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March 26 - April 24, 2015
For many years thereafter, I thought that running off to Czechoslovakia was the equivalent of devoting one’s life to the happy pursuit of sensuality.
Hans Ruzicka was to write, “These are the people who cheered the Emperor and then cursed him, who welcomed democracy after the Emperor was dethroned and then cheered [Dollfuss’s] fascism when the system came to power. Today he is a Nazi, tomorrow he will be something else.”
“What a cruel irony of fate to pair, like Siamese twins, united by the shoulders, scientific adversaries of such contrasting character.”
discovery of the synaptic potential proved that nerve cells use two different kinds of electrical signals. They use the action potential for long-range signaling, to carry information from one region of the nerve cell to another, and they use the synaptic potential for local signaling, to convey information across the synapse.
I am reminded of a story told about Sigmund Freud when he arrived in England and was shown the beautiful house on the outskirts of London that he was to live in. On seeing the tranquility and civility that his forced emigration had brought him to, he was moved to whisper with typical Viennese irony, “Heil Hitler!”
“Things will go along like this for a while and then they’ll get worse!”
Moreover, it is stored in the same area of the cerebral cortex that originally processed the information—that is, memories of visual images are stored in various areas of the visual cortex, and memories of tactile experiences are stored in the somatosensory cortex
“Where do you come from?” “Vienna,” I replied. Without changing her overall condescending expression, she forced a small smile and said, “That’s nice. We used to call that little Paris.”
one of his other friends passed on to Axel his pronouncement about Vienna: “It’s the Philadelphia of Europe.”
Boston matron who, when asked about her travels, responded, “Why should I travel? I’m already here.”
“To tell the truth, sir, we don’t do it because it’s useful; we do it because it’s amusing.”
One of his students later described him as “a large brain at the end of a long thin rod.”
As Carew and I would say to each other, “When other people engage in this talk, it’s gossip; when we do it, it’s intellectual history.”
during short-term habituation lasting minutes, the sensory neuron releases less neurotransmitter, and during short-term sensitization it releases more neurotransmitter.
Repeated stimulation causes protein kinase A and MAP kinase to move to the nucleus, where protein kinase A activates CREB-1 and MAP kinase inactivates CREB-2. Thus
RNA molecules are awakened and activated by a novel protein that regulates local protein synthesis. This protein is known as CPEB (cytoplasmic polyadenylation element-binding protein).
As Kausik looked carefully at the amino acid sequence of the novel CPEB, he noticed something very peculiar. One end of the protein had all the characteristics of a prion.
Upon recall, this core memory is then elaborated upon and reconstructed, with subtractions, additions, elaborations, and distortions. What biological processes enable me to review my own history with such emotional vividness?
there is no single cortical area to which all other cortical areas report exclusively, either in the visual or in any other system. In sum, the cortex must be using a different strategy for generating the integrated visual image.
The brain’s capacity for processing sensory information is more limited than its receptors’ capacity for measuring the environment.
attention enhances the response of neurons to stimuli.
we found that blocking the action of dopamine in the hippocampus blocked the stabilization of the spatial map in an animal that was paying attention. Conversely, activating dopamine receptors in the hippocampus stabilized the spatial map of an animal that was not paying attention.
selective attention is critical to the unitary nature of consciousness.
the determining factor in whether memory is implicit or explicit is the manner in which the attentional signal for salience is recruited.
much the same way that serotonin modulates the amount and state of the CPEB protein in Aplysia, dopamine modulates the amount of the prion-like CPEB protein (CPEB-3) in the mouse hippocampus.
Rolipram significantly improves learning that involves the hippocampus; indeed, older animals given Rolipram performed as well as younger mice on memory tasks.
They found that in rodents, as in people, both innate and learned fear recruit a neural circuit focused on the amygdala.
claustrum meet the requirements of a conductor; it can bind together and coordinate the various brain regions necessary for the unity of conscious awareness.
Having been trained in history and the humanities, where one learns early on how depressing life can be, I am delighted to have ultimately switched to biology, where a delusional optimism still abounds.
