Nervous System Meninges
The nervous system review for that national exam for massage therapists. What is the brain and spinal cord if you compare it to the computer its the Central Processing Unit and the wires that run to all the supporting peripherals. If you look at it that way the brain and spinal cord are the same only made of carbon and organic materials and use chemicals instead of electricity to communicate and in some ways actually use electricity to communicate just in a much lower level that was the average computer uses today.
So just like any computer out there it needs to be protected from the elements. The human brain and spinal cord has just such a membrane it’s called the meninges. The meninges are protective membranes that cover the brain and the spinal cord. The brainstem is made up of the medulla oblongata, the pons and the mid brain. The brain stem reflex centers are found in the brain stem itself, the structures of the brain stem are the medulla oblongata, the pons, and mid brain. The medulla oblongata is the upward extension of the spinal cord that consists of gray and white matter of the brain.
The Vital centers of the brain which can also be called the reflex centers of the brain are the cardiac, respiratory, vasomotor, blood vessel diameter constructs which are important for regulating blood pressure. The reticular formation acts like a filter for the brain and assists in the subjects ability to focus attention on a single item of importance, otherwise the subject would be bombarded with information overload from the sensory neurons of the body.
The diencephalon the portion of the Brain that consists of the hypothalamus and the thalamus. The diencephalon controls the internal organs and helps to maintain body temperature. The hypothalamus is the structure that is below the thalamus. The hypothalamus is the major controller over the internal organs, it controls the heart beat, constriction and dilation of blood vessels, contractions of stomach and intestines. The hypothalamus also helps control the functioning of every cell in the body and maintains the body temperature, water balance and sleep cycles that we experience everyday. The hypothalamus also controls appetite and emotions or pleasure, fear, anger, sexual arousal and pain.
The thalamus is a dumbbell shaped section of gray matter directly above the hypothalamus in the brain. The thalamus helps produce the sensations from impulses associates sensation with emotions. The equation could be derived as emotion plus sensory input is equal to memory. The thalamus also serves as an alert mechanism.
