Eight patients participated in our first experiment. We were interested in finding out whether the nerve cells responded to one or more of the pictures that we showed the patient. In early experiments we showed patients pictures on a computer screen. This response of nerve cells is also known as firing a spike, and this response is measured in units of Hertz. How do scientists understand the response of these nerve cells? Very simply, we just count the number of times the nerve cells turn on. As we said above, different nerve cells get powered on. Nerve Cells in the Brain Get Powered on When We Look at Thingsīefore we show you what nerve cells do when you learn to link items together, it is important to first understand what nerve cells do when you look at something. The electrodes in their brains are connected to computers that record the electrical activity of their nerve cells. In a typical experiment, patients sit in their hospital beds, or on a chair in their hospital rooms. Most patients who have electrodes inserted into their brains do not mind also performing a few experiments that are not for curing their disease, but that can help scientists like us understand how the brain works. The hippocampus is a structure deep in the brain that looks a little like a seahorse, and that plays an important role in learning and memory. One brain area that is almost always investigated with electrodes is the hippocampus. In extreme cases of epilepsy, doctors insert electrodes into the patient’s brain to listen to this chatter. In this condition, doctors often need to find out where this abnormal chatter is coming from. In many cases the patients lose consciousness and fall on the ground. For example, in patients with epilepsy, groups of nerve cells start talking to each other in abnormal ways, and the messages they send to each other get all mixed up for a few minutes. However, in some situations, doctors have to insert electrodes into the brains of their patients to listen to the electrical activity in their brains. Inserting electrodes into the human brain is unusual. How Can We Insert Electrodes Into the Human Brain? This means that the electrodes need to be inserted into the brain, up close to the nerve cells that we want to listen to. So, to listen to individual nerve cells, we need to get our electrodes really close to them. Each nerve cell has a very small voice (the electric current is very small). Electric currents can be measured with tiny wires that are called electrodes. To listen to nerve cells, we need to be able to measure these small electric currents. When nerve cells get powered on, they send their messages to one another in the form of small electric currents. So, if we want to know if a nerve cell has been powered on by something (e.g., your friend or his dog), we need to be able to listen to these messages. For example, every time you look at something, a bunch of nerve cells in your brain get powered on and pass on messages to other nerve cells about what you are looking at. There are billions of nerve cells in the brain, and they are responsible for all that we think and do. Nerve cells are special cells in our brains. Our hypothesis was that, when you learn the link between your friend and his dog, the same nerve cells would get powered on for both your friend and his dog. As we explain below, when you look at different things, some nerve cells in your brain get powered on. We wanted to understand how nerve cells in the brain store these links. Every time you see this dog, you know it belongs to your friend. Your brain quickly learns this new link between your friend and the dog. The purpose of our study was to understand how the brain links different things together. Then we will show some examples of the responses of these nerve cells, and finally, how the cells can link different items together. In this article, we will first explain how it is possible to listen to nerve cells in the human brain. These nerve cells were found in a region of the brain called the hippocampus. As the participants learned these links, we found that nerve cells in their brains also linked these items together. What happens in brain cells when we learn that two things (e.g., a new kid and her name) go together? In an experiment we asked human participants to learn to link different items together. How does our brain achieve this? The purpose of this study was to understand how the brain creates these links. We constantly link different things together: new kids and their names, faces and voices, green eggs and ham.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |