Epilogue

Mind Shift ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 411-436
Author(s):  
John Parrington
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Material Force ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Brain Functions ◽  
The Individual

This chapter returns to the various alternative views about human consciousness first mentioned at the start of this book, and assesses how this book’s account compares to, and hopefully builds on, these other viewpoints. The view of human consciousness developed in this book can explain the uniqueness of our species’ conscious awareness, but in an entirely materialistic fashion. This approach views language—the system of abstract symbols linked in a grammatical structure but also one that connects the individual to the world outside via word meaning—and other forms of human culture like music, art, and literature, as a material force that has reshaped human brain functions at every level. This has led to a qualitative shift in such functions, compared to that of every other species, including our closest animal cousins, the great apes. Unlike a purely ‘bottom up’ approach to human brain function, this view sees language, as well as other mediators of human culture, as imposing both structural and dynamic changes in our brains. Structurally, it sees the different brain regions, as well as their interconnections, as altered in humans. The chapter then reflects on what impact, if any, might this approach to understanding human consciousness have on diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.

scholarly journals STAB: a spatio-temporal cell atlas of the human brain

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (D1) ◽  
pp. D1029-D1037
Author(s):  
Liting Song ◽  
Shaojun Pan ◽  
Zichao Zhang ◽  
Longhao Jia ◽  
Wei-Hua Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Single Cell ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Cell Types ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Molecular Characteristics ◽  
Great Effort ◽  
Brain Functions ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
The Brain

Abstract The human brain is the most complex organ consisting of billions of neuronal and non-neuronal cells that are organized into distinct anatomical and functional regions. Elucidating the cellular and transcriptome architecture underlying the brain is crucial for understanding brain functions and brain disorders. Thanks to the single-cell RNA sequencing technologies, it is becoming possible to dissect the cellular compositions of the brain. Although great effort has been made to explore the transcriptome architecture of the human brain, a comprehensive database with dynamic cellular compositions and molecular characteristics of the human brain during the lifespan is still not available. Here, we present STAB (a Spatio-Temporal cell Atlas of the human Brain), a database consists of single-cell transcriptomes across multiple brain regions and developmental periods. Right now, STAB contains single-cell gene expression profiling of 42 cell subtypes across 20 brain regions and 11 developmental periods. With STAB, the landscape of cell types and their regional heterogeneity and temporal dynamics across the human brain can be clearly seen, which can help to understand both the development of the normal human brain and the etiology of neuropsychiatric disorders. STAB is available at http://stab.comp-sysbio.org.

scholarly journals Gene expression heterogeneity during brain development and aging: temporal changes and functional consequences

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulaş Işıldak ◽  
Mehmet Somel ◽  
Janet M. Thornton ◽  
Handan Melike Dönertaş
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Human Brain ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Genetic Alterations ◽  
Individual Heterogeneity ◽  
Brain Functions ◽  
Aging Period ◽  
Gene Expression Heterogeneity ◽  
Development And Aging

AbstractCells in largely non-mitotic tissues such as the brain are prone to stochastic (epi-)genetic alterations that may cause increased variability between cells and individuals over time. Although increased inter-individual heterogeneity in gene expression was previously reported, whether this process starts during development or if it is restricted to the aging period has not yet been studied. The regulatory dynamics and functional significance of putative aging-related heterogeneity are also unknown. Here we address these by a meta-analysis of 19 transcriptome datasets from diverse human brain regions. We observed a significant increase in inter-individual heterogeneity during aging (20+ years) compared to postnatal development (0 to 20 years). Increased heterogeneity during aging was consistent among different brain regions at the gene level and associated with lifespan regulation and neuronal functions. Overall, our results show that increased expression heterogeneity is a characteristic of aging human brain, and may influence aging-related changes in brain functions.

