Week 12 — Readings & Resources

Human Anatomy and Physiology I Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 12 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 10 items (4 readings and 6 videos). Allow 54–62 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (20–22 min total)

① Reading the neuron and its support crew

Chapter 12, Section “Read the neuron: from dendrites to axon terminals” · Session 1, Segment 1, “Reading the neuron” · Remember: dendrites receive, the cell body integrates, and the axon carries the impulse to its terminals, while the neuroglia support and wrap the neurons.

Brain Basics: The Life and Death of a Neuron — National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke — a plain-language government page on nerve cells; read the opening and the section on the architecture of the neuron, with its cell body, axon, and dendrites, then stop before the sections on how new neurons are born, which go beyond this course. Use it while completing the Week-12 module overview. (reading, 4–6 min)
The Nervous System, Part 1: Crash Course Anatomy & Physiology #8 — CrashCourse — a fast, friendly episode that opens the nervous system and walks through a neuron's parts and the support cells around it; keep to the neuron and the glia. Stop here before the brain's regions and the divisions of the nervous system; next week takes that up. (video, 11 min) (captions: creator)
Glia, Nervous System — Dr Matt & Dr Mike — a short whiteboard lesson on the support cells of the brain and spinal cord and the cells outside them; listen for which cell makes myelin inside the brain and spinal cord and which one makes it out in the body. (video, 5 min) (captions: automatic)

② Firing in order: rest, the spike, and myelin

Chapter 12, Section “Put the action potential in order” · Session 1, Segment 4, “The action potential in order” · Remember: rest sits at about minus 70 millivolts, sodium rushes in to raise the spike, and potassium flows out to bring it back down.

The Nervous System, Part 2 - Action! Potential!: Crash Course Anatomy & Physiology #9 — CrashCourse — an episode built around the battery picture of a resting neuron, then the spike itself; as you watch, write the phases in order with the ion that moves in each. This builds on Week 2's work with ions, the charged atoms whose movement this episode follows. (video, 12 min) (captions: creator)
Action Potential, Neuron — Dr Matt & Dr Mike — a whiteboard walk through one action potential from rest to threshold, the rise, the fall, and the dip below rest; check each value it gives against the chapter's conventional ones and treat small differences as rounding. (video, 8 min) (captions: automatic)
2-Minute Neuroscience: Myelin — Neuroscientifically Challenged — a two-minute animation of the insulating wrap around many axons and how it lets the signal seem to jump from gap to gap; listen for the two different cells that make myelin in the two parts of the nervous system. (video, 2 min) (captions: creator)
Explainer: What is a neuron? — Science News Explores — a short explainer for students on the nerve cell; read the opening section, where the axon's fatty wrapping of myelin lets messages travel faster, and the paragraph on glial cells, the neuron's helpers, then skip the glossary at the end. (reading, 3–5 min)

③ Crossing the gap to the next cell

Chapter 12, Section “Cross the synapse: electrical, then chemical, then electrical” · Session 2, Segment 7, “Crossing the synapse” · Remember: the signal is electrical along the axon, chemical across the cleft, and electrical again in the next cell.

How Neurons Communicate — BrainFacts.org, Society for Neuroscience — a very short feature from a neuroscience society that follows a stubbed toe from an electrical signal to a chemical one across the synapse and back; read the two paragraphs and then explore its labeled interactive image. (reading, 3–5 min)
2-Minute Neuroscience: Synaptic Transmission — Neuroscientifically Challenged — a two-minute animation of the steps at a synapse, from the signal arriving at the terminal to the chemical messenger binding on the far side; pause it and say each step in order before it plays. (video, 2 min) (captions: creator)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Nerve Tissue — SEER Training Modules, National Cancer Institute — the course's free online anatomy reference, open at its page on nerve tissue; read the sections on neurons, the cell body, dendrites, the axon, and the neuroglia, and skip the section on tumors, which goes beyond this course. (reading, 4–6 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com