Questions tagged [brain]
The primary component of the central nervous system, which, along with the spinal cord, controls the body of bilaterally symmetrical beings.
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Schematic of neural lineage tree and position of Choroid Plexus cells
I am trying to understand which are the different type of progenitors in the human brain and I am currently following this schematic.
My question is, are Choroid Plexus cells progenitors to Radial ...
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Breakdown of functional human genome by organ/What fraction of the functional human genome is devoted specifically to brain functioning?
Of course, there won't be a precise known answer to the question, as it is not even known precisely what percentage of the genome is functional in the first place - but I am still looking for research....
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Why does it take so long for the human brain to develop from an evolutionary point of view?
I have read that it takes about 25 years for the brain to be fully developed.
Coincidentally, humans from the Neolithic and Bronze Age had a very short life expectancy, in fact most of their life ...
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How does high-intensity aerobic exercise affect the brain?
I have been reading articles claiming that serotonin, endorphins and BDNF are produced during exercise, but they never mention the intensity or duration of exercise for this to happen.
To not make ...
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Has anyone attempted to add extra senses to a creature through a BCI/Neural interface?
Basic BCI's (Brain computer interfaces) have been available for quite a while now and allow users to preform rudimentary tasks such as moving prosthetic limbs with force-feedback or moving a mouse on ...
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What does microglia process length tell us?
I'm reading a study investigating traumatic brain injury and alcohol consumption and the researchers measured microglia process length as an indicator of brain damage. I was wondering what that would ...
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Are there “old” neuron types in the neocortex?
"Old" may mean a neuron type that appeared early in the tree of life, and it may mean – going together – that it comes early in the lineage tree of neuronal cells, rooted in the fertilized ...
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Inhibitory functional connectivity
Functional connectivity may be defined as
»the temporal correlation between spatially remote neurophysiological events, expressed as deviation from statistical independence across these events in ...
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Are there nuclei with “real” interneurons?
In Kandel's "Principles of Neural Sciences" in the chapter about the anatomical organization of the brain one reads (p. 323, 4th ed.):
»Although a variety of [relay] neurons are involved at each ...
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How sharp are the borders between Brodmann areas?
How does the border between two Brodmann areas look like in Nissl stains? How large is the transition zone where one cannot tell to which of the two areas a neuron belongs to? How many neurons are ...
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Two-dimensional anatomical maps of the brain
The three-dimensional anatomy of the brain is hard to comprehend visually. But the exact spatial relations between the parts of the brain and their shapes are (sometimes) not so important because ...
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Which parts of the cerebral cortex don't belong to the neocortex?
In the Wikipedia article on the cerebral cortex one reads:
»Most of the cerebral cortex consists of the six-layered neocortex.«
Accordingly, in the Wikipedia list of regions in the human brain, ...
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Is relative timing of signal transmission between neurons along axons and through synapses relevant in the brain?
A neuron may be part of a nerve connection between two endpoints, transferring a signal that is not very sensitive to variations in signal propagation speed.
But a neuron inside a cluster of ...
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Umbrella term for “parts of the brain”
I am looking for an umbrella term for general "parts of the brain", esp. for (somehow arbitrary) "subsets of neurons".
For the tree of life there is an umbrella term for all kinds of taxonomic groups ...
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What does the thalamus consist of?
There is a long list of thalamic nuclei which are somehow embedded in the thalamus, a "large mass of gray matter located in the dorsal part of the diencephalon", according to Wikipedia.
I wonder what ...
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Functional roles of firing patterns
Eugene Izhikevich reports – e.g. here – a plethora of neural firing patterns:
My question is two-fold:
Is there an overview which types of neurons are capable of (and typically exhibit) ...
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Parts of the brain pivotal for maintaining consciousness
From an answer to another question (on conscious experiences by coma patients) I have learned that
no conscious experiences, complex thoughts, or complex emotions can
occur when one is in coma (...
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How does the dopamine spike from drugs compare quantitatively to pleasurable non-drug activities?
I did find this popular press article that quotes a researcher offering the following quantification: "in lab experiments done on animals, sex causes dopamine levels to jump from 100 to 200 units, and ...
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To what extent does loss of neurons in the substantia nigra affect movement?
There is a substance known as MPTP that is capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier. Once it does so, it is metabolized into a toxin called MPP+, which then selectively destroys dopaminergic ...
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Can brain activity be restored after being stopped, assuming no cellular damage?
I was reading about cryonic preservation recently. In a separate place on the Internet, I've read that once brain activity stops and brain death occurs, the person is dead with no hope of recovery. ...
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Why didn't the human Cerebrum evolve to have granule cells like the Cerebellum does?
The Cerebellum is much smaller compared to the Cerebrum yet it contains more than half of the total neurons contained in the brain.
That's mainly due to the granule cells in the Cerebellum which ...
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Does the cranial dura consist of the periosteum? and if not, then is there a mistake in my textbook?
My textbook (Neuroanatomy an illustrated colour text) states that:
The spinal dura and much of the cranial dura are separate from the periosteum, which forms the inner lining of the surrounding ...
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Janina kolkiewicz who faced Lazarus phenomenon
I've just read about Janina kolkiewicz case who faced Lazarus phenomenon and I was wondering how could her brain and organs survive these long hours without oxygen?
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Gaba and Magnesium
I read read that magnesium divalent ion binds to gaba receptors and induces the same effects as if gaba has binded. Does anyone know what happens to the gaba that would have been synthesised and ...
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Do new neurons divide propotionally?
Do new neurons divide propotionally?
if i try to improve my reasoning skills,are the new neurons only made for that specific region of the brain that controls reasoning skill?
i have heard that one ...
