CH 12

COORDINATION
AND RESPONSE
12.1 THE HUMAN
NERVOUS SYSTEM
 12.1 THE HUMAN
NERVOUS SYSTEM
• Change in an organism’s environment is known as stimuli & are
sensed by specialized cells known as receptors
• The organisms respond using effectors. Muscles are effectors
& may respond to a stimulus by contracting. Glands can also be
effectors. For example if you smell good food your salivary
glands may respond by secreting saliva
• To make sure that the right effectors and receptors react at the
right time we need a good communication system

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 12.1 THE HUMAN
NERVOUS SYSTEM
• For example when something hot is touched your pain receptors in your
fingertips send an electrical impulse to your arm muscles to contract and pull
away the hand from the hot surface

• The way in which the receptors detect stimuli & then pass information on to
effectors, is called coordination
• There are 2 methods of sending electrical impulses

• The fastest is by the means of nerves. The receptors and nerves make up the
Animal Nervous System
• A slower method but important is by the means of chemicals called
hormones. Hormones are a part of endocrine system

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12.1 THE HUMAN NERVOUS SYSTEM

NEURONS

• The human nervous system is made up of

specialized cells called neurons
1. Figure 12.1 shows a motor neuron
2. Neurons contain the same basic parts
as any animal cells
3. Neurons contain the same basic parts
as any animal cell
4. Each has a nucleus, cytoplasm & cell
membrane
5. Their structure is adapted to be able to
carry electrical signals very quickly
6. To enable them to do this they have a
long thin, fibres of cytoplasm stretching
out from the cell body

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NEURONS
MYELIN

• Some of the nerve fibres of active animals such as

mammals are wrapped in a layer of fat & protein
called myelin
• Every now & then there are narrow gaps in this
myelin sheath
• We have seen that the signals that neurons transmits
are in the form of electrical impulses
• Myelin insulates the nerve fibres so that they can
carry these impulses much faster

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NEURONS
MYELIN

• For example a myelinated nerve fibre in a cat’s body can

carry impulses at up to 100 meters per second
• A fibre without myelin can only carry impulses at about
5m/s

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 THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM
• There are 2 types of nervous system all mammals have & they are Peripheral Nervous System &
Central Nervous System

❑ The PNS is made of nerves that ❑ The CNS is made up of brain & spinal
spread out from CNS cord
❑ Each nerve contains hundreds of ❑ The CNS is made up of neurons just
neurons like the rest of the nervous system
❑ It also includes the receptors in our ❑ It coordinates the electrical impulses
sense organs travelling through the nervous system
HOW DO IMPULSES TRAVEL?

• Receptor detected a stimulus

• Receptor sends an electrical impulse along the neuron
to brain or spinal cord
• The brain or spinal cord receives the impulse & sends it to
the appropriate nerve fibers to the appropriate effector

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 REFLEX ARCS
➢ The pathway along which the nerve impulses passes the sensory
neuron relay neurons & motor neuron is called a reflex arc

• Example of touching a hot plate:

• Hot plate touched
• Sensory receptor in finger detected it
• Receptor sends off an electrical impulse which travels to spinal
cord along axon from the receptor cell
• This cell is Sensory Neuron because the impulse is from the
sensory receptor
• There are other neurons present in the spinal cord & they are
known as Relay Neurons
• The reason is because they relay the impulse to other neurons
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 REFLEX ARCS

• Example of touching a hot plate:

• They pass this impulse to the brain
• Also passed it to the motor neuron to pass it to an effector
• The muscles in your arms are the effectors
• The electrical impulse travels to the muscle along the axon of a
motor neuron
• The muscle then contracts so that your hand is pulled away

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THE DIFFERENT
TYPES OF NEURONS
INVOLVED IN THE
PASSING OF THE
ELECTRICAL
IMPULSES HAVE
DIFFERENT SHAPES.
REFLEX ARCS

• The reaction that happens after he impulse has sped

around the reflex arc is called a reflex action
• Another example of sending electrical impulses is the
example of the response in the iris to changes in light
intensity

