Today I briefly went over The Nervous System and Endocrine System.  Please use the handout I gave you to HIGHLIGHT key words we reviewed.  You will have a quiz on Thursday on the following:

Neural Communication Quiz – You will need to review the following terminology/concepts.

• Action Potential
• Synapse
• Dendrites
• Axon
• Cell body
• Myelin Sheath
• NT (Neurotransmitters)
• Hormone
• ACH
• Nervous system and Endocrine (there will be 2 possible questions so only focus on your handout I gave you today on the terms we went over)
• All or None response
• Chart on Neurotransmitters (know the chart I gave you- dopamine, serotonin…)
• FRQ question:  Be able to explain how information travels in the nervous system, both within neurons and between neurons.

UPDATE ON MOVIE- AWAKENINGS

**I am giving you an option (bonus) to watch this movie and pick only ONE question to respond to on the blog.  We watched some parts of it today but you will need to watch the remainder on your own time due to time as I need to move on for next class.  This DVD is in our school library.  If you would like to sign it out and watch it.  I will leave this assignment as a bonus for term 1.  The post can be done by the end of term! You may want to get together with a few students and sign out the DVD and watch the movie.  It’s excellent and relates well to this unit.  Please see me if you have questions.

What is L-Dopa?

Note: Antagonist Molecule- this blocks the NT’s functioning.  In the movie they refer to L-Dopa.  In order for drugs to have  an effect on the body, there must be an accompanying receptor site on a neuron that matches the structure of that drug.  So the body produces natural chemical substances that are similar to many of the drugs that affect the body.  When we introduce drugs into our bodies, we are either increasing the amount of substances in the body or blocking substances that are suppose to work in a specific way.

But not all substances can pass through the body’s blood brain barrier which protects the brain from pathogens and harmful substances.  For example- Parkinson’s patients cannot simply take dopamine to alleviate their symptoms . they must take a precursor of dopamine called L-dopa that will metabolize into dopamine once it reaches the brain.

Next Class – THE BRAIN

Quiz (25 minutes)

THE BRAIN using IPAD app- learning about different parts of the brain and functions.  Discussion about the Teenage Brain

Interesting read”http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/09/the-teen-brain.html

http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/health-and-human-body/human-body/brain-article/