Human actions, at a biological level are communicated and regulated through electrical and chemical impulses transmitted through specialised neuron cells. Organised into neural systems and networks, neurons are responsible for complex behavioural processes and for some, like Francis Crick, physiological composition of the nervous system entirely explains our complete psychological being, ‘… your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells…
’ (as cited in Toates, 2007, p. 230). Research and analysis of behaviour at a biological level contributes to behavioural understanding and has yielded advances into medical treatments for some psychological conditions. A reductionist approach in isolation however, dismisses the importance of external influencing factors such as the environment and any reciprocal consequence on the biological process (Toates, 2007). This essay explains neuronal activity in information transmittal and how knowledge of the nervous system has contributed to understanding of human behaviour.
Information is processed through the nervous system which exerts an integral role in controlling behaviour by coordinating the inputs to the brain from highly specialized neurons that extend throughout the periphery. The principle component of the nervous system, the neuron, utilises electrochemical messaging to affect a repertoire of behaviours from simple reflex actions to complex emotional experiences such as depression.
Differentiating to specific roles either to convey sensory information to the brain or conduct motor activity in reaction to the brain, neurons translate sensory and perceptual inputs for processing by the brain. The electrical voltage gradient maintained across neural cell membranes receives stimulus information through dendritic branches as a transformation in polarity which generates an electrical signal in the form of an action potential.
Propagating rapidly along the axon of the cell, the electrical message transmits stimulus intensity through frequency, with an acute stimulus producing a higher frequency. In this manner, potentially damaging excessive heat detected by sensory neurons located in fingers, for example, would communicate with high frequency action potentials to the brain and be returned through motor neurons to effect a muscle contraction producing removal of the fingers from the heat source (Toates, 2007).