ABSTRACT
Recent advances in neurobiology have made it possible to clarify some of the molecular and cellular mechanisms effecting the inscription of this trace, namely the constitution of a memory. The brain is sometimes seen as a system functioning in binary fashion, with information either passing or not passing in the circuits, as if basic elements, the neurons, were organized like microcircuits engraved in silicon, like those of a computer. From the functional perspective each neuron has three parts: a receptive area, the dendrite, which receives information from other neurons; an area, the cell body, which integrates the received information; and the axon, a part through which it sends signals for the other neurons. Two principal neurotransmitters effect the transfer of information to the synapses of the nervous system: glutamate, which increases neuronal excitability, and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which diminishes this excitability.
