The Brain Phineas Gage 1823 1860 Take out

The Brain

Phineas Gage (1823 -1860)

Take out your Brain notes from last class

Blood Cells Fat Cells Muscle Cells

Neuron (Brain Cell)

Dendrite Soma (cell body) Axon Myelin Axon terminal

Synapse

Flex your bicep muscle!

Neuron Telephone 1. Make a line 2. The first student is a decision-making neuron in the brain that chooses an appropriate action. 3. Neurons only send messages across short distances and only in one direction. Each neuron must whisper it to the next neuron in line without asking for a repeat. 4. The last student, the “effector” (the muscle), performs the action. 5. The “effector” rotates to the front of the line and becomes the new decision-making neuron. 6. Rotate until each student gets to play each role.

• In the telephone game, what represents a neuron, muscle, dendrite, axon terminal, and the neurotransmitters (the chemical message being passed across the synapse)? Label these on the stick figure diagram.

Reflection Questions 1. How well did your group get each message clearly down the line? Did any messages get lost or changed before it reached the end of the line? 2. What would happen if a real neuron received the wrong message or didn’t receive the message at all? 3. If we played this telephone game to send a message all the way to the Main Office (in the A building), how many student neurons do you think it would take? How much time do you think it would take? 4. How do real neurons solve this problem when sending messages to far away parts of the body? (How does its STRUCTURE support its FUNCTION? )