Questions tagged [neuroscience]
The study of the structure and function of the nervous system and its components.
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Why does regeneration specifically happen during sleep and what causes it to occur in the first place?
Why does our body choose to restore its energy, hormones, etc specifically when we sleep? Is there a specific group of molecules/receptors that allow the body to regenerate? I would like to know the ...
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How are the receptors in the thalamus weakened/shut down during sleep?
During sleep, GABAergic inhibition of the thalamus occurs and along with that, it should "block" our senses. Are the receptors weakened, or completely shut down? If they are weakened, what ...
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How do refractive index (RI) matching solutions reverse tissue expansion in CLARITY tissue clearing?
I am learning about the CLARITY tissue clearing technique. I am researching this technique to understand how it works better. I know that this technique can make tissues transparent without severe ...
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Does a gendered brain exist? If not then what does that say about transgender people?
From this site:
Existing studies “are yet to provide consistent results on exploring the difference of brain structure between men and women” (Ingalhalikar et al. 2014). So just how different are our ...
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Stimulus currents and neuronal responses
As I understand it, if a subthreshold current of unlimited duration is injected in a neuron, a passive response is observed, like an RC circuit. The membrane potential is depolarized by some arbitrary ...
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Does any brain-computer interface model draw on neural temporal codes?
I am studying brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and neural encoding/decoding for a class. Most decoding algorithms that I have encountered for BCIs tackling movement problems seem to assume a neural ...
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How does a neuron recover from after hyperpolarization?
My question is, how does a neuron recover from AHP? It’s been puzzling me for a long time, and I really can’t find a single source that explains it in detail. Apparently the sodium potassium pump ...
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Why do larger neurons have less cytoplasmic resistance?
I'm studying neuron electrochemistry rn and my book basically says that the more the cytoplasm impedes the flow of ions, the slower conduction will be, therefore larger neurons will have lower ...
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What determines the maximum frequency limit that humans can hear?
I learned that the human ear doesn't hear sounds outside the range of 20-20,000 Hz.
I can understand that sounds below this range are so weak that they don't affect the ear.
But why do sounds above ...
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How much charge is moved for one heart beat?
Roughly, how much charge cycles (in and out of our heart cells) for each heart beat?
I am just looking for the total number of Coulombs, but, since all charge can
apparently be
accounted for with just ...
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How to choose which animals to study when designing evolutionary neuroscience research project
I am currently writing a reseach project for a scientific initiation and my idea would be a literature review identifying all empirical physiological and anatomical evidence for the presence and ...
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Sodium-potassium pump (Na+/K+) time limit, endless without action potential?
As written in Wikipedia:
The sodium–potassium pump mechanism moves 3 sodium ions out and moves
2 potassium ions in, thus, in total, removing one positive charge
carrier from the intracellular space.
...
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Animal models to study depression [closed]
Is there a non-invasive animal model to study the pathogenesis (i.e., the development of) depression?
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What is a gain-of-function assay in neuroscience?
I am reading this paper and I have come across the following statement:
"We sought to test whether exogenous Kirrel3 expression induces synapse formation via a gain-of-function assay... Because ...
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Why does damage to myelin sheath in multiple sclerosis lead to a decrease in information reaching the brain from sensory receptors?
In multiple sclerosis(MS), myelin sheath is attacked and damaged. When this happens, there is a decrease in the amount of information reaching the brain from sensory receptors. How and why does a ...
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Has anyone who has ever isolated synaptosomes using subcellular fractionation before know what the 'crude/heavy membrane fraction P2' is?
I am reading a journal paper where they analyse the proteome of synaptosomes. In this paper, they isolate synaptosomes from the hippocampi of mice. I know that synaptosomes contain the complete ...
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Impact of increased sodium conductance at a neuromuscular junction
If trans-epithelial Na+ transport were to increase at the synapse(please consider both pre and post-synaptic membrane situations) in a neuromuscular junction, how would that manifest itself? My guess ...
