Cells and Circuits
One thing that I have especially found exciting is Cajal's drawings of neurons in the brains of various species. Specifically, how art has contributed to science. After countless drawings he came up with the idea that there was some sort of gap separating the neurons which would later go on to be named the synapse. I found a video that does a great job of explaining Cajal's and Golgi's contributions. What they had to figure out next was the language neurons were using. This language turned out to be a synaptic transmission of neurochemicals, Henry Dale and Otto Loewi are credited with the discovery. What I cannot get over is that Loewi's study came to him in a dream. Incredible.
In addition to things that fascinate me: mirror neurons. The textbook talked about how they develop in infants and how repetition helps strengthen the connections between the sensory and motor neurons so that mirror neurons can be activated from more than one sensory and motor areas.
It is all a very intricate process and disruption of these neural transmissions can lead to things like epilepsy.
Interesting video! I also thought the mirror neurons where cool, and I believe we covered them a bit in cognitive science.
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