• About us
  • Contact
Friday, September 22, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
Times Of Nation
-18 °c
  • Top Stories
  • Genetics
  • Environment
  • Wildlife
  • Outer space
    James Webb Space Telescope detects 1st evidence of carbon on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa

    James Webb Space Telescope detects 1st evidence of carbon on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa

    If You Could See Gravitational Waves, the Universe Would Look Like This

    If You Could See Gravitational Waves, the Universe Would Look Like This

    See Artemis 2 astronauts explore moon-like crater in Canada (photos)

    See Artemis 2 astronauts explore moon-like crater in Canada (photos)

    What time is NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return capsule landing on Sept. 24?

    What time is NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return capsule landing on Sept. 24?

    Autumnal equinox 2023 brings fall to the Northern Hemisphere this weekend

    Autumnal equinox 2023 brings fall to the Northern Hemisphere this weekend

    Solar Sails Could Reach Mars in Just 26 Days

    Solar Sails Could Reach Mars in Just 26 Days

    FAA proposes rule to reduce space junk in Earth orbit

    FAA proposes rule to reduce space junk in Earth orbit

    We need a better way to map Earth’s magnetic field. Finding it could win 1 of these teams  million

    We need a better way to map Earth’s magnetic field. Finding it could win 1 of these teams $2 million

    NASA’s Perseverance Rover is Setting Records on Mars

    NASA’s Perseverance Rover is Setting Records on Mars

  • Physics
    Diamond materials as solar-powered electrodes: Spectroscopy shows what’s important

    Diamond materials as solar-powered electrodes: Spectroscopy shows what’s important

    Quiet cables set to help reveal rare physics events

    Quiet cables set to help reveal rare physics events

    Achromatic diffractive liquid-crystal optics for virtual reality displays

    Achromatic diffractive liquid-crystal optics for virtual reality displays

    Trending Tags

    • geophysics
    • quantum
    • physicists
    • physiology
    • physical
    • holography
  • Top Stories
  • Genetics
  • Environment
  • Wildlife
  • Outer space
    James Webb Space Telescope detects 1st evidence of carbon on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa

    James Webb Space Telescope detects 1st evidence of carbon on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa

    If You Could See Gravitational Waves, the Universe Would Look Like This

    If You Could See Gravitational Waves, the Universe Would Look Like This

    See Artemis 2 astronauts explore moon-like crater in Canada (photos)

    See Artemis 2 astronauts explore moon-like crater in Canada (photos)

    What time is NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return capsule landing on Sept. 24?

    What time is NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return capsule landing on Sept. 24?

    Autumnal equinox 2023 brings fall to the Northern Hemisphere this weekend

    Autumnal equinox 2023 brings fall to the Northern Hemisphere this weekend

    Solar Sails Could Reach Mars in Just 26 Days

    Solar Sails Could Reach Mars in Just 26 Days

    FAA proposes rule to reduce space junk in Earth orbit

    FAA proposes rule to reduce space junk in Earth orbit

    We need a better way to map Earth’s magnetic field. Finding it could win 1 of these teams  million

    We need a better way to map Earth’s magnetic field. Finding it could win 1 of these teams $2 million

    NASA’s Perseverance Rover is Setting Records on Mars

    NASA’s Perseverance Rover is Setting Records on Mars

  • Physics
    Diamond materials as solar-powered electrodes: Spectroscopy shows what’s important

    Diamond materials as solar-powered electrodes: Spectroscopy shows what’s important

    Quiet cables set to help reveal rare physics events

    Quiet cables set to help reveal rare physics events

    Achromatic diffractive liquid-crystal optics for virtual reality displays

    Achromatic diffractive liquid-crystal optics for virtual reality displays

    Trending Tags

    • geophysics
    • quantum
    • physicists
    • physiology
    • physical
    • holography
No Result
View All Result
Times Of Nation
No Result
View All Result
bayan çanta
Home Genetics

3 Questions: A new model of nervous system form, function, and evolution

by TimesOfNation
May 22, 2023
in Genetics
3 Questions: A new model of nervous system form, function, and evolution
1
SHARES
9
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

3 Questions- A new model of nervous system form, function, and evolution- Times Of Nation

How does animal behavior emerge from networks of connected neurons? How are these incredible nervous systems and behaviors actually generated by evolution? Are there principles shared by all nervous systems or is evolution constantly innovating? What did the first nervous system look like that gave rise to the incredible diversity of life that we see around us?

Combining the study of animal behavior with studies of nervous system form, function, and evolution, Brandon “Brady” Weissbourd, a new faculty member in the Department of Biology and investigator in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, uses the tiny, transparent jellyfish Clytia hemisphaerica, a new neuroscience model.

Q- In 2021, you developed a new model organism for neuroscience research, the transparent jellyfish Clytia hemisphaerica. How do these jellyfish answer questions about neuroscience, the nervous system, and evolution in ways that other models cannot?

A- First, I believe in the importance of more broadly understanding the natural world and diversifying the organisms that we deeply study. One reason is to find experimentally tractable organisms to identify generalizable biological principles — for example, we understand the basis of how neurons ‘fire’ from studies of the squid giant axon. Another reason is that transformative breakthroughs have come from identifying evolutionary innovations that already exist in nature — for example, green fluorescent protein (GFP, from jellyfish) or CRISPR (from bacteria). In both ways, this jellyfish is a valuable complement to existing models.

