(1) A nerve impulse arrives. (2) This causes calcium ion channels to open, resulting in an influx of calcium ions in the terminal. (3) This causes synaptic vesicles to fuse with the terminal membrane, ...

When neuroscientists analyzed the exact properties of nerve connections in the brain, they made a startling observation: At a key connection, or synapse, messages are sent against the usual stream of ...

The Royal Society is a self-governing Fellowship of many of the world's most distinguished scientists drawn from all areas of science, engineering and medicine, and is the oldest scientific academy in ...

How do people think, feel, remember, and move? These processes rely on synaptic transmission, where chemical signals are passed between nerve cells using molecular structures called vesicles.

Tau proteins are involved in more than twenty neurodegenerative diseases, including various forms of dementia. These proteins clump together in patients’ brains to form neuronal tangles: protein ...

THE intimate nature of the nervous impulse has long been a subject for speculation by physiologists and psychologists. Simple models to explain the mode of transmission of an impulse along a nerve, ...

One of the greatest, relatively underappreciated, discoveries in all of science was the discovery of the nerve impulse in the 1930s by the British Lord Adrian. Adrian did win a Nobel Prize for his ...

Ten years ago, three research teams published a breakthrough — the first description of the molecular mechanism for transduction in fingertip sensory Merkel cells that can transduce gentle touch, a ...

Also referred to as chemical messengers, neurotransmitters are chemical agents made and released by neurons. They are stored in vesicles at the terminal end (presynaptic terminal) of a neuron. Their ...

Controversy is an inevitable, and essential, part of science, but one that scientists generally find uncomfortable and tend to regard as a blemish to be hidden from the public. Elliot Valenstein's ...