Green gecko 🦎explores neurons!

Neurons, in your brain, work by excitation. Let’s give it some right here! Enjoy the read. I added this🦎 green gecko that will be following you throughout the chapters. It guides on this gliding journey to understanding!

only in mathematics we have normal

That sponge in the picture is quite a nice model of a neuron. It’s not far from reality. Look at this, it’s a simplified depiction of a neuron:

Neurons are mostly composed of water.

The ‘hairs’ emanating from the neuron are carriers of electric signals. These are called dendrites.

Depending on the direction of a signal in the dendrite, we talk of:

• inbound: afferent (is inbound to neuron; something has an ‘affect’ ON the neuron)
• efferent (an outbound signal, from neuron, has effects on other neurons)

Afferent and efferent just have to be sort of memoized in a rote manner. I still have sometimes problems remembering which is which. Make some kind of good memoization rule, so you are good!

This liquid inside the neuron contains ions, and when we look at the mixture, it is now called intracellular fluid. The properties of…