Nervous System

NERVE CELLS = NEURONS

 Types of Neurons
information highway

Unipolar
Bipolar
Multipolar
Note: Signal transmission is unidirectional
 Categories of Neurons
by function

1. Afferent (sensory): bipolar or

multipolar cells associated with sense
organs & bring signals toward the CNS
2. Efferent (motor): unipolar cells that
conduct signal away from the CNS
3. Internuncial (association or inter-):
unipolar neurons that conduct signals
within the CNS
 TERMINOLOGIES
Synapses: special junctions between two nerve cells
Neurotransmitters: substance that act as chemical messengers,
diffusing across the synapse and triggers a new impulse in the dendrite
1. Acetylcholine (for chem’l transmission)
2. Glutamate (for neuromuscular transmissions)

 Dendrite: a neuronal projection which receives stimulus from the

environment or another nerve cell
 Axon: a neuronal projection that is very long, and have terminal
branches which transmits information chemically via synapses to the
dendrite of another neuron or to an effector organ
 BBB (blood brain barrier): a sheath of connective tissue and
perineurial glial cells surrounding the CNS forming a barrier between
the nerve cells and hemocoele