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Using salt-sniffing roundworms, Salk scientists help explain how the nervous system processes sensory information.
In the past few years, as imaging tools and techniques have improved, scientists have been working tirelessly to build a detailed map of neural connections in the human brain---- with the ultimate hope of understanding how the mind works.
But determining how cells in the brain are physically connected is only the first clue for decoding our perceptions and behaviors. We also need to know the precise routes that information takes in the brain in a given context.
Now, publishing their results September 8 in the journal Nature Neuroscience, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have shown a striking example of the flexibility in neural circuitry and its influence on behaviors in worms, depending on the animals' environment.
The roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans has exactly 302 neurons----far less than the estimated 100 billion neurons a person has----and we already know how each of them is connected. That, in addition to how easily the tiny creature's cells can be manipulated, allows researchers to ask what sort of information passes through the circuits----in molecular-and circuit-level detail----and what are the behavioral consequences of this information flow.
http://newswise.com/articles/insuli...sc&search[section]=20&search[has_multimedia]=
Never let it be said that our news service is anything other than comprehensive!
In the past few years, as imaging tools and techniques have improved, scientists have been working tirelessly to build a detailed map of neural connections in the human brain---- with the ultimate hope of understanding how the mind works.
But determining how cells in the brain are physically connected is only the first clue for decoding our perceptions and behaviors. We also need to know the precise routes that information takes in the brain in a given context.
Now, publishing their results September 8 in the journal Nature Neuroscience, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have shown a striking example of the flexibility in neural circuitry and its influence on behaviors in worms, depending on the animals' environment.
The roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans has exactly 302 neurons----far less than the estimated 100 billion neurons a person has----and we already know how each of them is connected. That, in addition to how easily the tiny creature's cells can be manipulated, allows researchers to ask what sort of information passes through the circuits----in molecular-and circuit-level detail----and what are the behavioral consequences of this information flow.
http://newswise.com/articles/insuli...sc&search[section]=20&search[has_multimedia]=
Never let it be said that our news service is anything other than comprehensive!