Charles R Martin <crmartin at indra.com> wrote in message
news:m3wv8kkaic.fsf at localhost.localdomain...
> wroot <wroot at my-deja.com> writes:
>> > David Ehrens wrote:
> >
> > > ...
> > >> > But he warned of the potential hazards of the scientific
> > >> > breakthrough, saying the brand new brain could turn into
> > >> > a Frankenstein's monster if it was mistreated.
> > > ^^^
> > > Hoax alert!
> > > Most journalists would have used the subjunctive, "were".
> > >
> >
> > It could be a hoax. You won't find anything on Vitaly Valtsev on
the
> > Internet. Even a search for "Valtsev" alone produces only 8
matches on
> > google.
> >
> > I'm still curious if it's true that human brain neurons are
substatially
> > different from the rest of the neurons, as far as modeling is
concerned.
>> I could easily be out of date, but so far as I know, the brain's
> neurons are _not_ significantly different in terms of micro-anatomy
Note that human brain cell surface sialic acids, which form integral
parts of molecular structures entailed in binding and regulatory
functions, differ distinctly from that of all other great apes, in
fact all other mammals, in that the cells lack N-glycolylneuraminic
acid, as was reported by Ajit Varki in a Tokyo conference this March,
and commented on in: Science V.292 pp.45-46, Apr. 6, 2001. The small
mutation that causes this in humans is not apparent in other species.
It is possible that the cell-surface profile resulting from this *may*
have enabled a different architecture of connectivity in humans than
in other apes. If so, we might well speculate as to whether human
higher cognitive functionality might be emergent not solely from
constraints of greater connective complexity, but from a random event
long ago in our phylogenic past, which has enabled variation in
connective architecture.
However, though the implications of these findings are of course not
yet known, it is clear that at the micro-architectural level of
cell-to-cell interaction, humans *are* different. As cortical tissue
*in situ* of primates shows distinct uniformity across species,
perhaps the cell surface differences might be better elicited during
the course of ontogeny-- the extraordinary 'mushrooming' of human
telencephalic tissue might derive from as simple a factor as a
difference in cell-to-cell binding, *in transit.*
Humans are a species showing greater variety of behavior than all
others-- perhaps this 'looseness' of choice-paths may derive from a
loosening of constraint at the molecular level.
-d.max
> and the way they generate action potentials and all.
>> >
> > Wroot
>> --
> No one is patriotic about taxes. -- George Orwell
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Charlie Martin, Broomfield, CO USA 40 N 105 W
