What is the action potential of the “nervous system”?
An action potential is an electrical signal that travels from one part of a nerve cell to another. The action potential begins at the soma or cell body. It then travels down the axon (this might be as long as 1 meter in some cases). At the nerve terminal (the end of the axon), the action potential stops. But, it triggers a chemical signal (neurotransmitter) to be released across the synapse (the gap between two nerve cells or a nerve cell and a muscle cell). The chemical signal might make the adjacent neuron more likely or less likely (depending on the specific neurotransmitter involved) to fire an action potential in the adjacent cell.
