How do nerves transmit infromation? Nerves transmit messages by using chemical messengers called neurotransmitters. At one end of a neuron there are always branched extensions, or dendrites, which there job is to act like antennae so that it can receive incoming messages, in the other end there is an extension called an axon, which is the one that sends outgoing messages. Each neuron will connect to thousand of other neurons in your brain. They are all connected and they all extend throughout your brain and body. For this messaged to travel to and from the brain, a sequence of interconnected neurons most receive and send a message.
An electrical impulse travels down a nerve starting at the dendrite, moving through the cell body, and at the end to the axon. In the axon special receptors can feel the electrical impulse and use Calcium channels to release the neurotransmitters across the synapse, and then it will travel to the next adjacent where it will be pick up by receptors, and it will cause a second electrical impulse that will start everything again. |