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 SYNAPSES

• The 3 neurons involved in the reflex arc do not quite connect

to each other
• There is a small gap between each pair
• These gaps are known as synaptic gaps
• The ends of the 2 neurons on either side of the gap plus the
gap itself is known as the synapse
• Inside the sensory neurons’ axon are hundreds of tiny
vacuoles, or vesicles
• These each contain huge numbers of molecules of a chemical
called a neurotransmitter

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SYNAPSES
When an electrical impulse arrives along the axon of the sensory
neuron it causes these vesicles to move to the cell membrane of the
neuron
They fuse with the membrane of & empty their contents-the
neurotransmitter molecules-into the synaptic gap
The neurotransmitter quickly diffuses across the tiny gap
The molecules of the neurotransmitter attach to the receptor proteins
in the cell membrane of the relay neuron

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12.2 SENSE ORGANS
12.2 SENSE ORGANS

• In animals the receptors are often apart of a sense organ

• A sense organ is a group of receptor cells that respond to
a particular stimulus
• The retina, a sense organ in your eyes, contains receptor
cells which are sensitive to light

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THE STRUCTURE OF THE
EYE
• The part of the eye that contains the receptor cells is the retina
• This part is which is actually sensitive to light
• The rest of they eye protects the retina
• Each eye is in a bony socket in the skull which protects the eye
• Only the front of they eye is not surrounded by the bone
• The eye is filled with a fluid which keeps the eye in shape
• The eye is always kept moist by a fluid made in tear glands and
containing an enzyme known as lysozome which can kill the bacteria
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THE RETINA

• Present at the back of the eye

• Receptor cells present here

• Impulse sent to brain when receptor cell detects light falling on the retina

• Impulses used to by brain from each receptor cell to build an image

• Some of these cells are sensitive to light of different colors, enabling us to

see images of different colors

• No receptor cells present in the optic nerve which is known as blind spot

• No impulses sent to brain if light falls here

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 RODS AND CONES
• Part of the retina where receptor cells are mostly close together known as fovea
• Light is focused on this part of retina when you look straight an object
• 2 kinds of receptor cells present in the retina
• Rods & Cones

RODS CONES
➢ Quite sensitive to dim light ➢ Able to distinguish between different colors

➢ don’t respond to color ➢ Only function in bright light

➢ Allows us to see in dim light but only ➢ Gives us color vision

in black & white
➢ Tightly packed together
➢ Less tightly packed
➢ Produce sharp image
➢ Shows us less detailed images
➢ Found in fovea usually
➢ Present in retina mostly
➢ Sensitive to different colors red, blue & green
light

➢ 3 different kinds (mentioned above)

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THE IRIS
• Front of the lens is the a circular piece of tissue known as
iris
• Colored part of eye
• Contains pigments, absorb light & stop it passing through
• Middle of iris is a gap known as pupil:
1. Pupil’s size can be adjusted
2. Wider the pupil more light can go into the retina

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 THE IRIS
In High Light Intensity In Low Light Intensity

❖ Iris closes in ❖ Iris pulls back

❖ Pupil becomes small ❖ Making the pupil become larger
❖ Stops too much light entering in & ❖ Allows more light to reach retina
damaging the retina

• Iris contains muscles to allow the adjustment of pupil’s size

Circular Muscles Radial Muscles

❖ Arranged in circles around pupil ❖ Run outwards the edge of pupil

❖ When they contract the pupil becomes ❖ When they contract the pupil dilates or
smaller becomes larger
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THE IRIS
• This is called the pupil reflex or iris reflex
• The circular muscles are known as
antagonistic muscles
• They work together to control an action
• Explanation can include when one muscle
contracts the other relaxes

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THE IRIS
• These responses are more examples of a reflex action
• The response of the iris to light intensity is fast &
automatic
• This is also advantageous:
1. prevents damage to retina that could be
caused by very bright light falling onto it

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FOCUSING LIGHT

• For the brain to see a clear image there must be a clear

image focused on the retina
• To focus exactly onto the retina the light rays must be bent
which is known as refraction
• Cornea does the most refraction of the light entering the eye
• Fine adjustments are done by lens
• Cornea & lens focus the light onto the retina
• Image is upside down for the retina
• The brain interprets it so that we see the right thing

