Talk:Central nervous system

clean-up tag
there was this clean-up tag since december 2006, but I wasn't able to find the reason why it was there in the first place... there's nothing about central nervous system in december 2006 in the clean-up page... Rto 13:13, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Moved from page: this is the brain Insert non-formatted text here

Headline text
Cranial nerves: are they part of the CNS? -- The cranial nerves III-XII are a part of the PNS, Peripheral nervous system.

The articles nervous system and centeral nervous system should be merged with re-directs for both of these names. I might do it later...or someone else can sooner. Hi, i'm stuck with my science homework.....so could anybody tell me what the 4 main parts of the nervous system are. I know the brain and the spinal cord are 2, but i just don't know the other 2. I'd be very grateful if anybody could tell me. Thank you!

Please sign your posts. Thank you. 71.248.149.216 03:01, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Folic acid
I erased this phrase: "In the development phase, folic acid is a critical dietary supplement for proper nural tube development." The article is just meant to be an introduction to the other CNS articles. The diet that goverment suggests to mothers during pregnancy are beyond its scope... Rto 11:09, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Deleted*

Introduction
Is it just me, or is the introductory paragraph a little hard to understand? Someone should clarify and define 'behavior' in the second sentence. --Gabycs 23:59, 17 March 2007 (UTC) CELIA WAZ HERE 5-21-2007

I find the diagram in the introduction almost useless. "Schematic diagram showing the central nervous system in yellow, peripheral in orange" On my screen I can barely see any difference between 'orange' and 'yellow'. It's a lovely diagram. But use of two more contrasting colours would be appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.185.62.166 (talk) 16:35, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Human orientation
This article is clearly geared solely toward the CNS of humans. Can we possibly expand the article so that it explains what Central Nervous Systems are rather than what the CNS in humans is? Animals have CNS too. -- Noetic  Sage  04:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree! The article should perhaps be renamed: Central nervous system of humans -- or of primates -- or of vertebrates.  Do we have an article about the CNS in various (other) animals, which maybe I just haven't found??


 * Just as the article Sleep was 'taken over' by humans, such that we later got Sleep (non-human), some such work needs to be done here. --Hordaland (talk) 15:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Parts of the CNS
In the text book of surgery by Bailey and Love the 1st and 2nd cranial nerves are also included as a part of the CNS. Please discuss and add to the parts of the CNSsarindam7 (talk) 07:56, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

EVOLUTION: Planarians
I added a paragrah about the CNS of planarians. In one of the sentences, I state, "A molecular study found that >95% of the 116 genes involved in the nervous system of planarians, which includes those related to the planarian CNS, also exist in humans." I do not know how to create a reference for the article. Below is the information on that article. If anyone else can setup the reference for me, please do so.

Katsuhiko Mineta, Masumi Nakazawa, Francesc Cebrià, Kazuho Ikeo, Kiyokazu Agata, and Takashi Gojobori, Origin and evolutionary process of the CNS elucidated by comparative genomics analysis of planarian ESTs, PNAS June 24, 2003 vol. 100 no. 13 7666-7671 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.94.233.30 (talk) 19:50, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * This article needs a huge rewrite, but that information is definitely going to be relevant, so thanks for adding it. You might look at another article, for example Alzheimer's disease, to see how to cite journal articles:  basically it should look like .  If you don't get around to it, I'll fix it at some point. Looie496 (talk) 00:58, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Neuroanatomy section
First, can the section be called "anatomy"? I think this is clearer.

