This is the image of a simplified neuron, more human readable
This neuron has two parts very interesting to us, called the
synapse and the dentrites.
The dentrites are extensions of a neuron which connect to other neurons to form a neural network, while
synapses are a gateway which connects to dentrites that come from other
neurons.
A biological neuron may thus be connected to other neurons as well
as accepting connections from other neurons, and so we have the basis of a
network.
Through those connections, electrical pulses are transmitted, and information is carried in the timing and the frequency with which these pulses are emitted.
So, our neuron receives information from other neurons, processes it and
then relays this information to other neurons.
An immediate question which arises is: of what form does this processing take?
Clearly the neuron must generate some kind of output based on the cumulative input.
We still don't know the exact answer to this question. However, we do know that our neuron
integrates the pulses that arrive and when this integration exceeds a
certain limit, our neuron in turn emits a pulse as follows:
Finally, one more thing that you should know is that dentrites modify the amplitude of the pulses travelling through them and this modification varies with time, as the network `learns'.
So we could assume that when a connection (dentrite) is very strong, the importance of the neuron from which this connection comes has an important role in the network, and on the other hand, when a connection is very narrow, the importance of the neuron from which the connection comes from is less high.
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