[Music]
all right guys in this video we're going
to talk about the parts of a neuron and
for some background information remember
a neuron is an individual nerve cell
that makes up the nervous system it
allows information to travel throughout
the human body so whether you want to
move your muscles detect things in the
world that are hot or cold speak make
decisions or even understand what i'm
saying all of that cannot be done
without a healthy functioning neuron so
let's go over how it works the first
structure i want to focus on are these
little branches right here it's almost
like the little fingers on my hand these
are called
dendrites what are they called
dendrites so all of these
little branches
are dendrites and what do dendrites do
dendrites receive the message from
another neuron
the way we communicate is through
language and words right but neurons
communicate through chemical messages
specifically things called
neurotransmitters
imagine for example this is a
neurotransmitter there's many types it
could be dopamine which is a reward
seeking right pleasure neurotransmitter
it could be acetylcholine which controls
our muscles it could be endorphins which
is a pain reliever this is going to be
released by another neuron and it's
going to bind
on the dendrites it's going to be
received like a lock and key this
dendrite this dendrite this your android
whichever it is it's going to bind to
that
receptor site
now once it binds it's going to be
integrated and interpreted by this area
right here called the
soma
or cell body and the soma is where you
can find the nucleus right the genetic
material of the neuron it helps sustain
life of the neuron as well
now before information travels down this
long tube right here notice that the
soma connects to this tube by this
little structure right here okay
this is what we call
the axon
hillock okay axon hillock and this is
important why is it important
if the signal is strong enough okay
we'll talk about that in another video
if the if the information is strong
enough what's going to happen is this is
going to generate an electrical charge
called an action potential and here is
our electrical charge
there we go right here okay and that's
going to start in the axon hillock
and that's going to travel down this
long tube right here what is that tube
called
this is called and is in here the axon
and the cool thing about the axon is
that it could be very very tiny just a
few millimeters in the brain to up to a
few feet long let's say going from your
spinal cord to your toes so the axon
carries the electrical signal the active
potential down here
to the end of the neuron
now this is important
you want things to go fast right if
you're an emergency something in danger
you want that charge to go really fast
on the axon well how do we ensure that
it's a fast signal
the axon is covered by something called
the mylon or mylon sheath okay the mylon
sheath
you might have heard the words
glial cells or schwann cells a lot of
this means essentially the same thing
you have glial cells or more
specifically schwann cells that form or
make this mylon and the mylon acts as an
insulator right it's like kind of like a
a wire to a wire with rubber tubing
around it helps protect and speed up
that impulse so it goes really fast and
just for some background information if
you've ever heard of something called
multiple sclerosis right this horrible
disease that affects communication
through the body it disrupts the myeloma
it destroys the myeloma so information
doesn't get from point a to point b
now not every axon has nylon right in
fact we can kind of divide this into two
types we can say there are you know
unmyelinated
unmyelinated
axon and then there's also
myelinated axon
okay myelinated
most of there we go there's a d
myelinated ammonite most of the neurons
in the nervous system central peripheral
are
myelinated why because we need things to
happen very quickly but of course there
are axons that are unmyelinated now the
color of it and this is actually
interesting to know
is the color is white okay now why is
that important
okay if we know anything about gray
matter and white matter in the brain
well white matter in the brain is
essentially made up of myelinated axons
okay that's what gives it the color
white if you've ever heard of gray
matter okay in the brain
it's called gray matter essentially
because it's the color gray because
those are unmyelinated okay there aren't
any axons that have myelom so there's
some
interesting background on the myelinated
verse on myelinated now there is another
way to make this action potential go
even faster down the axon and how is
that you notice these little tiny gaps
between the mylon okay
these gaps are what we call the nodes
of
ranvier or ranvier i always see
different names for it all right so
these are these little tiny gaps in the
mylon okay do you ever take a rock and
skip it across the water and it just
goes
right these are what the nodes do right
so here's our action potential and when
you have myelinated axons instead of
going through the axon
what happens is they bounce from node to
node and this helps speed up the process
even more so instead of going through
goes bounce bounce bounds all the way to
the end of the axon all right so what is
the end of the axon
these little branches here are what we
call the axon terminal or you might say
synaptic buds there's always so many
names for all these things axon terminal
okay
and this is where let's get back to our
neurotransmitters our neurotransmitters
are stored in synaptic vesicles and
what's going to happen is once the
exponential hits there these are going
to be released
and bind to receptors of the next
postsynaptic neuron now two neurons
don't actually touch each other it's
going to be released into an area called
the synapse is a small gap or junction
between two neurons and that's going to
bind to receptor of another neuron so
there we go there's the parts or main
parts of a neuron now it is important to
note
not all neurons look the same even
though they have roughly the same parts
they could look very different so for
example this first one is what we call a
motor neuron you can see it actually is
the typical neuron that you would see if
you google something like that right
another oh another word for motor neuron
is a multi-multi-polar
neuron okay you can have let's say a
sensory neuron
okay
sensory neuron and this is actually
another word is unipolar
neuron
and you can even have something called
an interneuron
okay
and this would be considered a bipolar
neuron right so many different names and
you could find bipolar neurons in the
retina okay in your eye next to the
ganglion cells so motor neurons would
help move my muscles right afferent or
efferent that exit the brain help me
move sensory neurons detect information
from the environment right hot cold
smells and sites and interneurons
connect or help a link the motor and
sensory neurons
all right guys thanks for watching i
really hope you learned something don't
forget to like the video subscribe i'll
see you next time