Vertebrate Physiology

“Researchers at Stanford engineered mice to carry light-sensitive proteins in the brain’s reward center, which responds to drugs of abuse. Using pulses of light delivered directly to the brain, researchers were able to induce a druglike state, ultimately conditioning the mice to behave like drug-addicted animals.” To read the rest of the article click here.

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Summer love is in the air. When Bob went out to the beach, he couldn’t stop oogling Hilda in the yellow polka dot bikini. They were both attending a steamy neurobiology conference. With his heart beating rapidly, he decided to ask her out to a gourmet meal at Chipotle. Lucky for Bob, she was hungry [...]

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The placebo effect has been observed for centuries. Patients given nothing more than sugar pills are able to alleviate their own pain, anxiety and depression. In one case, a terminal cancer patient shrunk his own tumors when he believed in the power of a sham treatment. This is a very well-written article that links the [...]

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Did you know that your brain is made up of more than just neurons? In reality, it’s a mix of many different types of cells. Glial (housekeeper) cells are the most common cell type in the CNS. These have endless functions, from providing nutrients, to repairing damaged tissue, to physically keeping neurons in place. It [...]

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CBS is not typically a good source for science articles, but this is a very nice read on the science of sleep. They mention some of the aspects that we talked about in class- the need for sleep, how it affects learning and memory, and perhaps most importantly, the link between sleep and attention. People [...]

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Here is a short NPR broadcast in which AJ describes her experiences with her near “perfect” memory. She can remember near everything that has happened to her, but has a poor capacity to remember facts and even historical events. A key component to her memory is the emotional content in her memories, and recall of [...]

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Years ago, scientists were able to link a monkey sitting in North Carolina with a robotic arm situated at MIT’s Touch Lab. This doesn’t seem all that remarkable until you notice that the control is entirely by thought. The monkey is manipulating the arm using a brain wave-machine interface that could be used to design [...]

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This image is part of a stress test. For some individuals, these two dolphins may appear slightly different. This is an indicator of stress. The brains of individuals undergoing stress often have enhanced activity wherein they notice finer details. Final exams are one progenitor of stress. It has long been observed that moderately stressful situations [...]

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With our final topic of the basal ganglia: those centres that direct repeated and refined motions, this is a relevant story on their role in habit formation. Researchers at MIT found that repeated learned tasks are stored in the basal ganglia. Once the cues that drive the habitual behaviour are removed, test animals would return [...]

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Something to consider over the Harvest Feast Holiday is cuddling up with a good book. A couple suggestions to fuel your mind would be Oliver Sacks’ new book on music-mind connections. The NYTimes wrote a nice review. Another set of essays to prepare you for the third unit of the course are: The Trouble with [...]

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