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The Cellular Scale
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The Cellular Scale
Literature references in science: insightful or annoying?
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| "It is in our brains that the poppy is red, that the apple is odorous, that the skylark sings" -Oscar Wilde (image source) |
I am pretty into literature, and I am generally in favor of art + science collaborations. I recently gushed about how cool it was that Aldous Huxley (famous author) was the half brother of Andrew Huxley (Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist). But honestly, I cringe almost every time I read a paper with "Proust" in the title. This is most likely because psychologists and neuroscientists tend to pick Proust and his Madeleine scene when they want to
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| (Madeleine recipe here) |
"And as in the game wherein the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little pieces of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch and twist and take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, solid and recognizable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea."
-Marcel Proust, Swann's Way, In Search of Lost TimeWhile this is one beautiful passage among many in Swann's Way, it is not necessary for me to be a neuroscientist to enjoy it. Likewise, while it is a valid and interesting scientific question to ask "do odor and taste more strongly activate memories than vision, touch, or hearing?" It is not necessary to know that some guy wrote something about it sometime to understand the study or to understand why it is an interesting question.
Recently, scientists set out to study exactly this phenomenon. Toffolo et al. (2012) constructed a study where people were put in a room with visual, auditory, and olfactory cues and watched a film.
One week later (hardly Proust's lengthy 'lost time') the same people were put back in the room with only one of the three cues, either visual, auditory, or olfactory. They had the participants self report their memories of the film. They found that the type of cue didn't make an enormous difference, but that odor cues enhanced the memory more than auditory cues, and the same amount as visual cues.
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| Toffolo et al., 2012 Figure 2 |
But it's not only Proust, any famous author who has made an observation about how people sense things, or how ideas are in the brain not the world, or that we remember things a certain way can be the "basis" for a scientific study. Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde, Emily Dickinson, Dante and James Joyce and many other literary legends have made statements that could be used or misused in a scientific context. But should they?
Here's the real issue. Does a literary quote within a scientific paper add anything to it? Does it make the science more accessible?
I am tempted to say no. I have yet to see a scientific paper using a literary quote in an insightful or helpful way. At best it is cute or entertaining. But at worst, it can be annoying, distracting, and misleading.
Is it only about accuracy? I feel the same way when science mis-interprets literature as I do when someone yells "The LTP has potentiated!" or other such science-sounding nonsense in a TV show. If you are going to use science jargon in fiction, it's best to get it as close to correct as possible. (I give Dollhouse some points for effort for at least knowing that LTP is a thing, but minus points for not realizing that the "P" in "LTP" stands for potentiation)
And if you are going to use literary quotes in science, it's best if they actually have some relevance, and it's even better if you have actually read the book.
I truly love a good quote about human nature, or a beautiful poem about sensation vs. perception.
This poem certainly gives me a pulse of dopamine:
The Brain—is wider than the Sky—
For—put them side by side—
The one the other will contain
With ease—and You—beside—
The Brain is deeper than the sea—
For—hold them—Blue to Blue—
The one the other will absorb—
As Sponges—Buckets—do—
The Brain is just the weight of God—
For—Heft them—Pound for Pound—
And they will differ—if they do—
As Syllable from Sound—
-Emily Dickinson
But, is it really better if we combine science and literature? They serve different purposes and I don't see the benefit of combining the two. Particularly I don't see how the addition of literary quotes aids my understanding or interpretation of a scientific paper.
However, I am willing to be convinced otherwise.
© TheCellularScale
Toffolo MB, Smeets MA, & van den Hout MA (2012). Proust revisited: odours as triggers of aversive memories. Cognition & emotion, 26 (1), 83-92 PMID: 21547759Here's a particularly cringe-inducing title:
Chu S, & Downes JJ (2002). Proust nose best: odors are better cues of autobiographical memory. Memory & cognition, 30 (4), 511-8 PMID: 12184552http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12184552
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What do mirror neurons look like?
You have probably heard about mirror neurons, but I bet you don't know what they look like. While we know exactly what Von Economo neurons look like, but know nothing about their activity patterns, the only thing we know about Mirror Neurons is their activity pattern.
Mirror neurons are the neurons in our brains that fire when we move a certain way and also fire when we see other people move in that same way. Exciting studies have shown that some mirror neurons are modulated by the specific intent of the action. That is a particular mirror neuron will fire strongly when a monkey picks up a piece of food to eat it, but fired less strongly when the monkey picks up the food to move it. The same neuron fired with the same intensity difference when the monkey watched someone pick up the food to eat it or pick up the food to move it. (reviewed in Casile et al., 2011)
Pretty exciting stuff, really. But what does it mean? There is some speculation that these neurons are essential for empathy, and for theory of mind. But the real question is even deeper than that. What does it mean when a neuron fires in response to something (an animal, a motion). Does it mean that that particular neuron encodes that thing? Or does it just mean that that particular neuron is a part of a huge network in which gets activated in response to that thing?
If that single neuron were to die, would it affect your thoughts?
Or are there so many neurons activated in the network in response to something that one neuron dying would be like one tree falling in a forest?
