A branching extension of the cell body that resembles a tree, particularly used to describe certain nerve cell structures.
Greek 'kytos' (cell) combined with 'dendron' (tree). First used in cellular and neurobiology to describe the tree-like projections of nerve cells that conduct signals toward the cell body.
Scientists loved using plant language to describe cells—we still do this with 'dendrites' and 'axons.' The branching pattern they saw under microscopes really did look like tiny trees, and the metaphor stuck because it actually helps us understand how information flows through neurons.
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