Individual and Society

Mind Shift ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 46-60
Author(s):  
John Parrington
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Evolutionary Changes ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
Trigger Activity ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain

This chapter investigates the relationship between the individual and society, which has been hotly disputed among philosophers and politicians through the ages. Recent studies have questioned the idea that human beings are naturally solitary individuals. Instead, they suggest that socialising with others is so central to our species that rejection is registered in the same brain regions that respond to physical pain. Other studies have undermined the idea that human beings are inherently selfish, indicating instead that altruistic acts trigger activity in the ‘reward’ region of the brain that is stimulated when a person experiences pleasure. Studies like these raise the question of how the human brain became so attuned to social cues in this way. Here there are two issues to consider. One is evidence that primates in general have evolved to be highly sensitive to social interactions with other members of their species, and this has been accompanied by enhanced brain growth in order to handle these more sophisticated interactions. Yet while social interaction may be hardwired into our brains because of evolutionary changes in our primate ancestors, some features of our strong tendency towards social interaction may be specifically human. The chapter then looks at Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s novel ideas about human consciousness.

scholarly journals Interspecies activation correlations reveal functional correspondences between marmoset and human brain areas

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuki Hori ◽  
Justine C. Cléry ◽  
David J. Schaeffer ◽  
Ravi S. Menon ◽  
Stefan Everling
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Common Marmoset ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Primate Species ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Primate Model ◽  
Brain Functions ◽  
Similar Organization

AbstractThe common marmoset has enormous promise as a nonhuman primate model of human brain functions. While resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has provided evidence for a similar organization of marmoset and human cortices, the technique cannot be used to map the functional correspondences of brain regions between species. This limitation can be overcome by movie-driven fMRI (md-fMRI), which has become a popular tool for non-invasively mapping the neural patterns generated by rich and naturalistic stimulation. Here, we used md-fMRI in marmosets and humans to identify whole-brain functional correspondences between the two primate species. In particular, we describe functional correlates for the well-known human face, body, and scene patches in marmosets. We find that these networks have a similar organization in both species, suggesting a largely conserved organization of higher-order visual areas between New World marmoset monkeys and humans. However, while face patches in humans and marmosets were activated by marmoset faces, only human face patches responded to the faces of other animals. Together, the results demonstrate that md-fMRI is a powerful tool for interspecies functional mapping and characterization of higher-order visual functions.

Creativity and Imagination

Mind Shift ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 140-154
Author(s):  
John Parrington
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Adult Human ◽  
The Future ◽  
Human Uniqueness

This chapter describes another aspect of human uniqueness—the links between consciousness, creativity, and imagination. Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky believed that human consciousness is transformed by social interactions, particularly through language, in a similar fashion to how tools have allowed us to transform the natural world. Vygotsky saw imagination as no less influenced by this social input than other aspects of consciousness. To deal with a changing environment, he argued that the human brain ‘combines and creatively reworks elements of this past experience and uses them to generate new propositions and new behaviour [making] the human being a creature oriented toward the future, creating the future and thus altering his own present’. Vygotsky thought that imagination was particularly stimulated in the developing child through the process of play. Some aspects of adult human culture have attributes in common with play, including the link with imagination.

scholarly journals A High-Resolution In Vivo Atlas of the Human Brain’s Benzodiazepine Binding Site of GABAA Receptors

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Nørgaard ◽  
Vincent Beliveau ◽  
Melanie Ganz ◽  
Claus Svarer ◽  
Lars H Pinborg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Human Brain ◽  
Mrna Expression ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Mrna Levels ◽  
Gamma Aminobutyric Acid ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Brain Functions ◽  
The Brain

ABSTRACTGamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the human brain and plays a key role in several brain functions and neuropsychiatric disorders such as anxiety, epilepsy, and depression. The binding of benzodiazepines to the benzodiazepine receptor sites (BZR) located on GABAA receptors (GABAARs) potentiates the inhibitory effect of GABA leading to the anxiolytic, anticonvulsant and sedative effects used for treatment of those disorders. However, the function of GABAARs and the expression of BZR protein is determined by the GABAAR subunit stoichiometry (19 genes coding for individual subunits), and it remains to be established how the pentamer composition varies between brain regions and individuals.Here, we present a quantitative high-resolution in vivo atlas of the human brain BZRs, generated on the basis of [11C]flumazenil Positron Emission Tomography (PET) data. Next, based on autoradiography data, we transform the PET-generated atlas from binding values into BZR protein density. Finally, we examine the brain regional association with mRNA expression for the 19 subunits in the GABAAR, including an estimation of the minimally required expression of mRNA levels for each subunit to translate into BZR protein.This represents the first publicly available quantitative high-resolution in vivo atlas of the spatial distribution of BZR densities in the healthy human brain. The atlas provides a unique neuroscientific tool as well as novel insights into the association between mRNA expression for individual subunits in the GABAAR and the BZR density at each location in the brain.

