THE NEURON IS LIKE LAKE VICTORIA

kipngeno koech
4 min readAug 27, 2024

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The neuron is like Lake Victoria modelling the cell body, with River Kuja, Mara, Sondu, Nzioa, Migori, Yala, Nyando & River Kagera (draining into lake victoria) modelling the dendrites and River Nile, also known as Victoria Nile,(the single outflow from the lake), modelling the axion.

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THE DENRITES ( THE INFLOWS - R.Mara, R.nyando….)

The rivers flowing into lake Victoria start as small streams in the hills & forests and build up into giant and massive rivers as it approaches the lake, take River Mara for example, it starts as a small stream in Bomet County, Kenya (right from Mau Forest), joins up into River Amalo, at Mulot town, flows into river mara at Masai Mara and it becomes the massive mara river (famously known for the wild beast migration)

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forget about how massive it grows for a moment, let us focus on how it goes collecting water and channeling it toward lake Victoria. Dendrites do the same, but only that it collects information from the ‘forests & other rivers’, and channel them to ‘Lake Victoria the cell - body/soma’.

THE CELL BODY (LAKE VICTORIA)

Whatever Lake Victoria does with the water it collects from all its inflows is a story of another day, but wait, Lake Victoria is the home of many mammals: hippos, African clawless otter, marsh mongoose and also reptiles: Nile Crocodile, and fish like: Nile perch, Nile tilapia

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For these animals to survive, they need good living conditions, this is akin to the cell body in the Neuron, which is the power house of the Neuron.

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Also known as soma, it receives all information (signals) brought by the dendrites ‘the inflows’, combine them together, then send them to the outlet axon ‘Victoria Nile’ (we are coming here in a bit), in addition to that, it also synthesizes proteins; these proteins are used in maintaining the functioning of the body: ‘remember the right living conditions for the water body?’. These proteins include neurotransmitters, receptors, and other molecules involved in signal transmission and cellular repair.

VICTORIA NILE: THE AXON

Lake Victoria is the world’s second largest fresh water lake by surface area after Lake Superior in North America. This by Socrates' logic (Association) implies that it has an outlet - River Nile.

Lake Victoria

We are using R.Nile to model/represent axon, the outlet of the Neuron. Once the the cell model does its ‘thing’ (we shall explore this in another article), it sends it out through the axon, so as it finds its way to the ‘Mediterranean Sea - synapse’. Lake Victoria’s outlet River Nile, finds its way into Mediterranean sea, near Alexandria, Egypt, forming a ‘delta - synaptic terminal’

SYNAPSE & SNYAPTIC TERMINAL

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This is where the information is exchanged from one neuron to: one another, the synapse, and the entire process start all over again! and again and again! or other body cells which ends up triggering subsequent actions like move a part of the body i.e legs for the motor neurons.

Ciao!

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kipngeno koech
kipngeno koech

Written by kipngeno koech

You will find me here, lost in words, for it is my pen that listens and understands the depths of my soul.

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