SEPTEMBER 2018 Vol
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The Journal of the IYNA SEPTEMBER 2018 Vol. 2 Issue 5 Featured Articles ‘Brain Versus Com- ‘The Brain of a puter: A Comparison Honeybee’ of Structure, Meth- - Vilena Lee ods, and Capabilities’ - Khayla Black International Youth Neuroscience Association –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Contents INTRODUCTION Letter from the Editors IYNA Editorial Team page 2 GENERAL NEUROSCIENCE The Brain of a Honeybee Vilena Lee pages 3-7 The Neuroscience Behind Imagination, Kimaya Gadre pages 8-10 or What We Imagine it to be Neurolinguistics: The Intersection of Language Geetanjali Rastogi pages 11-14 and the Brain DISEASE Protein Dysregulation in Amyotrophic Lateral Sarah Shirley p ages 15-17 Sclerosis RESEARCH Oxytocin and Social Cognitive Decits Tobey Le pages 18-20 NEUROTECHNOLOGY Brain versus Computer: A Comparison of Khayla Black pages 21-26 Structure, Methods, and Capabilities INTERVIEW An Interview With Elisabeth Glowatzki: Dharshan Varia pages 27-30 Departments of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery and Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University Zebrash and Hearing: An Interview with Dr. Chinmayi Balusu pages 31-35 Allison Con CONTRIBUTORS PAGE page 36 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 1 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ・I NTRODUCTION ・ –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Letter From the Editors Sojas Wagle, Robert Morgan, Anita Singh, and Miruna-Elena Vlad Dear Readers, Welcome to the fth issue of the second season of the IYNA Journal! We greatly appreciate your readership, continued or new. This is the second issue with our redesigned journal process where we now have a rolling basis for article publications. This means that every article that is submitted before the deadline will not necessarily be published for that specic issue, but publication in a future issue is virtually guaranteed if the author makes changes to their article as directed by the editors’ suggestions. We are pleased to announce that it has been going very smoothly, and we will be continuing with it in the future. Recently, we’ve also decided to disband the assembly team of the IYNA Journal and instead to expand the role of editors to include formatting capabilities. We hope this will boost the morale of our editing team by making their tasks more dynamic, and we also hope our authors will receive more of the optimal care and attention they need to succeed as writers. That being said, here are some previews of articles in this release: In the General Neuroscience section, Vilena Lee discusses the neurological mechanisms that allow the honeybee to have a cognitive ability comparable to mammals, Kimaya Gadre seeks to redene imagination by clarifying that the propagation of new ideas stems from previously learned concepts, and Geetanjali Rastogi reveals the neuroanatomy and research ndings behind the growing eld of neurolinguistics. In the Disease section, Sarah Shirley investigates the pathological mechanisms in which protein aggregation develops and causes Amyotrophic lateral Sclerosis. In the Research section, Tobey Le explains the correlation between the oxytocin hormone and an individual's ability to engage in a social environment. In the Neurotechnology section, Khayla Black highlights the dierences between the human brain and the modern computer and suggests that, in the future, they may cease to exist. Finally, in the Interview section, Dharshan Varia uncovers details about Dr. Elisabeth Glowatzki’s seminal research on the function of auditory nerve bers in the mammalian cochlea, while Chinmayi Balusu interviews Dr. Allison Con to nd out more about her groundbreaking research on how larval zebrash respond to loud noises or damaging drugs. We would like to recognize all of our dedicated editors for helping us make this issue the success that it is. You can see all of their names and positions on our Contributors page. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for us, please feel free to contact us at [email protected]. We hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as we enjoyed editing it! Best Regards, Sojas Wagle - IYNA Journal Editor-In-Chief Anita Singh, Robert Morgan, Miruna-Elena Vlad - Senior Editors –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 2 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ・GENERAL NEUROSCIENCE・ –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– T he Brain of a Honeybee Vilena Lee Abstract Honeybees dierentiate themselves from other insects due to their ability to practice advanced cognition. Scientists have determined this by studying honeybees’ process of “foraging”. Worker bees are able to communicate to other bees in the hive the distance and angle at which a food source is found. By being able to communicate the location of the food source, honeybees have proven to have advanced memory skills relative to other insects. Honeybees, unlike humans, do not have a hippocampus or a prefrontal cortex, so scientists believe that honeybees exhibit these higher cognitive functions through their Mushroom Bodies, which are bilateral anatomical structures that are packed with neurons. General Overview Honeybees, unlike other insects, are known for their high intellect and advanced cognitive ability. Honeybees have approximately 1 million neurons despite having a brain the size of a sesame seed [1]. This allows their brain to have a greater density relative to other insects and their nervous system to be complex for such a small size. It is because of this that scientists have begun to use honeybees to conduct research on the brain. Bees have demonstrated strong cognitive ability with advanced learning and memory skills. “Foraging,” which is the process when bees exit the hive to gather nectar, is a distinct trait of honeybees, where worker bees that are older than 21 days are sent out to collect food for the hive [2]. There are two types of worker bees who forage for the hive: scout bees, and reticent bees. Scout bees go outside the hive and search for the best food source. When they return to the hive, it is critical that scout bees communicate to reticent bees information on the food source through a dance. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 3 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Communication Through Dance After a scout bee evenly distributes nectar into honeycombs, she will acquire an audience [3]. With the attention of the audience, she will do one of two dances: either a round dance or a waggle dance. The dance that she decides to do will tell the bees the quality and quantity of the food source. If it’s a strong, rich food source, all of the foraging bees will dance with great enthusiasm each time they return to the hive. On the contrary, if the food source is weak, the dance will not be as vigorous. A round dance is used for food sources that are fewer than 100 meters from the hive. The scout bee will distribute her newly acquired nectar to other bees in the hive and will then begin to “run” in small circles. She will switch directions every few minutes, and the dance will be repeated no more than 3 times. A waggle dance is for a more distant food source. Because the food source is farther away, it is more likely than not that the food source is stronger than a round dance food source. The “waggle” comes from the fact that the worker bee will dance in a gure-eight or sickle shaped pattern. The waggle dance tells the bees about the direction and energy required to reach the food source. The distance is given by how long it takes the bee to complete one “circuit” in 15 seconds. For example, if a bee completes 8-9 circuits in 15 seconds, the food source is approximately 200 meters away. However, if a bee completes 2 circuits in 15 seconds, it is estimated that the food source is about 2000 meters away. Direction is given to the hive by the direction of the dancer as she does her “waggle” dance. If the worker bee completes her “waggle” while upwardly facing the audience, then the hive can assume that the food source is facing towards the direction of the sun. On the other hand, if a worker bee does a “waggle”, and she completes the dance at 70 degrees upward to the left of the audience, then the hive will assume that the food source is 70 degrees to the left of the sun. The Honeybee Brain Honeybees are able to learn and make complex decisions that will benet their hive. According to research completed by Dr. Karl Von Frisch, it was disproven that honeybees are “hardwired” to be able to calculate distances and communicate the information to the hive. Individual bees are unable to program themselves to memorize locations, ower quality, and hive sites; they only live for 7 weeks during the summer time [4]. Rather, honeybees are able to complete such monumental tasks through their advanced observational learning. Honeybees are able to learn –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 4 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– taste, smell, and touch information through the process of foraging. With this information, bees are able to generalize sites for food sources beyond simpler categories [5]. This ability for bees to learn and adapt through what they’ve seen and encountered have caused scientists to hypothesize that bees are able to