Sort each scenario by which autonomic branch is driving it.
Groups: Sympathetic activation · Parasympathetic activation
- After a big meal, blood flows to the gut and digestion ramps up
- Your heart pounds and your pupils widen as a car swerves at you
- Digestion is put on hold to free up resources
- Saliva flows and your heart rate settles as you relax
- Adrenaline floods your bloodstream from the adrenal medulla
Hints
- Sympathetic = mobilize for emergency; parasympathetic = rest, digest, conserve.
- Digestion RAMPING UP is rest-and-digest; digestion PAUSED is fight-or-flight.
Show the answer
Sympathetic activation: Your heart pounds and your pupils widen as a car swerves at you, Adrenaline floods your bloodstream from the adrenal medulla, Digestion is put on hold to free up resources
Parasympathetic activation: After a big meal, blood flows to the gut and digestion ramps up, Saliva flows and your heart rate settles as you relax
Sympathetic activation mobilizes the body (pounding heart, dilated pupils, adrenaline, digestion halted); parasympathetic activation restores and conserves (digestion up, saliva, calming heart). Digestion is the giveaway - it goes up under parasympathetic, down under sympathetic.
Practise Peripheral Nervous System
The app has 7 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Psychology I is free to start.
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