Nerve-cell synonyms

Gray matter contains nerve cell bodies and unmyelinated axons.

A further stage in evolution is that the muscle-cells lose their connexion with the epithelium and come to lie entirely beneath it, forming a sub-epithelial contractile layer, developed chiefly in the tentacles of the polyp. The of the evolution of the ganglioncells is probably similar; an epithelial cell develops processes of nervous nature from the base, which come into connexion with the bases of the sensory cells, with the muscular cells, and with the similar processes of other nerve-cells; next the nerve-cell loses its connexion with the outer epithelium and becomes a sub-epithelial ganglion-cell which is closely connected with the muscular layer, conveying stimuli from the sensory cells to the contractile elements.

On the whole the ganglia are strongly individualized in the Pectinibranchia, nerve-cell tissue being concentrated in the ganglia and absent from the cords.

There seems to be little doubt, notwithstanding, that one of the chief functions of the nerve cell is that of the propagation of a trophicj influence along its axon.

The work of Camillo Golgi (Pavia, 1885 and onwards) on the minute structure of the nervous system has led to great alteration of doctrine in neural physi nerve cells, that is to say, the fine nerve fibres - since all nerve fibres are nerve cell branches, and all nerve cell branches are nerve fibres - which form a close felt-work in the nervous centres, there combined into a network actually continuous throughout.