Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE BRAIN IS one of the least understood parts of the human body.
The centre of all activity, it is essential for human life and development.
New prize winning research is helping to reveal how the brain is developed – by figuring out how the different components of the organ work together to form it.
Researcher Flavio Donato sought to further understand how different mechanisms work together in the little understood centre of the brain to make human cognition possible.
For decades it has been understood that in order for certain parts of the brain to mature and establish specific connections which make cognition possible, waves activity must travel from the sensory organs (like the eyes and nose) to the centre of the nervous system in the brain.
This process is key to proper brain development in young animals.
Donato and his team found that in one particular area related to memory and navigation, the signal source for maturing that part of the brain originated in a particular set of neurons located deep within the brain.
The cells seemed to be intrinsically programmed to kick off maturation in that area from the moment an animal is born. Donato found that when you switched off these neurons an important part of the brain didn’t properly develop.
Donato pioneered a novel way of tracking and labelling specific neurons in the brain by a single injection into the brain of mice at certain points. This allowed the researchers to track the neurons by their birth date.
“These experiments opened up a new world to us,” Donato said.
By observing neurons based on their birth date, we realized that these cells were somehow special and very different from the other surrounding cell types, which was instrumental to find out how and to what extent they influenced the assembly of the network.
He said that it was important to understand how developing circuits of neurons functioned.
He said only by doing this would we have a chance to “comprehend how the brain as a whole gives rise to those sophisticated phenomena that make us who we are”.
Donato, in his prize winning essay in the subject - Assembling the brain from deep within – states that his research could have important implications in understanding degenerative brain disorders like as Alzheimer’s disease.
His essay won him the grand prize in the annual international competition for The Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Still none the wiser.
@Gillian Weir Scully: give them time thinking like you would have us living in caves
@Gillian Weir Scully: the progression of neuron development in the brain from start to end, birth to death, the mechanisms of growth, and how they may vary in different parts of the brain helps not only to give us a better insight into how the brain functions but also in how certain neurodegenerative conditions, such as dementias, might be prevented or mitigated against.
It may take some 20 years or more for this new research to lead to proven and efficacious treatments but it has enormous potential
By better understanding the human brain, we better understand what it is to be human. The advanced human brain is our truly defining characteristic as a species.
The only difficulty, although for some it seems instinctive, is to switch off as much cognition as possible when commenting on the Journal.ie .
@Fiona deFreyne: this kind of research could eventually lead to a better understanding of motor neuron disease leading to some sort of cure
@Fiona deFreyne: you mean our capacity for cruelty, stupidity, destructiveness, cognitive dissonance, duplicity, narcissism, etc is our defining uniqueness as a species…People are tired of waiting for solutions and resolution for and of our “condition.” It’s not a biology experiment…
@Paul Jennings: I’d say you are into conspiracy theories with a comment like that.
@Fiona deFreyne: Thank you that actually explained it better for me and loved the comment at the end.
I had thought that DNA and genetics were the cause of most illness or perhaps reason is a better word which then caused the brain to react from the article it sounds like the brain is effecting and causing illness more than I thought.
@FlopFlipU: Not kind. I said I did not understand fully the article.
Brain dead. Sorry they destroyed the evidence with cremation. Oh dear.
@Paul Coughlan: oh very clever comment. Id say you are the one who is brain dead more likely
have your say