Talk:Nerve net

Untitled

 * October 21, 2012

Hello, our names are Nicole Carroll, Kishanraj Bhakta, and Craig Parsons and we are students at Boston college enrolled in an Intoduction to Neuroscience course. We are currently working on a project attempting to expand upon the Nerve Net wikipedia page. This task is udertaken by the Society for Neurosciences and we hope to do our best in improving this article. This project is scheduled to be completed by December 3, 2012. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.167.252.92 (talk) 00:44, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Response to Peer Reviews
We appreciate all the suggestions made which were extremely helpful in revising the “Nerve net” Wikipedia page. We tried to clarify information, elucidate sentence structure, and improve our writing where necessary as indicated in the peer reviews.

We received a number of comments on our introduction and attempted to reconcile these to provide a broad opening statement and an overview of what we planned to cover in the article. We moved some sentences from other parts of the article to the introduction, removed sentences that did not fit well, and edited others so that they were more comprehensible.

A comment was made suggesting we talk about the role that intermediate neurons play in nerve nets. After researching this further, we found that organisms containing nerve nets do indeed have intermediate neurons which allow for modulatory activity between the sensation of the stimulus and motor output. A brief statement was included about intermediate neurons even though we did not come across much information in this in researching the literature.

Several of the reviews commented on the use of Cnidaria to represent the developmental neurogenesis of the nerve net as too specific. Nerve nets only exist in three phyla of the animal kingdom, one of which is Cnidaria, and nearly all research involving nerve nets has been accomplished by studying cnidarians, especially with the use of the model organism Hydra. The development of the nerve net follows the same sequence in Cnidaria, Ctenophora, and Echinodermata, and we simply elected to talk about cnidarians because of the depth of research regarding the nerve net in this phylum. A change was made to indicate that although we talk about developmental neurogenesis in Cnidaria, the basic mechanism for development is conserved across phyla.

Some comments talked about the order of information presented in the Evolution section. We chose to keep the original order by opening with information about Porifera, and then seguing into Coelenterata. Our goal in this section was to demonstrate the divergence of these two phyla in the Animal kingdom, and information from an additional article was added in attempt to elucidate the connection between the phyla and add to the overall understanding of the evolution of nervous tissue in animals.

Several of the reviews raised questions about material we had come across in our research, but had neglected to include in our article, mostly basic information such as how a nerve net impacts an organism’s fitness and what environment an organism with a nerve net inhabits, among others. The same goes for clarification questions, so we took all advice into account when restructuring or adding sentences to better express information we had hoped to convey to the reader.

Thank you again for your comments which helped us to improve the article. Carrolni (talk) 04:14, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Another thought that a few people had brought up was that our article may benefit from the addition of a few photos or diagrams. This would allow the reader to visualize the information that was being explained to them. It was suggested to add photos or diagrams in either the developmental neurogenesis section or the anatomy section. However, in our attempt to search for possible images for those sections we found that many of the useful images came with copyright restrictions. We did however end up finding a good phylogenetic tree showing the the different phyla to which we refer within our article. It seemed to us that our article would definitely be enhanced with the addition of this photo to the evolution section of the article.

