fibers. The covering also forms a partition between adjacent axons. The nerve cell body lies either in our brain or spinal cord or very close to the spinal cord in a region called dorsal or ventral root ganglion. In the brain or spinal cord, it is difficult to make out the difference between dendrites and axons on the basis of their length, often, the presence of the sheath helps us to find out but several axons here do not have the sheath. We know that the nerve cell is the structural and functional unit of nervous system. Our nervous system consists of more than100 billion of them, which communicate with each other in a specific manner. Dendrites of one nerve cell connect to the other or to the axons of the other nerve cell through connections called as a 'synapse'.

Synapse is the functional region of contact between two neurons, where information from one neuron is transmitted or relayed to another neuron. Though these are regions of minute gaps and essentially neurons do not have any protoplasmic connection between them yet information is passed from one nerve cell to the other through these gaps either in the form of chemical or electrical signals or both. These synapses are mainly found on the brain, spinal cord and around the spinal cord. Beyond these areas the axon carries the signals to respective areas in our body

In the holding stick activity you observed that there is coordination between eye and finger. Different pathways are taken by nerves to bring about this coordinated activity.
On the basis of pathways followed, nerves are classified mainly into three different types. They are as follows.
Afferent nerves or Sensory nerves :
(a) Afferent (or ferrying towards) which carry messages towards the central nervous system (spinal cord or brain) from nerve endings on the muscles of different sense organs that sense the change in surroundings are called stimulus detectors. These are also called 'sensory' nerves