Central Nervous System
The nervous system, in a nutshell, is a system that helps network millions of neurons in the internal part of our body to communicate with each other. Animal Physiology by Richard W. Hill defines the nervous system as a system that generates coordinated nerve impulses that travel to the swimming muscles, which contract using energy drawn from ATP that is synthesized from organic food molecules that serve as metabolic fuels. The nervous systems of modern animals are amazingly diverse (Miller 2009). Since cheetahs didn't need to learn to sprint, "or at most need only to perfect
by practice, it follows that there has been an evolution of the sensory and nervous system to ensure the correct responses" in the hunt (Smith 1952). There are two parts to the nervous system first being "central nervous system which is made up of the brain and spinal cord, and secondly peripheral nervous system which consists of nerves that branch off of the spinal cord and extends to all parts of the body," as stated by Eunice Kennedy Shiver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Similar to humans, cheetahs have two parts to their central nervous system which consists of the brain and the spinal cord. The cheetah’s brain is the system that processes and interprets its environment. It interprets information from various external sources, such as their eyes and ears, nose, tongue, etc... It controls their movements. The cheetah’s spinal cord is the highway that carries information between the brain and the body. When their spinal cord is damaged, the information that the brain receives from the spinal cord is disrupted which can be detrimental.
The average brain mass of the cheetah is about 110 g. To get a good perspective on how small that actually is, the average brain mass of a lion is 220 g, which is about twice the mass of a cheetah's brain (Nguyen, Saviano, Stimpson, Sherwood, Jacobs, Manger, and Spocter, 2019). There's a lot of things happening behind the scene when you are the worlds fastest animal clocking in at >100 km/h when hunting prey (Sharp, 1997). They display a greatly modified morphology when differentiating with other felids, such as lengthen hind legs and spine, an aerodynamic skull, and
specialized metabolic and adrenal system (Nguyen, Saviano, Stimpson, Sherwood, Jacobs, Manger, and Spocter, 2019). Although the brain mass of a cheetah is similar to the brain mass of an African Leopard, it is very different in the way that cheetahs tended to exhibit more complicated dendrites than compared to African Leopard. The spinal nerves begin from a substantial column of nerve tissue in the vertebral canal, which is connected to the brain. The spinal cord and the brain make up the central nervous system. The spinal cord's nerve fibers carry signals to and from the brain. Overall, it is the brain and the spinal cord of the cheetah that is responsible for its reactions when hunting, stalking prey or evading threats from lions, hyenas, etc...