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unusual facts about neurons



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Associative Sequence Learning

A conceptually similar model proposed by Christian Keysers and David Perrett, based on what we know about the neural properties of mirror neurons and Spike-timing-dependent plasticity is the Hebbian Learning Account of Mirror Neurons.

Astrocytic hypothesis

Convincing data, especially Jonas Frisen and Ellen Heber-Katz again demonstrated that the mammalian body part that is not updated during the life is only nervous tissue (brain)—specifically, the neurons that are its building blocks.

Atg1

ULK1 and ULK2 (unc-51-like kinase) have been reported to have an additional function in neuronal development, e.g. outgrowth regulation of mouse neurons.

Australopithecus

Archaeologists and palaeontologists widely hold that the australopiths played a significant part in human evolution, being the first of the hominins to show presence of a gene that causes increased length and ability of neurons in the brain, the duplicated SRGAP2 gene.

Autosomal recessive cerebellar ataxia

Deformed Syne-1 protein disrupts normal Purkinje cell functions and impairs its signalling with cerebellar neurons.

Basal forebrain

This structure is defined, in part, as the place where adenosine acts on A1 receptors of cholinergic neurons.

Carbidopa

Carbidopa is used in the treatment of, among other diseases, Parkinson's disease (PD), a condition characterized by death of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra.

Connectome

Briefly, the approach consists of (1) labelling each neuron with a unique DNA barcode; (2) transferring barcodes between synaptically coupled neurons (for example using PRV); and (3) fusion of barcodes to represent a synaptic pair.

Cortical remapping

A model for stroke recovery suggested by Murphy, involves beginning with homeostatic mechanisms (neurons receive proper amount of synaptic input) at the start of stroke recovery.

DAB1

It docks to the intracellular part of the Reelin very low density lipoprotein receptor (VLDLR) and apoE receptor type 2 (ApoER2) and becomes tyrosine-phosphorylated following binding of Reelin to cortical neurons.

Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy

Vittorio Gallese, one of the discoverers of mirror neurons, calls this shared activation.

Disabilities affecting intellectual abilities

Neurodegeneration is the umbrella term for the progressive loss of structure or function of neurons, including death of neurons.

Edinger–Westphal nucleus

Unlike the classical preganglionic Edinger–Westphal neurons that contain choline acetyltransferase, neurons of the non-preganglionic Edinger–Westphal nucleus contain various neuropeptides, such as Urocortin and cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript.

Edward Kravitz

In collaboration with his postdoctoral fellow, Antony "Tony" Stretton, Ed began developing a technique to visualize the structure of neurons in order to determine whether neuronal shapes are genetically specified.

Using Procion Yellow, Ed, Tony, and Edith Maier found that neurons from two different animals had strikingly similar morphological shapes.

Ed and Tony contacted Imperial Chemicals, a manufacturer of fabric staining dyes located in Providence, RI and obtained over 120 dyes to inject into lobster neurons.

Electrophysiological techniques for clinical diagnosis

The demyelination and scarring of axons in the neurons of the nervous system can affect their conduction properties and seriously harm the normal communication of the brain with the rest of the body.

Eric J. Nestler

"The IRS2-Akt pathway in midbrain dopaminergic neurons regulates behavioral and cellular responses to opiates."

FOXP2

One particular target that is directly downregulated by FOXP2 in human neurons is the CNTNAP2 gene, a member of the neurexin family; variants in this target gene have been associated with common forms of language impairment.

GABA receptor

The increased chloride conductance drives the membrane potential towards the reversal potential of the Cl¯ ion which is about –65 mV in neurons, inhibiting the firing of new action potentials.

GAL4/UAS system

Halorhodopsin, conversely, allows the use of light to suppress the firing of neurons

Gamma motor neuron

Spasms can be caused by a disparity between how much alpha and gamma motor neurons are firing i.e. too much gain of one or the other.

H1 neuron

Neurons sensitive to motion during flight are not specific to flies, and have been found in numerous nondipterous insect groups including Odonata, Lepidoptera, and Hymenoptera.

