What are the functions of the neurons?

Answer 1

the function of neurons is to receive information, process it, and pass it on to other neurons, or muscles or endocrine/exocrine glands. I realize 'receive information, process it, and pass it on' is a giant and amorphous description, but the description of the behavior of organisms with neurons is also giant and amorphous.

Answer 2

Neurons convert stimuli into electrical signals called action potentials and conduct these action potentials to other neurons, muscle tissue or to glands

Taken from the 12th edition Principles of anatomy and physiology

Answer 3

A neuron (pronounced /ˈnjʊərɒn/ N(Y)OOR-on, also known as a neurone or nerve cell) is an electrically excitable cell that processes and transmits information by electrical and chemical signaling. Chemical signaling occurs via synapses, specialized connections with other cells. Neurons connect to each other to form networks. Neurons are the core components of the nervous system, which includes the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral ganglia. A number of specialized types of neurons exist: sensory neurons respond to touch, sound, light and numerous other stimuli affecting cells of the sensory organs that then send signals to the spinal cord and brain. Motor neurons receive signals from the brain and spinal cord, cause muscle contractions, and affect glands. Interneurons connect neurons to other neurons within the same region of the brain or spinal cord.

A typical neuron possesses a cell body (often called the soma), dendrites, and an axon. Dendrites are filaments that arise from the cell body, often extending for hundreds of micrometres and branching multiple times, giving rise to a complex "dendritic tree". An axon is a special cellular filament that arises from the cell body at a site called the axon hillock and travels for a distance, as far as 1 m in humans or even more in other species. The cell body of a neuron frequently gives rise to multiple dendrites, but never to more than one axon, although the axon may branch hundreds of times before it terminates. At the majority of synapses, signals are sent from the axon of one neuron to a dendrite of another. There are, however, many exceptions to these rules: neurons that lack dendrites, neurons that have no axon, synapses that connect an axon to another axon or a dendrite to another dendrite,