[Verse 1]
Dendrites catch the whispers, a hundred inputs ring,
They pool at the hillock like streams to a spring,
Add them up, weigh them, excite or restrain,
One vote at the threshold decides for the brain.
[Chorus]
Tutto o niente — all or nothing, cara mia, it's true,
Нейрон поёт, искра летит сквозь тьму,
(The neuron sings, a spark flies through the dark)
Spike or silence, there's no in-between,
Dendrite, hillock, axon — the cleanest machine!
[Verse 2]
Resting quiescent, so calm, hushed, and still,
Minus seventy millivolts, patient at the sill,
Sodium gates fling open, rushing in like a tide,
Push past minus fifty-five, there's no turning aside.
Then potassium answers, pouring back out the door,
Resetting the voltage to rest as before,
It's all-or-none thunder — no whisper, no shout,
The spike either happens, full-throated, or not.
[Chorus]
Tutto o niente — all or nothing, cara mia, it's true,
Нейрон поёт, искра летит сквозь тьму,
Spike or silence, there's no in-between,
Dendrite, hillock, axon — the cleanest machine!
[Verse 3]
Cross the synaptic canyon, a chemical kiss,
Glutamate shouts "go," GABA whispers "resist,"
Excite or inhibit, the vote tips the scale,
At the muscle's own gateway a different tale:
Acetylcholine knocks and the fiber obeys,
Contracting on cue through the neuromuscular ways,
Da, химия правит — it's all molecular speech,
Transmitters translating what axons can't reach.
[Verse 4]
Now how does a neuron tell slow news from quick?
Not louder spikes — just more of them, thick,
A whisper's a few, maybe five every breath,
A shout's over hundred, galloping toward the threshold's edge,
Rate and the rhythm — the code that remains,
From cortex to muscle, the tempo explains,
Remember this pulse-counting, timing, and speed,
It's the alphabet motor control neurons need.
[Bridge]
Piano, piano — single cells, one at a time,
We'll listen with electrodes, decode the rhyme,
In M1 the rate writes the reach and the grasp,
And synapses sculpted by learning will last —
Strengthen, rewire, plasticity's art,
Spikes become habits, memorized by the heart's
Cousin, the circuit, that practices still,
Nейрон за нейроном, обучая до конца, la, until!
[Chorus]
Tutto o niente — all or nothing, cara mia, it's true,
Нейрон поёт, искра летит сквозь тьму,
Spike or silence, there's no in-between,
Dendrite, hillock, axon — the cleanest machine!
[Outro]
Minus seventy resting, minus fifty-five the call,
Sodium rushes, potassium answers, and that's all,
Glutamate, GABA, acetylcholine too,
Тутто о ниенте — the spike, the rate, and you.