Time to Remember

tric ganglion of the spiny lobster Panulirus interruptus, A sigh for every so many breath / And for so many sigh which comprises about 24 interconnected motoneurons a death. / That’s what I always tell my wife / Is the and 6 interneurons. Two modes of stimulation of the multiplication table of life. Neuroscientists searching for cAMP cascade were employed. In the first, neuromoduthe multiplication table of the brain cannot, unfortulators such as octopamine, dopamine, and serotonin, nately, use the poetic calculus of Robert Frost (1927); known to be present in the ganglion, or drugs affecting as a matter of fact, to date, they are not even sure what neuromodulation, were added to the bath solution. In the computations are and over which terms they are the second, afferent fibers in the somatogastric nerve performed. Recent advances in neurophysiology only were stimulated electrically, resulting in synaptic release fueled the debate over the syntax and semantics of of endogenous modulators. Bath application produced neural codes (Softky, 1995; Konig et al., 1996). It is theretransient increases in cAMP (t1/2 z minutes) in the soma fore of interest to note that molecular and cellular neuroof specific sets of neurons. Electrical stimulation of neubiologists attempt to contribute their own novel insight romodulatory afferent fibers unveiled in addition to the into mechanisms that embody, retain, and modify inforspatial resolution a temporal one, dependent on the mation in neural circuits. And even though, as noted duration of thestimulus. As little as 1 s of stimulation was below, molecular neurobiology illuminates only certain sufficient to produce cAMP increases in fine neurites of facets of brain function but not others, the findings are identified neurons within a few seconds. Longer stimulaintriguing indeed and specifically point to a crucial comtion periods revealed a centripetal pattern of cAMP in-