A Lecture on the Structure of the Neuron

Here’s the first part of the lecture on the direction of impulse in a typical neuron.

Transcript

Note:  I have tried to make the segments fit with the pacing of the teacher’s speaking – because the captions don’t show that very well.

Take that salmon colored paper please,

and find the three typical parts of a neuron.

I’ve lettered them there for you:

A, B, and C.

Dendrite, Cell Body and Axon.

Those are the three main parts of a neuron.

I am not going to say every neuron has all three parts,

some specialized neurons have a few of the parts missing.

But a typical neuron sends an impulse in this direction all the time.

The way I’ve set it up with my letters.

An impulse enters the dendrites,

goes through the cell body,

and goes out along the length of the axon.

So that you have that down on that paper,

do this for me,

and I’ve got the same picture, different color.

Drawn an arrow down the side margin of your paper,

put the head of the arrow down at the bottom.

Right at the bottom of that arrow —

draw the arrow the entire length of the paper,

head of the arrow down at the bottom.

At the bottom of the arrow, put direction of impulse.

And then just superimpose these three words on that arrow.

Near the top of the page, put “Dendrite.”

In the middle of the arrow, put “cell body.”

And down near your arrowhead at the bottom, put “axon.”

That’s the direction that an impulse flows.