When the electrical signal carried by a nerve reaches the end of the cell there is a physical gap before the next nerve cell. To maintain the connection, neurotransmitters, such as glutamate or serotonin, are released by the electrical impulse. These diffuse across the gap, called a synapse, and bind to receptors on the next […]
The final part of the trilogy after part 1 and part 2.. I’m pleased with Sylvester’s chin and eyebrows and the slight grin of triumph as the montage reaches its climax! Rocky! Rocky!! ROCKY!!! And if you’ve got the tune stuck in your head now, my work here is done… This design is available on […]
This is the sequel to part 1. In the first one, the background steps and the blue hat are visual clues to the film sequence that this parodies. These iconic features are not visible on the indoor shots so I started developing the resemblance to Sylvester Stallone. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, combining the cell with […]
This is the first of a trio of cartoons that were inspired by a trip to Philadelphia. I drew them before I went and combined them into an animated montage in the style of film credits for a talk I was giving. I did of course climb these same steps to visit the fantastic art […]
We used to have lab meetings in a room that had a printout on the wall of one of those grids of how post-docs, technicians, PIs, PhD students are viewed by each other. That got me thinking, on a smaller scale, of the same opinions played out between neuronal and glial biologists. Everyone thinks of […]
Synapses are the connections between nerve cells and the number and density of them is linked to how networks form in brain. Microglia are cells that patrol the brain to remove debris and foreign objects such as pathogens. They also modify neuronal networks by nibbling away synaptic contacts, hence the term ‘synaptic pruning’. This isn’t […]