Neuroscience
- A Brain Is Worth A Thousand Words
And a beautiful brain image is worth even more.1 An ugly topographical map of brain electrical activity just won't do. Read Cognitive Daily on What's more convincing than talking about brains? Pictures of brains! Footnote 1 Metaphorically speaking,...
- Amnestic Syndromes: The Play's The Thing ...
From today's New York Times: January 23, 2007 Amnesiacs May Be Cut Off From Past and Future Alike By BENEDICT CAREY The New York Times In the movies amnesia is bizarre, and thrilling. The star is usually a former assassin or government agent whose...
- Spindle Neurons
From the CBC: Humpback whales share brain cells with humans Last Updated: Monday, November 27, 2006 | 1:12 PM ET CBC News Humpback whales have joined an exclusive evolutionary club alongside humans, gorillas and dolphins, thanks to the discovery of a...
- A Beautiful 'brainbow'
(Inspired by Encephalon #64) Neurons are clever little cells, the very material that processes what we think, see, hear, feel, understand, and so much more. Has anyone considered if they look as artistic as they are artful? In 2007 a team of Harvard neuroscientists...
- Quotes Of Whoa #3: The Synaptic Self
"My notion of personality is pretty simple: it's that your 'self,' the essence of who you are, reflects patterns of interconnectivity between neurons in your brain. Connections between neurons, known as synapses, are the main channels of information...
Neuroscience
Bloody Brains
I did tell you that I liked brains, but rather than losing myself in the effevescent and vibrant beauty of neurons or brainbows, we rarely get the chance to see a real live fleshy bloody spongy brain. And so I came across this fantastic specimen:
That's a ventral (upside down) view of a fresh brain before processing at the Allen Institute. The folks there are engaged in an impressive project ("Allen Brain Atlas") to map the entire brain with all its individual neurons so as to aid future neurological research. Call it a "Neural Genome" if you like. It's due for completion in 2012, after which it is expected that the constructions of our neural networks will be discovered, analysed and explained.
Fresh brains have to be collected soon after the donor's death, else nucleic acids beging to work and dissolve the cell membranes. Researchers have a limited window in which to cut the brain into slices and photograph each of them before and quickly packing them away in ice for storage before future RNA analysis.
Read Jonah Lehrer's article at Wired, and view the full gallery of images.
That's a ventral (upside down) view of a fresh brain before processing at the Allen Institute. The folks there are engaged in an impressive project ("Allen Brain Atlas") to map the entire brain with all its individual neurons so as to aid future neurological research. Call it a "Neural Genome" if you like. It's due for completion in 2012, after which it is expected that the constructions of our neural networks will be discovered, analysed and explained.
Fresh brains have to be collected soon after the donor's death, else nucleic acids beging to work and dissolve the cell membranes. Researchers have a limited window in which to cut the brain into slices and photograph each of them before and quickly packing them away in ice for storage before future RNA analysis.
Read Jonah Lehrer's article at Wired, and view the full gallery of images.
(Thanks to Mo for the tip.)
- A Brain Is Worth A Thousand Words
And a beautiful brain image is worth even more.1 An ugly topographical map of brain electrical activity just won't do. Read Cognitive Daily on What's more convincing than talking about brains? Pictures of brains! Footnote 1 Metaphorically speaking,...
- Amnestic Syndromes: The Play's The Thing ...
From today's New York Times: January 23, 2007 Amnesiacs May Be Cut Off From Past and Future Alike By BENEDICT CAREY The New York Times In the movies amnesia is bizarre, and thrilling. The star is usually a former assassin or government agent whose...
- Spindle Neurons
From the CBC: Humpback whales share brain cells with humans Last Updated: Monday, November 27, 2006 | 1:12 PM ET CBC News Humpback whales have joined an exclusive evolutionary club alongside humans, gorillas and dolphins, thanks to the discovery of a...
- A Beautiful 'brainbow'
(Inspired by Encephalon #64) Neurons are clever little cells, the very material that processes what we think, see, hear, feel, understand, and so much more. Has anyone considered if they look as artistic as they are artful? In 2007 a team of Harvard neuroscientists...
- Quotes Of Whoa #3: The Synaptic Self
"My notion of personality is pretty simple: it's that your 'self,' the essence of who you are, reflects patterns of interconnectivity between neurons in your brain. Connections between neurons, known as synapses, are the main channels of information...