Let's leave that question there for a moment.
Another, slightly more answerable question is: What do mirror neurons look like? They are often found in the motor cortex (area F5), but not all the neurons there have mirror properties. So which ones are mirror neurons? where do mirror neurons go? what is their chemical signature? Kraskov et al. (2009) have started to look at these qualities. They anti-dromically stimulated the neurons in F5 to determine if they went through the pyramidal tract or not (which would suggest that they lead to the spinal cord, though this is not certain). They found that about a quarter of the neurons which follow this tract have mirror properties, and a quarter have anti-mirror properties (meaning they are active during the motion, but are drastically quieted during observation of the motion). This in an interesting finding, and Kraskov et al. suggest that these anti-mirror neurons might serve to suppress actual motion while one is watching a motion.
In conclusion, some mirror neurons might send information to the spinal cord, but we still don't know how they are morphologically or chemically different from the (non-mirror) motor neurons right next to them.
I hope to soon see studies investigating the cellular, molecular, and physiological characteristics of mirror neurons.
© TheCellularScale
Kraskov A, Dancause N, Quallo MM, Shepherd S, & Lemon RN (2009). Corticospinal neurons in macaque ventral premotor cortex with mirror properties: a potential mechanism for action suppression? Neuron, 64 (6), 922-30 PMID: 20064397
Casile A, Caggiano V, & Ferrari PF (2011). The mirror neuron system: a fresh view. The Neuroscientist : a review journal bringing neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry, 17 (5), 524-38 PMID: 21467305
reade more...
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| Rene Magritte's Mirror (neuron) |
Pretty exciting stuff, really. But what does it mean? There is some speculation that these neurons are essential for empathy, and for theory of mind. But the real question is even deeper than that. What does it mean when a neuron fires in response to something (an animal, a motion). Does it mean that that particular neuron encodes that thing? Or does it just mean that that particular neuron is a part of a huge network in which gets activated in response to that thing?
If that single neuron were to die, would it affect your thoughts?
 |
| Forest for Trees |
Let's leave that question there for a moment.
Another, slightly more answerable question is: What do mirror neurons look like? They are often found in the motor cortex (area F5), but not all the neurons there have mirror properties. So which ones are mirror neurons? where do mirror neurons go? what is their chemical signature? Kraskov et al. (2009) have started to look at these qualities. They anti-dromically stimulated the neurons in F5 to determine if they went through the pyramidal tract or not (which would suggest that they lead to the spinal cord, though this is not certain). They found that about a quarter of the neurons which follow this tract have mirror properties, and a quarter have anti-mirror properties (meaning they are active during the motion, but are drastically quieted during observation of the motion). This in an interesting finding, and Kraskov et al. suggest that these anti-mirror neurons might serve to suppress actual motion while one is watching a motion.
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| Kraskov et al., figure 2 (mirror neuron activated on left, anti-mirror neuron suppressed on right) |
In conclusion, some mirror neurons might send information to the spinal cord, but we still don't know how they are morphologically or chemically different from the (non-mirror) motor neurons right next to them.
I hope to soon see studies investigating the cellular, molecular, and physiological characteristics of mirror neurons.
© TheCellularScale
Kraskov A, Dancause N, Quallo MM, Shepherd S, & Lemon RN (2009). Corticospinal neurons in macaque ventral premotor cortex with mirror properties: a potential mechanism for action suppression? Neuron, 64 (6), 922-30 PMID: 20064397Casile A, Caggiano V, & Ferrari PF (2011). The mirror neuron system: a fresh view. The Neuroscientist : a review journal bringing neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry, 17 (5), 524-38 PMID: 21467305
A Tale of Two Huxleys
Andrew Huxley is one of the founders of both modern electrophysiology and computational neuroscience, and is consequently a personal hero of mine. His recent (May 30, 2012) death inspired me to learn more about his life.
Andrew Huxley along with Alan Hodgkin discovered the mechanisms which governed the action potential in nerve cells. They inserted micro-electrodes into the squid giant axon and recorded the sodium and potassium currents which generated and propagated the action potential. They shared the Nobel prize for physiology and medicine (with John Eccles) in 1963.
Andrew Huxley is a hero of neuroscience because he (along with Alan Hodgkin) was not only able to develop the equipment and techniques necessary for the complex electrophysiological recordings of the squid axon, but he was also able to understand and mathematically interpret the results of their experiments. Hodgkin and Huxley's mathematical interpretation of their experimental results is basically the beginning of modern computational neuroscience. Their equations describing the flow of ions based on voltage and on concentration are still used in computational models of neurons today. Their famous series of papers (1952) in the Journal of Physiology culminates in their mathematical model of the action potential.
This paper is fascinating to read because of the meticulous thought process that can be traced through it, and because of how much was not known about neurons at the time. The simple composition of the cell membrane was not clear and the fact that sodium and potassium ions actually flow in and out of channels formed by proteins was unknown.
