PSYCH 1XX3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Extracellular Fluid, Resting Potential, The Terminal
Document Summary
The fundamental building block of the nervous system; brain is made up 100 billion neurons. Fall into the category of cells specialized for communication. Organized into signaling pathways to communicate via synaptic transmission. Unique structure that makes them especially good at communication. Contains two distinct zones: receptive zone designed to receive signals from other neurons; made up of the dendrites branching out from the cell body. Begins with the cell body; the cell body contains most of the vital organelles which keep the cell functioning. Branching from the cell body are a number of projections called dendrites which look a lot like the long, stretching branches of a tree. Dendrites reach out to other neurons and receive signals to be relayed through the dendritic branch to the cell body, where some signals will go on to be conveyed down the axon.