H1 neurons are known as Horizontally Sensitive (HS) cell, meaning HS cells depolarize most strongly in response to horizontal stimuli, and hyperpolarize when the direction of motion is opposite.

Huntington's disease clinical research

Stem cell therapy is the replacement of damaged neurons by transplantation of stem cells into affected regions of the brain.

Hypercomplex cell

Otto Creutzfeldt amended the circuitry architecture by noting that synaptic excitation may be required to overcome a direct inhibitory input by adjacent neurons.

INAH 3

A study of transsexual individuals by neuroanatomist Dick Swaab found male-to-female transsexuals to have a size and number of neurons of INAH-3 closer to a normal female range, and that female-to-male transsexuals have a size and number of INAH-3 neurons closer to a normal male range.

Insular cortex

John Allman and his colleagues have shown that the anterior insular cortex contains a population of neurons, called spindle neurons.

Ladislav Tauc

Kandel started to investigate the gill withdrawal reflex and postsynaptic potentials (PSP) in identified neurons in the abdominal ganglion of Aplysia.

Long-term potentiation

In his 1894 Croonian Lecture, he proposed that memories might instead be formed by strengthening the connections between existing neurons to improve the effectiveness of their communication.

Low-threshold spikes

Therefore, much research has been conducted on low-threshold spikes in the neurons in the thalamus and how it could relate to Parkinson's disease and the corresponding loss of motor function.

Mauthner cell

These neurons are electrically coupled with motoneurons which innervate extraocular, jaw and opercular muscles and mediate pectoral fin adduction in hatchetfish.

Mirror neuron

However, if premotor neurons need to be trained by action in order to acquire mirror properties, it is unclear how newborn babies are able to mimic the facial gestures of another person (imitation of unseen actions), as suggested by the work of Meltzoff and Moore.

Neun

NeuN, a protein marker of neurons, concentrated in neuronal nuclei

Neural ensemble

Neuroscientists have discovered that individual neurons are very noisy.

Peduncle

Cerebral peduncle, a band of neurons, resembling a stalk, which connect varied parts of the brain

Pentti Kanerva

He is responsible for relating the properties of long-term memory to mathematical properties of high-dimensional spaces and compares artificial neural-net associative memory to conventional computer random-access memory and to the neurons in the brain.

Premovement neuronal activity

Spike-triggered averaging is a way to measure the activity of one cortical motor neuron, on a group of lower motor neurons in the spinal cord.

Reticular formation

#Somatic motor control - Some motor neurons send their axons to the reticular formation nuclei, giving rise to the reticulospinal tracts of the spinal cord.

Rhombic lip

Through studies of human embryos performed in the late 1890s, Swiss anatomist Wilhelm His identified a portion of hindbrain neuroepithelium that was distinct from the rest of the hindbrain neuroepithelium in its morphology, sustained chromosomal division into late stages of embryogenesis, and deployment of streams of neurons through the hindbrain periphery.

Sensory neuroscience

One common way to find the receptive field is to use linear regression to find which stimulus characteristics typically caused neurons to become excited or depressed.

Serial block-face scanning electron microscopy

The EyeWire project harnesses human computation in a game to trace neurons through images of a volume of retina obtained using SBEM.

Supramolecular assembly

For instance, Samuel I. Stupp and coworkers at Northwestern University showed that a supramolecular assembly of peptide amphiphiles in the form of nanofibers could be used to promote the growth of neurons.

Survival of motor neuron

A lack of SMN due to SMN1 deletion results in widespread splicing defects, especially in spinal motor neurons, and is one cause of spinal muscular atrophy.

Synaptic fatigue

Hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease (AD) are impairment of cognition, aggregation of β-amyloid peptide (Aβ), neurofibrillary degeneration, loss of neurons with accelerated atrophy of specific brain areas, and decrease of synapse number in surviving neurons.

Theta model

The theta model (otherwise known as the Ermentrout-Kopell canonical model) is a "biological neuron model" originally used to model neurons in the animal Aplysia, but later became useful in various fields of computational neuroscience.


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