Chemical synapses are the key connective elements in neuronal networks. They are not only crucial for information processing, but their plasticity also endows the brain with its outstanding capacity ...

The human brain is a network of nearly 100 billion neurons forming as many as a quadrillion synapses. Exactly how this massively distributed information processor produces and represents mental ...

The word synapsis, later modified to synapse, was coined in 1897 (from the Greek word συναπτω, to clasp) by Lord Sherrington to describe the functional connection between neurons. Sherrington 1 noted ...

Stay up to date on the latest science with Brush Up Summaries. Nerve cells, or neurons, are the basic functional units of the nervous system. Multiple interconnected neurons form a neural circuit and ...

While the neural architecture responsible for the transmission of electrical impulses has been known for more than a century, the basic biology behind how a neuron acquires its one and only axon -- a ...

New experiments are settling a century-long debate between two camps over how neurons communicate. The surprise: both sides are right I sliced the heart in two with a big kitchen knife. All was ...

Scientists have discovered a new kind of synapse in the tiny hairs on the surface of neurons. The commonly overlooked protrusions called primary cilia contain special junctions that act as a shortcut ...

Ask a scientist what memory is, and you'll probably get long-term potentiation (LTP) as an answer. To understand what LTP is, you need a little basic nerve cell (neuron) anatomy. Neurons have a ...

Ask a scientist what memory is, and you'll probably get long-term potentiation (LTP) as an answer. To understand what LTP is, you need a little basic nerve cell (neuron) anatomy. Neurons have a ...