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Asked by rebeccablackrules to Alison, Artem, Caroline, John, Gunther on 19 Jun 2012.
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Alison Graham answered on 19 Jun 2012:
Synapses are junctions between nerve cells or a nerve cell and another cell. It is a way of passing messages. There are two types of synapses. In one type, the cell sending the message releases chemicals that the other cell receives. This cell knows what to do when a certain message is received. The other type uses electrical charges to send messages.
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Artem Evdokimov answered on 19 Jun 2012:
Like Alison pointed out a Synapse is a junction between two neurons, responsible for information transfer. Chemical synapses use molecular messages as information carriers whereas electrical synapses use ions and charged molecules to do the same. Chemical synapses can exhibit very complex signal filtering and amplification patterns but the tradeoff is that they are slower than the electrical ones (about 10-fold in some animals, about 3-5 fold in mammals). Electrical synapses were discovered in the 1950ies in the neurons of crayfish – specific neurons that were traced to be responsible for ‘panic reflex’ (escape from danger). It stands to reason that the faster form of synapse is useful for kinds of activities that require speed (such as escaping from predators).
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John Short answered on 20 Jun 2012:
Synapses are one way the body transmits signals, information/ messages to other parts of the body. Synapses are seen throughout the animal kingdom, and have evolved as an efficient means of transmitting signals in the nervous system to and from the brain and within the nervous system such as with reflexes to danger, or the way that we swallow without thinking.
Research has indicated that synapses were important in the evolution of our brains. Without an efficient way of transmitting that kind of information, we and other animals wouldn’t have developed complex brains.
Comments
nisma commented on :
to keep the messages passing to one neurone to the other