Interesting Facts about Nervous System

The nervous system of an organism is a network of cells specialized to process information and cause reactions in the body parts. The nervous system is composed of neurons, cells which processes and transmits the information in the form of electro-chemical signals, and glial cells which assist the neuron functioning.

In human beings, the nervous system in divided into two parts, the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system. The central nervous system consists of the brain and spinal cord, while the peripheral nervous system consists of all the neurons in the body, other than those in the brain and spinal cord. The nervous system is a vital component of the human body, which helps in sensing and movement. The smooth functioning of the five senses - touch, sight, taste, hearing and smell, is attributed to the nervous system.

Interesting Facts about Nervous System

When we accidentally touch burning charcoal, the nerves connecting to our skin transmit the message of pain to the brain. The brain in response orders the muscles to pull away from the burning charcoal. This whole process is executed in less than a fraction of a second, that's even much lesser time than what you would take to read these two lines. Such is the speed of coordination between the brain and other parts of the body, which is facilitated by the nervous system. Here are some more fascinating nervous system facts.

• There are millions of nerve cells in the human body. This number even exceeds the number of stars in the Milky Way.
• The human brain alone consists of somewhere about 100 billion neurons. If all these neurons were to be lined up, it would form a 600 mile long line.
• In humans, the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, while the left side of the brain controls the right side.
• The diameter of the neurons can range between 4 to 100 microns.
• In a child developing inside the womb, neurons grow at the rate of 250,000 neurons per minute.
• By the time of its birth, the baby's brains consists of around 10 million nerve cells.
• The human spinal cord consists of around 13,500,000 neurons. The cluster of nerves located at the base of the spinal cord are most sensitive.
• The weight of the brain in average adult males is 1375 grams, while in females it is 1275 grams.
• And as we grow older the brain loses a gram each year.
• At a given point of time, only four percent of the cells in the brain are active, the rest are kept in reserve.
• Neurons, which are the largest cells in the human body, do not undergo the process of mitosis.
• The nervous system is very quick, it can transmit impulses at a tremendous speed of 100 meters per second. The speed of message transmission to the brain can be as high as 180 miles per hour.
• Sodium ions and potassium are necessary constituents to ensure proper functioning of the nervous system. Even Vitamin B is considered to be beneficial for it
• There are 43 different pairs nerves which connect the central nervous system to every part of our body. Twelve of these nerve pairs are connected to the brain, while the remaining 31 are connected to the spinal cord.

As the nervous system is one of the most important aspect of the human body, any damage caused to it often leads to permanent impairment. Very often, it is noticed that complications such as paralysis arise when any kind of damage is caused to the head (brain) or spinal cord.