Autonomic Nervous System Flashcards, test questions and answers
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What is Autonomic Nervous System?
The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is a system of nerves located within the body which regulates and controls many automatic functions of the body such as heart rate, digestion, respiration, and more. The ANS plays an important role in maintaining homeostasis or balance in the body. It is divided into two parts – the sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system stimulates fight-or-flight responses while the parasympathetic nervous system helps to return processes back to normal after a stressful event has passed. The ANS consists of pathways made up of neurons that connect to organs throughout the body such as blood vessels, digestive tract muscles, glands, heart muscle cells, etc. These pathways are responsible for sending signals from one part of the body to another in order to control various bodily functions such as decreasing or increasing heart rate according to environmental stimuli. For example if you were running away from danger your heartbeat would increase due to stimulation from your sympathetic nervous system whereas when you stop running your parasympathetic response will help slow down your heartbeat again by releasing neurotransmitters like acetylcholine onto cardiac muscle cells causing them contract slower thus reducing your heart rate back to normal levels. By using both its motor and sensory neurons, The autonomic nervous system helps regulate certain physiological processes without conscious thought or effort on our part; allowing us perform physical activities without having think about them first e.g breathing during exercise can be regulated by this unconscious process so we don’t have consciously remember take breaths every few seconds. Therefore it could be said that overall this intricate network ensures efficient functioning of our internal organs with little input needed from us directly making life much simpler.