have i understood the title?

my mate asked me for advice about what the following title for her essay meant:

'explain how the nervous system and hormones interact to bring about activity in organs'

i said that she should choose a particular system, like the digestive system, and just talk about how it's controled by hormones and the nervous system, giving examples as you go through the whole system.
do you think thats ok? i havnt really done essays like this before so i dont really know if i've given here good advice or not!

Reply 1

Mitch87

I'd say the approach was correct, however, I wouldnt stick with just one system. Give a concise overview of everythin you/she can possibly think of where the two work together. Yes the Digestive system is probably the best example, but you could also include the Reproductive system, the Cardiovascular system, Bladder etc etc...

Reply 2

linksys

thanks very much, i'll give that a go. so i'll add in, the heart and things about osmoregulation. can you think of any other specific examples please?

Reply 3

Revenged

Mitch87

the digestive system is the worst example to pick - it's far to complicated... neither of you would be able to explain how the parasympathetic nervous system influences the enteric nervous system to produce hormones (gastrin, CCK) that control enzymic production within the digestive system...

instead of writing about organ systems... i think it's better to talk about activation of sympathetic nervous system and it having immediate effects (increase blood pressure, heart rate, bronchodilation, vasoconstriction, pupil constriction...etc.)

then talk about hormones being under control of nervous activation and point out that hormones tend to have slower, regulatory actions... btw, make sure you know the difference between a peptide hormone (insulin) and a steroid hormone (oestrogen)...

Reply 4

Thallium

Probably one of the best examples you could use is the cardiovascular system as it recieves neural and endocrine inputs. For example in the heart you can discuss how the sympathetic and vagal (parasympathetic) inputs affect rate in the SAN, force of contraction, speed of relaxation (lusiotrophy) and also rate of conduction (dromotrophy). A good ref book is a book by Levick on an intro to CV physiology. Note vagal only decreases rate and none of the rest. Then discuss homes and the heart- adrenaline. Discuss how it acts through the same set of b receptors... etc. Then turn to the vasculature and discuss tone, again neural and endocrine control- the control of arterial smooth muscle and the like.

Reply 5

Thallium

Revenged

instead of writing about organ systems... i think it's better to talk about activation of sympathetic nervous system and it having immediate effects (increase blood pressure, heart rate, bronchodilation, vasoconstriction, pupil constriction...etc.)

then talk about hormones being under control of nervous activation and point out that hormones tend to have slower, regulatory actions... btw, make sure you know the difference between a peptide hormone (insulin) and a steroid hormone (oestrogen)...

This is all well and good but i think to do well in the question you would have to intergrate the effects of neural and endo in the same end organ. Splitting the essay into two, one on nerves and then one on hormones would not get as high a mark.

Reply 6

Revenged

Thallium

fair point... tbh i would have talked about adrenaline with the sympathetic nervous system anyway... but tbh if this was an essay for A-level - i don't know think most people would really know the difference between activation of the sympathetic nervous system through noradrenaline release and what is caused by adrenaline released... you need to know about adrenoreceptors for it to make sense...

but i think steriodal regulatory hormones - such as cortisol - need to talked about separately... but i take the point that the essay is about how the endo and neuro systems 'interact' so perhaps they want you to concentrate on the effects of adrenaline and noradenraline in the activation of the sympathetic nervous system...