Biological neurons

We previously discussed how the biological brain has been an inspiration behind ANNs. The brain is made up of hundreds of billions of independent units or cells called neurons.

The following diagram depicts a neuron, and it has multiple inputs going into it, called dendrites. There is also an output going out of the cell body, called the axon:

The dendrites carry information into the neuron and the axon allows the processed information to flow out of the neuron. But in reality, there are thousands of dendrites feeding input into the neuron body as small electrical charges. If these small electrical charges that are carried by the dendrites have an effect on the overall charge of the body or cross over some threshold, then the axon will fire.

Now that we know how a biological neuron functions, we will understand how an artificial neuron works.