IUBio

Brian Capacity

F. Frank LeFever flefever at ix.netcom.com
Mon May 24 20:52:07 EST 1999


Small note on style or tone: in saying "folks in Neuroscience now
understand", Ken slyly insinuates his usual conceit, that he knew it
all (and I do mean ALL) years ago, and only recently has Neuroscience
caught up with him--in a few small matters (still blind to the major
TRUTH he so selflessly offers).

He has it ass-backwards, of course: he knows about glia because
generations of neuroscientists have done the hard, careful work
necessary to learn a few things about them, and have published not only
their findings but also a full description of how they obtained them.

re Einstein's brain: either Ken is correct about its unusually high
ratio of glia to neurons, or he and I have both been taken in by the
same "urban legend" (thanks for your apt respnse, Eugene).

My own somewhat fanciful speculation (already posted here or in a
nearby newsgroup a few weeks ago) is that one aspect of glial action
which might be relevant is the uptake of (excess) glutamate--Einstein's
abundant glia allowing  perhaps more precise separation of
glutaminergic impulses, faster "clock", more separate operations within
a given time, etc.  From there to greater conceptual power is a leap,
but one might think of it in terms of allowing incorporation of a
greater array of elements within one "thought" (bounded by
"psychological refractory periods").

F. Frank LeFever, Ph.D.
New York Neuropsychology Group



In <3748D7E4.456EAB3F at banet.net> ken collins <kenpc at banet.net> writes: 
>
>Laim wrote:
>> 
>> Cheers Ken,
>> Has anyone recently tested his jelly for the 100's of
>> neuro-transmitters that have revealed themselves recently?
>
>i'm unaware with respect to such.
>
>> >when Einstein's brain was examined post mortem, it was found that
>> >was more-densely populated than "normal" with neuralglia cells.
>> Sorry I was following you up to <"normal" with>,
>> what does the rest mean in dim-wit terms?
>
>"neuralglia" cells have been, conventionally, deemed "not to be
>involved in active away, within neural activation "states".
>
>this conventional supposition is False (which, i believe, folks
>in Neuroscience now understand. (Einstein's brain happens to be
>an interestingly-correlated thing.)
>
>Cheers, Laim, ken collins
>
>[...]




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