Fired Up
The meeting point where a signal passes from a nerve cell to another cell.
What is a synapse?
The part of the brain in charge of thought, memory, and voluntary action.
What is the cerebrum?
You jerk your hand off a hot stove before you think. Thank this simplest nerve pathway.
What is a reflex arc?
A blocked or burst blood vessel in the brain causes this serious injury.
What is a stroke?
The clear part at the very front of the eye.
What is the cornea?
These retina cells let you tell red from blue.
What are cones?
This long fiber carries signals away from the cell body to other cells.
What is an axon?
This part of the brain keeps your skeletal muscles working together.
What is the cerebellum?
This part of the nervous system runs work you don't control, such as heartbeat and digestion.
What is the autonomic nervous system?
This nerve carries sound signals from the inner ear to the brain.
What is the auditory nerve?
Like a camera's diaphragm, this colored part changes the size of the opening that lets light in.
What is the iris?
This snail-shaped part of the inner ear turns sound into nerve signals.
What is the cochlea?
These branching fibers carry signals toward a neuron's cell body.
What are dendrites?
Personality, judgment, and self-control live in this lobe behind your forehead.
What is the frontal lobe?
During stress, this division of the autonomic system speeds up the heart and lungs and slows digestion.
What is the sympathetic division?
These neurons carry orders from the brain and spinal cord out to the body.
What are motor neurons?
This inner layer of the eye senses light and sends nerve signals.
What is the retina?
Feeling weepy? This gland makes your tears,
What is the lacrimal gland?
These neurons pass messages between other neurons.
What are interneurons?
Nerve fibers coated in myelin form this "colorful" kind of brain tissue.
What is white matter?
Once stress is over, this division of the autonomic nervous system undoes its partner's work and lets the body rest and digest.
What is the parasympathetic division?
The cranial and spinal nerves make up this division of the nervous system.
What is the peripheral nervous system?
The tough, white outer layer of the eyeball.
What is the sclera?
These looped tubes in the inner ear help you keep your balance.
What are the semicircular canals?
A wave of electrical activity that runs down a nerve.
What is an action potential?
Three layers of tissue that wrap and guard the brain and spinal cord.
What are the meninges?
The lowest part of the brain stem, it keeps you breathing and your heart beating.
What is the medulla oblongata?
A virus that kills motor neurons in the spinal cord causes this disease. Give the full name.
What is poliomyelitis?
This small spot on the retina gives your sharpest vision.
What is the fovea?
An unevenly curved cornea causes this vision problem.
What is astigmatism?