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Conclusions

Before describing the pathways implemented to reach the diagnosis of our poor patient Mary Poppins of 'Hemimasticatory Spasm' we should anticipate that the encrypted code, considered a 'communication phenomenon' refers to a neurophysiopathological phenomenon called 'Hephaptic transmission', a very important phenomenon and complex to evoke, but above all it requires a description of a topic that is sometimes taken for granted that of 'electrical transmission between neurons'.

Electrical signaling is a key feature of the nervous system and gives it the ability to react quickly to changes in the environment. Although synaptic communication between nerve cells is perceived primarily as chemically mediated, electrical synaptic interactions also occur. Two different strategies are responsible for the electrical communication between neurons. One is the consequence of low resistance intercellular pathways, called “gap junctions”, for the diffusion of electric currents between the inside of two cells. The second occurs in the absence of cell-to-cell contacts and is a consequence of the extracellular electric fields generated by the electrical activity of neurons.

In the chapter dedicated to this fundamental topic (Two Forms of Electrical Transmission Between Neurons), the current notions of electrical transmission from a historical perspective will be discussed by comparing the contributions of the two different forms of electrical communication to brain function.