40 posts · 25,238 views
Science is a lot like sex. Sometimes something useful comes of it, but that's not the reason we're doing it. --Richard Feynman- Welcome to the weblog of Björn Brembs, the owner of brembs.net. I'm a biologist with a wide variety of other scientific and non-scientific interests.
Björn Brembs
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- August 3, 2009
- 09:05 AM
- 1,769 views
Don't stress the scientists!
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
“very absent-minded persons in going in their bedroom to dress for dinner have been known to take off one garment after another and finally to get into bed, merely because that was the habitual issue of the first few movements when performed at a late hour”William James, 1890It is difficult to kick a habit. Like riding a bike – once automated, some behaviors can stay with us for a lifetime. Life-long memories are a familiar trait. After all, they define who we are. We can recall important........ Read more »
Schwabe, L., & Wolf, O. (2009) Stress Prompts Habit Behavior in Humans. Journal of Neuroscience, 29(22), 7191-7198. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0979-09.2009
Dias-Ferreira, E., Sousa, J., Melo, I., Morgado, P., Mesquita, A., Cerqueira, J., Costa, R., & Sousa, N. (2009) Chronic Stress Causes Frontostriatal Reorganization and Affects Decision-Making. Science, 325(5940), 621-625. DOI: 10.1126/science.1171203
Brembs, B. (2009) Mushroom Bodies Regulate Habit Formation in Drosophila. Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.06.014
- September 29, 2008
- 11:58 AM
- 1,280 views
Insect learning: trace conditioning and spike timing-dependent plasticity
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
The most well-known molecular mechanism of learning involves coincidence detection. In post-synaptic LTP, the NMDA receptor only opens fully if a postsynaptic depolarization has removed the magnesium block by the time glutamate arrives at the receptor. In pre-synaptic facilitation, adenylyl cycase only generates large amounts of cAMP when stimulated both by transmitter and by coincident Ca2+ influx. Thus, in both cases, you need neural activity (i.e., action potentials or spikes) to coincide ont........ Read more »
Iori Ito, Rose Chik-ying Ong, Baranidharan Raman, & Mark Stopfer. (2008) Sparse odor representation and olfactory learning. Nature Neuroscience, 11(10), 1177-1184. DOI: 10.1038/nn.2192
- October 24, 2008
- 12:24 PM
- 1,197 views
No brain is too small for a memory
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
I'm trying to catch up with my backlog of research news (~600 unread messages) and what do you know, the first one is already worth blogging about! Researchers from the Brooklyn College in New York have tested classical conditioning in Nautilus. This was an interesting experiment, because Nautilus (which is a cephalopod like squid, cuttlefish and octopus) doesn't have the structures known to be important for forming memories in this group of animals. So in true Pavlovian fashion, they flashed a ........ Read more »
R. Crook, & J. Basil. (2008) A biphasic memory curve in the chambered nautilus, Nautilus pompilius L. (Cephalopoda: Nautiloidea). Journal of Experimental Biology, 211(12), 1992-1998. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.018531
- October 20, 2008
- 12:00 AM
- 1,092 views
Why people believe weird things? Lack of control.
