Brain in irregular patterns; other neurons are quiet most of the time, but occasionally emit a burst of action potentials. Axons transmit signals to other neurons by means of specialized junctions called synapses. A single axon may make as many as several thousand synaptic connections with other cells. When an action potential, traveling along an axon, arrives at a synapse, it causes a chemical called a neurotransmitter to be released. The neurotransmitter binds to receptor molecules in the membrane of the target cell. Synapses are the key functional elements of the brain. The essential function of the brain is cell-to-cell communication,
Pinky and the Brain Labs research facility. Brain is self-centered and scheming, Pinky is good-natured but feebleminded. In each episode, Brain devises a new plan to take over the world which ultimately ends in failure: usually due to Pinky's idiocy, the impossibility of Brain's plan, Brain's own arrogance, or just circumstances beyond their control. In common with many other "Animaniacs" shorts, many episodes are in some way a parody of something else, usually a film or novel. Many of the "Pinky and the Brain" episodes occur in the 1990s at Acme Labs, located in some large American city underneath a suspension bridge. Several episodes