Single-Cell Recognition: A Halle Berry Brain Cell

[Celebration]

http://pr.caltech.edu/media/Press_Releases/PR12710.html



"PASADENA, Calif. - World travelers can instantly identify the architectural sails of the Sydney Opera House, while movie aficionados can immediately I.D. Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry beneath her Catwoman costume or even in an artist's caricature. But how does the human brain instantly translate varied and abstract visual images into a single and consistently recognizable concept?

Now a research team of neuroscientists from the California Institute of Technology and UCLA has found that a single neuron can recognize people, landmarks, and objects--even letter strings of names ("H-A-L-L-E-B-E-R-R-Y"). The findings, reported in the current issue of the journal Nature, suggest that a consistent, sparse, and explicit code may play a role in transforming complex visual representations into long-term and more abstract memories.

"This new understanding of individual neurons as 'thinking cells' is an important step toward cracking the brain's cognition code," says co-senior investigator Itzhak Fried, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, also at UCLA. "As our understanding grows, we one day may be able to build cognitive prostheses to replace functions lost due to brain injury or disease, perhaps even for memory."

"Our findings fly in the face of conventional thinking about how brain cells function," adds Christof Koch, the Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology and professor of computation and neural systems at Caltech, and the other co-senior investigator. "Conventional wisdom views individual brain cells as simple switches or relays. In fact, we are finding that neurons are able to function more like a sophisticated computer." "

[htuttle]

1. And all those gossiping neurons are what make our 'thoughts'

"Hey! Halle Berry! Pass it on!"
"Gotcha! Pass it on!"

Makes me wonder whether all the pointless gossip that humans communicate to each other isn't part of a larger organic being's 'thoughts'. Like maybe the whole Pet Rock fad was actually a really weird 'thought' the planet had ...but I digress.

[DemBones DemBones]

2. Well, it does make sense, somehow, for

the planet to have a "thought" about pet rocks.

[Celebration]

3. digressing

Bruce Lipton explains it in a way that doesn't even mention pet rocks!! (Imagine that.) Or even Halle Berry..............

http://www.brucelipton.com/newbiology.php

Leading edge contemporary cell research has transcended conventional Newtonian physics and is now soundly based upon a universe created out of energy as defined by quantum physics. This new physics emphasizes energetics over materialism, substitutes holism for reductionism, and recognizes uncertainty in place of determinism. Consequently, we now recognize that receptors respond to energy signals as well as molecular signals.

Conventional medicine has consistently ignored research published in its own main-stream scientific journals, research that clearly reveals the regulatory influence that electromagnetic fields have on cell physiology. Pulsed electromagnetic fields have been shown to regulate virtually every cell function, including DNA synthesis, RNA synthesis, protein synthesis, cell division, cell differentiation, morphogenesis and neuroendocrine regulation. These findings are relevant for they acknowledge that biological behavior can be controlled by "invisible" energy forces, which include thought.

When activated by its complementary signal, the protein receptor changes its conformation so that it is able to complex with a specific effector protein. Effector proteins carry out cell behaviors. Effector proteins may be enzymes, cytoskeletal elements (cellular equivalents of muscle and bone) or transporters (proteins that carry electrons, protons, ions, and other specific molecules across the "bread and butter" barrier). Generally effector proteins are inactive in their resting conformation. However, when the receptor binds to the effector protein, it causes the effector to changes its own conformation from an inactive to an active form. This is how an environmental signal activates a cell’s behavior. The activity of effector IMPs generally regulate the behaviors of cytoplasmic protein pathways, like those associated with digestion, excretion, and cell movement. If specific functional proteins are not already present in the cell, activated effector IMPs send a signal to the nucleus and elicit required gene programs.

Receptor IMPs "see" or are "aware" of their environment and effector IMPs create physical responses that translate environmental signals into an appropriate biological behavior. The IMP complex controls behavior, and through its affect upon regulatory proteins, these IMPs also control gene expression... The IMP complexes provide the cell with "awareness of the environment through physical sensation," which by dictionary definition represents perception. Each receptor-effector protein complex collectively constitutes a "unit of perception."