Chapter 46 Lecture Enrichment Ideas
Describe why the development of a more complex nervous system would have been advantageous to some animals early in their evolution.
Query students on why cephalization (development of a head with concentrated nervous tissue) would evolve.
Detail the advantages of segmental ganglia in annelids and arthropods.
Describe how myelination makes the electrical transmission of nervous impulses more rapid.
Discuss how the somatic system has motor functions that deal with skeletal muscles, while the autonomic system's motor neurons cause the contraction of smooth or cardiac muscle and effect the release of glandular secretions.
Sometimes researchers refer to the various layers of the brain as the "reptilian brain," etc.
Ask students why a linkage of emotions to memory would be an evolutionary advantage, as perhaps in the case of remembering how one successfully evaded a predator.
Our understanding of the functioning of the brain is advancing on a month-by-month basis in this "decade of the brain" as PET scans and other techniques allow us to make great advances in understanding brain function. Therefore, it is likely that some of the concepts explained here will be modified and refined during use of this textbook. However, this research will foster news stories, which can also be brought in for class discussion.
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