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Article: Nervous System
- Article from:
- Animal Sciences
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Nervous System
The nervous system is a highly precise and complex system of cells that allows animals to sense, process, and react to cues from the physical environment. The fundamental duty of the nervous system is to transfer information at relatively high speed from one part of the animal to another. Every animal has at least a rudimentary nervous system. Although plants and fungi are able to sense and respond to aspects of their environment, they do this based solely on chemical
physiological
responses and not because of the combined activity of specialized cells. The means by which a nervous system transfers information is through electrochemical signal transmission. Single nerve ...