Methods for Recording Neuronal Activity
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
BMC Systems Biology Biomed Central
BMC Systems Biology BioMed Central Commentary Open Access The long journey to a Systems Biology of neuronal function Nicolas Le Novère* Address: EMBL-EBI, Wellcome-Trust Genome Campus, CB10 1SD Hinxton, UK Email: Nicolas Le Novère* - [email protected] * Corresponding author Published: 13 June 2007 Received: 13 April 2007 Accepted: 13 June 2007 BMC Systems Biology 2007, 1:28 doi:10.1186/1752-0509-1-28 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1752-0509/1/28 © 2007 Le Novère; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Computational neurobiology was born over half a century ago, and has since been consistently at the forefront of modelling in biology. The recent progress of computing power and distributed computing allows the building of models spanning several scales, from the synapse to the brain. Initially focused on electrical processes, the simulation of neuronal function now encompasses signalling pathways and ion diffusion. The flow of quantitative data generated by the "omics" approaches, alongside the progress of live imaging, allows the development of models that will also include gene regulatory networks, protein movements and cellular remodelling. A systems biology of brain functions and disorders can now be envisioned. As it did for the last half century, neuroscience can drive forward the field of systems biology. 1 Modelling nervous function, an ancient quest To accurately model neuronal function presents many Neurosciences have a long and successful tradition of challenges, and stretches the techniques and resources of quantitative modelling, where theory and experiment computational biology to their limits. -
Why Joseph Erlanger Rejected the Local Circuit Theory of Nerve Impulse Propagation
Why Joseph Erlanger Rejected the Local Circuit Theory of Nerve Impulse Propagation Greg Gandenberger University of Pittsburgh, Department of History and Philosophy of Science 1017 Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. [email protected] Abstract In the 1920s and 1930s, Joseph Erlanger and his colleagues expressed doubts about the local circuit theory of nerve impulse propagation in some of their publications. In 1934, their scepticism inspired Alan Hodgkin to begin a series of experiments that are generally regarded as providing strong support for the local circuit theory. Hodgkin’s experiments are well known, but the nature and sources of Erlanger’s scepticism are not. In the mid-1920s, Erlanger believed that oscillograph recordings indicated that the eddy currents generated by action currents are too small to propagate the nerve impulse as the local circuit theory proposes. In the 1930s, his fundamental objection to the local circuit theory was his belief that eddy currents large enough to propagate nerve impulses would dissipate a large amount of energy and produce uncontrolled stray effects. However, a 1936 discovery led him to admit that eddy currents do at least increase the excitability of an active fiber ahead of the action current wave. His opposition to the local circuit theory diminished further as a result of several developments between late 1938 and early 1939, including most notably Hodgkin demonstration that the resistance of the medium outside the active nerve affects propagation velocity. Word Count: 7467 Keywords Joseph Erlanger; Alan Hodgkin; local circuit theory; membrane theory; St. Louis School; electrophysiology 1. Introduction Early in his 1934-1935 year as a Cambridge undergraduate, Alan Hodgkin discovered that a blocked nerve impulse increases the excitability of the nerve beyond the block. -
The Creation of Neuroscience
The Creation of Neuroscience The Society for Neuroscience and the Quest for Disciplinary Unity 1969-1995 Introduction rom the molecular biology of a single neuron to the breathtakingly complex circuitry of the entire human nervous system, our understanding of the brain and how it works has undergone radical F changes over the past century. These advances have brought us tantalizingly closer to genu- inely mechanistic and scientifically rigorous explanations of how the brain’s roughly 100 billion neurons, interacting through trillions of synaptic connections, function both as single units and as larger ensem- bles. The professional field of neuroscience, in keeping pace with these important scientific develop- ments, has dramatically reshaped the organization of biological sciences across the globe over the last 50 years. Much like physics during its dominant era in the 1950s and 1960s, neuroscience has become the leading scientific discipline with regard to funding, numbers of scientists, and numbers of trainees. Furthermore, neuroscience as fact, explanation, and myth has just as dramatically redrawn our cultural landscape and redefined how Western popular culture understands who we are as individuals. In the 1950s, especially in the United States, Freud and his successors stood at the center of all cultural expla- nations for psychological suffering. In the new millennium, we perceive such suffering as erupting no longer from a repressed unconscious but, instead, from a pathophysiology rooted in and caused by brain abnormalities and dysfunctions. Indeed, the normal as well as the pathological have become thoroughly neurobiological in the last several decades. In the process, entirely new vistas have opened up in fields ranging from neuroeconomics and neurophilosophy to consumer products, as exemplified by an entire line of soft drinks advertised as offering “neuro” benefits. -
Richard Llewelyn-Davies and the Architect's Dilemma."
