Topic : Central Nervous System

Name : Raheem Fatima

Roll number : 24010521-039
Program : Doctor of pharmacy
Submitted to : Ma’am Aneeka Sarwar
Date : 6-12-2024
 Content
Page no
 System Central Nervous

1. Structure of CNS

The brain
 Spinal cord

2. Functions
3. Protective mechanism
4. Disorders and diseases
5. Neuroplasticity
6. Conclusion
Introduction:
The CNS is the processing centre of the body and consists of the brain and the spinal
cord. Both of these are protected by three layers of membranes known as meninges.
For further protection, the brain is encased within the hard bones of the skull, while the
spinal cord is protected with the bony vertebrae of our backbones.

A third form of protection is cerebrospinal fluid, which provides a buffer that limits
impact between the brain and skull or between spinal cord and vertebrae. The human
brain is incredibly compact, weighing just 3 pounds. It has many folds and grooves,
though. These give it the added surface area needed for storing the body's important
information.

The spinal cord is a long bundle of nerve tissue about 18 inches long and 1/2-inch thick.
It extends from the lower part of the brain down through spine. Along the way, nerves
branch out to the entire body.

Define
Brain :
The brain is the most complex organ in the human body; the cerebral cortex
(the outermost part of the brain and the largest part by volume) contains an
estimated 15–33 billion neurons, each of which is connected to thousands of
other neurons.In total, around 100 billion neurons and 1,000 billion glial
(support) cells make up the human brain. Our brain uses around 20% of our
body’s total energy.

The brain has three main sections: the forebrain, the midbrain, and the hindbrain.

The Forebrain

The forebrain is the largest and most complex part of the brain. It consists of the cerebrum — the
area with all the folds and grooves typically seen in pictures of the brain — as well as other
structures under it.

The cerebrum contains the information that essentially makes you who you are: your
intelligence, memory, personality, emotion, speech, and ability to feel and move. Specific areas
of the cerebrum are in charge of processing these different types of information. These are called
lobes, and there are four of them: the frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes.

The cerebrum has right and left halves, called hemispheres. They're connected in the middle by a
band of nerve fibers (the corpus callosum) that lets them communicate. These halves may look
like mirror images of each other, but many scientists believe they have different functions:
  The left side is considered the logical, analytical, objective side.
 The right side is thought to be more intuitive, creative, and subjective.

So when you're balancing your checkbook, you're using the left side. When you're listening to
music, you're using the right side. It's believed that some people are more "right-brained" or
"left-brained" while others are more "whole-brained," meaning they use both halves of their
brain to the same degree.

The outer layer of the cerebrum is called the cortex (also known as "gray matter"). Information
collected by the five senses comes into the brain to the cortex. This information is then directed
to other parts of the nervous system for further processing. For example, when you touch the hot
stove, not only does a message go out to move your hand, but one also goes to another part of the
brain to help you remember not to do that again.

In the inner part of the forebrain sits the thalamus, hypothalamus, and pituitary gland :

 The thalamus carries messages from the sensory organs like the eyes, ears, nose, and
fingers to the cortex.
 The hypothalamus controls your pulse, thirst, appetite, sleep patterns, and other processes
in your body that happen automatically.
 The hypothalamus also controls the pituitary gland, which makes the hormones that
control growth, metabolism, water and mineral balance, sexual maturity, and response to
stress.

The Midbrain

The midbrain, underneath the middle of the forebrain, acts as a master coordinator for all the
messages going in and out of the brain to the spinal cord.

The Hindbrain

The hindbrain sits underneath the back end of the cerebrum. It consists of the cerebellum, pons,
and medulla. The cerebellum — also called the "little brain" because it looks like a small
version of the cerebrum — is responsible for balance, movement, and coordination.

The pons and the medulla, along with the midbrain, are often called the brainstem. The
brainstem takes in, sends out, and coordinates the brain's messages. It also controls many of the
body's automatic functions, like breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, swallowing, digestion, and
blinking.

How Does the Nervous System Work?

The basic workings of the nervous system depend a lot on tiny cells called neurons. The brain
has billions of them, and they have many specialized jobs. For example, sensory neurons send
information from the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin to the brain. Motor neurons carry
messages away from the brain to the rest of the body.
All neurons relay information to each other through a complex electrochemical process, making
connections that affect the way you think, learn, move, and behave.

Intelligence, learning, and memory. As you grow and learn, messages travel from one neuron
to another over and over, creating connections, or pathways, in the brain. It's why driving takes
so much concentration when someone first learns it, but later is second nature: The pathway
became established.

