Comments on: Grand Challenges of Neuroscience: Day 1 http://www.neurevolution.net/2007/04/30/136/ Chronicling the cognitive revolution in neuroscience Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:33:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: Recher http://www.neurevolution.net/2007/04/30/136/#comment-1130 Recher Thu, 07 Jun 2007 22:40:39 +0000 http://www.neurevolution.net/2007/04/30/136/#comment-1130 While science remains stuck in disproven Descartian / Newtonain model of the universe, memory will remain forever elusive. The buring question is where are the memories? How is it that Fernch word not used in 40 years when needed is there immediately. While science remains stuck in disproven Descartian / Newtonain model of the universe, memory will remain forever elusive.

The buring question is where are the memories?

How is it that Fernch word not used in 40 years when needed is there immediately.

]]> By: P.L. http://www.neurevolution.net/2007/04/30/136/#comment-787 P.L. Sat, 12 May 2007 18:21:13 +0000 http://www.neurevolution.net/2007/04/30/136/#comment-787 Mark- Thanks for contributing your comments. I agree with you that there's a lot of good reason to believe that we have in fact determined the neurobiological underpinnings of memory. I would be very interested in checking out the two science papers that you mentioned but I haven't been able to locate them either through the sciencemag.org website (there doesn't seem to be an April 25, 2006 issue of Science) or through Google Scholar. Any additional information on these articles or complete references would be really great. Mark- Thanks for contributing your comments. I agree with you that there’s a lot of good reason to believe that we have in fact determined the neurobiological underpinnings of memory.

I would be very interested in checking out the two science papers that you mentioned but I haven’t been able to locate them either through the sciencemag.org website (there doesn’t seem to be an April 25, 2006 issue of Science) or through Google Scholar. Any additional information on these articles or complete references would be really great.

]]> By: Mark http://www.neurevolution.net/2007/04/30/136/#comment-760 Mark Thu, 10 May 2007 01:49:13 +0000 http://www.neurevolution.net/2007/04/30/136/#comment-760 regarding your comment that changes in synaptic plasticity might not necessarily constitute the neural substrate of learning and memory, i would like to direct you to 2 science papers in the april 25th, 2006 issue. one is by mark bear, and the other is by charles sacktor. together, they provide a reasonably direct demonstration that changes in synaptic strength actually do indeed underlie learning and memory (at least one form, anyway). there are numerous other studies that address this indirectly, some of which, as you point out, rely heavily on pharmacology, which is obviously going to have side-effects and be correlational. however, these studies, and others, are consistent with what has been observed using genetic techniques, which of course have their own sets of problems. but the convergence between the sets of approaches, and the 2 science papers, i think put the field beyond the stage at which you characterize it. while the hope is of course to directly manipulate single cell neural activity and thus plasticity in awake behaving animals, i suspect that a reliable and believable result in this area is going to be a long time coming. while we can certainly do in vivo patch clamp currently, and maybe even start to manipulate neurons with light via ChR2 or other photopigment-channels, i think its going to be tough to get from the single cell spiking level in primary sensory cortex up to showing some sort of behavioral result. we'll have to see. implanting memories or deleting them based on single cell or even single synapse activity is going to very hard, if not impossible in the near term, but i totally agree that this is where we should be headed. regarding your comment that changes in synaptic plasticity might not necessarily constitute the neural substrate of learning and memory, i would like to direct you to 2 science papers in the april 25th, 2006 issue. one is by mark bear, and the other is by charles sacktor. together, they provide a reasonably direct demonstration that changes in synaptic strength actually do indeed underlie learning and memory (at least one form, anyway). there are numerous other studies that address this indirectly, some of which, as you point out, rely heavily on pharmacology, which is obviously going to have side-effects and be correlational. however, these studies, and others, are consistent with what has been observed using genetic techniques, which of course have their own sets of problems. but the convergence between the sets of approaches, and the 2 science papers, i think put the field beyond the stage at which you characterize it.

while the hope is of course to directly manipulate single cell neural activity and thus plasticity in awake behaving animals, i suspect that a reliable and believable result in this area is going to be a long time coming. while we can certainly do in vivo patch clamp currently, and maybe even start to manipulate neurons with light via ChR2 or other photopigment-channels, i think its going to be tough to get from the single cell spiking level in primary sensory cortex up to showing some sort of behavioral result. we’ll have to see. implanting memories or deleting them based on single cell or even single synapse activity is going to very hard, if not impossible in the near term, but i totally agree that this is where we should be headed.

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