{"id":413,"date":"2014-05-27T13:53:23","date_gmt":"2014-05-27T13:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/?p=870"},"modified":"2022-01-04T19:50:28","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T19:50:28","slug":"the-variety-and-structural-complexity-of-neurons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/advanced\/2014\/05\/27\/the-variety-and-structural-complexity-of-neurons\/","title":{"rendered":"The Variety and Structural Complexity of Neurons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2487\" title=\"epine-dendritique\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog-lecerveau.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/epine-dendritique.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"110\" height=\"110\" \/>The purpose of most of the posts in this blog is to summarize recent studies in the cognitive sciences and attempt to make them more accessible\u2014in particular by providing links to selected pages on this website. But the purpose of some of the other posts is simply to draw attention to existing resources on various aspects of neuroscience. Today\u2019s post falls in the latter category. It deals with the <span style=\"color: #008080;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrain.mcgill.ca\/flash\/i\/i_01\/i_01_cl\/i_01_cl_ana\/i_01_cl_ana.html\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\">neuron<\/span><\/a><\/span> and the work by Kristen Harris and her colleagues to reveal it in all its complexity (see the first two links below).<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrain.mcgill.ca\/flash\/d\/d_01\/d_01_cl\/d_01_cl_ana\/d_01_cl_ana.html\"><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Neurons are like any other cells in the human body<\/span><\/a><\/span>, except that they have two special characteristic structures that let them carry out their communication function: long extensions called axons, of which there is typically only one per neuron, and multiple branches called dendrites, which are generally shorter. The combinations of various shapes and sizes of axons and dendrites results in hundreds of <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrain.mcgill.ca\/flash\/a\/a_01\/a_01_cl\/a_01_cl_ana\/a_01_cl_ana.html\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">types and sub-types of neurons<\/span><\/a><\/span>, some of them quite remarkable esthetically. The <span style=\"color: #008080;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/22\/the-1001-faces-of-the-neuron\/\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\">catalogue<\/span><\/a><\/span> of these structures is growing every day, thanks to increasingly sophisticated staining methods.<\/p>\n<p>The shape of any particular neuron is determined largely by its pattern of connections with other neurons, which in turn depends on the function of the neural pathway in question. All of these structures are first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrain.mcgill.ca\/flash\/d\/d_09\/d_09_m\/d_09_m_dev\/d_09_m_dev.html\"><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">laid down while the embryo is developing <em>in utero<\/em><\/span><\/a>, and then, after birth, they are shaped continuously by the individual\u2019s interactions with the environment. Those <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrain.mcgill.ca\/flash\/d\/d_09\/d_09_m\/d_09_m_dev\/d_09_m_dev.html#4\"><span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">neural pathways that do not get used very much are gradually eliminated<\/span><\/a><\/span>, while those that get used a lot <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebrain.mcgill.ca\/flash\/i\/i_07\/i_07_m\/i_07_m_tra\/i_07_m_tra.html\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\">strengthen their connections<\/span><\/a>, sometimes even modifying the complex microstructure of the dendritic spines (see the video at the first link below) so that the synaptic contact between two neurons becomes more intimate.<\/p>\n<p>But what is really staggering is not so much the unique, highly complex, three-dimensional sculpture that every neuron represents, but rather that every individual has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/16\/fewer-glial-cells-than-you-might-think\/\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\">about 85 billion more of them<\/span><\/a>, hundreds or thousands of which interact with it.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FZT6c0V8fW4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0pt;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog-lecerveau.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/d_lien.gif\" alt=\"d_lien\" width=\"15\" height=\"15\" \/> <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Waltz through hippocampal neuropil<\/span><\/span><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/synapses.clm.utexas.edu\/index.asp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0pt;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog-lecerveau.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/a_lien.gif\" alt=\"a_lien\" width=\"15\" height=\"15\" \/> <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">SynapseWeb &#8211; Anatomy<\/span><\/span><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.brainfacts.org\/brain-basics\/neuroanatomy\/articles\/2012\/neurons-a-curious-collection-of-shapes-and-sizes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #008080;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0pt;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog-lecerveau.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/i_lien.gif\" alt=\"i_lien\" width=\"15\" height=\"15\" \/> Neurons: A Curious Collection of Shapes and Sizes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The purpose of most of the posts in this blog is to summarize recent studies in the cognitive sciences and attempt to make them more accessible\u2014in particular by providing links to selected pages on this website. But the purpose of some of the other posts is simply to draw attention to existing resources on various [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[50,152],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/advanced\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/advanced\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/advanced\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/advanced\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/advanced\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/advanced\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":972,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/advanced\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions\/972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/advanced\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/advanced\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/advanced\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}