Psychology Part 4

The axons which make up the motor nerves are branches of nerve cells situated in the cord and brain stem; they extend from the reflex center for any muscle out to and into that muscle and make very close connection with the muscle substance. A nerve current, starting from the nerve cells in the reflex center, runs rapidly along the axons to the muscle and arouses it to activity.

The axons which make up the optic nerve, or nerve of sight, are branches of nerve cells in the eye, and extend into the brain stem.

Light striking the eye starts nerve currents, which run along these axons into the brain stem. Similarly, the axons of the nerve of smell are branches of cells in the nose.

The remainder of the sensory axons are branches of nerve cells that lie in little bunches close alongside the cord or {33} brain stem.

These cells have no dendrites, but their axon, dividing, reaches in one direction out to a sense organ and in the other direction into the cord or brain stem, and thus connects the sense organ with its "lower center".

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 5.--Sensory and motor axons, and their nerve cells. The arrows indicate the direction of conduction. (Figure text: eye, brain stem, skin, cord, muscle)]

Where an axon terminates, it broadens out into a thin plate, or breaks up into a tuft of very fine branches ( the "end-brush"), and by this means makes close contact with the muscle, the sense organ, or the neurone with which it connects.

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The Synapse

Now let us consider the mode of connection between one neurone and another in a nerve center. The axon of one neurone, through its end-brush, is in close contact with the dendrites of another neurone.

There is contact, but no actual growing-together; the two neurones remain distinct, and this contact or junction of two neurones is called a "synapse". The synapse, then, is not a thing, but simply a junction between two neurones.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 6.--The synapse between the two neurones lies just above the arrow.]

The junction is good enough so that one of the two neurones, if itself active, can arouse the other to activity. The end-brush, when a nerve current reaches it from its own nerve cell, arouses the dendrites of the other neurone, and thus starts a nerve current running along those dendrites to their nerve cell and thence out along its axon.

Now here is a curious and significant fact: the dendrites are receiving organs, not transmitting; they pick up messages from the end-brushes across the synapse, but send out no messages to those end-brushes. Communication across a synapse is always in one direction, from end-brush to dendrites.

This, then, is the way in which a reflex is carried out, the pupillary reflex, for example. Light entering the eye starts a nerve current in the axons of the optic nerve; these axons terminate in the brain stem, where their end-brushes arouse the dendrites of motor nerve cells, and the axons of these {35} cells, extending out to the muscle of the pupil, cause it to contract, and narrow the pupil.

Or again, this is the way in which one nerve center arouses another to activity. The axons of the cells in the first center (or some of them) extend out of this center and through the white matter to the second center, where they terminate, their end-brushes forming synapses with the cells of the second center. Let the first center be thrown into activity, and immediately, through this connection, it arouses the second.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 7.--Different forms of synapse found in the cerebellum, "a" is one of the large motor cells of the cerebellum (a "Purkinje cell"), with its dendrites above and its axon below; and "b," "c" and "d" show three forms of synapse made by other neurones with this Purkinje cell. In "b," the arrow indicates a "climbing axon," winding about the main limbs of the Purkinje cell. In "c," the arrow points to a "basket"--an end-brush enveloping the cell body; while "d" shows what might be called a "telegraph-wire synapse."

Imagine "d" superimposed upon "a": the axon of "d" rises among the fine dendrites of "a," and then runs horizontally through them; and there are many, many such axons strung among the dendrites. Thus the Purkinje cell is stimulated at three points: cell body, trunks of the dendrites, and twigs of the dendrites.]

The "gray matter" comprises the nerve centers, lower and higher. It is made up of nerve cells and their dendrites, of the beginnings of axons issuing from these cells and of the terminations of incoming axons.

The white matter, as was said before, consists of axons. An axon issues from the {36} gray matter at one point, traverses the white matter for a longer or shorter distance, and finally turns into the gray matter at another point, and thus nerve connection is maintained between these two points.

There are lots of nerve cells, billions of them. That ought to be plenty, and yet--well, perhaps sometimes they are not well developed, or their synapses are not close enough to make good connections.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 8.--A two-neurone reflex arc. (Figure text: stimulus, skin, sensory axon, bit of the spinal cord, motor axon, muscle)]

Examined under the microscope, the nerve cell is seen to contain, besides the "nucleus" which is present in every living cell and is essential for maintaining its vitality and special characteristics, certain peculiar granules which appear to be stores of fuel to be consumed in the activity of the cell, and numerous very fine fibrils coursing through the cell and out into the axon and dendrites.

The _reflex arc can now be described_ more precisely than before.

Beginning in a sense organ, it extends along a sensory axon (really along a team of axons acting side by side) to its end-brush in a lower center, where it crosses a synapse and enters the dendrites of a motor neurone and so {37} reaches the cell body and axon of this neurone, which last extends out to the muscle (or gland). The simplest reflex arc consists then of a sensory neurone and a motor neurone, meeting at a synapse in a lower or reflex center. This would be a two-neurone arc.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 9.--A three-neurone arc, concerned in respiration.