The Richard Llewciy11-Davies Memorial Lectures in ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY March 3, 1985-at the Institute for Advanced Study The J/ictoria11 City: Images and Realities Asa Briggs Provost of Worcester College University of Oxford November 17, 1986--at the University of London The Nuffield Planning Inquiry Brian Flo\vers Vice-Chancellor University of London October 27, 1987-at the Institute for Advanced Study Richard Llewcly11-Davics and the Architect's Dilemma N ocl Annan Vice-Chancellor Erncritus University of London PREFACE The Richard Llewelyn-Davies Memorial Lectures in "Environ ment and Society" were established to honor the memory of an architect distinguished in the fields of contemporary architectural, urban and environmental planning. Born in Wales in 1912, Richard Llewelyn-Davies was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, !'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and the Architectural Association in London. In 1960 he began a fif teen-year association with University College of the University of London as Professor of Architecture, Professor of Town Planning, Head of the Bartlett School of Architecture and Dean of the School of Environmental Studies. He became, in 1967, the initial chair man of Britain's Centre for Environmental Studies, one of the world's leading research organizations on urbanism, and held that post for the rest of his life. He combined his academic career with professional practice in England, the Middle East, Africa, Paki stan, North and South America. In the fall of 1980, the year before he died, Richard Llewelyn Davies came to the Institute for Advanced Study. He influenced us in many ways, from a reorientation of the seating arrangement in the seminar room improving discussion and exchange, to the per manent implantation of an environmental sensibility. -
Cambridge's 92 Nobel Prize Winners Part 2 - 1951 to 1974: from Crick and Watson to Dorothy Hodgkin
Cambridge's 92 Nobel Prize winners part 2 - 1951 to 1974: from Crick and Watson to Dorothy Hodgkin By Cambridge News | Posted: January 18, 2016 By Adam Care The News has been rounding up all of Cambridge's 92 Nobel Laureates, celebrating over 100 years of scientific and social innovation. ADVERTISING In this installment we move from 1951 to 1974, a period which saw a host of dramatic breakthroughs, in biology, atomic science, the discovery of pulsars and theories of global trade. It's also a period which saw The Eagle pub come to national prominence and the appearance of the first female name in Cambridge University's long Nobel history. The Gender Pay Gap Sale! Shop Online to get 13.9% off From 8 - 11 March, get 13.9% off 1,000s of items, it highlights the pay gap between men & women in the UK. Shop the Gender Pay Gap Sale – now. Promoted by Oxfam 1. 1951 Ernest Walton, Trinity College: Nobel Prize in Physics, for using accelerated particles to study atomic nuclei 2. 1951 John Cockcroft, St John's / Churchill Colleges: Nobel Prize in Physics, for using accelerated particles to study atomic nuclei Walton and Cockcroft shared the 1951 physics prize after they famously 'split the atom' in Cambridge 1932, ushering in the nuclear age with their particle accelerator, the Cockcroft-Walton generator. In later years Walton returned to his native Ireland, as a fellow of Trinity College Dublin, while in 1951 Cockcroft became the first master of Churchill College, where he died 16 years later. 3. 1952 Archer Martin, Peterhouse: Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for developing partition chromatography 4. -
The Birth of Information in the Brain: Edgar Adrian and the Vacuum Tube,” Science in Context 28: 31-52
Garson, J. (2015) “The Birth of Information in the Brain: Edgar Adrian and the Vacuum Tube,” Science in Context 28: 31-52. Preprint (not copyedited or formatted) Please use DOI when citing or quoting: https://doi- org.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/10.1017/S0269889714000313 The Birth of Information in the Brain: Edgar Adrian and the Vacuum Tube Word Count: 10, 418 Abstract: As historian Henning Schmidgen notes, the scientific study of the nervous system would have been ‘unthinkable’ without the industrialization of communication in the 1830s. Historians have investigated extensively the way nerve physiologists have borrowed concepts and tools from the field of communications, particularly regarding the nineteenth-century work of figures like Helmholtz and in the American Cold War Era. The following focuses specifically on the interwar research of the Cambridge physiologist Edgar Douglas Adrian, and on the technology that led to his Nobel-Prize- winning research, the thermionic vacuum tube. Many countries used the vacuum tube during the war for the purpose of amplifying and intercepting coded messages. These events provided a context for Adrian’s evolving understanding of the nerve fiber in the 1920s. In particular, they provide the background for Adrian’s transition around 1926 to describing the nerve impulse in terms of “information,” “messages,” “signals,” or even “codes,” and for translating the basic principles of the nerve, such as the all-or-none principle and adaptation, into such an “informational” context. The following also places Adrian’s research in the broader context of the changing relationship between science and technology, and between physics and physiology, in the first few decades of the twentieth century. -
