of sensory receptors you examined microscope slides of, and state which stimuli they respond to.

Answer all of the questions in the lab manual.

Introduction

The nervous system integrates the actions of various parts of the body so they will function in a coordinated fashion with one another and with the external environment. This system acts to code sensory information and transmit it to regions of the central nervous system where it is processed into appropriate action.

In the first part of this exercise you will examine the gross morphology of the nervous system. You will examine microscope slides of nervous tissue, sectioned and whole segments of spinal cord, and the gross morphology of the brain. As you carry out the studies of gross morphology, be sure you know which areas of the brain and spinal cord are predominantly cell bodies, which are composed of axons, and the functions of each area. In addition, you will be dissecting one special sense organ, the eye. The virtual labs will not include the experiments you will conduct in human sensory perception during the labs.

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