Drawing of the cerebral cortex. Wikimedia Commons, Wellcome Images
Posted on 09/26/2015 10:28:38 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The human cerebral cortex contains 16 billion neurons, wired together into arcane, layered circuits responsible for everything from our ability to walk and talk to our sense of nostalgia and drive to dream of the future. In the course of human evolution, the cortex has expanded as much as 1,000-fold, but how this occurred is still a mystery to scientists.
Now, researchers at UC San Francisco have succeeded in mapping the genetic signature of a unique group of stem cells in the human brain that seem to generate most of the neurons in our massive cerebral cortex.
The new findings, published Sept. 24, 2015 in the journal Cell, support the notion that these unusual stem cells may have played an important role in the remarkable evolutionary expansion of the primate brain...
In 2010, Kriegstein's lab discovered a new type of neural stem cell in the human brain, which they dubbed outer radial glia (oRGs) because these cells reside farther away from the nurturing ventricles, in an outer layer of the subventricular zone (oSVZ). To the researchers' surprise, further investigations revealed that during the peak of cortical development in humans, most of the neuron production was happening in the oSVZ rather than the familiar VZ.
oRG stem cells are extremely rare in mice, but common in primates, and look and behave quite differently from familiar ventricular radial glia. Their discovery immediately made Kriegstein and colleagues wonder whether this unusual group of stem cells could be a key to understanding what allowed primate brains to grow to their immense size and complexity.
(Excerpt) Read more at popular-archaeology.com ...
Drawing of the cerebral cortex. Wikimedia Commons, Wellcome Images
Researchers grow functional kidneys from stem cells that work in live animals
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Always took for granted falling asleep and waking up fine eight hours later, not having pain, not forgetting words etc. until a head injury.
Now I realize how incredibly complex and delicate in balance the brain is!!
It is a masterful creation and I dont know enough about evolution or science to make any meaningful statement, but to think that no intelligence was involved in creating it seems flawed.
For one example, i have pulsatile tinnitus in my right ear. Hear my heart beat day and night until i die. I deal with it. No biggie.
But we take for granted that the ear ignores all of the internal noises the body makes that would drive us insane.
Weird thing is, my hearing aid increases the pulsing sound. Strange.
Seems to me a million years from now people who dont know our history may think computers evolved on their own.
But I could be totally off base. Has happened before :)
Nonsense. A “hint” is not even close to proof. Is the research reproducible, and “provable” through experimentation?
Abstraction.
Troll nonsense.
Tinnitus must be frustrating, I’ve known a number of people who have it. The thing I’ve enjoyed most about my geriatric era is, I never know what’s going to go wrong next. :’) I wholeheartedly agree, masterful creation, but wow, we’re really not built to last, eh?
No, we’re not :(
That’s why those guys in Silicon Valley spending billions to find a way to achieve immortality are wasting their money.
The pulsating is worse than the tinnitus. I can hear when I have palpitations too lol
Unless you consider that this system was designed, not random. Scientists must make lousy Program Managers.
Huh? What? This statement posits the extreme difference, and then asserts that extrapolation of data from one onto the other is just dandy? There's something being lost in translation here.
Children playing with tinker toys pretending they are God...
When man actually creates something, truly creates it...I will be impressed. Until then the magic they espouse is not much more than cheap parlor tricks..
The origins of the human brain and mind, on the contrary, are of the Divine, and one day, these 'scientists' will learn that firsthand, when they meet their Maker.
Stem cells, the God genes?
I have had Tinnitus since I discovered large Caliber rifles in my youth and power plants in my working life. After I retired it has receded somewhat but the ringing is still there.
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