Word: glial
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Study in man is vastly complicated by the fact that the human brain contains an estimated 10 billion nerve cells called neurons, and another 100 billion of a second type called glial cells. The fluid bath in which they are suspended is an important element in their electrochemical interactions. Moreover, said Sweden's Dr. Holger Hydén, one big neuron may have on its surface as many as 10,000 points of contact (synaptic knobs) with other neurons (see chart). But by means of exquisitely delicate instrumentation and an electron microscope, Dr. Hydén has discovered that...
Stimulation, they found, resulted in a marked increase in the neurons' content of enzyme proteins, while the glial cells showed a corresponding drop. The glial cells behave like the self-sacrificing wife who eats mostly potatoes and gives the high-energy meat to her ditchdigger husband. The "information" contained in the protein which the neuron forms, reasons Hyden, becomes the impulse that the neuron sends along the filaments to other neighboring neurons...
...brain, explained Professor Hyden, contains two main types of cells: neurons and glial cells. The neurons are giant, as cells go, with elaborate systems of filaments connecting them to other neurons. The smaller glial (meaning gluey) cells stick to the neurons like caviar on a canape. Hyden and his colleagues at Goteborg, by exquisitely delicate techniques, have separated neurons from their adherent glial cells and have weighed them in units as small as millionths of a millionth of a gram. By taking fresh, still-living cells from a rabbit's brain, the Hyden team has been able to find...
...protein it forms. Each neuron contains millions of molecules of ribonucleic acid (RNA). Each of these molecules is chemically keyed by the arrangement of its internal building blocks. These molecules dictate, in accordance with their keys, the nature of the proteins that the neuron forms, in cooperation with the glial cells. The modified proteins are the chemical representations of thoughts...