Dear @looscannon : I do not post that neurons are onn/off. This characteristic comes by the different electric discrete impulses.
"""
Neurons communicate with each other through electrical and chemical signals,” explains Barak. “The electrical signal, or action potential, runs from the cell body area to the axon terminals, through a thin fiber called axon................. The electrical signal that runs along the axon is based on ion movement. The speed of the signal transmission is influenced by an insulating layer called myelin,” ......
“Myelin’s main purpose is to insulate the neuron’s axon,” ..... “It speeds up conductivity and the transmission of electrical impulses. Myelin promotes fast transmission of electrical signals mainly by affecting two factors: 1) increasing electrical resistance, or reducing leakage of the electrical signal and ions along the axon, “trapping” them inside the axon and 2) decreasing membrane capacitance by increasing the distance between conducting materials inside the axon (intracellular fluids) and outside of it (extracellular fluids).”
........................................................................................................
Lord Adrian Nobel Prize 1932.
"""
What Adrian saw was that the response was a series of voltage pulses, each about one millisecond long, all of the same amplitude in a given fiber. Decades later, the development of microelectrodes enabled confirmation of Adrian’s discovery in neurons in the brain.
This provided evidence of the basic similarity and difference between brains and the later development of computers. Both computers and brains convert the real world into representations. In computers, information is coded, in the form of 1s and 0s, and as nerve impulses in brains. Both computers and brains distribute and process this represented information, and can store it as memories. However, because brains are biological and use impulses to represent information, they can change their circuitry and can self-program. Unlike computers, brains also have will, including a likely degree of free will. """
........................................................................................................................
“This study advances our understanding of how the brain reads a code made of identical electrical impulses, in order to produce a coherent perception of the world,”
.................................................................................................
An electrical impulse is generated when a stimulus (such as sensory input) causes a rapid change in electrical charge in one part of a neuron’s membrane. This electrical impulse is one unit of neural information. An electrical impulse flowing along the length of a neuron is called a nerve impulse.
Nerve impulses proceed in just one direction within a neuron—from the dendrites, through the cell body and axon, to the axon terminals (Figure 4). In addition, neurons produce nerve impulses in an all-or-nothing way.
A single neuron fires off a jolt of electricity in response to a very specific trigger. Scientists call each jolt an action potential.
For instance, some nerve cells involved in vision fire only when the human eye sees certain colors ( all or nothing. ). Others fire when the eye detects basic shapes, or the edges of objects.
....................................................................
To many information in the subject. Extremely interesting and as I read more I understand the less.
Btw, @sokogear you only can listen digital. What you say " real " no one can listen it: remember your ADC in your inner ears? Your one and another posts makes no sense or your brain came from a cemetery.
R.