When you bite into a hot chili pepper, a message travels from your tongue to your brain. How? Through the billions of neurons inside your body! Neurons, or nerve cells, are specialized cells that send and receive messages. To do their job, neurons connect and bundle to form a huge network that can communicate and send signals from one part of the body to another.
The structure of neurons helps us understand how they function. A message is carried away from a neuron’s cell body at its axon. That’s a long tail-like piece on one end of the neuron. When a message passes from one neuron to the next, it transforms from electrical information to chemical information. After crossing the synapse between neurons, the message enters the next neuron at the dendrites. Dendrites branch out from one end of the neuron and carry the message into the cell body. The process continues until the message arrives where it needs to go.
A neuron is most similar to
A
a test tube that holds liquid chemicals in place.
B
a hot chili pepper that makes your mouth water.
C
an apartment building where many families live.
D
telephone wires that carry messages along.