[Verse 1] Touch a stove, the message is born, sensory neuron, inward sworn, climbing up your arm's back road, afferent courier, incoming load. Motor neuron answers the call, efferent orders down the hall, flexes muscle, wakes the gland, outbound word is its command. Between the two a crowd convenes, interneurons run the in-between, ninety percent of the neural sea, stitching thought and memory. [Chorus] Sensory in, motor out, interneurons work throughout, dendrites arborize — that means they branch like trees, gathering whispers on a chemical breeze. One axon long, the signal takes flight, sorted by job and shape tonight, sorted by job and shape tonight. [Verse 2] Multipolar's the common frame, one axon, many dendrites claim, brain cells and the motor crew wear this branching habit too. Bipolar's leaner, built for speed, a single dendrite's all it'll need, retina's go-between, quiet spy, olfactory scout decoding why. Pseudounipolar, a curious twist, one process forking like a wrist, touch and pain from fingertip rise through dorsal root ganglia's split supply. Unipolar, simple and old, an invertebrate's design, we're told. [Chorus] Sensory in, motor out, interneurons work throughout, dendrites arborize — that means they branch like trees, gathering whispers on a chemical breeze. One axon long, the signal takes flight, sorted by job and shape tonight, sorted by job and shape tonight. [Verse 3] Pyramidal cell, a triangle soul, apical dendrite reaching for its goal, cortex climber, excitatory spark, lighting the hallways from dawn to dark. Purkinje cell, a filigree fan, dendrites laid flat as lace can, one cell wide, inhibitory brake, the cerebellum's careful take. Granule cells, the tiniest sprite, fifty to seventy billion strong tonight, outnumbering every other kin, packed like gravel, dense within. [Bridge] The Allen census counted deep, three thousand molecular types to keep, each neuron speaks its own dialect, a map of selves we're learning to detect. Not one blueprint, but a sprawling town, soma, axon, dendrites crowned, every shape a sentence, every job a verb, the body's grammar, the mind's own nerve. [Chorus] Sensory in, motor out, interneurons work throughout, dendrites arborize — that means they branch like trees, gathering whispers on a chemical breeze. One axon long, the signal takes flight, sorted by job and shape tonight, sorted by job and shape tonight. [Outro] In, out, in-between, pyramid, fan, and granule gleam, sorted by job and shape — now you know the sign, three thousand voices, one wiring design.
← Retrograde, Volume and Glial Signals | Excitatory vs Inhibitory Neurons →