who discovered that neural communication between cells occurs through chemicals
Charles Sherrington
title: Chemical synapse text: and Paul Fatt observed spontaneous miniature synaptic currents at the frog neuromuscular junction. Based on these observations, they developed the 'quantal hypothesis' that is the basis for our current understanding of neurotransmitter release as exocytosis and for which Katz received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1970. In the late 1960s, Ricardo Miledi and Katz advanced the hypothesis that depolarization-induced influx of calcium ions triggers exocytosis. Chemical synapse Chemical synapses are biological junctions through which neurons' signals can be exchanged to each other and to non-neuronal cells such as those in muscles or glands. Chemical synapses allow neurons title: Pheromone text: communicate by using pheromones. The portmanteau word "pheromone" was coined by Peter Karlson and Martin Lüscher in 1959, based on the Greek φερω "pheroo" ('I carry') and ὁρμων "hormon" ('stimulating'). Pheromones are also sometimes classified as ecto-hormones. They were researched earlier by various scientists, including Jean-Henri Fabre, Joseph A. Lintner, Adolf Butenandt, and ethologist Karl von Frisch who called them various names, like for instance "alarm substances". These chemical messengers are transported outside of the body and affect neurocircuits, including the autonomous nervous system with hormone or cytokine mediated physiological changes, inflammatory signaling, immune system changes and/or behavioral change in title: Neurotransmitter text: the synaptic cleft, was discovered. The presence of such a gap suggested communication via chemical messengers traversing the synaptic cleft, and in 1921 German pharmacologist Otto Loewi (1873–1961) confirmed that neurons can communicate by releasing chemicals. Through a series of experiments involving the vagus nerves of frogs, Loewi was able to manually slow the heart rate of frogs by controlling the amount of saline solution present around the vagus nerve. Upon completion of this experiment, Loewi asserted that sympathetic regulation of cardiac function can be mediated through changes in chemical concentrations. Furthermore, Otto Loewi is credited with discovering acetylcholine (ACh)—the title: Electrical synapse text: suggests that both models are physiologically significant; it could be said that the Nobel committee acted with great foresight in awarding the Prize jointly. There was substantial debate on whether the transmission of information between neurons was chemical or electrical in the first decades of the twentieth century, but chemical synaptic transmission was seen as the only answer after Otto Loewi's demonstration of chemical communication between neurons and heart muscle. Thus, the discovery of electrical communication was surprising. Electrical synapses were first demonstrated between escape-related giant neurons in crayfish in the late 1950s, and were later found in vertebrates. Electrical title: John Wilson Moore text: John Wilson Moore John Wilson Moore (born 1920) is an internationally known biophysicist who pioneered the emergent power of computers, beginning in the 1950s, to reveal how signals are generated, integrated, and then travel in neurons. He is well known for his discovery (with Toshio Narahashi), that the puffer fish toxin tetrodotoxin causes death by blocking the sodium ion channels that are responsible for nerve activity. Moore is currently emeritus professor of Neurobiology at Duke University Medical School where he has been a member of the faculty since 1961. Moore's NEURON simulator software, begun with and now carried forward by