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The discovery of a previously unknown and odd type of neurons in mice, has scientists scratching their heads in an effort to understand the reasons for deviation from the normal structure of neuron.

Live Science reported the findings, terming them unexpected. The research team from Bernstein Center Heidelberg-Mannheim, Heidelberg University, and the University of Bonn were trying to map neural connections between pyramidal nerve cells in the Hippocampus region of the brain using a red fluorescent protein marker. The marker is designed to point out axon origins.

All nerve cells follow a basic structure where long hairy structures called dendrites pass information to a cell body which, on processing, forwards to the axon which extends from the body. Humans and mice share the general brain structure and nerve cell types in Hippocampus.

Based on marker's studies, the researchers found the unknown cells deviated from the norm.

"Input signals at this dendrite do not need not be propagated across the cell body. We found that in more than half of the cells, the axon does not emerge from the cell body, but arises from a lower dendrite," one of the first authors of the study said in a statement.

According to Business Standard, the most common site for location of the unknown neurons was the CA1 region where nearly half the cells were found to be different, followed by the CA 3 region where 28 percent were of the new type.

Further, researchers also experimented to see the odd-type neuron function. They excited it using a high resolution light beam only to find that dendrite-connected axons quickly propagated inputs to activate the cell body.

"Our measurements indicate that dendrites that are directly connected to the axon, actively propagate even small input stimuli and activate the neuron. That way, information transmitted by this special dendrite influences the behavior of the nerve cell more than input from any other dendrite," University of Bonn's Tony Kelly, the study's another first author, said.

Researchers now intend to understand which biological processes use the newly-discovered neural pathways.