They continue:
Speaking of truly beautiful trains of thought, a different Huxley, half brother to Andrew and 23 years his senior, was a world famous novelist. Aldous Huxley is known best for writing Brave New World, a dystopian novel about a 'perfect' future in which everyone has a place and likes it.
I am not sure which delights me more, that Aldous Huxley is a novelist with a scientist brother, or that Andrew Huxley is a scientist with a novelist brother.
© TheCellularScale
HODGKIN AL, & HUXLEY AF (1952). A quantitative description of membrane current and its application to conduction and excitation in nerve. The Journal of physiology, 117 (4), 500-44 PMID: 12991237
reade more...
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| Andrew Huxley (1917-2012) |
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| (squid giant axon) |
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| Time constants and steady state curves for activation and inactivation of sodium (Na) and potassium (K) channels (source) |
They describe the ions being bound on one side of the membrane, carried through and released on the other side. If you did not have any idea about membrane channels, this would make sense. What is so beautiful about this is that their experiments and model constrain the vague theory. However the ions get across the membrane, it must be this fast, this strong, and this dependent on temperature."The next question to consider is how changes in the distribution of a charged particle might affect the ease with which sodium ions cross the membrane. Here we can do little more than reject a suggestion which formed the original basis of our experiments (Hodgkin, Huxley & Katz, 1949). According to this view, sodium ions do not cross the membrane in ionic form, but in combination with a lipoid soluble carrier which bears a large negative charge and which can combine with one sodium ion but no more. Since both combined and uncombined carrier molecules bear a negative charge they are attracted to the outside of the membrane in the resting state. Depolarization allows the carrier molecules to move, so that the sodium current increases and membrane potential is reduced. The steady state relation between sodium current and voltage could be calculated for this system and was found to agree reasonable with the observed curve at 0.2msec after the onset of a sudden depolarization. This was encouraging, but the analogy breaks down if it is pursued further. In the model the first effect of depolarization is a movement of negatively charged molecules from the outside to the inside of the membrane. This gives an initial outward current, and an inward current does not occur until combined carriers lose sodium to the internal solution and return to the outside of the membrane. In our original treatment the initial outward current was reduced to vanishingly small proportions by assuming a low density of carriers and a high rate of movement and combination. Since we now know that sodium current takes an appreciable time to reach its maximum, it is necessary to suppose that there are more carriers and that they react or move more slowly. This means that any inward current should be preceded by a large outward current. Our experiments show no sign of a component large enough to be consistent with the model. This invalidates the detailed mechanism assumed for the permeability change but it does not exclude the more general possibility that sodium ions cross the membrane in combination with the lipoid soluble carrier. " (Hodgkin &Huxley 1952) (emphasis mine)
They continue:
Without any structural or molecular analysis of the membrane, Hodgkin and Huxley speculate that there might be sodium channels. They also discuss whether potassium has an entirely separate mechanism of membrane-transport, or whether it is the same one as sodium, but switched in affinity and timecourse in response to membrane depolarization. Rather than quoting the entire paper here, I urge you to read it as an example of a truly beautiful train of scientific thought."A different form of hypothesis is to suppose that sodium movement depends on the distribution of charged particles which do not act as carriers in the usual sense, but which allow sodium to pass through the membrane when they occupy particular sites on the membrane. On this view the rate of movement of the activating particles determines the rate at which the sodium conductance approaches its maximum but has little effect on the magnitude of conductance. It is therefore reasonable to find that temperature has a large effect on the rate of rise of sodium conductance but a relatively small effect on its maximum value. In terms of this hypothesis one might explain the transient nature of the rise in sodium conductance by supposing that the activating particles undergo a chemical change after moving from the position which they occupy when the membrane potential is high. An alternative is to attribute the decline of sodium conductance to the relatively slow movement of another particle which blocks the flow of sodium ions when it reaches a certain position in the membrane." (Hodgkin &Huxley 1952) (emphasis mine)
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| Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) |
Speaking of truly beautiful trains of thought, a different Huxley, half brother to Andrew and 23 years his senior, was a world famous novelist. Aldous Huxley is known best for writing Brave New World, a dystopian novel about a 'perfect' future in which everyone has a place and likes it.
"Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too-all his life long. The mind that judges and desire and decides-made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions... Suggestions from the State."Aldous Huxley was on track to become a scientist or doctor, but was struck by an illness which rendered him functionally blind for 3 years, preventing him from maintaining this course of study.
- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Ch. 2
I am not sure which delights me more, that Aldous Huxley is a novelist with a scientist brother, or that Andrew Huxley is a scientist with a novelist brother.
© TheCellularScale
HODGKIN AL, & HUXLEY AF (1952). A quantitative description of membrane current and its application to conduction and excitation in nerve. The Journal of physiology, 117 (4), 500-44 PMID: 12991237What are Low Calorie Foods | Helpful List | Diet
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What are low calorie foods? The body needs adequate nutrient to keep functioning properly. And we get these adequate nutrients from food that we eat. But as well we know that the excessively calorie is bad for people who are being overweight. Therefore, if you seriously want to burn more pounds of your weight and get satisfied result of your weight loss diet