scholarly journals Quantitative gene expression profiling of mouse brain regions reveals differential transcripts conserved in human and affected in disease models

2008 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camille Brochier ◽  
Marie-Claude Gaillard ◽  
Elsa Diguet ◽  
Nicolas Caudy ◽  
Carole Dossat ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Substantia Nigra ◽  
Mouse Model ◽  
Human Brain ◽  
Mouse Brain ◽  
Wild Type Mouse ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Expression Data ◽  
Brain Functions

Using serial analysis of gene expression, we collected quantitative transcriptome data in 11 regions of the adult wild-type mouse brain: the orbital, prelimbic, cingulate, motor, somatosensory, and entorhinal cortices, the caudate-putamen, the nucleus accumbens, the thalamus, the substantia nigra, and the ventral tegmental area. With >1.2 million cDNA tags sequenced, this database is a powerful resource to explore brain functions and disorders. As an illustration, we performed interregional comparisons and found 315 differential transcripts. Most of them are poorly characterized and 20% lack functional annotation. For 78 differential transcripts, we provide independent expression level measurements in mouse brain regions by real-time quantitative RT-PCR. We also show examples where we used in situ hybridization to achieve infrastructural resolution. For 30 transcripts, we next demonstrated that regional enrichment is conserved in the human brain. We then quantified the expression levels of region-enriched transcripts in the R6/2 mouse model of Huntington disease and the 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) mouse model of Parkinson disease and observed significant alterations in the striatum, cerebral cortex, thalamus and substantia nigra of R6/2 mice and in the striatum of MPTP-treated mice. These results show that the gene expression data provided here for the mouse brain can be used to explore pathophysiological models and disclose transcripts differentially expressed in human brain regions.

Neuroglial Transmission

2015 ◽  
Vol 95 (3) ◽  
pp. 695-726 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vidar Gundersen ◽  
Jon Storm-Mathisen ◽  
Linda Hildegard Bergersen
Keyword(s):  
Grey Matter ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Brain Functions ◽  
Carrier Mediated Transport ◽  
Synaptic Neurotransmission ◽  
The Central Nervous System ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Brain

Neuroglia, the “glue” that fills the space between neurons in the central nervous system, takes active part in nerve cell signaling. Neuroglial cells, astroglia, oligodendroglia, and microglia, are together about as numerous as neurons in the brain as a whole, and in the cerebral cortex grey matter, but the proportion varies widely among brain regions. Glial volume, however, is less than one-fifth of the tissue volume in grey matter. When stimulated by neurons or other cells, neuroglial cells release gliotransmitters by exocytosis, similar to neurotransmitter release from nerve endings, or by carrier-mediated transport or channel flux through the plasma membrane. Gliotransmitters include the common neurotransmitters glutamate and GABA, the nonstandard amino acid d-serine, the high-energy phosphate ATP, and l-lactate. The latter molecule is a “buffer” between glycolytic and oxidative metabolism as well as a signaling substance recently shown to act on specific lactate receptors in the brain. Complementing neurotransmission at a synapse, neuroglial transmission often implies diffusion of the transmitter over a longer distance and concurs with the concept of volume transmission. Transmission from glia modulates synaptic neurotransmission based on energetic and other local conditions in a volume of tissue surrounding the individual synapse. Neuroglial transmission appears to contribute significantly to brain functions such as memory, as well as to prevalent neuropathologies.

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