Question

Pretend you are explaining neural communication to a 10 year old.

use 200 words to dialog with this kid. How would you word your initial explanation of what takes place (starting from dendrites to synapse)

what questions do you think the kid will ask?

Answer 1

NEURAL COMMUNICATION

Neural communication is a electro chemical event, where the communication takes place between the neurons in the body. The Nervous system consists of the Brain, Spinal cord and the Nerve bundles, that extends to all parts of the body. It is made up of neurons, which helps in passing the elecro chemical signals across the body.

A neuron resembles the shape of a lollipop (with a head and a tail), the head portion is called as the 'Soma' containing the nucleus, and at the top of the soma there are hair-like structures called the 'Dentrites'. The tail portion is called the 'Axon' which also has hair-like structures in the end called the 'Terminal buttons', which releases the 'Synaptic vesicles' - the chemical messages that are carried throughout the nervous system.

This complex mechanism of the Nervous communication could be explained to a child using a simple example.

The 'Current Pass' Game:

A group of children is made to sit in a circle, and they are asked to hold eachothers hand and one child must stand inside the circle, who is the Catcher of the game. The game begins when the first child sitting in the circle presses his left hand over the right hand of the second child (passing the current) and after receiving the current, the second child presses his left hand over the right hand of the third child, and this continues until the last child in the circle receives the current, without being caught by the catcher. If the catcher sees the passing of current through the players hands, then he becomes the winner.

With this practical demonstration game, the children could be told how the neurons passes the electo chemical signals across the nervous system. The entire circle of children is like a nervous system, and each child is like a neuron, and the pressing of the hand to pass the current is the synapsis, where the left of the first child is the terminal button to release the synaptic vesicles, and the right hand of the next child is like the dentrite that receives the signals.

The child might usually ask how does this mechanism take place inside our body. It could be explained by asking the child, "What will you do when you touch a hot cup of coffee?". The child would reply by saying, "I will take my hands from it". Thus it could be explained that, when the child touch the hot cup the heat signals from the cup has been passed through the nervous system along the spinal cord to reach the brain, and the brain has responded by sending back signals to take off the hand from the hot cup. This is an invisible and a high speed mechanism that takes places in our body.