Okay, so let's go from here and summarize what we've learned today. First, let's look at a network.

Because remember, we have so many cells in a given tissue. Very, very dense. Let's look at the sparse representation of a piece of a cortex. There are these different cell types. I mentioned the pyramidal cells, there is a spiny stellate cell, another morphological type, and another interneurons and so on. And these cells interact with each other via synapses. So, for example, the green cell is making excitatory synapse to the, to the white cell. The red cell is making maybe inhibitory synapse to the dendrite of the white cell. The blue cell, the blue pyramidal cell, is making excitatory synapse into the dendrite of this white cell. So this white cell, this Spanish stellate cell in layer 4 of the cortex, receives inputs, synaptic inputs from many, many neighbors. Maybe 10,000 neighbors. And each neighbor is saying different thing. Some neighbors excite the cells in this particular dendritic region. Some other local neighbors, interneurons, inhibitor interneurons, inhibit the dendrites at this location. So, it's a very particular design of interaction between pre-synaptic, post-synaptic through different types of synapses, excited or inhibital. And of course, into the cell, you may get axons coming from very far. In this case, the, the, the yellow axon is coming from the thalamus, which is another region. It's not the cortex. So it's a long, long, long, long axon coming in, making contact also with this cell. So, if I zoom into this cell, zoom in, I see something like that. This cell is absolutely decorated with different types of synapes. The blue synapses may come from the thalamus, the red synapses may come from another cell type. The, the yellow synapses come from another cell types. And each one of these synapse convey a

set of post-synaptic potential locally. So, let's say this green cell is making green synapse here and this green synapse. When this cell is active, when this cell axon fires spikes, the post-synapse cell receives a set of post-synapse potential. So, pre-synapse, you will see tack, tack, tack, tack. And post synaptically, you will see an excitatory post-synaptic, set of excitatory post-synaptic se signals. So, this is what you receive as a cell. And eventually, you have to make sense out of all this and generate an output in your axon. So, you receive all this bombardment of different synapses from different pre-synaptic sources. Note, the huge number of synapses that each type is making. So, post-synaptic cell receives, for example, from its similar type of cell, so this is spiny stellate cell, and this is spiny stellate cell. This post-synaptic cell receives from the population of its neighbors from the same type, about 1,500 synapses. For example, from the thalamus, this particular cell receives from the thalamus, these are the yellow synapses. Maybe 400 synapses from the thalamus into the cell. From other cell types, you can see the large number of synapses altogether, maybe 5,000, 6,000 synapses from the different sources. And each one conveys a particular electrical signal. Sometimes inhibitory, sometimes excitatory. So, let us summarize. Now, you can see much better what I started with. There is a dendritic tree, which is the input part. This input part receives two types of inputs, the excitatory and the inhibitory types of synaptic inputs. The excitatory and the inhibitory. When I say excitatory, I mean that these red cells, through the transmission of action potentials reaching the soma, generate post-synaptically in the dendrite locally. They generate a positive signal which I called excitatory post-synaptic potential. When I speak about inhibition, I mean this particular interneuron, typically

local, sends a set of spikes that reach this synapse. And when it reaches this synapse, this spike, it generates post-synapse, typically in this ventricular location and negative signal. An inhibitory post-synaptic potential. So, you have an excitatory post-synaptic potential due to the excitatory cells, you have an inhibitory post-synaptic potential due to the pre-synaptic inhibitory cells. And eventually, all these synapses sum up at the cell body. From everything it converges, it flows, the signal flows into the cell body and they start to generate voltage change at the soma and at the initial segment. And they build up one on top of the other. Excititory, inhibitory, excititory, inhibitory, excititory, excititory, excititory, excititory. And at some point, at some voltage, they may reach the threshold for action potential generation. We'll talk about the spike, but you already see there is a certain threshold. A positive threshold that you may reach in order to get a spike. So, all these synapses interact together, influence together; some in a positive way, some in a negative way. And eventually, the axon initial segment should decide, so to speak, did I reach the threshold or not? If I did not reach a threshold, no spike. If I reach a threshold, boom, there is a spike. And when there is a spike, or many spikes, you see them. When there is a spike, you see them flowing. You see them flowing one spike after the other spike into this axon affecting the next stage, the next chain in this interaction. So, I hope that you better understand this unique element, the neuron with its dendritic tree, axon entry, release sites, that enables the interaction through synapses. So, if you know this element now anatomically, and you already heard about some electrical activity, the next lesson will be focused specifically on the how do electrical signals generated. What makes the membrane of this neuron an electrical device so it can generate spikes, and it can generate a, synaptic

potentials? So, this is the next lesson. See you next week.