Several other concerns surrounded the anatomy and physiology sections for either focusing on solely hydra or not having enough information. However, hydra are a model organism in the study of nerve nets and also it was difficult to find a large deal of information on the basic anatomy of nerve nets. Nonetheless, additional sentences were added and edits were made to both the anatomy and physiology sections in order to try to further explain the essentials of nerve nets. Thank you all once again for your comments and suggestions. They were very helpful. bhaktak (talk) 04:14, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Review
Good work so far! I have some suggestions for your consideration. First, I think the second sentence of your introduction does a very nice job defining what exactly a nerve net is; because it is very clear, I think you should consider using the information in this sentence to open your introduction, and move the species-specific information further down in the paragraph. Also, in your "Evolution" section, I am confused about the purpose of the description of signaling in sponges and how it relates to the evolution of nerve nets; this should be further clarified. In the "Anatomy" section, what is the functional difference between a ganglion and sensory nerve net cell types? Is the anatomy of the hydra representative of the anatomy of nerve nets in general? In the "Physiology" section, I think the meaning of this sentence: "Signaling happens at synapses using chemical stimulants" is unclear. What are examples of chemical stimulants? Also, how does a stronger stimulus illicit a stronger response in the nerve net? What hypotheses have been presented regarding the existence of hormones in the nerve nets? Explaining these points will strengthen your article. Good job, and don't forget to add hyperlinks throughout your article! Reedich (talk) 04:58, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review
I thought this article was very good. You did a good job describing the various organisms and the evolution of a nerve net. However, the first thing I noticed was a grammatical error in you evolution section. It was in the third to last sentence "This is due to the first appearance of neurogenesis occurred in eumetazoa, which was a common ancestor of coelenterates and bilaterians". Also I think that you do a good job describing sensory and motor neurons but I think the article could benefit with some description and talk of intermediate neurons, which detect patterns in sensory neurons and send signals to groups of motor neurons. Overall I think you did a good job and there were minor tweaks that will make your article just slightly better. Cameron Perry 91 (talk) 20:37, 19 November 2012 (UTC) ===Peer Review===

Peer Review
Hey guys, I really enjoyed your article. I found the examples of organisms that have nerve nets and how they function within those organisms to make the article more accessible. On the other hand, while I find these examples help with the overall content of the page, I think sections such as the Developmental Neurogenesis section would benefit from a few sentences on the development of nerve nets in general, not just in cnidaria. By beginning sections with a broader description, the specific examples of nerve nets would make a lot more sense. In addition, I would suggest putting the Anatomy section earlier as it gives a good broad description that will help the reader apply that information to the rest of the article. Also I found a one or two minor grammatical errors in your evolution section's second paragraph, so you might want to read it over again. Overall great page, and from the comments below it seems you really were able to overhaul this stub!Devitod (talk) 19:21, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review
I thought that there was a significant amount of good information in this article, however I found that its organization made it a bit difficult to understand. The introduction was well written, however I feel as though some sentences, such as the last one, weren’t completely necessary and could be included later in the article. In terms of organization, I was unsure as to how the first paragraph of the evolution section related to the rest of the section or where exactly nerve nets were introduced in terms of evolution. The information is definitely there, I just feel like it could be shifted so that it would be clearer to the reader. For development, maybe the title or the first sentence could talk about how only cnidarian are talked about within this section. Other than that, this section describes neurogenesis in cnidarian in an informative and engaging manner. The anatomy and physiology sections are both well organized but could possibly be elaborated on. For instance, maybe ongoing research could be mentioned in the physiology portion when you mention how it’s not completely understood. A minor tweak needs to be made to fix the references at the very bottom of the page. Overall, I thought this article was well researched and well written which could be significantly improved by small adjustments in organization. Cmrossin (talk) 02:00, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Pain
What? Pain isn't something that is simply sensed, it is something that is perceived. This article seems to imply that these extremely simple, decentralized nervous systems somehow allow the animal to be consciously aware of their environment, which is utterly ridiculous.