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
I've been blogging on the evolution of religion before. Initially, I just thought operant behavior would seem like a good explanation for religion: the argument tied together the observation that (1) religious people are less depressed and (2) that learned helplessness is an animal model of depression and (3) that religion helps to create a feeling of control which is known to reduce depression. I later added some ideas prompted by some recent news about geomythology. Basically, the geomyths re........ Read more »
J. A. Whitson, & A. D. Galinsky. (2008) Lacking Control Increases Illusory Pattern Perception. Science, 322(5898), 115-117. DOI: 10.1126/science.1159845
- May 17, 2009
- 10:21 AM
- 920 views
In which a Nature paper fails on several levels
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
Ok, so what else is new? We all love to rip GlamMag paperz to shreds in our journal clubs. This paper by Hong et al. last year in Nature stands out of the crowd in two main ways. For one, it shows how failing to realize alternative explanations can easily break your entire publication. Moreover, it shows how generating large datasets doesn't replace using your brain when generating and evaluating them. Apparently, the editors and reviewers at Nature handling this particular manuscript failed to ........ Read more »
Hong, S., Bang, S., Hyun, S., Kang, J., Jeong, K., Paik, D., Chung, J., & Kim, J. (2008) cAMP signalling in mushroom bodies modulates temperature preference behaviour in Drosophila. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature07090
1. Jean-René Martin, 2. Roman Ernst, & 3. Martin Heisenberg. (1998) Mushroom Bodies Suppress Locomotor Activity in Drosophila melanogaster. Learning and Memory, 179-191. DOI: 10.1101/lm.5.1.179
- August 20, 2009
- 01:20 PM
- 846 views
How the brain is and isn't like a muscle
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
Use it or lose it, they say. The saying holds not only for muscle fitness, but also for the brain. The Romans already knew that 'mens sana in corpore sano' and today we know that both physical and mental fitness, exercise and training can stave off many signs of aging. Even debilitating diseases such as Alzheimer's disease can be delayed, or at least their symptoms reduced by staying physically and mentally fit and active. I recently handled a manuscript in my function as Academic Editor for the........ Read more »
Barnes, A., Bullmore, E., & Suckling, J. (2009) Endogenous Human Brain Dynamics Recover Slowly Following Cognitive Effort. PLoS ONE, 4(8). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0006626
Maye, A., Hsieh, C., Sugihara, G., & Brembs, B. (2007) Order in Spontaneous Behavior. PLoS ONE, 2(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0000443
- December 14, 2011
- 05:37 AM
- 839 views
Science without journals: More evidence that journal rank is a poor predictor of citations
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
In response to my last post, Dwight Kravitz from the NIH alerted me to his paper on a similar topic: Toward a new model of scientific publishing: discussion and a proposal. His paper contains some very interesting data, such as this analysis of citations and journal rank:The left-skewed form of the data is of course nothing new, but their analysis of how predictive journal rank is for actual citations opens a new aspect, I think:Our evaluation reveals that far from a perfect filter, the distr........ Read more »
Kravitz, D., & Baker, C. (2011) Toward a New Model of Scientific Publishing: Discussion and a Proposal. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience. DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2011.00055
- May 8, 2009
- 04:28 AM
- 812 views
Noise in the brain?
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
I was recently alerted to a group of theoretical publications which deal with the issue of apparent 'noise' in neuronal populations. The Nature Reviews Neuroscience article "Neural correlations, population coding and computation" by Bruno B. Averbeck, Peter E. Latham & Alexandre Pouget covers this area quite well.Basically, the authors claim that the variability one can see when recording from the brain when the same stimulus is presented repeatedly is noise and must be detrimental for the tra........ Read more »
Averbeck, B., Latham, P., & Pouget, A. (2006) Neural correlations, population coding and computation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7(5), 358-366. DOI: 10.1038/nrn1888
- July 13, 2009
- 03:19 PM
- 786 views
The first motor-sensory system?
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
On the first day of last year's Gatsby workshop on "smaller cognitive systems", Gasper Jekely told us about their remarkable work on how the larvae of a marine polychaete worm (Platynereis dumerilii) perform phototaxis. Gaspar introduced his work by saying that these larvae may be very similar to the common ancestor of all bilaterally symmetric animals (Bilaterians), the Urbilaterian. The Urbilaterian being the last common ancestor of vertebrates and invertebrates, this would mean (and I have n........ Read more »
Jékely, G., Colombelli, J., Hausen, H., Guy, K., Stelzer, E., Nédélec, F., & Arendt, D. (2008) Mechanism of phototaxis in marine zooplankton. Nature, 456(7220), 395-399. DOI: 10.1038/nature07590
