A vesicle, only a few nanometers in size and filled with neurotransmitters, approaches a cell membrane, fuses with it, and releases its chemical messengers into the synaptic cleft—making them ...

The brain’s chatter has always been partly out of reach, with electrical spikes easy to record but the chemical whispers ...

The image taken at the CFcryo-EM (Core Facility for cryo-Electron Microscopy) captures the moment during which a vesicle (arrow) fuses with the cell membrane. By superimposing several electron ...

It takes just a few milliseconds: A vesicle, only a few nanometers in size and filled with neurotransmitters, approaches a cell membrane, fuses with it, and releases its chemical messengers into the ...

Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases are the two most common neurodegenerative disorders, affecting millions of people worldwide. Published in the Journal of Neuroscience, new research from the ...

A technology called single-molecule imaging has enabled scientists at the University of Maryland to identify the architecture of synapses – the tiny junctions that connect neurons together – and ...

(1) A nerve impulse arrives. (2) This causes calcium ion channels to open, resulting in an influx of calcium ions in the terminal. (3) This causes synaptic vesicles to fuse with the terminal membrane, ...

Interactions of two voltage-gated calcium channels and a pump enable separate control of exocytosis and endocytosis at chemical synapses. Chemical synapses transmit information within the nervous ...

Neurotransmission, or synaptic transmission, corresponds to the movement of signals between neurons, permitting the transmission of information through the proliferation of action potentials. This ...