I've rewritten it, I simply couldn't stand to see such nonsense... Richard001 11:02, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
 * While I admire your intolerance of nonsense, I fear that it could lead to madness if you apply it to Wikipedia.  Mr  JM 23:12, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Peer Review
Hello, I think you have a great start to your article, the examples are used very well in some cases to accurately put the information into perspective. However, I believe that overall you need to include more descriptive information about the general definition of what a nerve net is, without relating it to Cnidaria or other organisms. The Introduction section seems also seems to have a tad of a tangent, which I would watch out for. This section needs to be concise and tell the reader exactly what the nerve net is and how it functions generally. Some of the information you put in the Anatomy section may be a good example of this. Some of the information now in the introduction may also be expanded upon and put in its own section, for example "Examples in Organisms." (Or something along those lines). The Evolution section needs some work as some the writing was a bit confusing to understand. Also I think it may be more clear if the second paragraph came first. One example of grammar that you should watch out for is "and they are the first two phyla that differentiated nervous systems based on synaptic conduction." I read this sentence several times and was trying to grasp exactly what you mean. From what I gather you mean that these were the first to phyla that had nervous systems that were based on synaptic conduction? Try to make some of these concepts more clear. Also, try to briefly describe some of the terms that you hyperlink. Hyperlinking is very useful in that it can provide more information on a topic, but no one wants to stop reading frequently to understand a term. This will effectively make it flow more. Finally, I would suggest the use of pictures in some areas, for example the section on Developmental Neurogenesis, as it may serve as a helpful tool for the reader to refer to while reading, often times it is hard to picture so much information in one's head. Overall, I think your section of physiology and anatomy is good, perhaps expand on it more if there is available information? In general, I think your biggest issue you should focus on is organization and flow, your key focus should be making the article accessible and as comprehendible as possible to a wide audience, as wikipedia is used by all age groups. Overall this is a great start, and with a few tweaks your on your way to a very good final product! Goldbejk (talk) 22:33, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review for BI481
The article touches on a lot of interesting point, but I think that you need to be more specific as what a nerve net is and include information about how a nerve net affects the fitness of organisms like Cnidarians. I also think the the Physiology section should be expanded and more information should be included about the mechanisms involved in the nerve cells communicating in a nerve net. Overall, the article has great descriptions and explanations but the addition and expansion on information that I mentioned would make for a great final product. Bellre (talk) 25:03, 19 November 2012

Peer Review
I like how well put together this article is. The explanations and definitions are very organic. As far as improvement, I would suggest that the anatomy section should be expanded a bit further, specifically in example cases. An image would definitely help amplify the information being explained in that section, such as this one: http://w3.shorecrest.org/~Lisa_Peck/MarineBio/syllabus/ch7invertebrates/Invertwp/2007/eby/nervenet.gif

Aside from the anatomy section, the intro could maybe use less of an explanation in terms of specific examples towards species, and rather more general information on the nerve net itself. What makes it different from symmetrical nervous system specifically. Advantages? Disadvantages? Reasons for a species having radial symmetry needing this trait? Not that this was not already mentioned or intended to be explained, but I thought it could help. Otherwise it's looking very good. Waleedfarag (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:18, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review
This article is well researched and well written. I have a few suggestions that might be helpful in the editing process. I think that the introduction, while it tells us about nerve nets in a general way, really does not deconstruct what a nerve net is enough to understand it on a first read. Since the introduction is the first paragraph people on Wikipedia read, it is important to grasp and maintain their attention. This can be done by being concise and also by not starting the first sentence referring to other organisms. I found this to be confusing. Maybe this sentence from the anatomy section should be the first sentence, “A nerve net is a diffuse network of cells that can congregate to form ganglia in some organisms, but does not constitute a brain.” It is clear concise and avoids any other complications that may hinder understanding. The second paragraph is clearer, though should avoid too much detail since the introduction is an overview. The last paragraph of the introduction really seems to belong in the anatomy section since it is detailed and it is never mentioned again. The evolution section is helpful and it was a good section to include. My suggestion for this section is to maybe be a little clearer. For example, in, “Larvae differentiate sensory cells which respond to stimuli including light, gravity, and water movement” what larvae are you referring to? I understood that it was sponge cell larvae, but it is not exactly clear. Things like this could be fixed and greatly add to the overall clarity and understanding of the article. The developmental neurogenesis section seems to be a little dense and can probably be helped by just adding a few words that help simplify the material—for example, “coelenterates” and “bilaterians” could use a couple words to identify them as an animal phyla perhaps. The physiology section is very good, but a few small mistakes can be avoided such as in “The motor neurons communicate with cells via chemical synapse to produce a certain reaction to a certain stimuli.” The word “certain” is repeated and makes reading more difficult to follow. Overall, this section helps clarify some questions I may have had as I read the introduction. MellaNatalie (talk) 23:31, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review
I thought the article was well written and constructed because I could follow it pretty well. One suggestion I have is that you may want to consolidate the information you have on hydra. I understand that you are commenting on different aspects of the nerve net in hydra, but it seemed as if some of the general headings were specifically talking mostly about hydra. Maybe you want to have a separate section for hydra, since it is a model organism used to study nerve nets and seems pretty important to the article. It would also be nice to see more pictures, since it looks like there are a good amount out there of the nerve net in different organisms you mentioned in the article. You might also want to considering moving most of the information you have in the introduction to the other sections (perhaps even the evolution section, expanding on what such a simple nervous system could provide for an organism – its purpose). Overall, it is a good article, you may just want to tweak a few things here and there. Financ (talk)