- December 27, 2009
- 11:15 AM
- 740 views
Intrinsic plasticity: the 'other' learning mechanism
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
A quote from Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel in the December 11 issue of Science reminded me of a short article by David Glanzman covering a remarkable paper on pan-neuronal (aka 'intrinsic') plasticity and its involvement in learning and memory. Here is the quote:Q: Synaptic plasticity is a central concept in your work on memory. You've been working with Aplysia since 1962. What else do you think we can learn from these lowly snails? With almost all kinds of synaptic changes, there is a parallel ch........ Read more »
Pulver, S., & Griffith, L. (2009) Spike integration and cellular memory in a rhythmic network from Na /K pump current dynamics. Nature Neuroscience, 13(1), 53-59. DOI: 10.1038/nn.2444
- April 19, 2011
- 12:12 PM
- 730 views
Creationists, this is the evidence you have to beat
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
The last decades of research on human evolution have provided an astounding body of converging evidence for an African origin of the human lineage just under about 200k years ago, with a subsequent migration across the globe starting around 60k years ago until all the main regions of this planet were inhabited by humans at around 15k years ago. Compare this scenario to the creationist story, where humans were shaped by a magic man out of clay about 6k years ago, which means it happened just a........ Read more »
Green, R., Krause, J., Ptak, S., Briggs, A., Ronan, M., Simons, J., Du, L., Egholm, M., Rothberg, J., Paunovic, M.... (2006) Analysis of one million base pairs of Neanderthal DNA. Nature, 444(7117), 330-336. DOI: 10.1038/nature05336
Linz, B., Balloux, F., Moodley, Y., Manica, A., Liu, H., Roumagnac, P., Falush, D., Stamer, C., Prugnolle, F., van der Merwe, S.... (2007) An African origin for the intimate association between humans and Helicobacter pylori. Nature, 445(7130), 915-918. DOI: 10.1038/nature05562
Atkinson, Q. (2011) Phonemic Diversity Supports a Serial Founder Effect Model of Language Expansion from Africa. Science, 332(6027), 346-349. DOI: 10.1126/science.1199295
- April 29, 2011
- 08:28 AM
- 705 views
What can the spinal cord teach us about learning and memory?
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
Only very few laboratories in the world perform operant conditioning of spinal reflexes. In fact, a quick PubMed search reveals there is only a single lab which has published in this field in the last decade, the lab of Jonathan Wolpaw. Jonathan's review "What Can the Spinal Cord Teach Us about Learning and Memory?" in The Neuroscientist shows what neuroscience is missing out on by not investing more in this fascinating field.Operant conditioning of spinal reflexes is probably the most con........ Read more »
Wolpaw, J. (2010) What Can the Spinal Cord Teach Us about Learning and Memory?. The Neuroscientist, 16(5), 532-549. DOI: 10.1177/1073858410368314
- February 9, 2010
- 05:20 AM
- 700 views
Evolutionary origins of religion: weak relation to morality
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
It is a long-standing argument among religious believers that religiosity were necessary for morality. In a recent Trends in Cognitive Sciences article (requires subscription), Pyysiäinen and Hauser argue that morality can arise and indeed can be found without and before any religious education and thus religion is a by-product of pre-existing cognitive properties of the brain. Indeed, religion is not ubiquitous, as for instance the Hadza's religion has been described as 'minimal', and yet, coo........ Read more »
Ilkka Pyysiäinen, & Marc Hauser. (2010) The origins of religion: evolved adaptation or by-product?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. info:/10.1016/j.tics.2009.12.007
- January 25, 2010
- 08:32 AM
- 696 views
How we discovered that an attention drug successfully treats a fruit fly memory mutant
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
Blogging about one's own research always feels good: the amount of your work has accumulated enough to at least provide sufficient material for a story and some figures. It has passed the first hurdle of scientific scrutiny, peer review. On the other hand, now an exciting time begins: what will the colleagues say? Will people find the one major flaw that neither you, your co-authors, the people who proof-read the drafts before submission nor the reviewers caught? Will the results lead to new, ex........ Read more »
van Swinderen, B., & Brembs, B. (2010) Attention-Like Deficit and Hyperactivity in a Drosophila Memory Mutant. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(3), 1003-1014. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4516-09.2010
- July 23, 2010
- 10:53 AM
- 628 views
The will and its freedom: biological evidence from invertebrates
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
