Nervous System -
Learning Objectives
Return to Main Index
1.
Name and explain the importance of the six ways that the nervous
system contributes to homeostasis and quality of life.
2.
Name and briefly explain the purposes of the three main
functions of neurons (i.e., reception, conduction, transmission).
3.
Briefly describe the purposes (not the parts) of sensory neurons,
somatic motor neurons, autonomic motor neurons, reflexes, conscious sensation,
and voluntary motor pathways.
4.
Name two age changes in the functioning (not structure) of
skin receptors and skin sensory neurons
and describe how they affect the nervous system's abilities to
contribute to homeostasis and quality of life.
5.
Name and describe two effects of aging on the ability to smell,
and describe two outcomes from these age changes.
6.
Describe the overall effects of aging on taste sensations.
7.
Name two age changes in sensory function other than changes in skin
sensations, sense of smell, or sense of taste, and describe an outcome from
each age change you select.
8.
Describe two functional (not structural) outcomes in muscles from
age changes in somatic motor neurons, and give an example of how these outcomes
might affect a person's homeostasis or quality of life.
9.
Choose two age changes in autonomic motor functions and briefly
describe their effects on homeostasis or quality of life.
10. Describe the overall effects
of age changes in autonomic motor functioning.
11. Describe the basic operation and overall
purposes of reflexes.
Name four age changes in the functioning of reflexes, describe the
effects of these changes on homeostasis and quality of life, and list four
specific reflexes that show normal age changes.
13. Describe three overall results of
nervous system aging on conscious sensation, and explain the effects
from these changes on homeostasis and quality of life.
14. Describe the overall effects
of nervous system aging on voluntary movement, and explain the effects
from these changes on homeostasis and quality of life.
15. Describe the age changes in the
numbers of CNS neurons and CNS synapses, the overall effects from these
changes, and the reasons for these effects.
16. Describe or define the meaning of
the following aspects of mental activity.
17. Describe the effects of aging on three
different types or aspects of memory or thinking (any combination of three
changes), personality, and one change in sleep. Types of memory include short
term, long term, incidental, procedural, explicit, implicit, episodic, working.
Types of thinking (intelligence) include crystallized intelligence and fluid
intelligence.
18. List methods for improving memory
functions.
19. Describe the importance of
biorhythms and average age changes in biorhythms.
20. Describe the overall effects of
nervous system age changes on the system's ability to maintain homeostasis and
quality of life.
21. For strokes, indicate that strokes
are diseases (not age changes), and give the following information.
22. For dementia, indicate that dementias
are abnormal (not age changes) and give the following information.
23. Explain how multi-infarct dementia
develops.
24. For Alzheimer's disease, provide the
following information.
25. Describe or explain how factors
found in Alzheimer's disease are believed to cause decreased brain functioning.
26. List and describe genes influential
in the development of AD.
27. For Parkinson disease, provide the
following information.
28. Describe dementia with Lewy bodies.
Return to Top
of Page
©
Copyright 2020: Augustine G. DiGiovanna, Ph.D.,
Salisbury University, Maryland
The materials on this site are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
4.0
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
This license requires that reusers
give credit to the creator. It allows reusers
to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium
or format, for noncommercial purposes only. If others modify or adapt
the material, they must license the modified material under identical
terms.
Previous print editions of the text Human Aging: Biological Perspectives
are © Copyright 2000, 1994 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. and 2020
by Augustine DiGiovanna.
View License Deed |
View Legal Code