The cell body, shown here in green and also known as the soma, contains the nucleus and cellular organelles, including endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus, mitochondria, ribosomes, and secretory vesicles. ‘Dendrites’ by Casey Henley is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike (CC-BY-NC-SA) 4.0 International License. Some dendrites have small protrusions called spines that are important for communicating with other neurons. Their function is to receive information from other neurons. Spines increase the surface area of the dendritic arbor, which may be an important factor in receiving communication. Spines, illustrated in the inset box, are the sites of some synaptic contacts. Dendrites may also have small protrusions along the branches known as spines. The number of inputs a neuron receives depends on the complexity of the dendritic branching. They are the main target for incoming signals received from other cells. The structure of the neuron affects how it functionsĭendrites, shown here in green, are processes that branch out in a tree-like fashion from the cell body. ‘Neuron’ by Casey Henley is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike (CC-BY-NC-SA) 4.0 International License. The axon begins at the axon hillock and ends at the presynaptic terminal, which can branch into multiple terminals.

The axon hillock is located where the cell body transitions into the axon. Dendrites branch out from the cell body, where the nucleus is located. The typical neuron consists of the dendrites, cell body, axon (including the axon hillock), and presynaptic terminal. The function of the neuron is dependent on the structure of the neuron. Their main function is to send electrical signals over short and long distances in the body, and they are electrically and chemically excitable. Neurons are the basic units of the brain.

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