Neuropathy Knowledge: What Is A Neuron?

Today's post from sciencedaily.com (see link below) is the last part of a series from the same source providing readers with explanations and information about many of the medical terms they hear when researching neuropathy, or sitting in the doctor's surgery and talking about it. Today it explains the word 'neuron' and gives related definitions of other words associated with its workings in the nervous system. Worth following the links if you have the time.

Neuron
Science Daily via Wikipedia

Neurons (also known as neurones, nerve cells and nerve fibers) are electrically excitable cells in the nervous system that function to process and transmit information.

In vertebrate animals, neurons are the core components of the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves. Neurons are typically composed of a soma, or cell body, a dendritic tree and an axon.

The majority of vertebrate neurons receive input on the cell body and dendritic tree, and transmit output via the axon, although there is great heterogeneity throughout the nervous system, as well as throughout the animal kingdom, in the size, shape and function of neurons.

For invertebrate neurons, the information flow is less well defined.

Neurons communicate via chemical and electrical synapses, in a process known as synaptic transmission.

The fundamental process underlying synaptic transmission is the action potential, a propagating electrical signal that is generated by exploiting the electrically excitable membrane of the neuron.

Neurons are highly specialized for the fast processing and transmission of cellular signals.

For more information about the topic Neuron, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:


Sensory neuron — Sensory neurons are nerve cells within the nervous system responsible for converting external stimuli from the organism's environment into internal ...  read more


Axon — An axon, or nerve fiber, is a long slender projection of a nerve cell, or neuron, that conducts electrical impulses away from the neuron's cell body ...  read more


Myelin — Myelin is an electrically insulating phospholipid layer that surrounds the axons of many neurons. It is an outgrowth of glial cells: Schwann cells ...  read more


Motor neuron — In vertebrates, motor neurons (also called motoneurons) are efferent neurons that originate in the spinal cord and synapse with muscle fibers to ...  read more


Astrocyte — Astrocytes, also known as astroglia, are characteristic star-shaped glial cells in the ...  read more


Neurobiology — Neurobiology is the study of cells of the nervous system and the organization of these cells into functional circuits that process information and ...  read more


Neural development — The study of neural development draws on both neuroscience and developmental biology to describe the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which ...  read more


Chemical synapse — Chemical synapses are specialized junctions through which cells of the nervous system signal to one another and to non-neuronal cells such as muscles ...; read more


Spinal cord — The spinal cord is a part of the vertebrate nervous system that is enclosed in and protected by the vertebral column (it passes through the spinal ...  read more


Nervous system — The nervous system of an animal coordinates the activity of the muscles, monitors the organs, constructs and also stops input from the senses, and ...  read more

http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/n/neuron.htm