{"id":83812,"date":"2018-10-19T10:48:54","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T17:48:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/study-pinpoints-what-makes-human-neurons-unique"},"modified":"2018-10-19T10:48:54","modified_gmt":"2018-10-19T17:48:54","slug":"study-pinpoints-what-makes-human-neurons-unique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/study-pinpoints-what-makes-human-neurons-unique","title":{"rendered":"Study pinpoints what makes human neurons unique"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Human neurons are much larger than those of model organisms mice and rats, so it\u2019s been unclear whether it\u2019s size that makes a difference in our brain\u2019s computational power. Now, in a study appearing October 18 in the journal Cell<\/em>, researchers show that unlike those of other animals, human neurons employ highly compartmentalized signaling. Human dendrites\u2014the tree-like branching structures that function as neurons\u2019 antennas\u2014process electrical signals differently than dendrites in rodents, the most common model systems for studying neuronal properties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe human neuron is basically like a rat neuron, but because it\u2019s so much longer, signals have much farther to travel. The human dendrites thus have a different input-output function\u201d from rats, says senior author Mark Harnett, the Fred and Carole Middleton Career Development Assistant Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. \u201cDendrites farther away from the cell body have fewer ion channels, which control signal processing. That was something we absolutely did not expect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harnett, who studies how the biophysical features of neurons shape information processing in the brain, believes our longer, bigger dendritic arbors endow human neurons and their respective circuits with enhanced computational abilities.<\/p>\n

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Human neurons are much larger than those of model organisms mice and rats, so it\u2019s been unclear whether it\u2019s size that makes a difference in our brain\u2019s computational power. Now, in a study appearing October 18 in the journal Cell, researchers show that unlike those of other animals, human neurons employ highly compartmentalized signaling. Human [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":501,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/501"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}