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ADJUSTING THE FOCUS
• Not all rays bend only onto the retina in same
amount
• The light rays diverges slightly from a distance
• They don’t need much bending
• Light rays coming from a nearby object are
going away from one another or diverging
• They need to be bent inwards quite strongly
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 ADJUSTING THE FOCUS
• The shape of the lens is altered to make it bend light rays by different amounts

▪ The thicker the lens the more it bends ▪ The thinner the lens the less it bends
the light rays them

• This adjustment in the shape of lens to focus light coming from different distances is
called accommodation
• The lens is held in position by a ring of suspensory ligaments
• The tension on the suspensory ligaments & thus the shape of lens is altered by the
means of ciliary muscles

▪ When this muscle contracts the ▪ When it relaxes they are pulled tight
suspensory ligaments are loosened ▪ When they are loosened the lens gets
thicker
▪ When they are tight the lens is pulled thin
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12.3 HORMONES
 Gland Hormone that it Function of
HORMONES secretes hormones
Animals also use chemicals to transmit information from one
•
part of the body to another known as hormones
Adrenal gland Adrenaline Prepares body for
• They are made in special glands called endocrine glands
vigorous action
• The glands pass the hormones into the blood & are carried
around the body in the blood plasma Pancreas Insulin Reduces the
• Each hormone has a particular organ that it affects target
concentration of
organs glucose in the blood
• The hormone alters the activity of these target organs

Glucagon Increases the

concentration of
glucose in the blood

Testis Testosterone Causes the

development of male
secondary sexual
characteristics
Ovary Oestrogen Causes the
development of
female secondary
sexual characteristics
& helps in control of
the menstrual cycle
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ADRENALINE
• 2 adrenal glands above each kidney
• Make a hormone called adrenaline
• When you have emotions like excitement, frightened
your brain sends impulses along a nerve to your
adrenal gland
• This makes them secrete adrenaline into the blood

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Nervous System Endocrine System
Made up of neurons Made up of glands
Information transmitted in the form of electrical impulses Information transmitted in the form of chemicals called
hormones
Impulses transmitted along neurons Chemicals carried in the blood plasma
Impulses travel very quickly Chemicals travel more slowly, so action is slower
, so action fast
Effect of a nerve impulse usually only lasts for a very Effect of a hormone may last longer
short time

ADRENALINE
• Adrenaline has several effects that help you to cope up with danger
• Examples could include faster heart beats which supply oxygen to your brain & muscles more
quickly
• When running breathing rate increases so more oxygen enters blood in lungs
• Adrenaline also causes the pupil widen
• Allowing us to see the danger more clearly
• It causes the liver to release glucose into the blood
• This extra glucose for the muscles along with the increased breathing & heart rate allows the
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muscles to increase their metabolic activity
12.4 COORDINATION IN
PLANTS
COORDINATION IN
PLANTS

• In general plants respond to stimuli by changing their rate

or direction of growth
• They may grow either towards or away from the stimulus
• Growth towards a stimulus means positive response &
away is negative. These growth responses are known as
tropisms
• 2 important stimuli for plants are light & gravity
• Growth responses to light are called phototropism
• Growth responses to gravity are called gravitropism

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 COORDINATION IN PLANTS
Shoot Root
✓ normally grow towards light ✓ don’t usually grow towards light
✓ positively phototropic ✓ Negatively phototropic
✓ Generally grow away from the pull of gravity ✓ Generally grow towards the pull of gravity
✓ Negatively gravitropic ✓ Positively gravitropic
✓ Must grow upwards ✓ Need to grow downwards
✓ Away from gravity ✓ Away from light
✓ Towards light so leaves are held up in the air ✓ Into soil to anchor the plant in soil
✓ The more light the better they can ✓ absorb H2O & more minerals from b/w the
photosynthesize soil particles