Second, the section uses the words "becomes" and "gives rise to", which are unclear or ambiguous in this context. Do they refer to evolution or perhaps to development of an individual? In either case, why? The section is about anatomy, which means the different parts of the CNS and their functions, not about their development or evolution. -Pgan002 (talk) 19:49, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm OK with calling it neuroanatomy, although I don't feel strongly about it. I agree with you very much about "becomes" and "gives rise to." I think that it's clear from context that it does not mean evolution, but it sort of sounds like development, and I've made a possibly-temporary edit to try to make that clearer. However, the text and chart can also be construed to mean that the various specific structures are parts within the larger structures (unrelated to changes over time). I hope other editors will also look at that, because I find it unclear. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:34, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Deceptive first sentence
The implication seems to be that ALL organisms have a CNS. Should this be changed to refer specifically to animals? Let me know if you find a plant with a brain... 67.184.127.168 (talk) 02:35, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. (Although I've met people who... never mind!) --Tryptofish (talk) 17:16, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Needed a bit more qualification -- sponges and radiates are multicellular animals but lack a CNS. Looie496 (talk) 01:29, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Right, thanks for catching that, which I should have done myself. (Should I say thanks for sponging that up?) --Tryptofish (talk) 16:37, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

"Function" section
An IP just removed the Function section from the article, without edit summary. Normally I would revert something that like automatically, but in this case I'm letting it stand, because the section was unsourced and really pretty much useless -- a proper CNS Function section ought to discuss the advantages of a centralized nervous system over a distributed nervous system such as a jellyfish has. Looie496 (talk) 16:18, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm, before seeing your comment here, I reverted (cf: herding cats). Given that there was no edit summary for the deletion, I felt the material should be restored pending discussion. But that doesn't mean I'd oppose any action. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:36, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

The retina is part of the CNS
This line: "In vertebrates, the central nervous system is enclosed in the meninges," is not entirely correct. Technically, the retina is part of the CNS, but it is not enclosed in the meninges. In fact the retina isn't mentioned as part of the CNS in the entire article and ought to be, as it is a somewhat exceptional part of the CNS. Pdavis68 (talk) 17:04, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, per retina, you are correct. I have fixed the lead. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:33, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

CNS & PNS are controversial definitions
"The meninges enclose the central nervous system (CNS) and separate it from the peripheral nervous system (PNS)." from "Concise Text of Neuroscience (2nd ed.)" (2000), R. E. Kingsley, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, p. 1.

This definition is coming from a neuroscientist and is fairly inclusive. However, the succinctness of the definition hides the reasons for defining CNS this way. Consider cranial nerves, for example. Inside the meninges, cranial nerves are myelinated by oligodendrocytes, the CNS myelinating cell, with astrocytes as glial support cells. Outside the meninges, they are myelinated by Schwann cells, the peripheral myelinating cell, with satellite cells as glial support cells. It is at this junction where the cranial nerves perforate the meninges that Schwann cell cancers (Schwannomas) frequently arise. Hence, cranial nerves belong to both the CNS and PNS, depending upon the position along the nerve.

The controversy arises when you consider the medical definition: "The central nervous system (CNS) consists of the brain and spinal cord .... It is covered by three "membranes" -- the meninges." written by Bruce Ransom in "Medical Physiology" (2005), Boron & Boulpaep, Elsevier & Saunders, p. 257. Here, you have two conflicting definitions in one sentence. You have the simplified statement "brain and spinal cord" which is commonly used for the medical students along with the more sophisticated definition involving the meninges. Bruce Ransom works with the optic nerve and routinely calls the optic nerve a CNS tract (see the introduction of http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21179073 for an example of Dr. Ransom's work in optic nerve). Therefore, he is simplifying the definition, probably to make things easier for med. students to memorize.

I think the controversy comes from the use of a simplified definition for medical students and a more sophisticated definition for neuroscientists. Some mention should be made in the article that this is not a real controversy for neuroscientists.

The criteria I prefer for CNS are: 1) CNS tissue communicates with cerebrospinal fluid (i.e., is contained within the meninges) 2) The CNS does not typically contain the cell bodies of PNS-resident cells (i.e., no satellite cells or Schwann cells, such as are found in the PNS) 3) The CNS is protected by the blood brain barrier (BBB). Thus, capillaries of CNS tissue must include tight junctions.  This excludes the adenohypophysis and neurohypophysis of the pituitary from the CNS but would allow retinal ganglion cells.