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adverse effects of reduced food variety on microbiome
We often see, in science fiction, food being produced from, say, algae or yeast. Any idea what could be the effect of such a limited diet on the gut microbiome? Could there be any side-effect that ...
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Can a brain be damaged by overstimulation?
I am wondering what, if any, long term health effects there are from high levels of brain activity.
I don't mean cases where a brain is being artificially stimulated, but rather where there is a high ...
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Why does music give you emotions?
Why do we feel emotions when we hear music?
Click to see video
How can a set of tones arranged in a specific order and timing make you feel sad or happy?
I read that music can somehow trigger the ...
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Is sexual desire stronger in men than women?
Usually in popular culture it's considered men sexual desire is stronger than women. This seems to be congruent with the availability of sexual related items for men and women, such as magazines, ...
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1answer
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What determines the influx of calcium ions in the voltage-gated ion channels?
Calcium channels play a crucial role in neuronal signaling by helping the synaptic vesicles to fuse through the synaptic active zone and release their neurotransmitters. My question is, at a given ...
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Why does brain invert the image formed on retina? [duplicate]
I have been studying about the human eye and it's working in school for some time. I came across something. I have been taught that the image formed on the retina of the eye by the lens is inverted ...
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Identify brain junk - What are all the known intracellular and extracellular substances which build up with age and clog the brain?
What are the known junk substances which the body is unable to dispose of and which build up in the brain with age to eventually causes age related problems?
Starting with the most obvious ones:
...
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What is the water and fat composition of the human brain?
Everywhere I look online says the brain is about 60% fat. But when it comes to water, I see numbers like 70-75%. One webpage even makes both those claims back to back! That doesn't make any sense. So ...
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Looking for books on How the limbic system works and it role in non-verbal behavior
This is my first post. I just read and I'm currently studying a book called "How everybody works" as a guide to understanding nonverbal behaviors.
After I'm done studying it and while I experiment ...
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How do parasites “reprogram” brains?
Dicrocoelium dendriticum is a parasite that uses ants as a second intermediate host (which means that ants aren't its primary host/target, but are rather a temporary host to help reach their main/...
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Where would I point to if I wanted to indicate the location of the anterior insular cortex?
I understand research suggests the anterior insular cortex is where human empathy originates. The images I found researching the location of the AIC
do not give me a clear sense of where it is in ...
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What makes synaptic vesicle release probabilistic?
The fusion of synaptic vesicles (SVs) with the plasma membrane of the active zone (AZ) upon arrival of an action potential (AP) at the presynaptic compartment is a tightly regulated probabilistic ...
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Pharmacokinetics and cell-membrane permeability of Adenosine triphosphate disodium hydrate
【My Question】
(1) Please tell me the pharmacokinetics of this ATP (or Adenosine triphosphate disodium hydrate) when it is administered orally or intravenously. In particular, Does this material has ...
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Does the prefrontal cortex fold over the diencephalon (limbic lobe) during embryogenesis?
The frontal lobe as the top of the vertebrate brain, does it fold over the diencephalon during embryogenesis and development of the brain?
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Do monkeys understand 2+2?
Asked on behalf of my 9-year-old son:
As the title says, do monkeys understand 2+2, or math in general?
If so, to what extent? Can they compare individual objects to groups, understand greater/less ...
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1answer
132 views
Cerebral/Cerebellar Cortex versus Deep Nuclei
I have troubles using the terms Cortex & Deep Nuclei, and 'Nuclei' in general. From what I understand, a brain has '3 matter types in accordance to anatomical locations'
Superficial Grey matter - ...
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What material fills the synaptic cleft? Is it water?
The synaptic cleft is the gap between the pre-synaptic and post-synaptic neurons, and neurotransmitters are transferred between the neurons within this region. What substance exits in this space, is ...
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Correlation brain size and muscle volume
I have 3 dogs that weigh ≈ 5 kg, ≈ 20 kg and ≈ 45 kg. The smallest dogs whole head would fit in the mouth of the biggest dog. Although I haven't measured it exactly but by just looking at the dogs I ...
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1answer
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What differentiates neurons in different parts of the brain?
For example: what makes a neuron in the hippocampus of the brain different from a neuron in, say, the amygdala, or the frontal lobe, or anywhere else in the brain? Do neurons in different parts of the ...
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Do lychees cause encephalitis?
In India, there is a recent outbreak of this disease after many consumed lychees.
Many people link this to lychee's "toxins".
I'm not a biology major hence can't elaborate further on this, but here ...
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131 views
Is gender identity a result of the outside environment?
This article says
"Sex is based on biological factors such as sex chromosomes and gonads [reproductive organs]," she said, "whereas gender has a social component and involves expectations and ...
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Does the nature of nervous impulses give us a finite number of things we can perceive?
This is a subject that is very disturbing to me and one that I've been obsessing over for years. I warn you now that this is probably not the sort of thing you get asked on this website and I'm not ...
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Do nerves work as I think they work and what does that mean for our senses?
Let me start off with a couple of metaphors.
In the third Lord of the Rings film, a signal for help is sent from Minas Tirith to Gondor, using a chain of beacons. When the keepers of one of these ...
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Is there a link between brain's energy consumption and human experience?
I was read the article (in Scientific American Mind) about energy consumption of brain. There are:
Say you are learning a new skill—how to juggle or speak Spanish.
Neuroscientists have made the ...
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How much is the motion speed of calcium ions in ion channels and neurons?
As far as I know, calcium ions moving in a Brownian manner are responsible for the performance of neurons and neuro-transmitters. My question is, how much kinetic energy these calcium ions have and ...