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 AUXIN
• Plants use chemicals to transfer information between one part of
their body to another
• They are sometimes called plant hormones
• One important plant hormone is auxin:
o Made all the time by cells in the tip’s shoot
o Diffuses downwards from the tip into the rest of the shoot
o Makes cells behind the tip elongate (get longer)
o The more the auxin the faster they elongate
o Tips will not grow without it

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 AUXIN
o When light is shined onto a shoot from all around auxin is distributed
evenly around the tip of shoot
o The cells all elongate at the same rate so the shoot grows straight
upwards
o But when light shines onto a shoot from one side the auxin at the tip
concentrates on the shady side
o This makes the cells on the shady side grow faster than the ones on
the bright sides so the shoot bends towards the light
o This is how it controls the positive phototropism in shoots
o Also helps to control gravitropism
o The cells on the side therefore elongate faster than the ones on the
upper surface
o So the shoot bends upwards as it grows
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Key words

Stimuli: changes in environment that can be detected by organisms

Receptors: cells or groups of cells that can detect stimuli

Effectors: parts of the body that respond to a stimulus; muscles & glands are effectors
Coordination: ensuring that the actions of different parts of the body work together

Nerve: a group of neuron axons lying together

CNS: the brain & the spinal cord

PNS: the nerves outside the brain & spinal cord

Sensory neuron: a neuron that transmits electrical impulses from a receptor to the cns

Relay neuron: a neuron that transmits electrical impulses within the cns
Reflex arc: a series of neurons that transmit electrical impulses from a receptor to an effector

Reflex action: a means of automatically & rapidly integrating & coordinating stimuli with the responses of effectors
Vesicle: a very small vacuole
Neurotransmitter: a chemical stored in vesicles at the end of neurons which can be released to diffuse across the
synaptic gap & set up an electrical impulse in the next neuron
Synaptic gap: a tiny gap between 2 neurons at a synapse
Synapse: a junction between 2 neurons 38
Key words

Receptor proteins: proteins on the membrane of the 2nd neuron at a synapse which has a complementary shape to
the molecules of neurotransmitter

Sense organ: a group of receptor cells that are able to respond to a specific stimulus
Retina: a tissue at the back of the eye that contains receptor cells that respond to light

Optic nerve: the nerve that carries electrical impulses from the retina to the brain
Blind spot: the part of the retina where the optic nerve leaves & where there are no receptor molecules

fovea: the part of the retina where cone cells are very tightly packed; this is where light is focused when you look
directly at an object
Rods: receptor cells in the retina that respond to dim light but do not detect color
Cones: receptor cells in the neuron that are sensitive to light of different colors but only function in bright light
Iris: the colored part of the eye it contains muscles that can alter the size of the pupil

Iris reflex/ pupil reflex: an automatic response to a charge in light intensity the receptors are in the retina & the
effector is the muscle in the iris
Antagonistic muscles: a pair of muscles whose contraction has opposite effects; when one contracts the other
relaxes
Refraction: bending light rays
Cornea: a transparent layer near the front of the eye which refracts light rays entering the eye 39
Key words

Accommodation: changing the shape of the lens to focus on objects at different distances from the eye
Suspensory Ligaments: strong, inelastic fibers that hold the lens in position; when they are under tension, they pull
the lens into a thinner position
Ciliary Muscles: a circle of muscle surrounding the lens & joined to it by the suspensory ligaments; when it
contracts, it slackens the ligaments so that the lens become fatter

Hormones: chemicals that are produced by a gland & carried in the blood which alter the activities of their specific
target organs
Endocrine glands: glands that secrete hormones
Target organs: organs whose activity is altered by a hormone
Adrenaline: a hormone secreted by the adrenal glands, which prepares the body for the response known as ‘fight or
flight’
Tropism: a growth response by a plant in which the direction of growth is related to the direction of the stimulus
Phototropism: a response in which part of a plant grows towards or away from the direction from which light is
coming
Gravitropism: a response in which part of a plant grows towards or away from gravity
Auxin: a plant hormone made in the tips of shoots which causes cells to elongate

Note: Summary upcoming next important to read!

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END OF CHAPTER
IGCSE
0610

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