Shannon Bilodeau
PSY 1010
Paper #1
Due: Feb. 2, 2014
Biology, behavior, and the mind are correlated together to effect your mood, well
being, and your overall health. The brain is the key for your body to work and function
together. This brings up biological perspectives and interlinks the body’s biological
activity and psychological events, resulting in the effects of brain and behavior. The
brain and behavior are interlinked together by neural communication. The neural
communication is essential to the body, which is composed of cells particularly nerve
cells. The nerve cells “talk” or “communicate” to one another by sending chemical
messages across a tiny gap that is in between them (Myers, 2013, p. 49). This
communication and integration of information from the brain constructs things and
actions in the body such as experiences of sights and sounds, meanings and memories,
pain and passion (Myers, 2013, p. 49). The knowledge and understanding of the
subsystems within human bodies is essential to understand one’s behavior and to study
and help treat how the biological, psychological, and social systems work and interact
with one another (Myers, 2013, p. 49).
The understanding of the simplistic forms of neural communication is essential to
help diagnose and treat certain disorders that affect human behavior. The nervous system
is the site for neural communication and its building blocks are nerve cells/neurons.
There are many different types of neurons that exist in the human body, but they are all
formed the same way. The first part of the neuron is its cell body, which contains
branching fibers. The bushy, branching, fibers are known as dendrites which are
extensions that receive information and transfer it towards the cell body (Myers, 2013, p.
49). After the information has been transferred to the cell body, the axon fibers or
extensions pass messages through its branches to other neurons, muscles or glands. The
dendrites are the part of the neuron that listens to what the body needs, and the axons are
the ones who speak and do the communicating. For this axon fibers are very long while
the dendrites are short branches. Due to the length of the axons, some axons are
surrounded by a myelin sheath, which is composed of fatty tissues that help speed the
axons communication/impulse signals, known as the action potential. The action
potential is caused by a quick electrical charge, which the neuron, like a battery, generates
the electricity from the chemical events that occur in your body throughout its various
