Where activation becomes biology.
We are about to descend. The brain you see on every other page is the cortical surface — TRIBE's prediction is on that scale. The neurons below are something else: real reconstructions from NeuroMorpho.org, contributed by labs around the world. Same brain. Different scales. Different ways of seeing.
A real continuous zoom from cortex to synapse would cross ten million-fold magnification. We don't pretend to show that. We show different scales as different ways of looking.
Neuron
Color key: brass apical dendrite (the iconic trunk), bone basal dendrites, cyan axon, yellow soma.
And one of its ten thousand connections.
Excitatory. Binds AMPA / NMDA. Fast, depolarizing.
Action potential arriving at the presynaptic bouton…
Calcium influx triggering vesicle fusion…
Glutamate crossing the synaptic cleft…
Binding to AMPA and NMDA receptors…
Excitatory postsynaptic potential generated.
same mechanics, different transmitters, very different downstream effects