This also ill.u.s.trates how one nerve center influences another.

(Figure text: white matter, gray matter, lung, respiratory center in the brain stem, diaphragm, motor center in cord for the diaphragm)]

Very often, and possibly always, the reflex arc really consists of three neurones, a "central" neurone intervening between the sensory and motor neurones and being connected through synapses with each. The central neurone plays an important role in coordination.

COoRDINATION

The internal structure of nerve centers helps us see how coordinated movement is produced. The question is, how {38} several muscles are made to work together harmoniously, and also how it is possible that a pin p.r.i.c.k, directly affecting just a few sensory axons, causes a big movement of many muscles. Well, we find the sensory axon, as it enters the cord, sending off a number of side branches, each of which terminates in an end-brush in synaptic connection with the dendrites of a motor nerve cell.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 10.--Coordination brought about by the branching of a sensory axon. (Figure text: cord, sensory neurone, motor neurone)]

Thus the nerve current from a single sensory neurone is distributed to quite a number of motor neurones. Where there are central neurones in the arc, their branching axons aid in distributing the excitation; and so we get a big movement in response to a minute, though intense stimulus.

But the response is not simply big; it is definite, coordinated, representing team work on the part of the muscles as distinguished from indiscriminate ma.s.s action. That means selective distribution of the nerve current. The axons of the sensory and central neurones do not connect with any and every motor neurone indiscriminately, but link up with selected groups of motor neurones, and thus harness together teams that will work in definite ways, producing {39} flexion of a limb in the case of one such team, and extension in the case of another. Every reflex has its own team of motor neurones, harnessed together by its outfit of sensory and central neurones. The same motor neurone may however be harnessed into two or more such teams, as is seen from the fact that the same muscle may partic.i.p.ate in different reflex movements; and for a similar reason we believe that the same sensory neurone may be utilized in more than one reflex arc.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 11.--Coordination brought about by the branching of the axon of a central neurone. (Figure text: sensory, central, motor)]

The most distinctive part of any reflex arc is likely to be its central neurones, which are believed to play the chief part in coordination, and in determining the peculiarities of any given reflex, such as its speed and rhythm of action.

Reactions in General

Though the reflex is simple by comparison with voluntary movements, it is not the simplest animal reaction, for it is coordinated and depends on the nervous system, while the simplest animals, one-celled animals, have no nervous system, any more than they have muscles or organs of any {40} kind. Without possessing separate organs for the different vital functions, these little creatures do nevertheless take in and digest food, reproduce their kind, and move. Every animal shows at least two different motor reactions, a positive or approaching reaction, and a negative or avoiding reaction.

The general notion of a reaction is that of a _response_ to a _stimulus_. The stimulus acts on the organism and the organism acts back. If I am struck by a wave and rolled over on the beach, that is pa.s.sive motion and not my reaction; but if the wave stimulates me to maintain my footing, then I am active, I respond or react.

Now there is no such thing as wholly pa.s.sive motion. Did not Newton teach that "action and reaction are equal"?--and he was thinking of stones and other inanimate objects. The motion of a stone or ball depends on its own weight and shape and elasticity as much as on the blow it receives. Even the stone counts for something in determining its own behavior.

A loaded gun counts for more than a stone, because of the stored energy of the powder that is set free by the blow of the hammer. The "reaction" of the gun is greater than the force acting on it, because of this stored energy that is discharged.

An animal reaction resembles the discharge of the gun, since there is stored energy in the animal, consisting in the chemical attraction between food absorbed and oxygen inspired, and some of this energy is utilized and converted into motion when the animal reacts. The stimulus, like the trigger of the gun, simply releases this stored energy.

The organism, animal or human, fully obeys the law of conservation of energy, all the energy it puts out being accounted for by stored energy it has taken in in food and oxygen. But at any one time, when the organism receives {41} a stimulus, the energy that it puts forth in reaction comes from inside itself.

There is another way in which the organism counts in determining its reaction. Not only does it supply the energy of the response, but its own internal arrangements determine how that energy shall be directed.

That is to say, the organism does not blow up indiscriminately, like a charge of dynamite, but makes some definite movement. This is true even of the simplest animals, and the more elaborate the internal mechanism of the animal, the more the animal itself has to do with the kind of response it shall make to a stimulus. The nervous system of the higher animals, by the connections it provides between the stimulus and the stores of energy in the muscles, is of especial importance in determining the nature of the response.

Stimuli are necessary to arouse the activity of the organism. Without any stimulus whatever, it seems likely that the animal would relapse into total inactivity. It should be said, however, that stimuli, such as that of hunger, may arise within the organism itself. The stimulus may be external or internal, but some stimulus is necessary in order to release the stored energy.

In general, then, a reaction consists in the release by a stimulus of some of the stored energy of an animal, and the direction of that energy by the animal's own internal mechanism of nerves and muscles (and, we may add, bones and sinews) into the form of some definite response.