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A Very Ruff Xmas 2011

Don't know the origination except that it was posted to FB by Michael A.... a friend with a wonderfully warped sense of humor

Payback

Next step, Newt Gingrich

By John Roach 

After six years and several million dollars, scientists have created a 3-D model of a rat brain circuit.

The accomplishment is a first step toward creating a complete computer model of the brain that will allow a deeper understanding of how our noggins work — and what causes them to malfunction, according to the scientists behind the feat. 

For a starting point, researchers at the Max Planck Florida Institute are focused on how the rat brain processes information gathered by a single whisker. 

They did so because studies in their lab and elsewhere have shown that a single whisker is able to detect, in complete darkness, whether a gap is safe to jump over and, if so, trigger the order to jump. 

What's more, there's a specific region of the brain "that is dedicated to processing information from a dedicated whisker," Marcel Oberlaender, a researcher at the institute and the first author of a paper explaining the research in the journal Cerebral Cortex, told me today.

That region is called the cortical column, a vertically-organized series of connected neurons that form a brain circuit and an elementary building block of the cortex. 

The cortex is the part of the brain responsible for many of the higher functions, such as memory and consciousness.

To build the model, the researchers studied the cortical column in awake and anesthetized rats as well as brain slices and then used computer software and other tools to reconstruct it.

"The model we built is really based on a complete reconstruction of these nerve cells," Oberlaender said. "So how the model looks in the end resembles how it would look in the real animal."

It is composed of 16,000 neurons, each of which can be divided into one of nine different cell types that has characteristic functional, structural and connectivity properties, he added.

The model can now be used to run computer simulations that show, in realistic detail, how signals flow within the brain. So, they can begin to understand, for example, what neurons fire as the rat detects the gap and decides whether or not to jump.

Until now, researchers have only been able to see how a single neuron or a small group of neurons interact during such a process. "We can now, in simulation experiments, mimic what is really going on in these circuits," Oberlaender said.

Going forward, the researchers should be able to use the methodology developed to build this model to add more parts to it, thus incorporating other brain functions such as the motor system that sends a signal down the spinal cord and makes the limbs move so that rat can jump over the gap.

*  *  *

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website.

My friend & colleague

 Annie

My Marie > Fifty Two Years Later

When I was a very, very young and lucky fellow, I dated a dark haired, ravishing, buxom beauty named Marie (accent over the 'e'). We were inseparable at school, after school, movies, sandwich shops, parties and so forth. It was a very serious affair for a pair of 16 year olds.

Finally I thought I'd better bring Marie home to meet my parents just in case we decided to get married. She was okay with this but understandably nervous.

Marie, a dresser as well as a looker and sex goddess, donned one of her finer outfits: a beautiful but modest blouse with a full skirt maxed out by all the undergarments of the time, did up her hair and makeup in demure fashion, to prepare for this august occasion.

When I saw her, I was both pleased and relieved by her appearance. And so I took Marie home to meet my parents. 

We arrived and the folks met us outside on the front lawns along with our boxers Junior and Cleo (as in 'patra'), Rita, the pet black white goat and the mini-dachshund, Chiquita.

And there stood Marie, hand outstretched, greeting first my father (whom I think she momentarily flirted with as this was her way) and then my mother, the Empress.

It was a very warm day and I was sweating it but everything seemed to be going well as I watched the expression on my parents' face for a sign.

Meanwhile, one of my faithful Boxers (it was Junior) ambled up to Marie, walked between her legs, stuck his head under her crinolines, looked straight up and started panting.

For a moment, Marie tried to be 'cool' and ignore it, thinking it was a momentary aberration which would disappear on it's own. But Junior didn't move and the seconds seemed like hours.

It must of been dark under all those crinolines so I don't know what he was doing but Marie was finally forced to step back and gather herself and her skirts, thus utterly destroying this important teenage moment.

Of course everyone apologized for Junior's bad behavior except me as I couldn't blame him for reading my mind.

Anyway, the following year I was away at boarding school and Marie ended up with a different guy.

Last I heard, which was many years later, she was married with five kids.

I've never seen her again.

December 2011