Vertebrate nervous systems are composed of two principal cell types: glia and neurons. Glial cells are the most abundant and are involved primarily in maintaining ion homeostasis in the brain. Information processing is performed by neuronal cells that form intricate networks of processes capable of conducting and transferring electrical information at high speed and high efficiency. Neurons are...

Excitatory postsynaptic currents (EPSCs) have been studied in voltage-clamped bullfrog sympathetic ganglion B cells. The EPSC was small, rose to a peak within 1-3 ms, and then decayed exponentially over most of its time-course. For 36 cells at --50 mV (21-23 degrees C), peak EPSC size was --6.5 +/- 3.5 nA (mean +/- SD), and the mean decay time constant tau was 5.3 +/- 0.9 ms. tau showed a small...

Neuronal distal axons have limited access to glucose, their myelin sheaths preventing direct interface with blood, and their axoplasms being at great distances from their cell bodies. Glycogen, the mammalian glucose store, is characterized by extreme branching, which allows packing 55,000 glucoses/glycogen, and maintaining solubility. In neurons, glycogen phos-phorylase, the glycogen-digesting ...

Neurology 2012;79:21–22 Two disease mechanisms operate in Lafora progressive myoclonus epilepsy (Lafora PME) to produce 3 phenotypes (epilepsy, rapid neurologic deterioration, and Lafora polyglucosan inclusion bodies). These 2 disease mechanisms are 1) an error in glycogen metabolism and 2) neurodegeneration. The question is, which comes first and which is primary and more important in disease ...

The nervous system is a complex and intricate system that enables the individual to recognize and react to the environment and to interact with the environment in a meaningful manner. Underlying this complex system is its simplicity of composition, with relatively few distinct cell types including neurons and glial cells. The nervous system is organized into the central nervous system (CNS) and...

34 Optogenetics is an emerging field of neuromodulation that permits scaled, 35 millisecond temporal control of the membrane dynamics of genetically targeted 36 cells using light. Optogenetic technology has revolutionized neuroscience 37 research; however, numerous biophysical questions remain on the optical and 38 neuronal factors impacting the modulation of neural activity with photon sensiti...

The nature of (un)conscious human emotional information processing remains a great mystery. On the one hand, classical models view human conscious emotional information processing as computation among the brain's neurons but fail to address its enigmatic features. On the other hand, quantum processes (superposition of states, nonlocality, entanglement,) also remain mysterious, yet are being har...

A novel approach to temporal pattern recognition was recently introduced in the literature, called liquid computing. The model used was very complex, thus the present study uses a simplified version that is easier to understand. By exploring properties of the system with the simple setup, a better unders tanding of the complex version can be reached. A liquid computer needs a liquid memory and ...

This study describes homoepitaxial growth and etch phenomena observed on cubic diamond faces as obtained by the application of an acetylene-oxygen combustion flame. It is demonstrated that flame etching of the diamond substrates prior to growth decreases the number of crystallographic imperfections in the diamond layers especially at the edges. This enables a more uniform distributed step gener...

Cultured human polymorphonuclear leukocytes exposed to the tumor promoter 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) spread on the substratum and undergo centrosome splitting. The two centrioles may separate by a distance of several micrometers, each being surrounded by an aster of microtubules. Here we show that the centriole/aster complexes are in constant, rapid motion through the cytoplasm,...