Neuron Doctrine

The neuron doctrine holds that the nervous system is composed of individual, discrete cells, neurons, that are structurally and functionally independent of one another and communicate across small gaps rather than through direct physical fusion. Santiago Ramon y Cajal established the doctrine through detailed microscopic study of nerve tissue stained with Camillo Golgi's own silver-staining method, ironically using Golgi's technique to overturn Golgi's own theory that the nervous system was a single continuous, fused network, the reticular theory. Cajal and Golgi shared the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on the structure of the nervous system, but the two men held opposed views to the end, a disagreement they aired publicly in their own Nobel lectures. The neuron doctrine is now the accepted foundation of modern neuroscience.