The
nerve cell consists of a cell body, dendrites and a long axon. Many nerve cells
make up any single nerve. They are organized in clumps of cell body's called
ganglia with axons running together for the length of the nerve. They end in
axon terminals that interface with cell body dendrites. There actually is no
physical connection and the space between the axon terminals and the cell body
dendrites is called a synapse. Nerve signals are sent across the synapse in
a process that converts an electrical signal traveling down the axon to a chemical
transmitter and back to an electrical signal on the other side of the synapse.
This occurs in 3/1000th's to 90/1000th's of a second, with tens of thousands
of cells firing at any one time.
