Consider the various parts and pieces of a neuron, and what these structures do.
What functions do they carry out? What specific roles do they play? For example, what is the axon doing? What is happening at the cell membrane during the resting potential (before a neuron sends a depolarizing current), and during the action potential?
EXPLORE: What Neurons Look Like (as Drawn by Students, Grad Students, and Professors)
EXPLORE: How do neurons send electrical messages?
LEARN MORE: INTERNATIONAL NETWORK FOR NEUROAESTHETICS
We often experience greater motivation by working out connections that aren’t obvious than we do by ones that are easily identified. With this in mind, write down three metaphors (to have a few to choose from) for a neuron (or a part of a neuron). A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes a subject by asserting that it is, on some point of comparison, the same as an otherwise unrelated object.
For example: “He is the apple of my eye” or “Time is a thief.”
*** A neuron (or synapse, or axon, or cell membrane) is a…?
Visualize the concept by drawing it. Create at least two quick working sketches.
Once this is done create a separate final drawing based on those working sketches…
Some examples from K12 and university classrooms
Nodes of Ranvier (bare axon membrane regions where action potentials slow down) are like speed bumps in the path of a UPS truck…
A synapse is a bee pollinating flowers…
The #MeToo movement is like a national/international network of synaptic connections…
A membrane, with ion channels opening and closing under specific conditions, is like a crosswalk where ions are people crossing in different directions depending on the forces that move them…