The Bugle Blast

By Dylan McDonough

On Thursday, March 14, my family and I arrived at Christian Healthcare Center for the field trip, “Journey Through the Nervous System”. I knew this was going to be great because of the last two great field trips they hosted, “Journey Through the Heart” and “Germs are Everywhere.” We followed a line of what looked like electrical pulses hanging on the wall, representing neurons, to our first room.

First, we watched a video about the basic idea of the nervous system. Electrical pulses travel back and forth through neurons sending messages to the brain. For example, if you touched a mug of steaming, hot chocolate the electrical pulses would shoot up your spinal cord through neurons telling the brain not to drink it yet. They had a life size neuron model that Daniel and I held. Others held strings attached to the cell body. These represented nerves. Others used unicorn poppers to launch balls at the cell. The balls acted like messages going up to the brain. Then I launched a float across some rope to Daniel holding the axon terminal, representing a message being sent down.

Another interesting station was the brain room where they had real lamb brains! They looked like cauliflower inside. We learned about the parts of the brain like the frontal lobe where your personality is stored. The frontal lobe takes the longest to develop and it is the first to get weak. The temporal lobe stores hearing, smell, speech and other senses. We also discovered that you should not eat human brains because you are eating neurons that will affect the connections in your brain causing you to go crazy. Tell that to the zombies!

A very important part of the field trip was the spiritual section. We learned that God is like the brain of the church and we are the neurons. We need to respond to God as the nervous system does in our own bodies. While using Scripture, we learned that if one neuron in the elbow isn’t listening to the brain, the neuron in the hand cannot send a message to the brain. We have to listen to one another so everything can work out smoothly in the church body. Pray and read the Bible while actively seeking God and His Word day by day. Glorify God and share the good news to everyone. All believers are part of the church body.

One of my definite favorite events was with my doctor, Dr. Alex Corcoran, acting as The Great Nervouso magician. He was teaching us about little tricks you can play on your brain. There was a picture of a man with huge hands and a monstrous tongue. It illustrated the relationship of how our nerves are concentrated in the body. He demonstrated on my arm that certain parts of our body are more sensitive than others. One time Daniel got to volunteer by putting one hand in a bowl of cold water and the other hand in warm water. Then Dr. Corcoran mixed the two temperatures together in one bowl. As Daniel put his hands in this bowl the hand that had been in the hot water felt cold and his hand that had been in the cold water felt hot! The Great Nervouso also explained that if you wiggle a pencil a certain way, it will appear to be made of rubber. It was fascinating to see how my brain reacts to some tricks.

Another room was all about our five senses and how our brain perceives various messages. There were several tables that had activities and puzzles for each particular sense. On the ear table, they had a great model of that unique contraption. The taste table had samples for us to taste. Did you know that no two tongues are alike? In the smell station we got to smell different spices and zests. The eye section had many different optical illusions. At the end we got paper brain hats showing what each part of the brain does.

This was a very fun field trip learning about the nervous system. I enjoyed the tricks from Dr. Corcoran and learning about five senses. The spiritual part was interesting and touching a brain was really gross! This was definitely another great experience at Christian Healthcare Center!