This book was created and published on StoryJumper™

©2015 StoryJumper, Inc.   All rights reserved.

Publish your own children's book: 

www.storyjumper.com

“Now Archi, this is called the central nervous system, and it is made up of

the brain in your head, and the long cord in your new spine,” said Titania.

“What’s a spine?” asked Archi.

“You’re really asking me what a spine is? You wished for a nervous 

system and you don’t even know what a spine is? Oh jeez, it's the long 

bumpy thing down your back, and it holds your spinal cord.” answered 

Titania sassily.

Then Titania grabbed Archi's paw and whisked him 

down the spinal chord into the nerves of the arm.

"Where are we now?" he asked, embarrassed.

"Oh, sweetie," she clucked, you don't need 

to be ashamed about your questions- you've 

never had nerves before! This is the mystical plan of 

the peripheral nervous system, which is every nerve 

except for the ones where we just were, in the CNS."

“But what’s the spinal cord?” asked Archi

“It’s the bundle of nerves going through your spine, from your skull to 

the lowest vertebrae, that branches off into all of the other nerves 

of your body. It’s like the signal highway. In humans, like your family, 

it’s about 18 inches long, and .3 to .55 inches thick. It’s thickest at the 

places where the most nerves branch off.

Look inside this cross section, Archi. Do you see how there’s two 

different colored sections? One, on the inside, is called gray matter. 

This is used for spinal reflexes. Ones that are automatic, and don’t have 

to think about.” Titania touched her wand to Archi’s paw. 

“Ouch!” he said, recoiling immediately, “That’s hot!” 

“And that,” said Titania, “is a spinal reflex."

Now see the lighter surrounding stuff? That’s white matter. 

It passes signals much more quickly because of something 

called myelin. Signals in the white matter go up to your CNS 

for processing and back down to your PNS in motor commands. 

Archi leaned back against the edge inside of the spine, and 

something sticky got all over his fur.

“Ahhhh, what’s this?” yelled Archi, as Titania laughed so hard 

she began wheezing.

“That’s the spinal meninges silly, I probably should have warned you 

about that,” she said between gasps of air, “the meninges protects the 

spinal cord, carries the blood supply, and is continuous with the cranial 

meninges. It basically keeps the spinal cord away from everything else.” 

Titania then started flying away, leaving Archi to run behind her, following the 

sound of her laughter. 

“You really need to stop doing that, I really

can’t run, now that I can feel the pain it causes.” said Archie.

“Well, honey better get used to it now, ‘cause your 

nerves ain’t gonna stop now that they’ve started. 

Speaking of nerves, you know how I said that the 

spinal cords was a bundle of nerves, now we are in 

one nerve, but it’s kind of a bundle.” explained Titania.

Now let’s take a trip down the spinal cord from top to bottom. 

To your left and right you’ll see the cervical plexus.”

“Plexus?” said Archi.

“Plexus.” said Titania. “It’s like a webbing of nerves that overlap 

and blend coming off the spinal cord. This way, if one nerve gets 

damaged, your body has backup pathways to send impulses with. 

The cervical plexus is the one in your neck. The brachial plexus 

in the your shoulder and arm, your lumbar plexus is in your lower 

back, and your sacral plexus is down by your little fluffy tail.”

“This is the phrenic nerve, it controls the diaphragm.” said Titania, 

and before Archi could say anything else, she grabbed his paw again 

and whisked him to the femoral nerve.

enter text here

“This is the femoral nerve, it controls the muscles of 

the thigh and anterior skin.” she said, again taking his 

hand and soaring to the median nerve.

“This is the median nerve, it controls the flexor of 

the forearm and radial half of palm.” she said as she 

whisked them to their final stop, the saphenous 

nerve.

enter text here

“Our last stop on this leg of our tour is the saphenous 

nerve, and it controls the skin of the medial leg and 

foot. Hoped you retained all that because we are way 

behind schedule. And I need to get back and report to 

TInkerbell really soon.” said Titania. 

“What’s next?” asked Archi,

“Let’s head back up to the brain,” said Titania. “See the fluid 

surrounding it? That’s called the CSF- the cerebrospinal fluid. It works 

like liquid padding to protect your brain. That way if someone drops 

you while you’re playing, it won’t get hurt. It also monitors the 

nutrients and waste products you’ve got up there.”

“Wow!” Archi exclaimed,   “The brain looks really complicated.”

“Yeah, pretty much.” said Titania, “This job is hella tough, 

especially for first timers. You’re lucky I aced by anatomy test 

back at the academy. I’ll walk you through everything, starting 

simple. You see the biggest part of the brain, right here? That’s 

called the cerebrum. It takes care of the higher thoughts you have.”

“You mean like my intelligence?”

“That’s right, you smart little teddy bear!” Archi pursed his lips.

“I don’t know if you can call me a teddy bear anymore, 

judging by the circumstance that I am now in some respects 

a rational higher being and-”

“Ok, shut it Freud.” Titania rolled her eyes. “The cerebrum 

also processes the sensory information you take in and motor functions 

that it will send out. Now look, there’s different sections of it, too, called 

lobes. The frontal lobe is in the front, obviously, by your forehead. 

Behind that is the parietal lobe. Behind that is the occipital lobe, by the 

nape of your neck. The temporal lobes are on the sides of your head, by 

your ears.”

“There’s also two halves, called hemispheres. The left one 

controls the right half of your body, and the right hemisphere 

controls the left side of your body. This is called contra lateral. In 

most people, this means the left hemisphere is dominant. It 

controls language, decision making, reading, writing, and math.”

You've previewed 27 of 42 pages.

To read more: