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Brain cells?
- Thread starter Zylstra
- Start date
borrofburi
New Member
Also interesting: I heard we have brain cells in our stomach, is this true?
The Apathetic Despot
New Member
I'm not a neuroscientist, but this wouldn't surprise me. Some "decision making" processes don't actually take place in the brain. For example, if you touch something hot your arm will actually begin retracting before the nervous signal reaches the brain. You may think you feel pain and decide to move, but the order is actually reversed with the "decision" being made in the arm itself. That said, if you're asking if there are neurons in the stomach taking part in cognitive processes the answer is probably not.borrofburi said:
Brain cells are neurons, so, yes, you have "brain cells" in your stomach and everywhere else in your body.borrofburi said:
Also, it is commonly believed that neurons do not undergo mitosis, rather they grow by creating new synapses. Up until about 10 years ago it was also believed that neurons would not regrow, however there was a study that showed they could regrow under certain circumstances.
i^2
aeroeng314
New Member
The Apathetic Despot said:
Actually the "decision" is made in the spinal cord.
aeroeng314 said:
Not always. Often the "decisions" (reflexes, really) occur in very odd places, sometimes seemingly unrelated to the place where the action happens.
An easy-to-explain one is the sinoatrial node, which acts as a local pacemaker for the heart, quite independently of what's going on elsewhere in the nervous system (actually the brain can change the timing but the clock ticks without its help).
An odd one is the vagus nerve, which takes a circuitous route from the medulla oblongata via the jugular vein to the abdomen.
Zylstra said:
I recently looked this up and am still not completely clear but I can tell you what I learned. For a long time scientists were sure that you enter adulthood with all the brain cells you'll ever have. This turns out to be wrong, sometime in the mid 90s someone found new brain cells growing in the hippocampus of some critter or other and the finding has since been confirmed in humans.
I didn't spend a long time looking this up because I was in the middle of something so I'm sure there's more info out there. I only found reference to the finding that cells in the hippocampus regenerate, not that they do throughout the brain and the fact that it was thought for so long that they don't regenerate at all makes me think you wouldn't say they die and get replaced "like other cells in the body." The replacement of cells was correlated to the use of that part of the brain, in the case of the hippocampus, the only structure I read confirmation that there was any regeneration in, so this meant exercising involving memory and the experiments were carried out in rats.
My understanding is that neurons all come from undifferentiated neural progenitor cells which are one step less differentiated (one step closer to being a 'stem cell') than functioning neurons. I'll post more if I read more. I haven't got to neurobiology yet since it's not really part of my major or I might be more help..
[edit]:
This link explains regeneration of neurons throughout the brain including the cerebral cortex:
http://www.brainlightning.com/regen.html
So in conclusion yes, it happens throughout the brain. These studies only came out in 2000 so it's recent enough a lot of people who never read about any of it since graduating will still try to tell you it doesn't happen.
Also I edited to change hypothalamus to hippocampus because I wrote from memory before and suck
Peace.
aeroeng314
New Member
dkturner said:
I should have been less general, I was referring to the specific reflex mentioned (retracting from a burn). But thanks for pointing that out anyway. I didn't know about these.
Spase said:I recently looked this up and am still not completely clear but I can tell you what I learned. For a long time scientists were sure that you enter adulthood with all the brain cells you'll ever have. This turns out to be wrong, sometime in the mid 90s someone found new brain cells growing in the hypothalamus of some critter or other and the finding has since been confirmed in humans.
I didn't spend a long time looking this up because I was in the middle of something so I'm sure there's more info out there. I only found reference to the finding that cells in the hippocampus regenerate, not that they do throughout the brain and the fact that it was thought for so long that they don't regenerate at all makes me think you wouldn't say they die and get replaced "like other cells in the body." The replacement of cells was correlated to the use of that part of the brain, in the case of the hippocampus, the only structure I read confirmation that there was any regeneration in, so this meant exercising involving memory and the experiments were carried out in rats.
My understanding is that neurons all come from undifferentiated neural progenitor cells which are one step less differentiated (one step closer to being a 'stem cell') than functioning neurons. I'll post more if I read more. I haven't got to neurobiology yet since it's not really part of my major or I might be more help..
[edit]:
This link explains regeneration of neurons throughout the brain including the cerebral cortex:
http://www.brainlightning.com/regen.html
So in conclusion yes, it happens throughout the brain. These studies only came out in 2000 so it's recent enough a lot of people who never read about any of it since graduating will still try to tell you it doesn't happen.
Also I edited to change hypothalamus to hippocampus because I wrote from memory before and suck
Peace.
Only useful post in thread
I needed to know, so I knew whether the 'is it the same car/is it the same you' argument is valid. If it is, then I can resume development of my argument that the self emerges from the electrochemical processes themselves. Thus, you are the person as you were 10 years ago, despite the parts all being different, as the processes have been continuing all along. This also helps explain brain death and would hint that 'restarting the processes' should be, in theory possible, but would create a new 'self', even if the physical structure of the brain caused some memories to be shared with the old and new entities.. I started playing with idea after the thread about the transporter, but I put it on hold pending confirmation that the parts do, in fact, get replaced.
Now the question becomes: can or could we replace every part of the brain in a way that allowed the processes to continue without degeneration of the materials, thereby achieving near-immortality for the consciousness. I eagerly await the results of the first related experiment, involving the world's first artificial hippocampus...
Zylstra said:Only useful post in thread
I needed to know, so I knew whether the 'is it the same car/is it the same you' argument is valid. If it is, then I can resume development of my argument that the self emerges from the electrochemical processes themselves. Thus, you are the person as you were 10 years ago, despite the parts all being different, as the processes have been continuing all along. This also helps explain brain death and would hint that 'restarting the processes' should be, in theory possible, but would create a new 'self', even if the physical structure of the brain caused some memories to be shared with the old and new entities.. I started playing with idea after the thread about the transporter, but I put it on hold pending confirmation that the parts do, in fact, get replaced.
Now the question becomes: can or could we replace every part of the brain in a way that allowed the processes to continue without degeneration of the materials, thereby achieving near-immortality for the consciousness. I eagerly await the results of the first related experiment, involving the world's first artificial hippocampus...
How funny.. that's almost exactly why I looked this up in the first place. Was planning on making a youtube video about consciousness and what it actually is but the script was getting waaay too long.
Marcus said:
Well, it is certainly possible to have pretty much complete control over your body, I think it is possible to even prevent those reactions, somehow. I forget when it was, but during a peaceful protest Buddhist monks who were quietly meditating in the middle of the street were doused with gasoline and set ablaze by authoritarian police. As they burned to death, they sat there completely relaxed and showed no signs of any discomfort or reaction.
However, for the average human, certainly, your arm will make you reaction, regardless of if you have "steeled yourself".