In young children, the brain is highly adaptable. In fact, when one part of a young child's brain is
injured, another part often can learn to take over some of the lost function. But as you age, the
brain has to work harder to make new neural pathways, making it harder to master new tasks or
change set behavior patterns. That's why many scientists believe it's important to keep
challenging the brain to learn new things and make new connections — it helps keeps the brain
active over the course of a lifetime.

Memory is another complex function of the brain. The things you've done, learned, and seen are
first processed in the cortex. Then, if you sense that this information is important enough to
remember permanently, it's passed inward to other regions of the brain (such as the hippocampus
and amygdala) for long-term storage and retrieval. As these messages travel through the brain,
they too create pathways that serve as the basis of memory.

Movement. Different parts of the cerebrum move different body parts. The left side of the brain
controls the movements of the right side of the body, and the right side of the brain controls the
movements of the left side of the body. When you press your car's accelerator with your right
foot, for example, it's the left side of your brain that sends the message allowing you to do it.

Basic body functions. A part of the peripheral nervous system called the autonomic nervous
system controls many of the body processes you almost never need to think about, like
breathing, digestion, sweating, and shivering. The autonomic nervous system has two parts: the
sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.

The sympathetic nervous system prepares the body for sudden stress, like if you witness a
robbery. When something frightening happens, the sympathetic nervous system makes the heart
beat faster so that it sends blood quickly to the different body parts that might need it. It also
causes the adrenal glands at the top of the kidneys to release adrenaline, a hormone that helps
give extra power to the muscles for a quick getaway. This process is known as the body's "fight
or flight" response.

The parasympathetic nervous system does the opposite: It prepares the body for rest. It also
helps the digestive tract move along so our bodies can efficiently take in nutrients from the food
we eat.

The Senses

Sight. Sight probably tells us more about the world than any other sense. Light entering
the eye forms an upside-down image on the retina. The retina transforms the light into nerve
signals for the brain. The brain then turns the image right-side up and tells you what you're
seeing.

Hearing. Every sound you hear is the result of sound waves entering your ears and making your
eardrums vibrate. These vibrations then move along the tiny bones of the middle ear and turn
into nerve signals. The cortex then processes these signals, telling you what you're hearing.

Taste. The tongue contains small groups of sensory cells called taste buds that react to chemicals
in foods. Taste buds react to sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savory. The taste buds send messages
to the areas in the cortex responsible for processing taste.

Smell. Olfactory cells in the mucous membranes lining each nostril react to chemicals you
breathe in and send messages along specific nerves to the brain.

Touch. The skin contains millions of sensory receptors that gather information related to touch,
pressure, temperature, and pain and send it to the brain for processing and reaction.
It is a long pipe-like structure arising from the medulla oblongata, part of the brain
consisting of a collection of nerve fibres, running through the vertebral column of the
backbone. It is segmented with a pair of roots (dorsal and ventral roots) consisting of
nerve fibres joining to form the spinal nerves.

Table of Contents

 Structure
 Injuries
 Nerves
 Functions

Structure Of Spinal Cord

The Spinal cord runs through a hollow case from the skull enclosed within the vertebral
column. Spinal nerves arise from different regions of the vertebral column and are
named accordingly, the regions are – Neck, chest, pelvic and abdominal.

Cross-section of spinal cord displays grey matter shaped like a butterfly surrounded by
a white matter.

Grey matter consists of the central canal at the centre and is filled with a fluid called
CSF (Cerebrospinal fluid). It consists of horns (four projections) and forms the core
mainly containing neurons and cells of the CNS. There are two dorsal and two ventral
horns.

The white matter consists of a collection of axons permitting communication between

different layers of CNS. A tract is a collection of axons and carries specialized
information. Ascending tracts and descending tracts send and transmit signals from the
brain respectively to various nerve cells across the body.

Spinal nerves act as mediators, communicating information to and from the rest of the
body and the spinal cord. We have 31 pairs of spinal nerves.

Three layers of meninges surround the spinal cord and spinal nerve roots.

 Dura mater

 Arachnoid mater
  Pia mater

Dura mater consists of two layers- periosteal and meningeal. Epidural space is present
between the two layers.

Subarachnoid space lies between the arachnoid mater and pia mater. It is filled with
cerebrospinal fluid.

Spinal Cord Injuries

Damage to any part of the spinal cord or spinal nerves results in permanent and life-
long damage to the spinal cord affecting the normal functioning of the spinal cord
without any replacements.

It often causes long-term changes in the strength, body posture and reflexing of the
body. Voluntary control of limbs post an injury depends on the severity and location of
the injury.

One has a complete injury when he loses the ability to move or sense below the injury.
The incomplete injury allows the injured to perform some sensory and motor functions.

