Word: braining
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...emerging between movement and meaning have inspired some scientists to see the mirror-neuron system as the biological foundation on which human language is constructed. Such speculation is supported indirectly by the fact that Broca's area--a critical language center in the left hemisphere of the human brain--appears to be a close analogue of the premotor mirror region in monkeys. Broca's area, it turns out, is important for sign language as well as spoken language, and its connection to the mirror system has led Rizzolatti and U.S.C. neuroscientist Michael Arbib to propose that language traces its roots...
...MACAQUES, MIRROR NEURONS HAVE THUS FAR BEEN LOCALIZED to just two brain areas (the parietal and premotor cortexes) that exercise control over voluntary movement. In humans, however, evidence suggests that neurons with mirror properties may be more widely distributed. For example, a recent experiment conducted by Keysers and his colleagues revealed that a discrete patch of the somatosensory cortex lit up when the human subjects felt their legs brushed by a glove and when they watched a video in which an actor's legs were brushed...
...might think a mouse's brain would be of little help explaining the genetic workings of the human brain. Not only is the mouse version tiny--it weighs just 0.02 oz., compared with the 3-lb. behemoth in a human--but a mouse's rudimentary intelligence and cognition are correspondingly feeble. Still, despite these glaring differences, the genes responsible for building and operating both organs are 90% identical--which means that the mouse brain can be a powerful tool for unraveling the mystery of human mental disorders...
That's the idea behind the Allen Brain Atlas (ABA). Launched in September with $100 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the atlas is the first Web-based, public-access database of all 20,000 or so genes expressed in the mouse brain. Want to know where in the brain a specific gene is active? The ABA has it, in vivid three-dimensional color. Curious about what types of brain cells are actively expressing a particular gene? The atlas provides molecular-level data that tell you. "Even though it's a mouse project, it really is a wonderful resource...
Williams and other brain researchers are already finding that the atlas can be a time saver, speeding them to their ultimate goal: developing new treatments for such human neurological disorders as dementia, schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease. In a matter of days, for example, Williams used it to home in on the most promising gene candidate among 20 he had isolated that were involved in aggression and the fear response. Analyzing each gene individually, even with high-throughput methods, would have taken months. He will next look at this gene in human populations to determine whether variants in the gene...