Peer Review
You guys did a wonderful job of providing a comprehensive picture of this special type of nervous system. I think your scope was very thorough, and the individual sections are well-written and informative. My first and biggest suggestion would be adding pictures (evolutionary tree; cnidarians; the actual anatomy of a nerve net), because I'm sure there are many great ones out there that could really give your article that extra polish. I also agree with the reviews above me that specify the need for a more transparent introduction. You should try to boil down what exactly distinguishes a nerve net, and perhaps consider breaking these paragraphs down into smaller segments in order to maintain the reader's attention. Furthermore, under the "Evolution" heading, you should have a better introductory sentence. You jump right into a description of Porifera but up until this point, haven't made any connection between Porifera and cnidaria or even nerve nets for that matter. Also, in the third sentence, what is a "partly synaptic formation?" Perhaps this section would flow a little better if you started with the second paragraph, and then made the connection to Porifera after. If possible, you might want to consider including a picture of an evolutionary tree that connects all of the phyla you discuss in this second. Additionally, the second sentence in the second paragraph would read better like this: "cnidaria and ctenophora both exhibit radial symmetry and are collectively known as "coelenterates."" Next, what are some of the neurophysiological mechanisms shared between coelenterates and bilaterians? And finally, what types of environments do organisms with nerve nets usually occupy? I think this information could help flesh out this section a little more. Overall, great work! Good content, nice flow, great scope. Lyndsey Brozyna (talk) 10:37, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review
This was a great article. I think that using the example of a specific organism like cnidarians is a good idea but you should still make sure to talk about the topic in general or at least explain if there are any clear differences between the organism being described and other organism. Continuing with this idea I think it is important that it is made clear at the beginning of the developmental neurogenesis section that only cnidarians are discussed so maybe change the title to “Developmental Neurogenesis of Cnidarians.” The anatomy section could be more insightful since the article is about an anatomical aspect of the organism. Also in the physiological section you could expand a little by talking about specific mechanisms in the communication between the nerve cells. Another thing I think is important when doing science related articles is to talk about the research that lead to the discovery of the topic discussed or current research being done. Also I found a couple of grammatical mistakes here and there so I would just suggest some proofreading. Overall it’s a good and easy to follow article. If you want to go the extra mile adding a couple more pictures or diagrams depicting the anatomical structure would be great. Noor9279 (talk) 03:08, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review
You guys are off to a really good start with this article! Overall, you cover the basic questions regarding your topic (history, anatomy, physiology, etc.), providing substantial information for each section. In terms of organization, I thought that the order in which the information was given was logical, making your article both fluid and easy to follow. Additionally, I thought that your section entitled “Developmental Neurogenesis” was particularly strong.

My main critique would be for you guys to proofread your article a few more times, since there are quite a few run-on sentences, grammatical errors, and most of all awkward phrasing. Sentences like “although the nerve net allows the animal to respond to its environment, it has trouble alerting the animal from where the stimulus is coming,” are rather misleading and if re-worked, could provide for the reader with a much clearer interpretation of the information you are giving them. In the case of this sentence, perhaps considering revising it to something along the lines of “While the nerve net allows the organism to respond to its environment, it does not serve as a means from which the organism can detect the source of the stimulus”, would help to clarify exactly what you are trying to get across. Similarly, instead of “For this reason, simple animals with nerve nets, such as hydra, will typically respond in the same way to contact with an object, regardless of where the contact occurs,” try revising it to something like “Because of this, simple organisms with nerve nets, such as hydra, will typically produce the same motor output in response to contact with a stimulus, regardless of the point of contact.” In re-wording some awkward phrasing, the ideas of your article will come across much more clearly. In reading your article, I personally found it interesting and full of some really good information, but I did find myself re-reading certain sentences in order to better understand exactly what you guys were trying to say.