Spinal cord injury not only has an impact on the spinal nerves and the vertebral column
but affects other muscles and vital organs as well.

Paralysis from an injury can be of two types:

 Tetraplegic

 Paraplegic

Tetraplegia is a paralysis that results in total or partial loss of use of all four limbs and
torso.

Paraplegia, on the other hand, is similar to tetraplegia, except it doesn’t affect the arms.

These injuries result in the inability to voluntarily move limbs, lose sensation, delayed or
exaggerated reflexes, changes in sexual functions, intense shooting pain due to
damaged nerve fibres. It also causes shortness of breath, cough and muscle spasms.
 Neuroplasticity:

The term plasticity was first applied to behavior in 1890 by William James in The
Principles of Psychology where the term was used to describe "a structure weak
enough to yield to an influence, but strong enough not to yield all at once" The first
person to use the term neural plasticity appears to have been the Polish
neuroscientist Jerzy Konorski.

Neuroplasticity is the ability of neural networks in the brain to change

through growth and reorganization.Neuroplasticity, also known as neural
plasticity or just plasticity.

Neuroplasticity is the brain’s capacity to continue growing and

evolving in response to life experiences. Plasticity is the capacity
to be shaped, molded, or altered; neuroplasticity, then, is the
ability for the brain to adapt or change over time, by creating new
neurons and building new networks.
neuroplasticity, capacity of neurons and neural networks in the brain to
change their connections and behaviour in response to new information,
sensory stimulation, development, damage, or dysfunction. Although some
neural functions appear to be hard-wired in specific, localized regions of the
brain, certain neural networks exhibit modularity and carry out specific
functions while also retaining the capacity to deviate from their usual
functions and to reorganize themselves. Hence, neuroplasticity is
considered generally to be a complex, multifaceted, fundamental property
of the brain. (For more information about the anatomy and functions of the
brain and nervous system, see the article human nervous system.)
Hear neuroscientist Richard Haier speak about plasticity and debunk the Mozart effect,
the claim that IQ can be increased by listening to a Mozart sonataNeuroscientist Richard
Haier discusses plasticity and debunks the Mozart effect, the notion that human
intelligence can be improved by listening to classical music, especially works by
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.(more)
See all videos for this article
Rapid change or reorganization of the brain’s cellular or neural networks
can take place in many different forms and under many different
circumstances. Developmental plasticity occurs when neurons in the young
brain rapidly sprout branches and form synapses. Then, as the brain begins
to process sensory information, some of these synapses strengthen and
others weaken. Eventually, some unused synapses are eliminated
completely, a process known as synaptic pruning, which leaves behind
efficient networks of neural connections. Other forms of neuroplasticity
operate by much the same mechanism but under different circumstances
and sometimes only to a limited extent. These circumstances include
changes in the body, such as the loss of a limb or sense organ, that
subsequently alter the balance of sensory activity received by the brain. In
addition, neuroplasticity is employed by the brain during
the reinforcement of sensory information through experience, such as
in learning and memory, and following actual physical damage to the brain
(e.g., caused by stroke), when the brain attempts to compensate for lost
activity.

The same brain mechanisms—adjustments in the strength or the number of

synapses between neurons—operate in all these situations. Sometimes this
happens naturally, which can result in positive or negative reorganization,
but other times behavioral techniques or brain-machine interfaces can be
used to harness the power of neuroplasticity for therapeutic purposes. In
some cases, such as stroke recovery, natural adult neurogenesis can also
play a role. As a result, neurogenesis has spurred an interest in stem
cell research, which could lead to an enhancement of neurogenesis in adults
who suffer from stroke, Alzheimer disease, Parkinson disease,
or depression. Research suggests that Alzheimer disease in particular is
associated with a marked decline in neurogenesis.
How neuroplasticity occurs
Neuroplasticity can allow the brain to recover, at least to some extent, from strokes and traumatic
injuries. If there’s sensory system damage, the brain may be able to find a workaround solution
or enhance functioning in another sensory system.

There are two broad types of neuroplasticity, structural and functional. It can involve neurons as
well as other types of cells in the brain’s support structure.

Structural neuroplasticity can involve the creation of new synaptic connections between nerves.
New connections are strengthened through repeated activation, and researchers have suggested
that this may be related to an increase in neurotransmitter receptors. It’s not yet clear whether
neurogenesis (the creation of new neurons) occurs in adult humans or not; the olfactory bulb and
hippocampus have been suggested as regions where this may occur.

Functional neuroplasticity involves the brain reorganizing to use different neural circuits to
compensate for a loss of function in a particular area. This can happen through shifting functions
over to the other hemisphere of the brain or to circuits that originally served a different purpose.
Functions: