Some of you may be concerned with the ethical issues surrounding the use of animals in this way. Directional terms Now that we have seen how to cut the brain to reveal its structures, we need to describe the way in which anatomists use general terms to describe the relative position of structures to each other. Notice how the names of these brain areas reflect their relative positions in the brain. This diagram also illustrates bilateral symmetry in the brain. Neuron- a cell specialized for information transmission If you were to enormously magnify the pictures of brain sections we have examined in this lecture you would eventually be able to see neurones.
Neurones are brain cells that specialize in communication.
The brain contains circuits of interconnected neurones that pass information between themselves. This is easy to remember because when you pick up an object, the sensation travels from your fingers through your hand, and down your arm. Transmission of information through the neurone is an electrical process. The passage of a nerve impulse starts at a dendrite, it then travels through the cell body, down the axon to an axon terminal. Axon terminals lie close to the dendrites of neighbouring neurones.