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Are ganglion cells in the foveal avascular zone served by choroidal blood supply or diffusion from retinal layer capillary beds?
I am trying to determine which blood supply (choroidal or retinal) serves the retinal ganglion cells that respond to foveal cone stimulation. I know that the fovea is supplied by the choroid, but it ...
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Do color-blind people have more rod cells in their retinae than the normally sighted?
All types of color-blindness are said to be caused by the defect or lack of cone cells in the eyes[1]. Since cone cells sense color[2] and rod cells can only sense light intensity[3], the lack of cone ...
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What exactly are the gates in Hodgkin Huxley model?
Hodgkin & Huxley found that a model with 4 gates in series produces a good fit to the S-shaped curve of the potassium current during the action potential.
Upon reading about the structure of ...
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Understanding the voltage of a living cell
Voltage, electric potential difference, electric pressure or electric tension is the difference in electric potential between two points, which (in a static electric field) is defined as the work ...
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The role of PCA (Principal Component Analysis) in recording neurons
I am reviewing the recording methods from an experiment that tracked neuronal activity on the prefrontal cortex of a monkey.
From the method description in Nieder, Andreas, David J. Freedman, and Earl ...
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In evolutionary history, which came first - neuron or astrocyte?
As research is showing astrocytes role in information processing [1], I am interested in knowing which evolved first - an astrocye or a neuron ?
[1] Santello, M., Toni, N. & Volterra, A. Astrocyte ...
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What is the purpose of interkinetic nuclear migration during neurogenesis?
I am reading about neurogenesis and I am learning about the different types of neural stem and progenitor cells (neuroepithelial cells, radial glial cells and basal progenitors). I have read that ...
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Why are nerves blocked even though potassium channels are not blocked?
One could read "Local anesthetics produce a very slight, virtually insignificant,
decrease in potassium (K+) conductance through
the nerve membrane." At Handbook of Local Anesthesia 7th ...
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What is the risk of permanent brain damage and/or long term cognitive effects from a single exposure to extreme altitude?
I have read some of the papers on the subject of the permanent brain damage induced by high to extreme altitude (5000m-8000m) climbing. The evidence seems contradictory. One paper (Fayed 2006) found ...
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Is Signal Transduction Unidirectional from the Stimuli to the Final Receptor?
I wonder if signal transduction in biological systems including visual, olfactory, tactile or any other biological system, is unidirectional. Suppose that $X_i$ is the $ith$ cell in the signal ...
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What mechanism causes the presence of photosensitizers in mitochondria to change membrane ionic currents?
In the original question, the article in question was talking about specifically about this compound, Benzoporphyrin:
Characterization of Perturbing Actions by Verteporfin, a Benzoporphyrin ...
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Why can sodium oligomannate (GV-971) improve cognition in people with Alzheimer's Disease?
There is a Phase 3 placebo-controlled clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of sodium oligomannate (GV-971) in the treatment of mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD).
A Study of Sodium ...
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What is the probability for an offspring to inherit schizophrenia? [closed]
If an European male (i.e. white) is diagnosed with schizophrenia, but an European female (also white) 2-3 years younger than the male is healthy, what is the probability that their first child will:
a)...
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Why is Heart Rate Recovery after exercise reasonably well described by a mono-exponential decay?
I have been measuring my heart rate recovery after exercise and I see that it can be fit reasonably well using a single exponential:
$HeartRate(t) = HR_{max} \times e^{-t/\tau} + HR_{resting}$
This ...
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Hodgkin huxley neuron not spiking consistently for currents greater than threshold?
Hi I am currently studying physics at the undergraduate level. As part of my final year project Ive got to implement the HH model and investigate certain types of behaviour.
My issue is the following.
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Is there a reference brain sample for the RNA-Seq data in the Developmental Transcriptome tool from the Allen Brain Atlas?
