The autonomic nervous system coordinates the activities of the body that are not voluntary
Another subsystem, which is the system Autonomic Nervous , is responsible for controlling the involuntary muscle movements, ie those made without us we program, such as the heart, bowel and other internal organs.
The autonomic nervous system performs two important functions that complement one another to accelerate and to curb the activities inside the body. This is very important because if not, the body might lose control.
For example, during exercise the heart races to carry more oxygen and nutrients to the muscles, but the heart can not keep that pace all the time because "explode", so the other function of this system is to stop it when you stop exercising and allow to regain its normal rhythm.
The functioning of the whole body depends on the nervous system as a whole, none of the organs and "systems" that comprise it works in isolation, if one fails, the others fail.
Involuntary functions are coordinated by the autonomic nervous system, which in turn is divided into two systems, the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic system performing opposite actions of the same function.
For this, the sympathetic nervous system acts in emergencies and stress causing various reactions as the quickening of the pulse and respiration, slows digestion, increases blood pressure and makes the blood reaches the brain in greater quantity, legs and arms, also increases the level of blood sugar.
All this is done to prepare the person to use the most of your energy and can act in particular situations.
The parasympathetic however, stores and conserves energy and maintains the normal rhythm of the body's organs and glands. After a shock, trauma, pain or any special body, the parasympathetic is responsible for everything to return to calm and normal.
Of these two, the parasympathetic is obviously the most important for survival, otherwise normalize the functions, the body could not endure them.
Sympathetic nerves originate from different parts of the spinal cord while the parasympathetic nerves originate in the cranial and spinal.
Most parasympathetic nerve fibers in a nerve are called "vague" that reaches all the internal organs of the body.
Some of the functions performed by these two systems are:
- The sympathetic eye pupil opens, closes the parasympathetic.
- The friendly stimulates the production of saliva, inhibits the parasympathetic.
- The sympathetic causes the heart to beat too fast and strong beats parasympathetic and decreases in intensity.
- The sympathetic relaxes the muscle to be able to urinate or defecate, the parasympathetic them terminate the contract.