The most critical reason for long neurons is to establish direct communication pathways between the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) and remote peripheral targets. Neurons come in a lot of different packages and wide range of lengths. Neurons are long in structure.
Neurons have branches, known as. The elongated shape allows neurons to transmit electrical signals over long distances efficiently. Long, short, straight and curvy axons all had a refraction ratio approaching one.
Some nerve cells in the brain can keep their information and send out messages for a long time. A team of bioengineers has answered a question that has long puzzled neuroscientists, and may hold a key to better understanding the complexities of neurological disorders: An axon, or nerve fiber, is a long slender projection of a nerve cell, or neuron, that conducts electrical impulses away from the neuron’s cell body or soma. This means that when axons grow in a long and curved shape, it’s designed that way by the neuron to slow down the action potential of signals in order to optimize the refraction ratio.
The microtubules of neurons are able to withstand laboratory conditions that cause other cells’ microtubules to break apart. So, they are just as long as they need to be to do their job and their jobs vary. But only neurons grow so long, he said, and once created they must endure throughout a person’s life, as much as 80 to 100 years. This length is crucial because it allows them to connect distant parts of the body, facilitating communication between the brain and various organs or muscles.
Some axons are not especially long, while others are quite long.