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Posts Tagged ‘synaptogenesis’

Image via Wikipedia The A-to-T SNP rs7794745 in the CNTNAP2 gene was found to be associated with increased risk of autism (see Arking et al., 2008).  Specifically, the TT genotype, found in about 15% of individuals, increases these folks’ risk by about 1.2-1.7-fold.  Sure enough, when I checked my 23andMe profile, I found that I’m [...]

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Some quick sketches that might help put the fast-growing epigenetics and cognitive development literature into context.  Visit the University of Utah’s Epigenetics training site for more background! The genome is just the A,G,T,C bases that encode proteins and other mRNA molecules.  The “epi”genome are various modification to the DNA – such as methylation (at C [...]

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The human brain is renown for its complexity.  Indeed, while we often marvel at the mature brain in its splendid form and capability, its even more staggering to consider how to build such a powerful computing machine.  Admittedly, mother nature has been working on this for a long time – perhaps since the first neuronal [...]

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Image by Biking Nikon PDX via Flickr One of the difficult aspects of understanding mental illness, is separating the real causes of the illness from what might be secondary or tertiary consequences of having the illness.  If you think about a car whose engine is not running normally, there may be many observable things going [...]

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If you compare the left panel to the right panel, you’ll see a dendrite (grey) with dendritic spines (green) on the left-side and then, on the right-side, these spines enveloped by the membrane of an astrocyte (white).  These images were obtained from synapse-web.org who use a method known as 3D reconstruction of serial section electron [...]

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Image by shehal via Flickr “A devil, a born devil, on whose nature Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains, Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost And as with age his body uglier grows, So his mind cankers.” So says the wizard Prospero about the wretched Caliban in Shakespeare’s The Tempest (Act IV, [...]

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Image via Wikipedia Joseph LeDoux‘s book, “Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are” opens with his recounting of an incidental glance at a t-shirt, “I don’t know, so maybe I’m not” (a play on Descartes’ “cogito ergo sum“) that prompted him to explore how our brain encodes memory and how that leads to [...]

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Image via Wikipedia If you like gardening, the doldrums of winter can be dreary indeed. Although I’d never admit to it, my neighbors might swear to having seen me outside strangely (pathetically) counting the number of branches on my icicle-laden roses and rhododendrons.  In any case, I do admit to spending way too much time [...]

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