FAQ: Team neurons

5 facts about various cell functions in the nervous system

One of the most important questions in the physiology of behavior - where decisions are made. It appears, in any animal, person at a time is implemented, only one form of behavior. You can not simultaneously compress and straighten hand, it is contrary to the whole structure of the nervous system.

• 1.The concept of "stimulus-response"

If we analyze this process in terms of the concept of "stimulus-response", which was adopted in the 60-70-ies, and try to determine who is who commanded in the nervous system, it turns out that control muscle motor neurons. In 70-80s have learned to take intracellularly from neuron to understand the inner life of each cell. Then it became very clear that every 2-3 action potential in a motor neuron causes muscle contraction. Further there are several levels of interneurons, ie brain cells, which receive information from nerve cells and transmit it to motoneurons and muscle cells. This is followed by sensory level, and it turns out that if we activate the sensor part is activated interneurons, the motor neurons and movement. Thus, all the teams sensory neurons. If you bring this line to its logical extremum, it appears that the primary sensory neurons, that is, one retinal cell or a neuron tactile feeling in the skin, the commander of all behavior. The absurdity of this "linear" point of view was quite obvious.

• 2.Decision-Making Centers

At some point, somewhere on the verge of 60-70's, was theoretically formulated in the nervous system neurons have centers or decision-makers, they are necessary, it does not work without them. It really helped work on invertebrates, because any vertebrate animal, any mammal has hundreds of billions of nerve cells. Among the invertebrates are animals that have less than 20 thousands of nerve cells, for example, about 6 snails some thousands of such cells, and thus they reproduce and live for many hundreds of millions of years longer than men. They survive in this world and obviously have a center of decision-making.
There have been many efforts to locate these centers, especially that of invertebrates, particularly in gastropods, the size of a single cell reaches a millimeter, that is, it can be seen with the naked eye.

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Here the question of who who commands, rose very sharply. Because we can stick a microelectrode in the sensory neurons in the motor neurons and interneurons, and it turns out that, in fact, not all forms of behavior, but for many, especially where behavior is implemented according to the principle "all or nothing" - is withdrawal, activation of avoiding behavior, some drastic forms of behavior - there exists either one or a few large nerve cells. Activation of these cells starts holistic forms of behavior.

• 3.Commanders cells

For example, fish have only two "team" mautnerovskie cells are symmetrical - the left and right. This giant cells, which run along the entire nervous system. In response to any sharp fish do not float away stimulus immediately, it first moves with the trajectory of a predator attack, so he missed it, and only then begins to float away. These giant cells on the basis of all the information received instantly make a decision, and it is immediately executed flawlessly. Such cells are sometimes referred to commanders, or command. Their counterparts were found in very many animals for various behaviors, including crustaceans and shellfish. These cells make decisions based on specific situations, give the appropriate commands, and motor cells perform them.

• 4.The modulating system

The existence of the centers of decision-making - a conceptual point because, when we move to the analysis of the higher level of the nervous system, it is necessary to imagine how it is set up, understand, someone who commands. Command cells perform their specific functions in a completely clear behavioral conditions and their activity, in turn, modulate other cells which, when activated in the personal behavior seemingly unchanged. If such cells are activated intracellularly, nothing we have not seen until then, until after some time, try not to activate the same form of behavior. It is either completely inhibited, or, on the contrary, it is strongly activated modulating cells.

In fact, the behavior of neural modulation systems that no one in command, in fact, determine everything that happens to the animals in the future. Such cells are referred to as modulating, since they do not cause any response at a given time, but merely modulate future reactions. In animals, these higher level memory cells are connected, they are required for learning to be responsible for those analogs emotional changes, emotional states, which have lower organized animals. These cells proved to be extremely important, especially when on a neurochemical level of analysis.

We've learned that the communication between the cells can be described using electrical processes: activation of the action potential in the same cell, the selection of the chemical, then the activation of the action potential in the cell and the other movement of the nerve impulse along the chain. In fact, about the way it is: in the end comes the nerve impulse to the muscle, then the muscles contract, and thus realized behavior.

• 5.Prospects of psychophysiology

But it turns out that the determining of the nervous system - this is the cocktail in which float the nerve cells of the brain, and the chemical content of this cocktail is determined modulatory neurons. They are very much different levels, and they define virtually everything that occurs in the nervous system, and, most importantly, what will happen in the future.

Cells makers and modulating behavior, is very well documented in animals with a small number of neurons and much worse than described, where millions and billions of neurons. Nevertheless, it is now known that there are whole classes of cells that either take a decision or discharged prior to commit some action. Today found that when the animal lifts the paw, certain neurons discharged before the movement, and therefore if it does not lift a paw, these neurons are not discharged. They are not commanding, but they belong to a class of neurons, decision makers, because their activity is observed prior to committing any event, that is, they are one of the reasons that this form of behavior will be implemented.

To date, research in this area is extremely difficult, because the most interesting - is the study of mammals in which too many neurons, and we can not look at any specific, so most do not enter the ones that we need. Now there are new techniques with which to genetically mark some neurons and look at their activity during behavior. Unfortunately, while these techniques are simple and clear enough, the results of their bad interpreted, but in this area is the main perspective direction. Analysis of neural network activity, are associated with some cognitive processes, with the general perception of the environment, with complex forms of behavior - is the future of neuroscience and is the main focus of our research.