<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Anatomical terminology (edit on Wikidata) </Td> </Tr> <P> The somatic nervous system (SNS or voluntary nervous system) is the part of the peripheral nervous system associated with the voluntary control of body movements via skeletal muscles . </P> <P> The somatic nervous system consists of afferent nerves or sensory nerves, and efferent nerves or motor nerves . Afferent nerves are responsible for relaying sensation from the body to the central nervous system; efferent nerves are responsible for sending out commands from the CNS to the body, stimulating muscle contraction; they include all the non-sensory neurons connected with skeletal muscles and skin . The a - of afferent and the e - of efferent correspond to the prefixes ad - (to, toward) and ex - (out of). </P> <P> There are 43 segments of nerves in the human body . With each segment, there is a pair of sensory and motor nerves . In the body, 31 segments of nerves are in the spinal cord and 12 are in the brain stem . </P>

Somatic nervous system consists of nerve fibers that connect the cns to the