It's interesting that neurons, like just about everything else in life, need dualistic properties to function. For instance, during a resting potential, the inner membrane of the neuron has a negative charge and the extracellular space outside the neuron bears a positive charge. Without this resting potential, the momentary reciprocal in electrochemical charge across the membrane would not occur, and communication between neurons would not be possible. I like the way this video animates the exchange in electrochemical charge of the membrane during an action potential:
The most interesting aspect of neural functioning would be the work on mirror neurons by Giacomo Rizzolatti and his colleagues. This review of several studies on the mirror system has compiled a subsantial amount of noteworthy findings on these peculiar networks of neurons along with great insight on the functions they serve. The mirror system is a mechanism that allows one set of neurons to transform our sensory input into a motor format within another set of neurons. This mechanism between mirror neurons enables us to understand what others are doing, including their intentions and feelings, by internalizing the observable input and interpreting it when we imagine ourselves performing the behaviors we observe. The studies on mirror neurons highlight the physiological perspective on social cognition, which is the aspect of psychology that focuses on how people interact with others in social situations. Researchers in this field have also found that children with autism tend to have less activation in the motor neurons that internally mirror the acts of the people they observe. It is thought that this inactivation is responsible in part for the inability of autistic children to understand others' intentions. The long and elaborate process we use to interpret and understand people involves a vastly complex mechanism that astounds me and leaves me to wonder what other neural processes remain hidden from us.
