Compare and contrast the somatic nervous system and autonomic ner...

Question

Compare and contrast the somatic nervous system and autonomic nervous system.

Accepted Answer

Hi everyone. Let's look at our next question here. It says which division of the nervous system prepares the body for stressful and energetic activities like fight or flight. When we look over our answer choices, we see different aspects of the nervous system. Autonomic sympathetic parasympathetic and peripheral. So to keep it straight I think it'd be kind of helpful to kind of make a little chart to remember what these different aspects of the nervous system are. So we start with the fact that we have the central nervous system which is the brain and spinal cord and then we have the peripheral nervous system which is the nerves and ganglia outside of the brain and spinal cord. And that peripheral nervous system is kind of divided into two parts. There's the somatic nervous system that's sort of the voluntary aspect is in control of voluntary muscle movements, things that under conscious control. And then there's the autonomic nervous system which is the largely unconscious control. So systems that happen without our consciously um deciding to do them. So things like respiration, heart rate, digestion, breathing, things like that. So then when we look at this autonomic nervous system, it's also in two divisions here which is the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system. Is that part of the nervous system whose main responsibility is to prepare the flight oops fight or flight response. So to be ready for that instant action when in danger at a lower level. It also is responsible for maintaining homeostasis. But again the most important main role there is preparing for that fight or flight response and then the parasympathetic nervous system is required is responsible for those involuntary activities carried out um mainly when the body is at rest. So things like digestion, sexual arousal, salivation, so part of eating um defecation. So activities that are not going to go on when you're fleeing from Hungary bear, but that happened when the body is more at rest but under that autonomic unconscious control. So with that in mind let's look through our answer choices, remembering that we're looking for that fight or flight response. So when we look at our chart here, we see that the fight or flight response is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system and we can see that that is choice. Be here sympathetic nervous system. We look at the other answer choices. The autonomic nervous system is sort of the umbrella of unconscious control here, but sympathetic is the more specific system that prepares fight or flight. So that's a better answer than autonomic. The choice c parasympathetic as we see that's the aspect that controls activities when the body is at rest not in danger. So not the correct answer there. And choice. The peripheral nervous system. Again, fighter flight is controlled under the umbrella of the peripheral nervous system but that's a much more general term is everything outside the brain and spinal cord. So sympathetic nervous system is more specific and therefore a better answer choice. So which division of the nervous system prepares the body for stressful and energetic activities like fight or flight? And that's choice B, the sympathetic nervous system. See you in the next video.

Struggling with General Biology?

Compare and contrast the somatic nervous system and autonomic nervous system.

Watch next

Central and Peripheral Nervous System practice set