Arborization
Posted: August 9th, 2010 | Author: Brad | Filed under: Health and Body | Tags: arborization | 1 Comment »
Rendering of dendrites, branch-like projections of neurons
The nervous system displays varying degrees of arborization throughout the body, and thus produces widely divergent levels of sensitivity. There are so many nerve endings in your thumb and forefinger knuckles that if you consecutively feel two stacks of paper, you can detect a mere 0.006 inch difference in thickness. The nerve endings in the back, however, are so sparsely placed that if two points press on your back within 2.5 inches of each other, they will probably be indistinguishable from a single point.
Arborization (ar-bər-ih-ZAY-shən)
1. *A branching, treelike shape or arrangement, as that of the dendrite of a nerve cell.
2. The formation of a treelike shape or arrangement.
Etymology
From Latin arboreus, “pertaining to trees”. Arboreus is also the root of arborist, arboretum, and arboreal.
Source
The Sense of Man (pg. 37, 52) | Photo by: theilr
[...] are 100 billion neurons in the adult brain. From an araneiform center, each neuron continually arborizes until it makes 1,000 to 10,000 connections with other neurons. Calculations show that the number of [...]