1. How Biology Affects Behaviour

2. The Neuron Structure

The nervous system is composed of more than 100 billion cells known as neurons. A neuron is a cell in the nervous system whose function it is to receive and transmit information.  Many of the Neurons in our body are found in our brain.  Others are found along the spinal cord and into organs, tissues and muscles.  

Neurons are made up of three major parts:

a soma, (cell body) which contains the nucleus of the cell and keeps the cell alive;

a dendrite, (branching treelike fiber) which collects information from other cells and sends the information to the soma;

an axon, (long, segmented fiber) which transmits information away from the cell body toward other neurons or to the muscles and glands.

The following short videos introduce the structure of a neuruon.