Research into adult neural cell integration

I found an article about new brain cells that I thought was really interesting. Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine discovered the mechanism behind how new neural cells are integrated into the adult brain. It turns out that new neural cells take a while to mature and fully integrate themselves into existing neural networks in the brain. While they are maturing, they rely on signals from other brain regions so that they do not disturb ongoing functions of the brain. They can receive input from these other regions for up to 10 days before they are ready to make any of their own outputs. So how long does it take to fully develop their synaptic connections so that they can talk to one another? Up to 3 weeks.

So why do we care; what is significant about this discovery? This mechanism sheds light on how neural cells integrate themselves into existing networks, which will impact how stem cells are used to replace neurons lost to injury or disease. The main concern is about neurons firing inappropriately, which could cause seizures or cognitive dysfunction.

The full article can be found in the Journal of Neuroscience, Vol. 27

Cafe Scientifique — tonight!

Tonight’s the night for the inaugural meeting of Café Scientifique-Morris for the 2007-2008 school year. The topic is:

Food or Fuel? A simple multi-scale integrated analysis of agroecosystems

It will be presented by Abdullah Jaradat of the North Central Soil Conservation Research Lab; I suspect he’ll be talking about their research into newer, better crops for the production of energy. It should be good, come on down to the Common Cup Coffeehouse at 6!

Unfortunately, this will be one I have to miss. I have to catch a plane to San Diego for the Beyond Belief conference (perhaps I shall be live-blogging it tomorrow…or perhaps I’ll be too busy and you’ll have to wait for my summary in the evening). Instead of me doing the introductions, the delightful MC Skatje will be hosting tonight’s event, which will improve it immensely.

That holy flail

Guilt-ridden Christian: If I don’t obey God, he’s going to make me suffer for all eternity.

Evil-angelical Christian: I don’t make you obey God, I’ll be responsible for your eternal suffering.

That link will take you to a despicably manipulative video on GodTube — a dramatized letter from Hell in which a young fellow about to be thrown into the Lake of Fire screams at his still living, Christian friend for not doing enough to save him. It is genuinely vile. It is an attempt to turn a positive social value, friendship, into a rationale for browbeating people into abandoning reason and accepting a superstitious lie.

Christianity is all about death, suffering, fear, guilt, and coercion. It’s a damnable doctrine that preys on the good people want to do and turns it into a corrupting servility to a wretched dogma.

Should this student have been suspended?

This is a troubling story if you just read the right-wing perspective: a student at Hamline University (an excellent liberal arts college in the Twin Cities) was suspended for writing a letter to the university administration. That shouldn’t happen, I’d say — we want to encourage free speech. Even if the student seems to be a bit of a far-right nut, and if the letter was supporting that lunatic idea that school massacres wouldn’t happen if everyone were carrying a concealed weapon, people should have the privilege of expressing their opinions.

So I read John Leo’s opinion piece on the issue and was actually agreeing with him, which was a curious sensation in itself. He didn’t actually quote any pieces of the letter in question, though, which was a little odd. So I looked up the letter from Troy Scheffler on the web. Uh-oh.

[Read more…]

Halloweeny, good and bad

The other night, I made the mistake of going to the local theater to see the horrible new version of Halloween by Rob Zombie. It sucked. Unimaginative, tedious, unrelievedly grim, plodding, with no insight or interesting ideas, and it wasn’t even scary. There was no story except ‘serial killer marches through movie murdering people.’

I’d hoped for something frightening for Halloween, and was disappointed.

I should have just stayed home and read the Little Professor, since she has provided a nice assortment of century-old horror stories. The real thing. Stories with some imagination and style. Skip the bad slasher movies, read Fanu or James or Stevenson — they’re much more satisfying.

Mulifunction drugs.

While I would love to devote all of my time to neurobiology, I do have other classes that require my attention. In one of those classes I am writing a research paper on tuberculosis. While researching tuberculosis I began wondering if there were any strange cases where tuberculosis has neurobiological effects. A google search brought me to this article. While this is not exactly what I was looking for, it did pique my interest. It seems like drugs taken for one thing end up treating another as well. In Biochemistry we recently had to read an article about how the obesity drug Orlistat is a possible cancer treatment. I just wonder how people first begin to realize that a drug taken for one thing affects other areas as well.