TRINITY COLLEGE Cambridge Trinity College Cambridge College Trinity Annual Record Annual
2016 TRINITY COLLEGE cambridge trinity college cambridge annual record annual record 2016 Trinity College Cambridge Annual Record 2015–2016 Trinity College Cambridge CB2 1TQ Telephone: 01223 338400 e-mail: [email protected] website: www.trin.cam.ac.uk Contents 5 Editorial 11 Commemoration 12 Chapel Address 15 The Health of the College 18 The Master’s Response on Behalf of the College 25 Alumni Relations & Development 26 Alumni Relations and Associations 37 Dining Privileges 38 Annual Gatherings 39 Alumni Achievements CONTENTS 44 Donations to the College Library 47 College Activities 48 First & Third Trinity Boat Club 53 Field Clubs 71 Students’ Union and Societies 80 College Choir 83 Features 84 Hermes 86 Inside a Pirate’s Cookbook 93 “… Through a Glass Darkly…” 102 Robert Smith, John Harrison, and a College Clock 109 ‘We need to talk about Erskine’ 117 My time as advisor to the BBC’s War and Peace TRINITY ANNUAL RECORD 2016 | 3 123 Fellows, Staff, and Students 124 The Master and Fellows 139 Appointments and Distinctions 141 In Memoriam 155 A Ninetieth Birthday Speech 158 An Eightieth Birthday Speech 167 College Notes 181 The Register 182 In Memoriam 186 Addresses wanted CONTENTS TRINITY ANNUAL RECORD 2016 | 4 Editorial It is with some trepidation that I step into Boyd Hilton’s shoes and take on the editorship of this journal. He managed the transition to ‘glossy’ with flair and panache. As historian of the College and sometime holder of many of its working offices, he also brought a knowledge of its past and an understanding of its mysteries that I am unable to match. -
The Fessard's School of Neurophysiology After
The fessard’s School of neurophysiology after the Second World War in france: globalisation and diversity in neurophysiological research (1938-1955) Jean-Gaël Barbara To cite this version: Jean-Gaël Barbara. The fessard’s School of neurophysiology after the Second World War in france: globalisation and diversity in neurophysiological research (1938-1955). Archives Italiennes de Biologie, Universita degli Studi di Pisa, 2011. halshs-03090650 HAL Id: halshs-03090650 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-03090650 Submitted on 11 Jan 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. The Fessard’s School of neurophysiology after the Second World War in France: globalization and diversity in neurophysiological research (1938-1955) Jean- Gaël Barbara Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS UMR 7102 Université Denis Diderot, Paris, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS UMR 7219 [email protected] Postal Address : JG Barbara, UPMC, case 14, 7 quai Saint Bernard, 75005, -
Balcomk41251.Pdf (558.9Kb)
Copyright by Karen Suzanne Balcom 2005 The Dissertation Committee for Karen Suzanne Balcom Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Discovery and Information Use Patterns of Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine Committee: E. Glynn Harmon, Supervisor Julie Hallmark Billie Grace Herring James D. Legler Brooke E. Sheldon Discovery and Information Use Patterns of Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine by Karen Suzanne Balcom, B.A., M.L.S. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August, 2005 Dedication I dedicate this dissertation to my first teachers: my father, George Sheldon Balcom, who passed away before this task was begun, and to my mother, Marian Dyer Balcom, who passed away before it was completed. I also dedicate it to my dissertation committee members: Drs. Billie Grace Herring, Brooke Sheldon, Julie Hallmark and to my supervisor, Dr. Glynn Harmon. They were all teachers, mentors, and friends who lifted me up when I was down. Acknowledgements I would first like to thank my committee: Julie Hallmark, Billie Grace Herring, Jim Legler, M.D., Brooke E. Sheldon, and Glynn Harmon for their encouragement, patience and support during the nine years that this investigation was a work in progress. I could not have had a better committee. They are my enduring friends and I hope I prove worthy of the faith they have always showed in me. I am grateful to Dr. -
Cells of the Nervous System
