Download signals in a storm - Columbia University

Carl Schoonover is a neuroscience Ph.D. candidate
at Columbia University and author of Portraits of the
Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st
Century (Abrams, 2010).
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I M AG I N G
SIGNALS
IN A STORM
A new computer imaging technique
shows researchers how brain cells
communicate—one molecule at a time
By Carl Schoonover
The computer-generated image here, created by Tom Bartol of the Salk Institute for Biologyourself small enough to discern individual
ical Studies and his colleagues, is a start. It repmolecules, the far right of this image is what you
resents a small portion of a three-dimensional
might see when one brain cell communicates
reconstruction, four years in the making, of a miwith another across a synapse—the point of
nuscule cube of nervous tissue in a rat brain.
contact between two nerve cells. How the brain
Aside from showing structure, it captures a sinsenses, thinks, learns and emotes depends on
gle dispatch, at the right, from one neuron to
how all its nerve cells, or neurons, communicate
another. Individual molecules of the chemical
with one another. And as a result, many laboraneurotransmitter (yellow) explode out of the
tories are working feverishly to understand how
synapse formed at the point of contact between
synapses function—and how psychiatric drugs,
an axon (gray) extending from the signaling cell
which target them, improve patients’ lives.
and a dendrite (blue) on the receiver. (The blueYet neuroscientists are hobbled by the fact
green structure is a nonneuronal cell that aids
that synapses are extremely complex, vanishneurons in their normal function.)
ingly small and extraordinarily fast. Thanks to
One important observation made possible
the coordinated efforts of over 1,400 types of
by Bartol’s simulation is that fully one fifth of
molecules, one neuron communicates with anthe volume in this region of the brain is nothing
other by spitting out chemical neurotransmitbut the space between neighboring cells—
ters that carry its message across a thin gap to
space through which neurotransmitters can apa receptive surface on its partner. The only way
parently spread fairly widely. This broad diffuto provide a full account of what goes on at the
sion contradicts the standard picture of the
synapse is to build a computer model that is as
synapse as a site of communication
realistic as possible. The hope is that
between only two neurons and could
running a moment-by-moment, molVIEW A SLIDE SHOW
ecule-by-molecule simulation will AND FURTHER READING potentially alter our understanding
ScientificAmerican.com/
of how information spreads through
yield novel insights that could then
mar2011/brain
the brain.
be tested experimentally.
46 Scientifi
ScientificcAmerican,
American,March
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2011
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IMAGE GENERATED BY TOM BARTOL Salk Institute for Biological Studies IN COLLABORATION WITH JUSTIN KINNEY,
DAN KELLER, CHANDRA BAJAJ, MARY KENNEDY, JOEL STILES, KRISTEN HARRIS AND TERRY SEJNOWSKI
IF YOU COULD PAUSE TIME FOR AN INSTANT AND MAKE
Photograph/Illustration by Artist Name
1/13/11 5:27:47 PM
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xxxxxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx.
Photograph/Illustration by Artist Name
sad0311Scho4p.indd 47
March
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20xx,ScientificAmerican.com Scientific American.com 47
1/13/11 5:27:55 PM