Gap junctions provide the ability to send only excitatory messages. What advantages are gained by having the ability to send both excitatory and inhibitory messages?
What will be an ideal response?
Although gap junctions are fast, chemical synapses have the advantage of providing a much greater variety of messages. The only type of message that can be sent at a gap junction between two neurons or muscle cells is an excitatory one. Excitation means that one cell can tell the next cell to produce an action potential. In contrast, chemical synapses allow for both excitatory and inhibitory messages to be sent. In inhibition, the next cell is told not to produce an action potential. Another major advantage of chemical synapses over gap junctions is that a very small presynaptic neuron using chemical messengers can still influence a very large postsynaptic neuron. In the case of a gap junction, it takes a very large presynaptic neuron to influence a tiny postsynaptic neuron, because the strength of the signal decreases as it moves from one cell to the next.
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