Joining med school this summer. :)
“This is a network of neurons (in red) and glia cells (in green) grown in a petri dish. Blue dots are the cells’ nuclei. Credit: Pablo Blinder/American Friends of Tel Aviv University (AFTAU)”
Glia cells, named for the Greek word for “glue,” hold the brain’s neurons together and protect the cells that determine our thoughts and behaviors, but scientists have long puzzled over their prominence in the activities of the brain dedicated to learning and memory. Now Tel Aviv University researchers say that glia cells are central to the brain’s plasticity — how the brain adapts, learns, and stores information.
The brain is constituted of two main types of cells: neurons and glia. Neurons fire off signals that dictate how we think and behave, using synapses to pass along the message from one neuron to another, explains De Pittà. Scientists theorize that memory and learning are dictated by synaptic activity because they are “plastic,” with the ability to adapt to different stimuli.
But Ben-Jacob and colleagues suspected that glia cells were even more central to how the brain works. Glia cells are abundant in the brain’s hippocampus and the cortex, the two parts of the brain that have the most control over the brain’s ability to process information, learn and memorize. In fact, for every neuron cell, there are two to five glia cells. Taking into account previous experimental data, the researchers were able to build a model that could resolve the puzzle.
Almost all neurodegenerative diseases are glia-related pathologies, Prof. Ben-Jacob notes… when brain activity is low, glia cells boost transmissions of information, keeping the connections between neurons “alive.”
(via sciencenote)
This snake charmer has been coming by our neighbourhood for almost five years now. He plays his music to hypnotize his snakes. All he asks for in return is some loose change.
