Health

Human Spinal Cord – An Overview

The spinal cord is the downward continuation of medulla oblongata. Spinal cord contains white matter on the surface and gray matter inside. The spinal cord serves as a conductor of impulses to and from the brain to the various organs. It acts as a centre for reflex action. There are billions of specialized cells called neurons in the central nervous system.

Human Spinal Cord


They are the basic functional unit of nervous system. Their main role is in signal transmission. The basic property of neurons is the ability to transmit electrical signals called nerve impulses is response to any stimuli. A neuron has a cell body, a very long axon sheathed in myelin and many tiny branches called dendrites. There are three kinds of neurons called sensory neurons, intermediate neurons and motor neurons. Sensory nerve cells perform two functions.

 Specialized sensory nerve cells respond to particular stimuli in the environment such as light or heat. They pass impulses to other sensory nerve cells that carry the information to the brain and spinal cord. In the brain and spinal cord, decisions are made. Motor nerve cells carry instructions from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles and glands. Connecting nerve cells join sensory and motor nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. A typical neuron consists of a nucleated cell body and it has several branches.Of these branches ,axons and the dendrite are the important.

Dendrites are tiny branches on the cell body and at the ends of all neurons. The dendrites from one cell do not actually touch the dendrites of any other cell. There are very tiny gaps between them called synapses. The dendrites conduct the impulses towards the cell body and the axons conduct away from it. The axons are long cytoplasmic tubes.

They carry electric impulses from one part of the body to another. They are insulated from each other by their myelin sheaths. So the nervous system is the principal regulatory system of the body. Faults in the system can lead to many severe problems.

Author Bio: The Author of this article, Sreejith is writing articles on Biomedical Instrumentation in Electronics and Communications

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