SPEAK up if you want to be heard. That appears to be the principle on which
nerve cells in the brain work.
The main body of each neuron receives thousands of messages from the
junctions, or synapses, where the cell鈥檚 branch-like extensions touch other
neurons. But because signals become progressively weaker the farther they move,
neuroscientists have wondered how those that travel great distances compete with
ones from nearby.
So Jeffrey Magee at the Louisiana State University Medical Center in New
Orleans measured the strength of messages at various points along the branches
of rat neurons. He and his colleague found that the answer is surprisingly
simple: the more distant a synapse is, the stronger the signal when it starts
out (Nature Neuroscience, vol 3, p 895).
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