Transmission of Signals Glial Cells & Ependymal Cells
Choose two (2) of the eight topics to write an essay that you feels best answers the topic from what you have learned in class and read in the book. This isn’t an English class so remember to use correct APA or MLA formatting for citations and references as well as correct grammar and punctuation.Essays will be graded for originality also. If you copy and paste without citing sources, or you copy paste and cite most of the information, the instructor reserves the right to issue a zero for the essay or the entire test. Please share your thoughts, and give credit to sources.
1. Why do we have such darn big brains? Discuss the evolutionary advantages and disadvantages of our egg-headedness with reference to specific structures of the brain and their functions as understood at this time by neuroscientists.
2. Glial cells are the “unsung heroes” of the nervous system. Discuss the general functions of this nerve cell, and identify the major types along with the role each plays in the central and peripheral nervous systems. Identify one disease process that affects glia detrimentally and describe the consequences of the disease along with treatment (if it exists.)
3. Choose one legal or illegal drug of abuse and use its effects to discuss either:
– the process of communication between neurons, with special attention to synaptic transmission
OR
– the anatomy and functioning of the central nervous system, with special attention to the interaction between the “reward system” and the higher cortical levels of the brain.
4. Describe a study in neuroscience that utilized deliberate damage to the brain OR a case study in neuroscience based upon the consequences of accidental damage to the brain of a human being. What were the results of the damage? What was learned about the nervous system from this study or case? After reviewing less invasive methods available to scientists, propose a different, non-injurious way to study the same processes – unless you think it is not possible to do so, in which case please explain why.
5. 40% of your brain is devoted to the sensing and perception of visual stimuli. Describe the structures in the nervous system that make visual processing possible. Discuss the significance of the Nobel Prize-winning of research of Hubel and Wiesel. Describe one type of case of central nervous system damage that affected visual processing and what has been learned about vision from that case.
