Do neurons in the brain change size?

If so, why does this occur? What would be the behavioural impact of such a change?

Manuel Vietze, Student of Psychology, Paramedic

They normally don't. Neuronsize depends on the type of neuron, i.e. where in the brain it is positioned or what it's purpose is. But for a given population of neurons, their size shouldn't differ much. What might change enormously is their count of dendrites coming in from other neurons. But this is rather a matter of neuroplasticity. The actual cell size remains constant. The only reason this actual cell size could vary a very little might be dehydration. Like every other cell in the body, if the concentration of electrolytes outside of the cell increases (or the alcohol level), because the body is lacking water (or you're getting drunk), water will be drawn out of a neuron as well, making it shrink a little. But this cannot cause a big difference. If that exceeds a certain volume percentage, you will just die from dehydration. If you survive, neuron size will return to normal shortly after refilling the body's water capacity.



referring to the dehydration point is that why people hallucinate in the desert ?

Leo Mauro Answered to this follow up question

Partially -- lack of water induces electrolyte imbalance, and neuron operation depends heavily on ionic currents (mainly sodium and potassium ions) that they control.  Lack of water affects the ionic pressure outside and inside neurons, so it causes them to "misfire".

Also, and quite importantly, increase of temperature in the CNS triggers neuronal system malfunction due to biochemical pathways and ionic channels going haywire. Note that fever also can trigger hallucinations and other similar "malfunctions"

Written by :Fouad  Ahmed

Twitter:@fouad_khafaga

Hotmail: Fouad_khafaga@hotmail.co.uk

source: http://bit.ly/1Oyp113