These criteria reduce to functionality. The CNS has a shared intracellular environment, a unique set of resident cell types, and is protected from many compounds & proteins in the blood. All other tissues differ from this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neuro taxa (talk • contribs) 23:50, 22 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I find that a bit difficult to understand. Would your revised definition result in the CNS including anything different, or is this just a matter of how the definition is worded? Looie496 (talk) 04:29, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you could propose a specific change (presenting before and after versions here on the talk page)? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:21, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The definition I cited from Kingsley's book is the definition commonly used in neuroscience, in contrast to the definition "CNS is composed of the brain and spinal cord" found in introductory texts. There is also a third definition based on "integrative function" that I see you have also included in the wikipedia article.  It looks like the current article has all three definitions but doesn't really enunciate them as competing definitions, which they are.  I think the article needs to reflect the fact that these definitions are an attempt to categorize living things and that defitions change with understanding.  In other words, we should be clear that these definitions come from different perspectives and aim at different goals, sometimes leading to conflict.

The main change that should be made is to mention all the definitions as clearly distinct but having significant overlap. In particular, quote and cite Kingsley's definition or Ransom's definition.

I want to point out that people who use the "integrative" definition of CNS frequently end up including the retina or various ganglia because they have integrating functions. Cephalopods (think octopus) have distributed integrating functions to their nervous system that might lie outside their brain capsule (see http://www.biolbull.org/content/210/3/308.full).

The wikipedia article should mention that using the meninges as a landmark to define the CNS is a convenient coincidence. The CNS and PNS are technically connected together in an undivided nervous system. The division CNS/PNS is artificial but enriches our discussion of the nervous system.

The question the wikipedia authors need to answer is how technical they want the discussion to get. If you want me to put up a sandboxed page, I can't really dedicate the time right now. I was hoping one of the current authors could use the citations I was providing. comment added by Neuro taxa (talk •contribs) 23:50, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Get me a review and I will add the controversy to the article. We can not use primary sources so the pubmed links are unfortunately not viable for Wikipedia. My library does not carry "Concise Text of Neuroscience (2nd ed.)" (2000), R. E. Kingsley, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins so if you'd want to add that you'll have to do so yourself.
 * Additionally my bible: Principles of neural science, Kandel, 2013 which you probably know is by no means an introductory text-book says "The nervous system has two anatomically distinct components. The central nervous system consists of the brain and the spinal cord, while the peripheral nervous system is composed of specialized clusters of neurons (ganglia) and peripheral nerves." CFCF (talk) 10:45, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The Human Central Nervous System (Rudolf Nieuwenhuys M.D., Ph.D., Jan Voogd M.D., Ph.D., Christiaan van Huijzen F.M.A.A, 2008) - page 3: "The human central nervous system or neuraxis consists of the brain (encephalon) and the spinal cord (medulla spinalis)." CFCF (talk) 10:53, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

It should be called the Central Nerve System
The Human race should not be defined by the word nervous (frightened/anxious) for untold decades into the future. I suggest renaming it the 'Central Nerve System' - sounds better and had no implications of fear. --Dr zoidberg590 (talk) 13:58, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Titles should use the most commonly recognized name. Pubmed hits: "central nerve system" 421, "central nervous system" 251,624. The preponderance is unambiguous. BiologicalMe (talk) 17:58, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Infobox caption incorrect
The infobox caption for image of CNS is now incorrect, it says "Schematic diagram showing the central nervous system in yellow, peripheral in orange" -- There is now no difference in color, that image was replaced with one where it is all the same color. In my opinion the former image was easier to understand, but probably there was some reason that motivated the change back to having peripheral and central mingled together in color again (some nerves are technically part of the CNS like some cranial nerves, optic nerve etc, maybe that was it). FrozenDino (talk) 02:07, 24 October 2021 (UTC)