As when a tunnel is made, it must be propped up with beams, crossbars, and other structures to keep it up; cells have their own skeleton that keeps them firm, it is called: cytoskeleton. The cytoskeleton is mainly made up of three types of filamentous structures: microtubules, intermediate filaments, and microfilaments. And since we are talking about neuro things, we are going to talk about neurofilaments.
Neurofilaments are a type of intermediate filament. They are about 10 nm in diameter and are formed by taking finer fibers and winding them together. The interesting thing is all this winding gives rise to neurofilaments that are especially stable structures: just as you ride them that way they stay. Its main function is to maintain the structure of the neuron, being very important in the axons: which, as we have seen, are very complex cables. And to stabilize them with all their strength, neurofilaments are especially abundantly present within them.
You can see all the chapters of the Neuropill series by entering here
About Neuropills:
Created, directed and presented by Pablo Barrecheguren (@pjbarrecheguren), Neuropíldoras (2018) is a scientific dissemination project made by Big Van Ciencia in collaboration with Muy Interesante and carried out with the collaboration of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology – Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (FECYT).
