Describe the Basic Functioning of a Neuron Beginning with Receiving Signals from Other Neurons or Sense Organs and Ending with the Transmission of a Signal to Another Neuron. Explain How a Pattern of Neuron Firing Is Related to Behavior.

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Our body’s neural information system is complexity built from simplicity. Its building blocks are neurons, or nerve cells. Neurons receive information from sensory organs, send information to motor organs, or share information with other neurons. The process of communicating information is very similar, whether it is to another neuron or to a muscle or gland cell. However, by far the largest number of neuronal connections is with other neurons. Each neuron consists of a cell body and its branching fibers. Then the cells lengthy axon fibers pass the message through its terminal branches to other neurons or to muscles or glands. Dendrite listen. Axons speak. Neurons transmit messages when stimulated by signals from our senses or when triggered by chemical signals from other neurons. In response to this a neuron fires an impulse called the action potential. When a neuron fires the first section of the axon opens it gates and positively charged sodium ions flood through the cell membrane. This depolarizes that axon section, causing another axon gate to open, and then another, like a line of dominos. During the resting pause, the neuron pumps the positively charged sodium ions back outside. Then it can fire again. These transmissions occur electrically and chemically. Electrically, the neuron is directly neighboring to other neurons. Small holes in each cell's membrane, called gap junctions, are juxtaposed so that as the action potential reaches the end of the axon (at the terminal boutons), the depolarization continues across the membrane to the postsynaptic neuron directly. Chemically, there is a space (the synaptic cleft) between the axon terminal and the adjacent neuron. As the action potential reaches the end of the axon, a chemical is released that travels across the synaptic cleft to the next neuron to alter its electric

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