The somatic nervous system and its role in the human body

The somatic nervous system is part of the human nervous system, which is responsible for providing motor and sensory functions of the body. Its name - "somatic" - it received from the word "soma", which in translation into Russian means "body". The second name of the system is animal, as it is also found in animals.

The peripheral nervous system has two divisions. This is a somatic system and a vegetative system. The main difference in the functioning of these systems is that the somatic system is always under the control of human consciousness, while the vegetative system is responsible for reflex and unconscious actions.

The human somatic nervous system is multifunctional. Its basic tasks are gathering information from the outside world and transmitting the information received. Thanks to her work, a person reacts to external factors in a timely manner with his own body. The skeleton and muscles of the skeleton instantly "shy away" from the external threat, receiving an appropriate message through the somatic department. The whole musculature of the body, all muscles, tendons begin to work not arbitrarily, but under the guidance of the nervous system.

How is the mechanism of such a rapid delivery of deliberately revised information arranged? In an extreme situation , the somatic reflex arc begins to function in the body. Reflex is a reaction of the human body to external factors, the somatic nervous system "draws" external factors from the results of the work of the senses. More precisely, the sense organs, noticing the danger, transmit the signal. A sensitive neuron of the nerve end of the sense organ transmits a signal to a sensitive neuron located in the ganglion of the spinal cord. Then the impulse is transmitted to the intercalary neuron, which mediates between sensitive, or afferent, and motor, or efferent, nerve cells and commands the appropriate motor neurons to bring the corresponding muscle into motion. So, all motor reflexes are regulated by the method described above. The somatic arc is a false aggregate of nerve cells and endings, and problems with one of its elements often lead to problems with the speed of reaction of the musculoskeletal system as a whole.

Disturbances in the work of the somatic part of the peripheral nervous system are manifested in the form of inhibition, a slow reaction of the organism to factors of the external world. Somatic symptoms diagnose in seventy percent of people who see a doctor with complaints of "depression." They feel constant fatigue, drowsiness, general weakness and rapid fatigue. Attention to depressed people is often absent-minded, there is general inhibition. The state opposite to the state of depression is panic. If the reactions of the body are slowed down during depression, then they are accelerated during panic attacks. Typical somatic symptoms of panic and severe stress are dizziness, sharp pain in the stomach, a feeling of "squeezing" in the chest area.

In psychology and psychoneurology such phenomenon as psychosomatics stands out. The psychosomatics of a particular person determines the speed of his reactions to objects and phenomena of the outside world, the frequency of mood changes and the ability or inability to quickly switch from one type of activity to another. The psychosomatics of every person is individual, it is she who determines the temperament. Thus, the choleric reaction rate will be higher than the average reaction rate, so choleric people quickly switch attention from one object to another, they are more violent and unrestrained. Their sympathetic nervous system is characterized by increased excitability. In phlegmatic and melancholic, on the contrary, there is a predominance of inhibition processes over the processes of excitation. Temperament, unlike character, is almost impossible to change, because it is determined not so much by upbringing as the somatic nervous system inherited from birth.