Emma-Nervous+System


 * The Nervous System in Relation to Heat Stress:**

The nervous system regulates and coordinates the activities of all the other systems. It uses receptors to respond quickly to thermal and external stimuli, including heat. Specefically, the nervous system works by issueing commands by electrochemical signals that are quickly transmitted to effector organs, which can be muscles, such as skeletol muscles, or glands, such as sweat and salivary glands. From this point the endocrine system begins to release hormones, which travel through the blood and fluids to reach their target. In relation to heat stress the body initially responds by sweating and by circulating blood closer to the skin's surface to lower the main body temperature. = Receptors

[|Nervous System Video] -The nervous system first recieves sensory input from sensory receptors in the skin and other organs that respond to external and internal stimuli by generating nerve impulses. These impulses travel from the Peripheral Nervous system, which consists of nerves, to the Central nervous system, i.e. the brain and spinal cord. Next, the Central nervous system performs integration and sums up all of the input it has received. The Central Nervous system is then ready to quickly send nerve impulses to the muscles and glands, by way of the peripheral nervous system.

Heat stress is the most commonly encountered stress on the body.Heat stress occurs when the body builds up more heat than it can handle. High temperatures, high humidity, sunlight, and heavy workloads increase the likelihood of heat stress. Too much heat can also make humans lose their concentration or become fatigued or irritable and thus increases the chance of accidents and injuries.

Sources: Textbook http://are.berkeley.edu/heat/preventinginag.html http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&amp;db=PubMed&amp;list_uids=16011888&amp;dopt=AbstractPlus Receptors Picture-http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://fig.cox.miami.edu/~cmallery/150/neuro/c7.49.3.skin.jpg&imgrefurl=http://fig.cox.miami.edu/~cmallery/150/neuro/senses.htm&h=450&w=407&sz=71&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=KVeoXR7oHbODUM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=115&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dheat%2Breceptor%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26sa%3DG