In the video below, Dr. Fields talks about the importance of
glia and the new discoveries made. With all the research it is true that glia
are a very essential part of our brain. This video explains how they use laser
and video microscopes and other technologies to test the importance of glial
cells in our brain.
Supportive Cells: Astrocytes (star shaped), whose functions are the nutrition and structure of neurotransmitters serve to clean up, transport nutrients to neurons, hold them in place and digest dead neurons. As for oligodendocytes, they produce fatty proteins known as myelin. The third known as, microglia are the active immune cells. As for these types of glia cells, they all play an important role in the brain, still it is known that these cells cannot transmit information over long distances compared to neurons.
I became fascinated with this topic because it has always caught my attention to know how someone can be as smart and be known as a genius by the population. Some of these terms seem very difficult to me and I have to read the same information a couple of times in order to understand the concept. Wouldn’t we all want to know how the brain of a genius differs from that of a regular human being? I know I would. As I saw in a video, many scientists try to explain this possible new theory of finding ‘genius cells’ in the brain. Others disapprove of such new findings. Not everything can be explained by science, and maybe environmental factors as well as hereditary traits shape our brain.
i saw the video mentioning Albert Einstein's brain and i was very shocked and intrigued by the findings!!! For a second i thought it was pretty amazing on how he shared his gift to the world because his number of glia. But, also wondered if anyone could have what he has and be considered a "genius". I know there is more studies to be done to really understand glia, but i think heredity might take a role play in our number of glia. I did observation hours with an occupational therapist and noticed that most kids had developmental delay because their parents also did. so there might be a link to how the brain functions due to our ancestors, but i wont rely much on that. there has been people with ADH, AAD, and even OCD cases were people are beyond intelligent but like you said environment also has an effects on how we process and take in information.
ReplyDeleteNadia, I couldn't agree more with you, this is a very interesting topic! After 100 years, scientists are barely giving glia cells some importance! Can you imagine what could have been discovered if they would have been studied earlier? Who knows maybe we would've already found out if glia cells actually do play an important role in our intelligence. I am glad researchers have finally come to research glia cells, since there is not much to know about them. Research on glia cells might even prove the theory that only ten percent of our brain is used to be incorrect.
ReplyDeleteI agree, im sure there are many different factors that affect the amount of glia cells that we have in our body. Although, it is hard to believe that even though they play such a crucial part, for about 100 years they were pretty much ignored. It is interesting to see how neuroscience research has changed its gears and are now focusing alot of their attention on glia cells. Can you believe that besides being a structural support for neurons they might even play a role in how smart we are? If this is true, then they need to advance in their research so i can find a way to get more! :P Since the brain is soo complex, im sure glia cells aren't the only ones that were overlooked. I hope that with time we can prove which factors affect it and how we can prevent any damages to them.
ReplyDeleteIt's exciting to think how much more there is to learn about the brain. Glial cells are a new frontier for neuropsychology!
ReplyDeleteIt seems easy to remember what glia is by using the quote about the glue. I am horrible at science and it really truly simplifies what glia is. Maybe it did have to do with the fact that Einstein had so many glia cells. If maybe they researched people’s glia cells by looking at different IQ levels in comparison to the glia.
ReplyDelete