Your brain is special.

So is mine. Differences arise at every level of the organ’s astonishingly intricate architecture; the human brain contains 100 billion neurons, which come in thousands of types and collectively form an estimate of more than 100 trillion interconnections. These differences, in turn, lead to variances in the ways we think, learn and behave and in our propensity for mental illness.

10 Comments

1. 1. Dredd 01:04 PM 2/14/12

   Since 99 percent of the functional genes in the body are microbial, and the microbes they belong to fashion the brain, their participation in the jumping gene phenomenon out to be considered. No?
   
   http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2012/02/human-microbiome-congress.html

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2. 2. sparcboy 08:20 AM 2/15/12

   "Given that the brain’s proper functioning is essential to survival, why has evolution allowed a process that tinkers with its genetic programming to persist?"
   
   Because natural selection has either selected for the trait or has not selected to remove it because it's not causing an effect that would result in it's removal.
   
   Does that question need to be rewritten?

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3. 3. Mong H Tan, PhD 05:15 PM 2/15/12

   RE: Jumping genes vs the "hopping memes" fantasy!?
   
   This is only an introductory theory of the jumping genes in our brain: the neuronal retrotransposons whose activities may indeed influence how adept we each will each react, learn, cope, act or adapt, in response to our increasingly pervasive environmental stimuli (well-being, harmful, or otherwise) -- a behaviorism or psychological process which may be likened to the biological process of our immune system: one that is genetically primed and ready to respond to the countless foreign agents and invaders that our body may encounter daily since birth.
   
   From an evolutionary perspective: this jumping genes theory has indeed debunked the hopping memes fantasy, a genetic reductionist fallacy that was first introduced in The Selfish Gene, a 1976 book by the world-renowned neo-Darwinist, pseudo-genetic determinist and reductionist in biology Richard Dawkins!
   
   Best wishes, Mong 2/15/12usct4:15p; practical science-philosophy critic; author "Decoding Scientism" and "Consciousness & the Subconscious" (works in progress since July 2007), "Gods, Genes, Conscience" (iUniverse; 2006 -- http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000034974/GODS-GENES-CONSCIENCE.aspx ) and "Gods, Genes, Conscience: Global Dialogues Now" (blogging avidly since 2006 -- http://www2.blogger.com/profile/18303146609950569778 ).

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4. 4. juanca in reply to sparcboy 12:16 PM 2/17/12

   The question is clear enough, it does not need to be re-written. It obviously has not been selected for removal, or else it is unlikely that it would continue to exist. But it may have been positively selected. Maybe jumping genes help their carriers to survive or reproduce more efficiently?

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5. 5. naya8 03:23 AM 2/22/12

   This is another proof to the solid fact that GENES are the most responsible for behavior but not environment.Environment is not more than a cataizing factor to detect the inherent characters of the brain.

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6. 6. rwolin in reply to naya8 01:46 PM 2/26/12

   if you know anything about genetics, you'd know that one's environment determines the whether some genes are activated or unused. for example, a girl trapped in a kidnapper's basement who experienced no human contact for several years had a brain that developed in such a way that she was rendered incapable of learning how to speak and a virtually disfunctional frontal lobe.

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7. 7. katbears 03:35 PM 3/14/12

   where can i read this article for free? i am a third year biology student and i am interested in genetics as one of my candidate topics for my thesis. thank you very much!

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8. 8. PluriBara 05:49 AM 4/16/12

   There is a rather huge misconception with respect to jumping genes. They are not the remnants of virus-invasions. On the contrary: RNA-virusus originated from such jumping genetic elements that should be renamed Variation-Inducing Genetic Elements (VIGEs). For more information on their functions and origins:
   
   http://blog.drwile.com/?p=1106
   
   PLURI

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9. 9. DaveT 03:50 PM 4/23/12

   Please provide source references to support the statement that the "only lineage of L1 jumping elements currently active in the human genome evolved about 2.7 million years ago".

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10. 10. john.fentress@gmail.com 10:50 AM 4/28/12

    Neuroscience has long gone down a path akin to atomism in Greek philosophy - single components within complex systems acting in isolation, without being influenced by the broader contexts of their operations. While not a genetic example, think of how the idea of "central motor programs" for a long time implied true isolation in the operation of experimentally isolated circuits. Once these circuits were subsequently re-examined in the broader contexts of their operations these early ideas, while to an extent useful, turned out to be over simplifications. The list goes on and on.
    
    In early molecular biology enthusiasms of isolated genetic properties raised analogous problems. Now that genes may even "jump" from their original location, thus affecting the operation of other genes, the story again has proven to be more rich than early models suggest. The entire field of epigentics takes the issue to even broader levels. Now "evo/devo" research is showing conclusively that there are complex (reciprocal) feedback loops between genetic and developmental(epigentic) influences. Again, the list goes on and on.
    
    It seems to have proven difficult for researchers to truly join severe mechanistic (isolable fixed component) models to the essential systems within which they may operate and be influenced by. Obviously isolating components of operation is a critical phase in all science, but it can be overdone. Is not the possibility of jumping genes one more example? I am delighted that those with a deeper knowledge than I have in genetic research are now exploring these broader perspectives of how individual properties may have surprising influences upon other properties of operation, while in a reciprocal fashion being potentially influenced by so called "extrinsic" events.
    
    John C Fentress, Eugene, Oregon

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