Neurons can communicate without physical connection.

A study out of Northwestern University and Harvard Medical School concludes that neurons communicate in a much different way than previously thought. Traditional wisdom says that all communication between neurons is done via dendrites – those spindly little fingers protruding from the neurons that come very close to but don’t quite touch other neurons. These dendrites send electrochemical signals across a tiny gulf called a synapse – the message then travels down the axon to the cell body and then out to other dendrites. That’s the current understanding. The research not only questions the accepted model, it showed that other communication is occurring that defies explanation (so far).

Researchers Nelson Spruston and Mark Sheffield demonstrated that on another level, axons (long protrusions emanating from the cell body) communicate with each other as well – even when no physical connection or synapse exists between them. The mechanism of that communication is as yet unknown:

While studying individual neurons from the hippocampus and neocortex of mice, the researchers moved on to experiments with multiple neurons, resulting in an amazing finding. The researchers found that one axon can talk to another even when there is no physical connection between them. They stimulated one neuron, and while watching the resulting firing in that neuron, detected the same firing pattern in the other unstimulated neuron. No dendrites or cell bodies were involved in this communication – the neurons were completely isolated from each other. And yet they were somehow communicating with each other.

“The axons are talking to each other, but it’s a complete mystery as to how it works,” Spruston said. “The next big question is: how widespread is this behavior? Is this an oddity or does in happen in lots of neurons? We don’t think it’s rare, so it’s important for us to understand under what conditions it occurs and how this happens.”

Some might say “energy fields” or “spiritual connection” – I say, “it’s a mystery so far”. Still, it has to make you wonder what we don’t yet know.

Study source: “Slow Integration Leads to Persistent Action Potential Firing in Distal Axons of Coupled Interneurons.” Authors: Nelson Spruston, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, senior author, Mark Sheffield, Tyler K. Best and William L. Kath, Northwestern University, and Brett D. Mensh, Harvard Medical School.  Published in Nature Neuroscience, February 2011.