[Research] The Other Brain

[Cint]

I was wandering through Barnes and Noble this weekend and happened the see an interesting book entitled, "The Other Brain". It talks about the glia cells in the brain and how they are involved in all aspects of the nervous system and the diseases.

I'm including a quote from the book.

The "Neuron Doctrine", as Ramon y Cajal's view came to be known, became the fundamental idea for our current understanding of how the brain works. All theories of information processing in the brain, and all of our drugs for treating mental illness, are founded on this one essential idea: synaptic transmission. The Neuron Doctrine tells us that all information in the brain is conducted by electrical impulses transmitted through neurons and communicated across synapses. But is this idea correct?

Now at the turn of a new millennium, a new kind of microscope is revolutionizing our understanding of the brain, and revealing a new dimension of brain function that astonishingly--operates beyond neurons.

Setting in a dark room at Colorado State University in the 1980s, crammed with computers and newly designed microscopes that grafted new digital technology developed for the booming video game industry onto the old optical microscopes, I first saw a neuron fire with my own eyes. Together with Stan Kater and Peter Guthrie, who were pioneers in this new method, we flipped a switch delivering electric shocks to a neuron and saw it emit a burst of light. The light was generated by a chemical we had introduced into the living neuron that fluoresced brightly when the nerve impulse forced calcium to flood into the neuron, driving a chemical reaction producing light. Previously neuroscientists had relied on microelectrodes to tap into electrical transmissions in neural circuits. Now using this new method, when a neuron fired we saw it light up as easily as one sees the pilot light illuminate on a TV when it is switched on. The first time we saw a neuron firing with our own eyes, our shouts of joy filled the dark empty halls.

This new technique fueled a flurry of research around the world using this new imaging method to study how nerve cells work, but very soon scientists were confronted with something completely unexpected and entirely beyond the neuron doctrine. Notably in the laboratory of Stephen Smith, now at Stanford University, but in many other laboratories as well, information was seen flowing freely not only through neurons, but through non-neuronal cells as well--glia.

How do glia communicate? What does this glial communication mean? What can glia, "the other brain" do beyond what the neuronal brain can accomplish?

We are rapidly learning the answers to these intriguing questions about the other brain. Glia communicate, and they provide a separate, non-electric network for information flow through our brain that operates independently but cooperatively with neuronal networks. Glia do not use electricity to communicate, so glia have no need for the axon or dendrites or synapses of nerve cells. Glia communicate by broadcasting chemical messages. Moreover, glia can sense information flowing through neural circuits and alter the communications between neurons at synapses! Glia, we now know, have receptors for detecting the flow of ions generated by neurons firing electrical impulses and for sensing the neurotransmitters neurons release at synapses. Glia intercept these signals and act upon them to increase or decrease the transmission of information across synapses and speed or slow the transmission of electrical information through axons.

These recent discoveries open an entirely new dimension into brain function. Glia are involved in all aspects of nervous system health and disease. They can control neuronal communication, development of the fetal brain, generation of new neurons in the adult brain, participate in epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, mental illnesses such as depression and schizophrenia, and they provide a new mechanism of learning that operates beyond synapses.

I look forward to describing new research on glia in forthcoming articles together with the latest research on how the brain develops and is modified by experience. This is a new brain and new frontier.

Adapted from:
1. The Other Brain, by R. Douglas Fields, published by Simon and Schuster, NY, 2009.

[Rae1889]

pretty interesting stuff.
I love how there is so much information out there, but not many people are using that "gold mine" and testing out their theories. Lots of guesses but not many tangible results.
But this could be promising. I'd just like to see this broaden into actual trial treatment in a large consenus.

[Molly97]

And another link about glial cells and seizures: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0706161308.htm

However, recent research has shown that micro-glial cells may play a major role in seizures. Researchers have found that glial cells, which are supportive cells that also constitute a major part of the brain's immune system, cluster within areas in the brain when a severe brain injury has occurred.
"When there has been serious damage to the brain, such as a head injury or infection, the immune system is activated and tries to counteract the damage and repair it," Barth said. "These glial cells migrate to the damaged area and release chemicals called cytokines that, unfortunately, also profoundly increase the excitability of the neurons that they are near.
"In our new study, we showed for the first time that glial cells moving in and secreting these cytokines cause the neurons in the area to become excitable enough to cause seizures."
The results of the study appear in the July issue of the journal Brain. Barth co-authored the paper with CU-Boulder professors of psychology and neuroscience Linda Watkins and Steven Maier, CU-Boulder graduate students Krista Rodgers and Alexis Northcutt and Professor Mark Hutchinson of the University of Adelaide in Australia. The National Institutes of Health funded the study.

[IslandLiz]

New York City's public radio host Leonard Lopate recently interviewed the author of The Other Brain. I listened and it was quite well done. The podcast can be downloaded/streamed free at wnyc.org

[Shelley]

http://psychology.alltop.com/
Been following this web page on twitter. There are some interesting articles here and there.
For those that twitter, add me, and you can access the stuff I find.

[Cinnabar]

Thank you Cindy for presenting excerpt from this very interesting book. Since I'm interested in etymology, I had to look up its linguistic source first. Glia is derived from the Greek "glue. German scientests describe glia as being "Mind Glue".

Your excerpt made mention of the role it plays in depression and schizophrenia and caused me to wonder how glia might play a role in Bi-Polar Disorder and found the following.

Glutamate (in concert with GABA) is essential to the regulation of mood, and when something goes wrong, glia can invariably be found at the scene of the crime or else on the lam. Various postmortem studies on human brains of individuals with major depression or bi-polar disorder have detected lower than normal levels of glia in certain regions.

And continues

In June 2004 Neuroscientist, Bernhard Mitterauer MD of the University of Salzburg proposes a neuronal-glial imbalance hypothesis to explain bipolar disorder. The basis of the hypothesis is a different kind of astrocyte activity involving the release of certain types of proteins into the neuronal synapse. These proteins bind to neurotransmitters, preventing them from reaching their intended targets. When things go according to plan, argues Dr Mitterauer, a kind of equilibrium is achieved. But over or under-secretion of proteins may result in not enough or too many neurotransmitters reaching their targets, with predictable results. This phenomenon (more theory than fact at this stage) may also explain why circadian rhythms (including sleep) are disrupted.

So glia factors in mental illness but how is it that it comes to be referred to a "casualty"? Sounding somewhat alarming. This is something I wish the article would have expanded upon.

Neuronal networks start resembling withered plants unable to bloom, which may explain the true cause of our decidedly unrosy moods. Since glia may be a "casualty", the neuron is effectively left defenseless..

And then finally, the call to seriously explore our "Mind Glue".

Glial cells service neurons in host of other ways, making the potential for messing up our minds virtually limitless. We know that glia talk to each other, we but have yet to figure out what they’re saying. At least, after all these years, we’re starting to listen.

http://www.doctoryourself.com/caffeine2.html
http://www.mcmanweb.com/glia.html