PSY 0010 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Roger Wolcott Sperry, Neuroimaging, Striatum
Document Summary
Section 1 neurons: the origin of behavior. Neurons: cells in the nervous system that communicate with one another to perform information-processing tasks. Neurons are complex structures composed of three basic parts: the cell body, the dendrites, and the axon. Neurons have two types of specialized extensions of the cell membrane that allow the to communicate: dendrites and axons: dendrites: receive information from other neurons and relay it to the cell body. Dendrite comes from the greek word for tree : axon: carries information to other neurons, muscles or glands. Can be very long, even stretching up to a meter from the base of the spinal cord down to the big toe: the dendrites and axons of neurons do not actually touch each other. There"s a small gap between the axon of one neuron and the dendrites or cell body of another: synapse: the junction or region between the axon of one neuron and the dendrites or cell body of another.
