PSY100H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Voltage-Gated Potassium Channel, Axon Hillock, Central Nervous System
65
PSY100H1 Full Course Notes
Verified Note
65 documents
Document Summary
Chapter 4 excitability ad chemical signaling in nerve cells. All thoughts, emotions and behaviours come about because of biochemical and electrochemical processes that take place in specialized cells in the nervous system called neurons. Drugs that affect these psychological variables do so because they alter these biochemical and electrochemical processes. It has been estimated that the human nervous system contains approximately 85 billion neurons. Neurons act to transducer information about their physical and chemical environments, which means that they convert one form of energy into another form of energy or one type of signal into another type of signal. Each neuron has numerous excitatory and inhibitory inputs or synapses, which regulate the frequency of action potentials produced by them. The large arrows indicate the most common direction of information flow. The main body of the neuron is called the soma, parts of which serve integrative functions in the communication of information. Extensions from the soma are termed dendrites and axons.
