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Saba Ashraf's picture

Reafferent Loop/Set points

Going over the reafferent loop in the nervous system definitely clarified the behaviors exhibited by many organisms such as birds. I found the example of the bird songs particularly interesting because of the fact the birds were able to evaluate their singing against their own perception of what the song should sound like. Not only did they need to hear the song, but the birds also needed to practice it themselves. Humans are very similar in the way that they not only need to be exposed to language, but also need to speak it. This reminds me of the fact that certain people can sit in class and hear the instructor talk, yet unless they go over the material on their own, they don’t have much understanding of the material. In this case, being in class will only help if the students also put more time into understanding it on their own. This relates to the fact that certain birds can hear their specie’s song at a young age, but if the song doesn’t crystallize, the bird won’t sing the correct song. Also, the fact that body weight is controlled by a negative feedback loop and that one’s set point for body weight changes as they age makes a lot of sense. I have always realized that people have gained a significant amount of weight from when they were adolescents, yet I never really known why.  However, I was wondering about how the set point for body is actually changed and whether it was related to the physical activity and diet a person eats?  

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