December 28, 2010
In Pursuit of a Mind Map, Slice by Slice
From The New York Times:
Dr. Jeff Lichtman likes his brains sliced thin — very, very thin. Dr. Lichtman and his team of researchers at Harvard have built some unusual contraptions that carve off slivers of mouse brains as part of a quest to understand how the mind works. Their goal is to run slice after minuscule slice under a powerful electron microscope, develop detailed pictures of the brain’s complex wiring and then stitch the images back together. In short, they want to build a full map of the mind.
The field, at a very nascent stage, is called connectomics, and the neuroscientists pursuing it compare their work to early efforts in genetics. What they are doing, these scientists say, is akin to trying to crack the human genome — only this time around, they want to find how memories, personality traits and skills are stored.
They want to find a connectome, or the mental makeup of a person.
More here.
Posted by Azra Raza at 07:28 AM | Permalink
Comments
Go tell Aunt Sally
Go Tell Aunt Sally
Go Tell Aunt Sally
The old grey goose is dead.
The one that she's been savin' (3 times)
To make a feather bed.
She died in the millpond (3 times)
From standin' on her head.
The goslins are crying (3 times)
Because their mammy's dead.
The gander is weeping (3 times)
Because his wife is dead.
Go tell Aunt Sally
Go Tell Aunt Sally
Go Tell Aunt Sally
The old grey goose is dead.
Posted by: Frances Madeson | Dec 28, 2010 5:33:11 PM
Why the dickens is this news? The technique they write about isn't new. The only thing that's new is that it's being applied to a higher class of organism, which happens in science utilizing animal testing all the time.
And the absolute fawning over how this technique will build a "map of the mind" is ludicrous.
See more here: http://noompa.wordpress.com/2010/12/21/the-piddling-state-of-psychological-research/
Posted by: Ben | Dec 30, 2010 10:44:22 AM
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