Monday, 18 October 2021
All of our animations are back again !
From the very start, The Brain from Top to Bottom was designed to be an interactive website where the general public could learn about the biological bases of human behaviour. Much of this interactivity was provided by its various navigation tools, which let you explore the five different levels of organization of the human brain and human behaviour, choosing the level of explanation that suits you best (beginner, intermediate, or advanced).
But almost immediately, our team realized that because biology and neuroscience involve so many phenomena that are dynamic—that take place over time—we were going to need more than just static images to explain them properly. We therefore used Adobe Flash software to produce about 100 animations illustrating many of these phenomena, ranging from the generation of action potentials to the effects of drugs at the synaptic level, and from the bases of neuronal plasticity to the bases of muscle contraction. But almost 20 years after it was first released, the Flash platform had become obsolete. As of January 12, 2021, Adobe had stopped supporting its Flash Player and blocked Flash animations from running in any web browsers, making all of the animations on our website inaccessible. (more…)
From the Simple to the Complex | Comments Closed
Tuesday, 28 September 2021
Two pioneers in research on neurogenesis and vision
Today I just want to draw your attention to two researchers who are senior citizens but still active and still inspiring: Fred Gage and Deric Bownds.
Fred Gage recently gave an interview on his scientific career, in which he told how he became a pioneer in research on neurogenesis—the development of new neurons in the brains of adult mammals. It’s always interesting to learn about the scientific career of someone who disproved an idea that was previously dogma. In Gage’s case, it was the idea that had emerged during the last decades of the 20th century that when humans are born, their brains contain as many neurons as they will ever have and will only continue to lose them as their lives go on. (more…)
From the Simple to the Complex | Comments Closed
Tuesday, 14 September 2021
The great complexity of the brain’s mental mapping system
In the 1930s and 1940s, rats’ ability to learn their way through a maze was explained, according to the behaviourist paradigm prevailing at that time, as simply a process of building connections between sensory stimuli and behavioural responses. When a rat found its way through a maze successfully, it reached the final chamber where it received a reward of food, According to behaviourist theory, this reward strengthened the neural connections underlying the associations that the rat had had to make to complete its task successfully. But this reasoning could not explain the surprising observations made in an experiment by U.S. psychologist Edward Tolman in 1948, in which some rats reached their rewards by finding shortcuts through the maze along paths that they had never taken before! (more…)
Memory and the Brain | Comments Closed
Tuesday, 1 June 2021
Quiz about memory
Which of the following is your memory most like: 1) a huge library where all your memories are shelved? 2) a computer hard drive where data are stored in a binary code of 0s and 1s? 3) a dresser with lots of drawers full of memories? 4) the game of telephone, where one person whispers a message to the next until it ends up being distorted? (more…)
Memory and the Brain | Comments Closed
Tuesday, 4 May 2021
Neuroscientifically Challenged: a highly educational website about neuroscience
This week I want to tell you about a highly educational website that offers a wealth of information about neuroscience. Its name is Neuroscientifically Challenged, and its author is Marc Dingman. Dingman began blogging about neuuroscience in 2008, as his interest in the subject was growing. He took a break from writing the site in 2010 to concentrate on finishing his doctorate in neuroscience, which he received in 2014, when he also accepted a teaching assignment at his university. Neuroscientifically Challenged is aimed at the general public, but Dingman draws his references directly from peer-reviewed scientific articles and monographs on neuroscience. (more…)
From the Simple to the Complex | Comments Closed