The only other suggestion I would give is to consider adding in a current research section where you discuss the importance of the nerve net in today’s science. This would be a great way to end your article in terms of regaining the reader’s attention and wrapping up your ideas. In this section you can present recent or ongoing experiments in which scientists are learning new things about the nerve net, or even experiments in which the nerve net is being used to study some other kind of concept.

Once again, you guys are off to a really great start. With some proofreading and perhaps the addition of a section addressing current research regarding nerve nets, your paper will be much stronger, and your ideas will come across much more clearly. Hope this review was helpful for you guys!

Estradja (talk) 04:27, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review
I found this article very interesting and informative guys. Overall, good work. That being said, here are some suggestions and critiques:

A few more words throughout your article could possibly be linked, as people who are not very familiar with neuroscience may not know some of the terms. For instance, central nervous system, epithelial cells, gaglian, and bilateral and radial symmetry are some examples of words or phrases that you can possibly link.

I think that the introduction to the article is one of the articles strengths. It is very clear and concise about what a nerve net essentially is, and is very informative so that the reader is able to understand the basis of what a nerve net is. It also coincides really well with the rest of your article. Additionally, the image of the Nettle jelly as an example of an organism that has a nerve net was a nice touch.

I thought the “Evolution” section was a little hard to follow and could have been revised a little more. For instance, the sentence “Porifera do not form synapses and myofibrils which allow for neuromuscular transmission, however, they do differentiate a proto-neuronal system and contain homologs of several genes found in cnidaria which are important in nerve formation,” as something along the lines of the following is possibly a little more coherent and easier to follow: “Although Porifera do not form synapses and myofibrils which allow for neuromuscular transmission, they do differentiate a proto-neuronal system and contain homologs of several genes found in cnidaria which are important in nerve formation.” Also, I think this section could have been organized a little differently, as it doesn’t seem to flow that well at the moment. I think that the information about coelenterates being the first to possess nerve nets (I believe that’s what your article is saying?) should be in the first paragraph of the “Evolution” section. It seems like it is one of your main points and strongest points that is directly about the evolutionary aspect of nerve nets, and it maybe should be brought to the forefront in this section. Additionally, the last sentence in this section does not appear to belong, as it isn’t so much about evolution. Too make this section more cohesive you might want to put in a phylogenic tree marking the evolution of the nerve nets in organisms (this may be a little ambitious, but just a suggestion).

Despite being relatively short, the “Anatomy” section is pretty informative and very interesting. However, I think that maybe you could have found a little more information on the anatomy of nerve nets, and the addition of it can strengthen this section a little bit.

It would be interesting if you found any research on nerve nets and the mechanism through which it works relates to the human body in any way. Like if research on nerve nets has been done in an attempt to find a pharmaceutical for the human body that is capable of doing something beneficial. I’m not sure if there really is any connection between nerve nets and the human body (it does seem a little bit of a stretch, especially since you stated in the “Physiology” section that the hormones and mechanisms aren’t known well), but if there is I think it would definitely strengthen your article.

Fordbd1 (talk) 23:59 19 November 2012 (UTC)

"The nerve net is the simplest form of a nervous system found in multicellular organisms."
How is this true? The C. elegans has a nervous system consisting of just 302 neurons. Silenceisgod (talk) 04:03, 24 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Simplicity is partly in the eye of the beholder. The nervous system of C. elgans is small but highly structured; the nervous system of a jellyfish contains far more neurons but appears much less structured.  Perhaps a rigorous measure of this would be the number of genes that are involved in patterning the nervous system in each species, but I don't know what that would come to. Looie496 (talk) 16:29, 24 February 2016 (UTC)