3/23/2015 Nervous Systems | Principles of Biology from Nature Education contents Principles of Biology 126 Nervous Systems A flock of Canada geese use auditory and visual cues to maintain a V formation in flight. How are these animals able to respond so quickly to environmental cues? All animals possess neurons, cells that form a complex network capable of transmitting and receiving signals. This neural network forms the nervous system. The nervous system coordinates the movement and internal physiology of an organism, as well as its decisionmaking and behavior. In all but the simplest animals, neurons are bundled into nerves that facilitate signal transmission. More complex animals have a central nervous system (CNS) that includes the brain and nerve cords. Vertebrates also have a peripheral nervous system (PNS) that transmits signals between the body and the CNS. Cells of the Nervous System Structure of the neuron. Figure 1 shows the general structure of a neuron. The organelles and nucleus of a neuron are contained in a large central structure called the cell body, or soma. Most nerve cells also have multiple dendrites in addition to the cell body. Dendrites are short, branched extensions that receive signals from other neurons. Each neuron also has a single axon, a long extension that transmits signals to other cells. The point of attachment of the axon to the cell body is called the axon hillock. The other end of the axon is usually branched, and each branch ends in a synaptic terminal. The synaptic terminal forms a synapse, or junction, with another cell. -
A Systems Approach to Biology
A systems approach to biology SB200 Lecture 1 16 September 2008 Jeremy Gunawardena [email protected] Jeremy Walter Johan Gunawardena Fonatana Paulsson Topics for this lecture What is systems biology? Why do we need mathematics and how is it used? Mathematical foundations – dy namical systems. Cellular decision making What is systems biology? How do the collective interactions of the components give rise to the physiology and pathology of the system? Marc Kirschner, “ The meaning of systems biology”, Cell 121:503-4 2005. Top-down ª-omicsº system = whole cell / organism model = statistical correlations data = high-throughput, poor quality too much data, not enough analysis Bottom-up ªmechanisticº system = network or pathway model = mechanistic, biophysical data = quantitative, single-cell not enough data, too much analysis Why do we need mathematics? There have always been two traditions in biology ... Descriptive Analytical 1809-1882 1822-1884 Mathematics allows you to guess the invisible components before anyone works out how to find them ... Bacterial potassium channel closed (left) and open (right) – Dutta & Goodsell, “Mo lecule of the Month” , Feb 2003, PDB. but these days we know many of the components – and there are an awful lot of them – so how are models used in systems biology? Thick models More detail leads to improved quantitative prediction simulation of electrical activity in a mechanically realistic whole heart Dennis Noble, “ Modeling the heart – from genes to cells to the whole organ” , Science 295:1678-82 2002. Thick models E coli biochemical circuit screen shot of simulated E coli swimming in 0.1mM Asp Bray, Levin & Lipkow, “ The chemotactic behaviour of computer-based surrogate bacteria” , Curr Biol 17:12-9 2007. -
History of the Neurosciences in the United States of America
International Neuroscience Journal. 2015 March; 1(1):e884. http://dx.doi.org/10.17795/inj884 Published online 2015 March 28. Editorial History of the Neurosciences in the United States of America Jacques Morcos 1,*; Anthony Wang 2 1Clinical Neurosurgery and Otolaryngology, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA 2Department of Neurosurgery, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA : Jacques Morcos, Clinical Neurosurgery and Otolaryngology, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA. Tel/Fax: +1-3052434675, E-mail: [email protected] *Corresponding author Received: March 5, 2015; Accepted: March 15, 2015 Neurosciences in USA; Neurosurgery in USA Keywords: “How can a three-pound mass of jelly that you can hold States of America. The physician who attended him that in your palm imagine angels, contemplate the meaning September day in 1848, John Martyn Harlow1, noted that of infinity, and even question its own place in the cos- Gage’s friends found him “no longer Gage,” and that the mos?” pondered the neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran. balance between his “intellectual faculties and animal His quest for an understanding of the brain, like that of propensities” had vanished. He could not stick to plans, many others, represents our basic human desire to com- uttered “the grossest profanity,” and showed “little defer- prehend the mystery of the most complex volume of ence for his fellows.” The railroad-construction company matter in the entire universe. It is no wonder that neu- that employed him refused to take him back, and Gage roscience has emerged as the queen of all biological dis- eventually died after several seizures at the age of 36.