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Newly Discovered 'Rose Hip' Neurons May Be Unique To Humans

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Re: Newly Discovered 'Rose Hip' Neurons May Be Unique To Humans

#21

Post by Retric »

kanzure wrote: post #19
stult wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably been orders of magnitude more time spent analyzing rodent brains, simply because there is an effectively unlimited quantity available and an extremely limited quantity of human brains available. Essentially all invasive human brain studies are preceded by animal model studies (usually starting with rodents before proceeding to "higher" animals if that's called for), but conversely not all animal mode…

I wouldn't expect the number of human autopsies to be more than a few million over the entire history of the human species. Nobody looks at human brains. It's a huge problem.

US alone does over 3 million autopsies a decade so it’s easily 10’s of millions over human history. The issue in terms of science is the vast majority of these have nothing to do with scientific research.

Re: Newly Discovered 'Rose Hip' Neurons May Be Unique To Humans

#22

Post by nonbel »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #15
nonbel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had some old pictures of stained rodent brains and saw something looked qualitatively like what they described in the first (and only) image I checked. Since they dont give any definite criteria for me to compare against, what can I do?

Well, they give about the most definite criteria they can given current techniques, which is the transcriptomic profile. In fig 2e [0] they also give a bouton density profile. If you still have the pictures and have neurogliaform and basket cells stained with the same technique, you should be able to determine whether you are in the ballpark. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-018-0205-2/figures/2

I looked at the paper. I mean there needs to be a table that tells us what they consider the acceptable range for spine density, bouton density, soma size, soma ellipsity or whatever shape stats, branching stats, etc.

I dont really know what to do with that figure 2e... it looks like they cherry picked stats where they saw a "significant difference" from the other types of cells they looked at.

Re: Newly Discovered 'Rose Hip' Neurons May Be Unique To Humans

#25

Post by newsbinator »

bitL wrote: post #23
jtbayly wrote: post #20

But we’re totally going to be able to simulate the human brain and upload consciousness into a computer, right?

What if singularity already happened and we are its result?

Then we could probably make it happen again, for us.

Re: Newly Discovered 'Rose Hip' Neurons May Be Unique To Humans

#26

Post by newsbinator »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #2

I feel discoveries like this that can either be a promising lead that turns out to be nothing (e.g. mice don’t have these neurons but other animals do) or could wind up being the single biggest discovery in the study of sentience ever are the perfect example of what real science is like.

When has it ever been the latter?

Re: Newly Discovered 'Rose Hip' Neurons May Be Unique To Humans

#27

Post by cicero »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #5

While I am usually sceptical of anything that has even a whiff of human exceptionalism, this is a fascinating result. Ed is extremely interested in and well versed in comparative neurobiology, and despite the deathgrip that Allen's PR team has on all external communication, the fact that he seems to have approved of the spin is a good sign. Second, the primary outstanding question that I have is whether we have actua…

> I am usually sceptical of anything that has even a whiff of human exceptionalism

Why are you skeptical? There is clearly a huge leap in rational intelligence when you go from other animals to humans. I would expect we would eventually find a reason for it.

Re: Newly Discovered 'Rose Hip' Neurons May Be Unique To Humans

#28

Post by phkahler »

"These types of cells [inhibitory neurons] are extremely important," he says. And when there's dysfunction in them, he says, that can "directly be linked to different types of neuropsychiatric disease, like schizophrenia."

That's a really bold claim with nothing in the article backing it up. If I put my thinking cap on, perhaps there is an established link between failure of inhibitory neurons and neuropsychiatric disease (this would not surprise me but it's not called out in the article), but even if that has been established it's a big leap to assign so much importance to this particular variant of inhibitory neuron that has just been discovered (in dead people) and is barely understood.

Re: Newly Discovered 'Rose Hip' Neurons May Be Unique To Humans

#29

Post by bognition »

phkahler wrote: post #28

"These types of cells [inhibitory neurons] are extremely important," he says. And when there's dysfunction in them, he says, that can "directly be linked to different types of neuropsychiatric disease, like schizophrenia." That's a really bold claim with nothing in the article backing it up. If I put my thinking cap on, perhaps there is an established link between failure of inhibitory neurons and neuropsychiatric di…

The claim isn't that bold, there is a well established link between inhibitory neuron disfunction and neuropsychiatric disorders.

I think you're mis-reading the comment. The passage says that inhibitory neurons are important, not the 'Rose Hip' neurons.

Re: Newly Discovered 'Rose Hip' Neurons May Be Unique To Humans

#30

Post by dnautics »

cicero wrote: post #27
hyperion2010 wrote: post #5

While I am usually sceptical of anything that has even a whiff of human exceptionalism, this is a fascinating result. Ed is extremely interested in and well versed in comparative neurobiology, and despite the deathgrip that Allen's PR team has on all external communication, the fact that he seems to have approved of the spin is a good sign. Second, the primary outstanding question that I have is whether we have actua…

> I am usually sceptical of anything that has even a whiff of human exceptionalism Why are you skeptical? There is clearly a huge leap in rational intelligence when you go from other animals to humans. I would expect we would eventually find a reason for it.

Empiricism. There have been many claims to human exceptionally that have been spurious or found elsewhere. And there are exceptionally human things that are probably just chance because every species likely has something odd going on (rats! Have no gall bladder and have two insulins)
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