Next
Dinesh

Dinesh club

Posted: 22 Oct 2022

Taken: 21 Oct 2022

0 favorites     1 comment    19 visits

See also...

Keywords

Excerpt •
Self Comes to Mind •
Author •
Antonio Damasio •

Authorizations, license

Visible by: Everyone
All rights reserved
19 visits

Neuron

Neuron
Comments
 Dinesh
Dinesh club
Neurons, as far as one can fathom, are unique cells, of a kind unlike any other in the body, unlike even other kinds of brain cells such as glial cells. What makes neurons so different and so special? After all, don’t they too have a cell body, equipped with nucleus, cytoplasm, and membrane? Don’t they rearrange molecules internally as other body cells do? Don/t they too adapt to the environment? Yes, indeed, all the above is true. Neurons are, through and through, body cells, and yet they also are special.

To explain why neurons are special, we should consider a functional difference and a strategic difference. The essential electro-chemical signals capable of changing the state of other cells. Neurons did not invent electrical signals. For example, unicellular organisms such as paramecia can also produce them and use them to govern their behavior. But neurons use their signals to influence other cells, namely, other neurons, endocrine cells (which secrete chemical molecules), and muscle fiber cells. Changing the state of other cells is the very source of the activity that constitutes and regulates behavior, to begin win, and the eventually also contributes to making a mind. Neurons are capable of this feat because they produce and propagate an electrical current along the tubelike section known as the axon. Sometimes the transmission goes over distances that can be appreciated by the naked eye, as when signals travel for many centimeters along the axons of neurons from our motor cortex to the brain stem, or from the spinal cord to the tip of a limb. When the electrical current arrives at the tip of the neuron and synapse, it causes the release of chemical molecule, a transmitter, which in turn acts on the subsequent cell in the chain. When the subsequent cell is a muscle fiber, movement ensued. ~ Page 39/40

SELF COMES TO MIND
18 months ago. Edited 18 months ago.

Sign-in to write a comment.