A few weeks ago, Lars Chittka invited me to write an article "about free will in insects" for a Proceedings of the Royal Society B (Biological Sciences) Special Feature on 'Information processing in miniature brains' that he is editing. Given our work on spontaneity in flies and my mentor being Martin Heisenberg, how could I decline?I think I will first give a very brief overview of what people used to call "free will" and why it was such a controversy. I hope to get the gist across in about tw........ Read more »
Heisenberg, M. (2009) Is free will an illusion?. Nature, 459(7244), 164-165. DOI: 10.1038/459164a
Doyle, R. (2009) Free will: it's a normal biological property, not a gift or a mystery. Nature, 459(7250), 1052-1052. DOI: 10.1038/4591052c
Briggman, K. (2005) Optical Imaging of Neuronal Populations During Decision-Making. Science, 307(5711), 896-901. DOI: 10.1126/science.1103736
Maye, A., Hsieh, C., Sugihara, G., & Brembs, B. (2007) Order in Spontaneous Behavior. PLoS ONE, 2(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0000443
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- October 18, 2009
- 02:38 PM
- 627 views
How brains generate variable behavior
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
Animals constantly have to adapt to varying environmental conditions, explore new situations and figure out new strategies to catch prey or avoid predators. On the other hand, they need to be able to behave consistently in a largely deterministic environment. Brains reflect the complex mixture of chance and necessity in the environment in thier structure and function.One great example of this was just explained to me here on a poster at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN). ........ Read more »
Sasaki, K., Brezina, V., Weiss, K., & Jing, J. (2009) Distinct Inhibitory Neurons Exert Temporally Specific Control over Activity of a Motoneuron Receiving Concurrent Excitation and Inhibition. Journal of Neuroscience, 29(38), 11732-11744. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3051-09.2009
- April 26, 2010
- 03:35 AM
- 612 views
In which potatoes in France are like high-ranking journals in science
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
There are about 1.5 million scholarly articles published in all the sciences, spread over about 24,000 journals. Even if there were a single database or entry-point providing access to all the literature, nobody would be able to keep up with everything that is being published in their field of work any more. Desperately looking for some clue as to which publications to select for in-depth reading and which to ignore, scientists began to rank the journals according to how often the articles in th........ Read more »
Hougas, R. (1956) Foreign potatoes, their introduction and importance. American Potato Journal, 33(6), 190-198. DOI: 10.1007/BF02879217
Lane, J. (2010) Let's make science metrics more scientific. Nature, 464(7288), 488-489. DOI: 10.1038/464488a
- January 7, 2010
- 11:11 AM
- 601 views
Social filtering of scientific information - a view beyond Twitter
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
It's not information overload, it's filter failure (Clay Shirky)Bonetta (2009) gave an excellent introduction to the micro-blogging service Twitter and its uses and limitations for scientific communication. We believe that other social networking tools merit a similar introduction, especially those that provide more effective filtering of scientifically relevant information than Twitter. We find that FriendFeed (already mentioned in the first online comment on the article, by Jo Badge) shares al........ Read more »
Bonetta, L. (2009) Should You Be Tweeting?. Cell, 139(3), 452-453. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2009.10.017
- April 28, 2011
- 08:18 AM
- 601 views
The neurobiology of operant conditioning
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
It turns out, operant conditioning is very different from other forms of learning, all the way from the genes up. When I started my research on operant conditioning in 1995, I did so with the opposite hypothesis, namely that the underlying mechanism of all learning processes was always synaptic plasticity with the well-known molecular pathway: Ca++, cAMP, PKA, CamK, CREB and so on. After all, wasn't that pathway conserved all the way from flies, snails and mice to humans? By the time I finished ........ Read more »
Brembs, B. (2011) Spontaneous decisions and operant conditioning in fruit flies. Behavioural Processes. DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2011.02.005
- February 17, 2010
- 03:52 AM
- 596 views
When relics are not what they have been proclaimed to be
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
It is still unusual when the Catholic church allows a scientific study of one of their relics. So I was surprised to find the manuscript describing the study of the DNA of the remains of one of Europe's patron saints, St. Birgitta (Bridget of Sweden) in my PLoS One inbox one fine day in May, 2008. I'm a neurogeneticist by training, so I felt competent to take this manuscript on as academic editor. The manuscript stated that they had found through both DNA analysis and carbon dating that not only........ Read more »
Nilsson, M., Possnert, G., Edlund, H., Budowle, B., Kjellström, A., & Allen, M. (2010) Analysis of the Putative Remains of a European Patron Saint–St. Birgitta. PLoS ONE, 5(2). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008986
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