Fluctuation and oscillation phenomena in neurochemistry

Information is transferred from one neuron to another at specialised points of contact, at synapses. Synapses are most often made between one axon of cell and the dendrite of another (but there are other kinds of synaptic junction too). 

On the arrival of an impulse at the nerve terminal, a chemical transmitter substance is released from the presynaptic cell, crosses the synaptic cleft separating the two cells, and interacts with specific receptor sites on the postsynaptic membrane. The receptors are large protein molecules embedded in the semifluid matrix of the cell membrane. The binding of the transmitter to the receptors implies the opening and closing of membrane channels controlling the flow of specific ions through the membrane. 

Most of what is known about the mechanism of synaptic transmission 

The metabolism of the ACh can be considered as a recycling process constituted by the following elementary steps  

The possibility of the measurement of postsynaptic membrane noise (Katz Miledi, 1972 De Felice, 1981) gives a deeper insight into the details of the chemical mechanism of transmitter-receptor interaction. 

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