Abstract
The neurones of the central nervous system had long been recognized and in the latter part of the last century Sherrington had accepted the neurone theory of Rámon y Cajal and many other neuro-anatomists, that the neurones were structurally independent. He rejected the alternative reticular theory of Gerlach and Golgi according to which in the central nervous system the neurones were in continuity in a net-like structure with connectivities that could be vaguely seen in the inadequate histological preparations of that time. Sherrington recognized that the neurone theory involved functional communication between neurones at sites of contiguity that probably were made by structures called baskets or knobs or boutons. In writing on the functional activity of the central nervous system in 1897 Sherrington felt the need for some specific term for these zones of functional connection between neurones. On the advice of a Greek scholar of Cambridge he coined the word synapse for the surface of functional interaction between neurone and neurone.
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Eccles, J.C. (1987). Synapses of the Central Nervous System from Sherrington to the Present. In: McLennan, H., Ledsome, J.R., McIntosh, C.H.S., Jones, D.R. (eds) Advances in Physiological Research. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-9492-5_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-9492-5_4
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