Word: glial
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David Anderson and his colleagues at Cal Tech have, for example, identified many environmental triggers that get the nervous system's stem cells to turn into neurons or into their supporting glial cells. They've also gone inside stem cells to isolate the genes responsible for the transformations. As with most adult stem cells, these cells appear, so far, to be limited in the types of tissue into which they can differentiate. Yet they still give rise to many different kinds of neurons--from sensory cells in your nose to touch receptors on your fingertips. The next step, Anderson says...
...birth a baby's brain contains 100 billion neurons, roughly as many nerve cells as there are stars in the Milky Way. Also in place are a trillion glial cells, named after the Greek word for glue, which form a kind of honeycomb that protects and nourishes the neurons. But while the brain contains virtually all the nerve cells it will ever have, the pattern of wiring between them has yet to stabilize. Up to this point, says Shatz, "what the brain has done is lay out circuits that are its best guess about what's required for vision...
Progenitor cells give rise to two types of brain cells, the neurons (nerve cells) and the glial cells (nourishing cells), which develop into specialized brain structures...
...little is known about how the mind works, and less about how the computer might change that process. The neurological researches of Mark Rosenzweig and his colleagues at Berkeley indicate :hat animals trained to learn and assimilate information develop heavier cerebral cortices, more glial cells and bigger nerve cells. But does the computer really stimulate the brain's activity or, by doing so much of its work, permit it to go slack...
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...