axon
ak son
- n long nerve fiber that conducts away from the cell body of the neuron
- What guides an axon on its incredible voyage is a "growth cone," a creepy, crawly sprout that looks something like an amoeba.
- Like other receptor molecules, NMDA reacts to a chemical cue--in the case of learning and memory formation, glutamate--emitted by the axon from a neighboring cell.
- The objective is to form a synapse, the gap-like structure over which the axon of one neuron beams a signal to the dendrites of another.