 Hey everybody, Dr. O here. So we're going to jump into the ANS or the autonomic nervous system and I like to start by actually comparing the somatic nervous system to the autonomic nervous system so we can see how it's going to be different than the system that we've already covered. So these are going to be the two divisions or two branches of your peripheral nervous system. But let's look at some of the similarities and some of the differences here and we'll cover the ANS itself in much more detail later but here's a nice comparison of the two. So your somatic nervous system is both afferent and efferent pathways meaning there is somatic sensory and motor divisions. So the somatic sensory information is what is the information that's sent to the primary sensory cortex in the post-central gyrus of your prideolobe. The somatic motor component is information sent from your primary motor cortex which is in the pre-central gyrus of the frontal lobe. So the somatic nervous system is both sensory and motor. The autonomic nervous system is only visceral motor. It's only efferent pathways only motor. Next you see that somatic nervous system is voluntary so that the effectors are going to be your skeletal muscles so you control a lot of the movement of your body of course there are subconscious reflexes as well but there's a lot of voluntary control there. The autonomic nervous system is completely involuntary so you're not controlling these effectors like you are with your skeletal muscles. Speaking of the effectors the biggest difference here the most important thing to note is the effectors of your somatic nervous system or what's being controlled by your somatic nervous system are skeletal muscles whereas the effectors or what's under control of the autonomic nervous system is the cardiac muscle of your heart, the smooth muscle of your hollow organs like your GI tract, your glands and fat. So those are going to be the effectors. So the somatic nervous system you have voluntary control of skeletal muscles, autonomic nervous system, involuntary control of cardiac muscle, smooth muscle, glands and fat. Alright so those are going to be the main things here obviously we already mentioned that the somatic nervous system is under conscious control meaning it reaches your cerebral cortex or travels from your cerebral cortex. Autonomic nervous system is all unconscious control. It originates in the hypothalamus which is below your cerebral cortex that's in the diencephalon. I think that was the last one here maybe is that your somatic nervous system is very localized. You tell individual motor units what to do when you're controlling your skeletal muscles. The autonomic nervous system is very diffused. The responses can be huge and can target multiple organs even. Okay that's just a real quick overview or comparison of the somatic and autonomic nervous systems. Next video we'll start to dive into what the autonomic nervous system actually is. I hope this helps. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.