Neuropil
The neuropil or neuropilem (from the Greek neura , neuron = "tendon", "cord", "tension", "nerve" and pilêma = "felt") is a nerve plexus , which is mainly located in the central nervous system (CNS) between the Cell bodies .
It mainly consists of non- myelinated axons, dendrites of the neighboring cells and glial cell processes and appears microscopically amorphous or felt-like. It is used to link the cells with each other, which are particularly numerous in the CNS and have a very high degree of linkage. In vertebrates , the neuropil forms the largest part of the gray matter , in invertebrates it forms the central part of the ganglia .
history
The term "Neuropil" was introduced in 1897 by the Hungarian histologist Stephan Apáthy (1863–1922). The term was introduced as part of the neural network hypothesis , the assumption that the nervous system consists of a continuous network of interconnected fibers. The nerve network hypothesis was later superseded by neuron theory , which is based on the fact that the nervous system consists of individual, autonomous and physically separate but interacting cells.
literature
- Neuropil In: Pschyrembel - Clinical Dictionary. 257th edition. (Special edition), Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-933203-04-X , p. 1066.
- Neuropil In: Herder Lexicon of Biology. Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Heidelberg 2003, ISBN 3-8274-0354-5 .
