It’s the least understood organ in the human body: the
brain, a massive network of electrically excitable neurons, all communicating
with one another via receptors on their tree-like dendrites. Somehow these
cells work together to enable great feats of human learning and memory. But
how?
Researchers know dendritic spines play a vital role. These
tiny membranous structures protrude from dendrites’ branches; spread across the
entire dendritic tree, the spines on one neuron collect signals from an average
of 1,000 others. But more than a century after they were discovered, their
function still remains only partially understood.