How your brain cells talk to each other - whispered secrets and public announcements

Imagine that you want to tell your friends something new; you could whisper it into their ears or shout it out loud. This is rather like two forms of communication that occur within your brain. Your brain contains billions of nerve cells, called neurons, which make a very large number of connections with specialized parts of other neurons, called dendrites, to form networks. Neurons have been thought to communicate with each other by passing (“whispering”) chemical signals directly through these connections, but now we know that they also can spread messages more widely (“public announcements”) by releasing chemical signals from other parts of the neuron, including the dendrites themselves. If we understand how and what neurons communicate with each other, we will have a chance to correct disturbances in communication that may result in altered behaviors and brain disorders.