Just Enough
Those
moments
when a
certain sound or sight or smell
triggers
an old memory –
There is a
certain
vagueness
to it all…
but it
just feels good.
At least
for a
split second
while the
electricity
snaps
through the synapses,
offering a
brief respite…
and
sometimes,
thank God,
it is
enough –
The word "synapse" – from the Greek synapsis, meaning "conjunction" ["together" + "to fasten"] – was introduced in 1897 by English physiologist Michael Foster at the suggestion of English classical scholar Arthur Woollgar Verrall. It is a structure in the nervous system that permits a neuron (or nerve cell) to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another neuron. (Sometimes the concept is generalized to include the communication from a neuron to any other cell type, such as to a motor cell, although such non-neuronal contacts may also be referred to as junctions.)It is widely accepted that the synapse plays a role in the formation of memory: As neurotransmitters activate receptors across the synaptic cleft, the connection between the two neurons is strengthened when both neurons are active at the same time, as a result of the receptor's signalling mechanisms. The strength of two connected neural pathways is thought to result in the storage of information, resulting in memory. (This process of synaptic strengthening is known as long-term potentiation.) Siegrid Löwel summarizes this theory (introduced by Donald Hebb in 1949) as, "Cells that fire together, wire together."
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