Do connections in our brain have a direction, or do they behave equally in both directions? I am especially interested in the structures responsible for memory.
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There are two kinds of neuron-to-neuron connections in the brain. The most well known is the chemical synapse, which is unidirectional. Despite this, two neurons can each synapse on each other with a chemical synapse, and both types of connection are observable in brain networks (unidirectional and bidirectional)
The second kind of connection is a gap-junction: electrical coupling. In this case, it can be bidirectional or unidirectional, but all in the same synapse (whereas a bidirectional chemical synapse requires two synapses).
Typically, the chemical synapses are associated with memory. There have been synapses observed that behave as engrams.
answered Dec 30, 2013 at 1:52
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$\begingroup$ Also bidirectional chemical connections are more common than would be expected from a random network plosbiology.org/article/… $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 8, 2014 at 18:53