Blood and the Brain
Sophisticated brain imaging has never been able to directly image the activity of neurons (namely, fMRI and PET scans). Instead, the realization that active neurons caused increased blood flow to occur in the vicinity allowed researchers to develop the techniques that could more easily monitor the flow activity. As blood flow increased in a region of the brain, then the neurons in the area must also be screaming with increased activity.
But, neurons do not have a direct connection to blood vessels and blood flow in the brain.
The correlation between active neurons and the resulting blood flow changes has just now been directly realized by a team at MIT who used two-photon excitation microscopydeveloped by the lab of Watt Webb at Cornell University. They found that another very common cell that composes about 1/2 of all brain cells, called an astrocyte which directly affects blood flow and is electrically quite unlike the neuron, instead reacts to non-electrical stimuli from surrounding cells.
This is a rather significant discovery and further research will lead to a deeper understanding of how our complex neural networks function and how they stay alive in our heads.
…..
MIT unlocks mystery behind brain imaging :: PhysOrg.com June 19, 2008
[ read article ]
“Tuned Responses of Astrocytes and Their Influence on Hemodynamic Signals in the Visual Cortex”
James Schummers, Hongbo Yu, and Mriganka Sur
Science 20 June 2008: 1638-1643.
[ read abstract ]
Movies of visually evoked responses of neurons and astrocytes [ view ]
About Mriganka Sur at MIT
Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
[ visit ]
Subscribe to the DPR Journal
Read Neuron News
[ READ NOW ] Topics
- Amateur Research (71)
- AmSci Opportunities (46)
- AmSci Reviews (5)
- Science at Home (20)
- apps by dpr (1)
- Citizen Science (82)
- In Brief (4)
- Neuron News (110)
- Bionics (17)
- Brain Development (17)
- Consciousness & Mind (16)
- Ethics & Neurotechnology (5)
- Neuron-computer Interface (20)
- Neurons & Genes (13)
- Neurophilosophy (5)
- Neurotech Companies (5)
- Neurotech Research (8)
- People in the Field (3)
- The Connectome (1)
- The Future (3)
- Amateur Research (71)
Archives
Search DPR
CitSci Resources
- Citizen of Science
- Citizen Science League
- Citizen Science Projects Network
- Citizen Scientists League
- Cornell's Citizen Science Central
- Cornell's Open-access arXiv.org
- CrowdResearch.org Follow the Crowd
- DIY Bio
- Hackerpspaces
- Hypography
- Make: Projects
- Open Culture
- OpenScientist
- SA Citizen Science
- Science 2.0
- Science Cheerleader
- Science for Citizens
- SciStarter
- Space Hack
- The Citizen Science Quarterly
Neurotech Resources
- Brain & Mind Magazine
- Google Directory of Consciousness Studies
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke's Neural Prosthesis Program
- Nature Precedings
- Neurosciences on the Internet
- Neurotechnology Industry Organization
- Neurotechnology Industry Organization
- Neurotechnology on Wikipedia
- NIH VideoCast Archive Neuroscience
- The History of Neuroscience in Autobiography from SfN
- University of Michigan Center for Neural Communication Technology
- Whole Brain Catalog
Neuroscience Blogs
This weblog is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.