IUBio

Neuroscience/Neuropsychology question

Richard Norman rsnorman at mediaone.net
Fri Jun 9 12:33:20 EST 2000


Of course there is always major work that really needs a good
math/biophysics background.  But where do you get students for
that type of thing?  I'll bet they transferred from math/physics/
engineering undergraduate programs.

And what do you advise a biology or psych undergraduate who
doesn't have that background?  Most areas in neurobiology do
not involve that type of mathematics and these students shouldn't
be discouraged from continuing nor steered into an inappropriate
course program.

Gary G. Wilson <ggw5 at columbia.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.10.10006091043270.8933-100000 at merhaba.cc.columbia.edu...
> On Fri, 9 Jun 2000, Richard Norman wrote:
>
> > at one time it was traditional to go through the Hodgkin-Huxley
> > equations, discussing the significance of the m,n, and h terms.
> > To understand that work, you really had to know at least a little
> > about differential equations. Now all that is completely bypassed
> > in favor of looking at the molecular structure of the gated ion
> > channels and finding motifs and homologies in the membrane-
> > spanning regions and gate controls.
>
> This is true to some extent but it seems to me that more of the
> groundbreaking work these days involves the mathematics again.  Where
> molecular mechanisms were once vaguely described, now we seek to tie them
> down with mathematical theory. Ion channel electrostatics and how they
> relate to molecular structure is one example.
>
> Gary G Wilson
> Center for Molecular Recognition
> Columbia University
>







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