Category: Uncategorized

RELATED SCALING. “An examination of the cellular composition of the cerebellum of orangutans and one gorilla shows that the sizes of the cerebellum and cerebral cortex predicted for these species from the number of cells in the cerebellum match their actual sizes, which suggests that the brain of these animals indeed is built according to the same scaling rules that apply to humans and other primates.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2776484/ View in LinkedIn

THE FALL OF THE RULE. “The different cellular scaling rules that apply to rodent, primate and insectivore brains show very clearly that brain size cannot be used indiscriminately as a proxy for numbers of neurons in the brain, or even in a brain structure, across orders.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2776484/ View in LinkedIn

ON HUMANS AND PRIMATES. “The finding that the same cellular scaling rules apply to humans and non-anthropoid primate brains alike, irrespective of body size, indicates that the brains of the great apes, which diverged from the hominin lineage before humans, should also conform to the same cellular scaling rules.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2776484/ View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE continues from last weekend and concludes this weekend on the theme of the vain quest for human exceptionality due to brain size. This quest was loosely rooted in the astonishing (to us today) assumption that humans are somehow different from the rest of nature, and had allusions to the equally astonishing mind-body debate. But above all, it came from the theme of religious exceptionality of mankind, and the Earth being the center of the universe. View in LinkedIn

DIVERGING CONSEQUENCES. “Since neuronal density does not scale with brain size in primates, but decreases with increasing brain size in rodents, the larger the brain size, the larger is the difference in number of neurons across similar-sized rodent and primate brains.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2776484/ View in LinkedIn

DOWNLOADING TO BRAIN. "Imagine a world wherein you can just download information right into your brain? Just stick a jack into the back of your head, hit the ‘download’ button and away you go! It would be AWESOME, right?" https://lnkd.in/d-GKHuc View in LinkedIn

DIVERGING LINES. “Because of the diverging power laws that relate brain size and number of neurons across rodents and primates, the latter can hold more neurons in the same brain volume, with larger neuronal densities than found in rodents.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2776484/ View in LinkedIn

INDUCED PLASTICITY FOR LEARNING. "These results suggest that early visual areas are so plastic that mere inductions of activity patterns are sufficient to cause VPL. This technique can induce plasticity in a highly selective manner, potentially leading to powerful training and rehabilitative protocols." https://lnkd.in/dXgJjGG View in LinkedIn

NON-LINEAR. “The absolute number of neurons in the rodent and primate cerebral cortex does increase much faster in larger brains compared to the number of neurons in the combined brainstem, diencephalon and basal ganglia, and is accompanied by a similarly fast increase in the number of neurons in the cerebellum.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2776484/ View in LinkedIn

FOOTNOTE. “It should be noted that the unchanging proportional number of neurons in the cerebral cortex relative to the whole brain does not contradict an expansion in volume, function and number of neurons of the cerebral cortex in evolution.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2776484/ View in LinkedIn