Related topics: brain , memory , brain cells , learning , nerve cells
Neuron
hideA neuron (pronounced /ˈnjʊərɒn/ N(Y)OOR-on, also known as a neurone or nerve cell) is an excitable cell in the nervous system that processes and transmits information by electrochemical signalling. Neurons are the core components of the brain, the vertebrate spinal cord, the invertebrate ventral nerve cord, and the peripheral nerves. A number of specialized types of neurons exist: sensory neurons respond to touch, sound, light and numerous other stimuli affecting cells of the sensory organs that then send signals to the spinal cord and brain. Motor neurons receive signals from the brain and spinal cord and cause muscle contractions and affect glands. Interneurons connect neurons to other neurons within the same region of the brain or spinal cord. Neurons respond to stimuli, and communicate the presence of stimuli to the central nervous system, which processes that information and sends responses to other parts of the body for action. Neurons do not go through mitosis, and usually cannot be replaced after being destroyed, although astrocytes have been observed to turn into neurons as they are sometimes pluripotent.
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News tagged with neurons
Double agent: Glial cells can protect or kill neurons, vision
Feb 01, 2010 |
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Scientists have identified a double agent in the eye that, once triggered, can morph from neuron protector to neuron killer. The discovery has significant health implications since the neurons killed through ...
Seeing the brain hear reveals surprises about how sound is processed
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Feb 01, 2010 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- New research shows our brains are a lot more chaotic than previously thought, and that this might be a good thing. Neurobiologists at the University of Maryland have discovered information ...
New insights into breast-feeding hormone
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Jan 28, 2010 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A mechanism for regulating the hormone prolactin has newly been revealed by scientists at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. The results are to be published in the scientific journal Neuron, and may be significant ...
Neuroscientists making computers smart enough to see connections between brain's neurons
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Jan 28, 2010 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- C. elegans, a tiny worm about a millimeter long, doesn’t have much of a brain, but it has a nervous system — one that comprises 302 nerve cells, or neurons, to be exact. In the 1970s, a team ...
Uncorrelated activity in the brain
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Jan 28, 2010 |
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Interconnected networks of neurons process information and give rise to perception by communicating with one another via small electrical impulses known as action potentials. In the past, scientists believed that adjacent ...
Functional connection between hippocampus and cortex modulates anxiety
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Jan 27, 2010 |
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A new study demonstrates that cooperation between the hippocampus, best known for its critical role in learning and memory, and a principal downstream cortical target modulates anxiety-related behaviors in mice. The research, ...
Neuron connections seen in 3-D
Jan 22, 2010 |
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A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, in Germany, led by the Spanish physicist Rubén Fernández-Busnadiego, has managed to obtain 3D images of the vesicles and filaments ...
Nano-motors facilitate communication between brain cells
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Jan 22, 2010 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- MRC-funded scientists led by Dr Josef Kittler (University College London Neuroscience) have identified how nano-sized motors in nerve cells help to regulate the balance of communication in ...
Scientists shed new light on walking
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Jan 22, 2010 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the medical university Karolinska Institutet have created a genetically modified mouse in which certain neurons can be activated by blue light. Shining blue light on brainstems or spinal cords ...
Memory molecule, deja vu
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Jan 19, 2010 |
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A second high-profile paper in as many months has found an important role in learning and memory for calpain, a molecule whose academic fortunes have ebbed and flowed for 25 years.
Genetic risk factor identified for Parkinson's disease
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Jan 15, 2010 |
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An international team of doctors and human geneticists has identified a new genetic risk factor for Parkinson's disease. The institutions involved in the study were the Institute of Human Genetics of Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen ...
A flying boost for neuroscience
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Jan 15, 2010 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Understanding the causes of autism and schizophrenia could be a step closer for researchers from the Queensland Brain Institute at The University of Queensland after they unravelled the secret world of the ...
Yale team finds neural thermostat keeps brain running efficiently
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Jan 13, 2010 |
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Our energy-hungry brains operate reliably and efficiently while processing a flood of sensory information, thanks to a sort of neuronal thermostat that regulates activity in the visual cortex, Yale researchers have found.
Duke scientists map brain pathway for vocal learning
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Jan 13, 2010 |
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Scientists at Duke University Medical Center have identified neurons in the songbird brain that convey the auditory feedback needed to learn a song.
Surplus of serotonin receptors may explain failure of antidepressants in some patients
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Jan 13, 2010 |
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An excess of one type of serotonin receptor in the center of the brain may explain why antidepressants fail to relieve symptoms of depression for 50 percent of patients, a new study from researchers at Columbia University ...
