Posts Tagged ‘glia’
Electric Brain Wins Two Book Awards
I am honored that my new book Electric Brain has received two awards. It just received the Gold award for 2021 in the category of Science Books from the Independent Publisher Awards (IPPY Awards). “The IPPY Awards reward those who exhibit the courage, innovation, and creativity to bring about change in the world of publishing.”…
Read MoreDonald Trump Is No Brain Scientist
Yesterday on an international stage in Davos, Switzerland, President Donald Trump dismissed the reported injuries of American troops being treated for traumatic brain injury in Germany after an Iranian missile attack on the Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. No matter what one’s political views may be, Trump’s uninformed and potentially damaging pronouncement cannot go uncorrected. I have…
Read MoreMaking Long-term Memories Depends on Making Myelin and Brainwaves
Neuroscientists have always presumed that learning and memory depend on strengthening or weakening the connection points between neurons (synapses), increasing or decreasing the likelihood that the cell is going to pass along a message to its neighbor. But recently some researchers have started pursuing a completely different theory that does not involve changing the strength of synaptic…
Read MoreShock Therapy: New Understanding and Old Ignorance
WASHINGTON, DC–Speaking at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington, DC on November 14, 2017, Dr. Wendy Marie Ingram, Psychiatric Epidemiologist at the Geisinger Medical Institute in Pennsylvania, presented new research on the effects of anesthesia on electroconvulsive therapy (ECT or shock therapy). The results help answer long-standing questions about the controversial treatment, but social…
Read MoreGoodbye Roger
Today the world learned that neuroscientist Roger Y. Tsien passed away on August 24, 2016. His life’s work transformed cellular neuroscience.
Read MoreZika Infects Adult Brain Too
New research shows that the Zika virus can infect neural stem cells in the adult brain. The Zika virus, which is spread by mosquitoes and causes severe neurodevelopmental defects in infants who become infected by the virus during fetal development, also attacks neural stem cells in the adult brain according to a new study. The…
Read MoreNeuroscience of ‘Under the Skin,’ Starring Scarlett Johansson
In the eerie science fiction film, Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien vixen clothed in human skin, roaming the earth in search of single men for nefarious purposes, a turning point comes when she offers a hooded man on a dark road a ride in her vehicle. When the man takes off…
Read MoreMap the Brain–Not Just Neurons
Our understanding of one half of the brain (the part comprised of astrocytes, oligodendrocytes and microglia) lags a century behind our knowledge of neurons.
Read MoreBrain Cells that Communicate without Electricity: Calcium Waves in Glia
Glia are brain cells that cannot generate electrical impulses. As a consequence glia were thought to have no function in information processing or transmission. In fact glia were communicating with themselves and with neurons all along, but without using electricity. For a century neuroscientists were deaf to glial communication as they passionately studied neurons, because…
Read MoreObesity Caused by Non-Neuronal Cells (Glia) in the Brain
Forget about stomach staples. Treatment for obesity in the future may involve an X-ray beam to the brain. This is what researchers have discovered to keep mice slim, trim, and energetic while gorging on a fatty diet. How it works offers a fascinating new insight into the cellular mechanisms of the brain in a spot…
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