scholarly journals VII. The David Ferrier Lecture - On some correlations between skull and brain

Mr . President and Gentlemen, My most pleasant duty to-day is to thank your Council for the honour that it has conferred upon me by inviting me to give the second lecture in memory of the late Sir David Ferrier. I have accepted this invitation with feelings of gratitude, not only to your Council, but also for the contributions made in this country to our knowledge of the structure and function of the nervous system. Among these, the works of Sir David Ferrier, however prominent, only stand out as a conspicuous example of a national tradition, maintained in recent years, both in the Physiology and Anatomy of the brain. The task I have accepted is not an easy one, the less so as the first Ferrier lecture was given by Sir Charles Sherrington who, in both the methods and results of his investigations, attained a degree of exactness at which morphologists aim in vain.

1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 347-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles G. Gross

Leonardo Da Vinci had a deep interest in the structure and function of the body. His drawings are the oldest surviving naturalistic depictions of human anatomy. This article examines seven of his drawings of the nervous system. In the earlier ones, he is almost totally bound by medieval tradition. Later, his drawings become more closely tied to his own dissections, and he invents new ways of representing the results of anatomical investigation. NEUROSCIENTIST 3:347–354, 1997


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tal Shomrat ◽  
Nir Nesher

What are the structures and functions of the brain that are important for complex learning, such as the ability to quickly figure out how to activate a new application in your smartphone? What are the brain mechanisms that allow memories, like the name of your first-grade teacher, to be stored and quickly recalled, even many years later? Which part of the brain generates the creativity and flexibility of thought necessary for learning a new smartphone interface, for example? These questions are some of the most studied in neuroscience, which is the science that studies the brain and nervous system. In this article, we will tell you how research on the octopus’s brain could help us find answers to these questions. By comparing the structure and function of the octopus brain to the brains of other animals, we might even obtain clues about the workings of the human brain.


Cancers ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 2507
Author(s):  
Carla Mucignat-Caretta

The brain may be affected by a variety of tumors of different grade, which originate from different cell types at distinct locations, thus impacting on the brain structure and function [...]


2014 ◽  
Vol 155 (26) ◽  
pp. 1011-1018 ◽  
Author(s):  
György Végvári ◽  
Edina Vidéki

Plants seem to be rather defenceless, they are unable to do motion, have no nervous system or immune system unlike animals. Besides this, plants do have hormones, though these substances are produced not in glands. In view of their complexity they lagged behind animals, however, plant organisms show large scale integration in their structure and function. In higher plants, such as in animals, the intercellular communication is fulfilled through chemical messengers. These specific compounds in plants are called phytohormones, or in a wide sense, bioregulators. Even a small quantity of these endogenous organic compounds are able to regulate the operation, growth and development of higher plants, and keep the connection between cells, tissues and synergy beween organs. Since they do not have nervous and immume systems, phytohormones play essential role in plants’ life. Orv. Hetil., 2014, 155(26), 1011–1018.


2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 863-867 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Mizielinska ◽  
S. Greenwood ◽  
C.N. Connolly

Maintaining the correct balance in neuronal activation is of paramount importance to normal brain function. Imbalances due to changes in excitation or inhibition can lead to a variety of disorders ranging from the clinically extreme (e.g. epilepsy) to the more subtle (e.g. anxiety). In the brain, the most common inhibitory synapses are regulated by GABAA (γ-aminobutyric acid type A) receptors, a role commensurate with their importance as therapeutic targets. Remarkably, we still know relatively little about GABAA receptor biogenesis. Receptors are constructed as pentameric ion channels, with α and β subunits being the minimal requirement, and the incorporation of a γ subunit being necessary for benzodiazepine modulation and synaptic targeting. Insights have been provided by the discovery of several specific assembly signals within different GABAA receptor subunits. Moreover, a number of recent studies on GABAA receptor mutations associated with epilepsy have further enhanced our understanding of GABAA receptor biogenesis, structure and function.


1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-28
Author(s):  
CS Breathnach

AbstractInterest in the psychiatric aspects of old age predated the institution of geriatrics as a clinical discipline, but the systematic study of the ageing brain only began in the second half of this century when an ageing population presented a global numerical challenge to society. In the senescent cerebral cortex, though the number of neurons is not reduced, cell shrinkage results in synaptic impoverishment with consequent cognitive impairment. Recent advances in imaging techniques, combined with burgeoning knowledge of neurobiological structure and function, have increased our understanding of the ageing processes in the human brain and permit an optimistic approach in the application of the newer insights into neuropsychology and geriatric psychiatry.


2004 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianhua Zhang ◽  
Amy Moseley ◽  
Anil G. Jegga ◽  
Ashima Gupta ◽  
David P. Witte ◽  
...  

To understand the commitment of the genome to nervous system differentiation and function, we sought to compare nervous system gene expression to that of a wide variety of other tissues by gene expression database construction and mining. Gene expression profiles of 10 different adult nervous tissues were compared with that of 72 other tissues. Using ANOVA, we identified 1,361 genes whose expression was higher in the nervous system than other organs and, separately, 600 genes whose expression was at least threefold higher in one or more regions of the nervous system compared with their median expression across all organs. Of the 600 genes, 381 overlapped with the 1,361-gene list. Limited in situ gene expression analysis confirmed that identified genes did represent nervous system-enriched gene expression, and we therefore sought to evaluate the validity and significance of these top-ranked nervous system genes using known gene literature and gene ontology categorization criteria. Diverse functional categories were present in the 381 genes, including genes involved in intracellular signaling, cytoskeleton structure and function, enzymes, RNA metabolism and transcription, membrane proteins, as well as cell differentiation, death, proliferation, and division. We searched existing public sites and identified 110 known genes related to mental retardation, neurological disease, and neurodegeneration. Twenty-one of the 381 genes were within the 110-gene list, compared with a random expectation of 5. This suggests that the 381 genes provide a candidate set for further analyses in neurological and psychiatric disease studies and that as a field, we are as yet, far from a large-scale understanding of the genes that are critical for nervous system structure and function. Together, our data indicate the power of profiling an individual biologic system in a multisystem context to gain insight into the genomic basis of its structure and function.


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