The Other Brain: From Dementia to Schizophrenia, How New Discoveries about the Brain Are Revolutionizing Medicine and Science
by R. Douglas Fields.
Simon & Schuster, 2009
Few scientists can boast that they have held Albert Einstein’s brain in their hands, but Marian Diamond, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, is one of the lucky ones. In the 1980s she analyzed preserved pieces of Einstein’s cortex and compared them with the same brain regions in other adults. Einstein’s neurons were indistinguishable from those in other brains. The only thing extraordinary about his brain came as a shock: it was a veritable explosion of nonneuronal cells called glia, which scientists had never associated with intellect. Einstein had twice as many glia as is normal—an observation that suggests that they may have been responsible for his genius.
This anecdote is one of many relayed in R. Douglas Fields’s new book The Other Brain, whose title refers to the fact that glia—Latin for “glue,” because scientists had assumed the cells simply held neurons together and nourished them—have historically been an afterthought in scientists’ minds. Now Fields, a neuroscientist and senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health (and a member of Scientific American Mind’s board of advisers), is convinced that a glial revolution is under way. Thanks in part to his own research, glia are now being uncovered as critical players in brain development, learning, memory, aging and diseases, including schizophrenia, epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease.
According to Fields, glia are like a tortoise to the neuron’s hare: they do not communicate via flashy, linear electrical impulses like nerves do but instead send messages slowly using chemicals that can diffuse broadly throughout the brain, allowing them to influence many regions in complex ways. Fields explains that glia actually control much of what neurons do and, furthermore, that neurons are involved in fewer brain processes than scientists initially thought. “The rapid ‘within an eyeblink’ functions of our nervous system are actually a narrow slice of cognition,” Fields writes. Slower processes—such as emotions, learning and aging—“operate over time scales where glia excel.”
Tackling 300-plus pages about glia may sound like a daunting task, but Fields makes the experience an adventure. The Other Brain reads almost like a mystery: readers start by thinking of glia as witnesses to the various happenings of the brain but then slowly come to realize, through Fields’s colorful anecdotes and descriptions, that they are actually the brain’s primary movers and shakers. Glia have been “hidden in the blind spot of preconceived ideas,” he writes. And now, as scientists learn more about them, “we are glimpsing a far greater universe of brain function than we had ever imagined.”
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6 Comments
Add CommentI suppose the next questions to ask are: where else do we find these glia? And, what other cells can be used in thought? If we've been running around counting neurons as a rough proxy for intelligence, how many glia-enabled "emotionally intelligent" species did we miss? More importantly, are the way-out-there new-age fruitcakes actually right? Am I going to have to apologise to the next carrot I eat?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hope they nail the science down on this quickly, because people are going to run with it to the oddest places in the mean time. Every pet theory that was totally discredited is going to be taken out, dusted off, and re-written to say "it's the glia." Then again, maybe one or two of those theories might actually turn out to be right.
I think you're safe fixerdave from any prostrate apologies. Glia are still cells, not angels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat's more likely to happen is that non-popular (read, scientific dogma) theories that never were put on a shelf or discredited will get a real chance to be rigorously tested. In any case, this significant and empirical information adds to what we knew before about the brain, which will ultimately create a higher standard for theory-dom. And this goes for the predominant, yet insufficient to predict much, functional sum and fire model.
Oops. I meant "non-popular (read, non scientific dogma)". I need to dust off my inverters.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this300 pages of glia is daunting only because most of it is guesswork. Science needs to produce a definition of consciousness before 300 pages of glia can be taken seriously.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisD J Wray
www.atotalawareness.com
"Your advanced consciousness can be thought of as an advanced plug-in."
Well a book is a start for a lot of people that didn't realise the brain is more than just plug-ins. Especially since djwray apparently needs more glia himself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome pertinent questions could be...
1. Could Qualia be apart of the glia or neuron structure only or does it require both. Note: AI researchers are predominantly working on just the neuron side, that includes the simulation researchers as well i believe.
2. Can we quantify the glia effects on the neurons, are there different glia 'movements' and do the 'movements' affect different parts of the brain. While i have never really believed in a firing threshold in a neuron, it is apparently the only way to get a clocked synchronous computer to work with them. I do believe the glias effect can be measured on the neuron structure. This measured effect should allow us to reverse engineer the neuron structure/effect a little better i feel. Thus maybe even improving AI research.
I would postulate the glias effect is related to unlocking cascades of relevant related information that the brain stores locally in a sub region or more sub regions, and that general data/information is stored in the brains local regions in glia sensitive neurons. It would also stand to reason there are neurons that are glia insensitive.
so pushing the frontier further:
3. Are there glia insensitive neurons as well as glia sensitive neurons in the brain when these mass effect ripples go through the brain?
The webbased video clip mentioned in the notes on chapter 13, sorry to say is not working.
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