Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience, 3rd Edition

Neurons: The Building Blocks of the Nervous System • 27

receptors that pick up information from the environment. (2)

For all neurons, there is a small gap between the end of the

neuron’s axon and the dendrites or cell body of another neu-

ron. This gap is called a synapse (● Figure 2.4). (3) Neurons

are not connected indiscriminately to other neurons, but form

connections only to specifi c neurons. Usually many neurons

are connected together to form neural circuits.

Cajal’s idea of individual neurons that communicate

with other neurons to form neural circuits was an enormous

leap forward in the understanding of how the nervous system

operates. All of the concepts introduced by Cajal—individual

neurons, synapses, and neural circuits—are basic principles

that today are used to explain how the brain creates cogni-

tions. These discoveries earned Cajal the Nobel Prize in 1906,

and today he is recognized as “the person who made this

cellular study of mental life possible” (Kandel, 2006, p. 61).

THE SIGNALS THAT TRAVEL IN NEURONS

Cajal succeeded in describing the structure of individual

neurons and how they are related to other neurons, and

he knew that these neurons transmitted signals. However,

determining the exact nature of these signals had to await

the development of electronic amplifi ers that were powerful

enough to make the extremely small electrical signals gener-

ated by the neuron visible. In the 1920s, Edgar Adrian was

able to record electrical signals from single sensory neurons,

an achievement for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize

in 1932 (Adrian, 1928, 1932).

● FIGURE 2.4 (a) Neuron synapsing on the cell body of

another neuron; (b) close-up of the synapse showing the
space between the end of one neuron and the cell body of
the next neuron, and neurotransmitter being released.

Nerve

impulse

Axon

Cell body

(a)

(b)

Neurotransmitter

molecules

Neurotransmitter

being released

Synapse

● FIGURE 2.3 (a) Basic components of a neuron in the cortex. (b) A neuron with a

specialized receptor in place of the cell body. This receptor responds to pressure on

the skin.

Stimulus from

environment

Touch receptor

Nerve fiber

Axon or nerve fiber

Dendrite

Cell body

Electrical

signal

(a)

(b)

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