Organization of the Nervous System. The somatic nervous system regulates the actions of the body's skeletal muscles. The autonomic nervous system sustains basic life processes, such as respiration, digestion, and arousal. The sympathetic division responds in emergencies or stressful situations. The Structure of a Neuron.
Dendrites are the part of the neuron that receives incoming signals via a set of branched fibers.
The soma is the cell body that receives information from the dendrites and passes it on to the axon. Axons are single, extended fibers. Terminal buttons are bulblike structures through which the neuron stimulates nearby glands, muscles, and other neurons. The myelin sheath insulates some axons and increases the speed of neural conduction. Synaptic transmission is the relaying of information from one neuron to the next across the synaptic gap.