I am using the Developmental Transcriptome tool from the Allen Brain Atlas to determine at what stages of development a specific gene is expressed in the human brain.
I have read the official ...
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Why do neurons turn black in Golgi staining?
I am learning about the Golgi staining of neurons. I know that to this day it is unknown why some but not all neurons in a tissue get stained. I have read online that to harden the neural tissue, ...
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How does slowed action potential propagation in the optic nerve cause blurred vision?
Multiple sclerosis is accompanied by optic neuritis, and there is demyelination of the optic nerve, causing the action potential to be propagated more slowly along axons. But how does this lead to ...
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How is a thickening of grey matter possible?
There are plenty of studies that document grey matter thickening in certain brain areas as a result of meditation or exercise. However, it's often said that the extent of neurogenesis outside of the ...
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When recalling the same piece of memory in different times, are the brain activities different?
When we are thinking about the same piece of memory in multiple different times, would the corresponding brain activities always be the same? Or how similar/different can the corresponding brain ...
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What is the primary purpose of the prefrontal cortex?
I've heard of many functions of the prefrontal cortex (e.g. creativity, working memory, abstract thought, inhibition, planning, executive function, etc...).
But I'd like to know what its primary ...
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Can the hippocampus store working memory?
I'm a little bit confused about the role that the hippocampus plays in memory.
I've heard that it stores episodic memories and then consolidates the important ones into long-term memory.
My question ...
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Does every person have unique nervous system?
If we had the technology to directly interface electronic devices with the nervous system and we wanted to connect a robotic arm to a person that lost his/her real arm, would we be able to find the ...
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How fast does eyelid close when eyelash is triggered?
What is the reaction of blinking like when an unexpected piece of wood or something hits an eyelash and then an eyeball?
A piece of stone flew into my eyeball when we knocked a wall down, and it hit ...
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how do we feel electricity on skin even though merkel cells are pressure sensitive only?
Note: Here I am not talking about electric shock (one feels when a lot of electricity passes through), I am talking about smaller sensations one feel directly on the skin.
Note: I am not able to find ...
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How easy is it for quantum dots to enter the intracellular portions of cells?
As quantum dots have better quantum yield than organic dyes, many are being developed as a substitute for them. Nonetheless, could these substitutes be small enough to enter inside cells as current ...
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Image recognition for neuron-astrocyte connections
For my research, I am interested in training a deep learning model to recognize images of brain circuitry. From my understanding, there is technology for detecting neuronal wiring (neuron-neuron ...
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What is the process by which fluorescent proteins in two photon microscopy are optically stimulated by membrane depolarization?
How does the flow of calcium ions through neurons cause the dyes to activate? The voltage is extremely small, so the dyes have to be extremely close to the neurons, which would disrupt the cells, so ...
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Clarifying Resting membrane potential [duplicate]
I need some help understanding how the resting membrane potential is maintained in neurons. I understand that there are more K+ leak channels than Na+ leak channels, meaning that more K+ ions leave ...
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Is there a difference between human neuron cells compared to those of other animals?
Thanks for looking.
Firstly, I am nowhere near biologist, just a student, so my apologies if this isn't a "good" question.
Background:
So I was searching about intelligence, brains and ...
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How are electrodes working? (EEG) [closed]
How do electrodes receive signals from the brain when using/doing an EEG? Is there some "circuit" for it? Is it harmful if you have many (more than 50-100) on your head?
I found out that ...
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Cumulative synaptic transmission delay
Assume the following:
there are at least 10^11 neurons in the human brain
there are approximately 10^14 synaptic connections in the human brain (because on average each neuron gets inputs from ...
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How Fast can the Electrochemical Gradient on a Neuron be Reestablished? [duplicate]
The electrochemical gradient of Na+, K+, Ca2+, and Cl- between the inside and outside of a neuron is vital for its function. When a neuron fires, this gradient reverses. How long does it take for the ...
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