Editing Axon (section)

==History==
German anatomist [[Otto Friedrich Karl Deiters]] is generally credited with the discovery of the axon by distinguishing it from the dendrites.<ref name="Debanne" /> Swiss [[Albert von Kölliker|Rüdolf Albert von Kölliker]] and German [[Robert Remak]] were the first to identify and characterize the axon initial segment. Kölliker named the axon in 1896.<ref>{{cite book |title=Origins of neuroscience: a history of explorations into brain function| last=Finger |first=Stanley | name-list-style = vanc |publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1994|isbn=9780195146943|pages=47|oclc=27151391|quote=Kölliker would give the "axon" its name in 1896.}}</ref> [[Louis-Antoine Ranvier]] was the first to describe the gaps or nodes found on axons and for this contribution these axonal features are now commonly referred to as the [[Node of Ranvier|nodes of Ranvier]]. [[Santiago Ramón y Cajal]], a Spanish anatomist, proposed that axons were the output components of neurons, describing their functionality.<ref name="Debanne" /> [[Joseph Erlanger]] and [[Herbert Gasser]] earlier developed the classification system for peripheral nerve fibers,<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Grant G | title = The 1932 and 1944 Nobel Prizes in physiology or medicine: rewards for ground-breaking studies in neurophysiology | journal = Journal of the History of the Neurosciences | volume = 15 | issue = 4 | pages = 341–57 | date = December 2006 | pmid = 16997762 | doi = 10.1080/09647040600638981 | s2cid = 37676544 }}</ref> based on axonal conduction velocity, [[myelin]]ation, fiber size etc. [[Alan Hodgkin]] and [[Andrew Huxley]] also employed the squid giant axon (1939) and by 1952 they had obtained a full quantitative description of the ionic basis of the action potential, leading to the formulation of the [[Hodgkin–Huxley model]]. Hodgkin and Huxley were awarded jointly the [[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine|Nobel Prize]] for this work in 1963. The formulae detailing axonal conductance were extended to vertebrates in the Frankenhaeuser–Huxley equations. The understanding of the biochemical basis for action potential propagation has advanced further, and includes many details about individual [[ion channel]]s.