I have always been interested in the intersection of two types of problems- how nervous systems generate our behaviors; and how these incredible systems were actually created by evolution.

On the systems neuroscience side, ever since working on the serotonin system during my PhD I have been fascinated by the problem of how animals control all of their behaviors simultaneously in a flexible and context-dependent manner, and how behavioral choices depend not just on incoming stimuli but on how those stimuli interact with constantly changing states of the nervous system and body. These are extremely complex and difficult problems, with the particular challenge of interactions across scales, from chemical signaling and dynamic cell biology to neural networks and behavior.

To address these questions, I wanted to move into a model organism with exceptional experimental tractability.

There have been exciting breakthroughs in imaging techniques for neuroscience, including these incredible ways in which we can actually watch and manipulate neuronal activity in a living animal. So, the first thing I wanted was a small and transparent organism that would allow for this kind of optical approach. These jellyfish are a few millimeters in diameter and perfectly transparent, with interesting behaviors but relatively compact nervous systems. They have thousands of neurons where we have billions, which also puts them at a nice intermediate complexity compared to other transparent models that are widely used — for example, C. elegans have 302 neurons and larval zebrafish have something like 100,000 in the brain alone. These features will allow us to look at the activity of the whole nervous system in behaving animals to try to understand how that activity gives rise to behaviors and how that activity itself arises from networks of neurons.

On the evolution side of our work, we are interested in the origins of nervous systems, what the first nervous systems looked like, and broadly what the options are for how nervous systems are organized and functioning- to what extent there are principles versus interesting and potentially useful innovations, and if there are principles, whether those are optimal or somehow constrained by evolution. Our last common ancestor with jellyfish and their relatives (the cnidarians) was something similar to the first nervous system, so by comparing what we find in cnidarians with work in other models we can make inferences about the origins and early evolution of nervous systems. As we further explore these highly divergent animals, we are also finding exciting evolutionary innovations- specifically, they have incredible capabilities for regenerating their nervous systems. In the future, it will be exciting to better understand how these neural networks are organized to allow for such robustness.

Q- What work is required to develop a new organism as a model, and why did you choose this particular species of jellyfish?

A- If you’re choosing a new animal model, it’s not just about whether it has the right features for the questions you want to ask, but also whether it technically lets you do the right experiments. The model we’re using was first developed by a research group in France, who spent many years doing the really hard work of figuring out how to culture the whole life cycle in the lab, injecting eggs, and developing other key resources. For me, the big question was whether we’d be able to use the genetic tools that I was describing earlier for looking at neural activity. Working closely with collaborators in France, our first step was figuring out how to insert things into the jellyfish genome. If we couldn’t figure that out, I was going to switch back to working with mice. It took us about two years of troubleshooting, but now we can routinely generate genetically modified jellyfish in the lab.

Switching to a new animal model is tough — I have a mouse neuroscience background and joined a postdoc lab that used mice and flies; I was the only person working with jellyfish, but had no experience. One of my goals is now to optimize and simplify this whole process so that when other labs want to start working with jellyfish we have a simple aquaculture platform to get them started, even if they have no experience.

In addition to the fact that these things are tiny and transparent, the main reason that we chose this particular species is because it has an amazing life cycle that makes it an exciting laboratory animal.

They have separate sexes that spawn daily with the fertilized eggs developing into larvae that then metamorphose into polyps. We grow these polyps on microscope slides, where they form colonies that are thought to be immortal. These colonies are then constantly releasing jellyfish, which are all genetically identical ‘clones’ that can be used for experiments. That means that once you create a genetically modified strain, like a transgenic line or a knockout, you can keep it forever as a polyp colony — and since the animals are so small, we can culture them in large numbers in the lab.

There’s still a huge amount of foundational work to do, like characterizing their behavioral repertoire and nervous system organization. It’s shocking how little we know about the basics of jellyfish biology — particularly considering that they kill more people per year than sharks and stingrays combined — and the more we look into it, the more questions there are.

Q- What drew you to a faculty position at MIT?

A- I wanted to be in a department that does fundamental research, is enthusiastic about basic science, is open-minded, and is very diverse in what people work on and think about. My goal is also to be able to ultimately link mechanisms at the molecular and cellular level to organismal behavior, which is something that [the] MIT [Department of] Biology is particularly strong at doing. It’s been an exciting first few months! MIT Biology is such an amazing place to do science and it’s been wonderful how enthusiastic and supportive everyone in the department has been.

I was additionally drawn to MIT by the broader community and have already found it so easy to start collaborations with people in neuroscience, engineering, and math. I’m also thrilled to have recently become a member of The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, which further enables these collaborations in a way that I believe will be transformational for the work in my lab.

It’s a new lab. It’s a new organism. There isn’t a huge, well-established field that is taking these approaches. There’s so much we don’t know, and so much that we have to establish from scratch. My goal is for my lab to have a sense of adventure and fun, and I’m really excited to be doing that here in MIT Biology.

(News Source -Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Times Of Nation staff and is published from a news.mit.edu feed.)

RelatedArticles

Study explains why certain immunotherapies don’t always work as predicted

Study connects neural gene expression differences to functional distinctions

How the body’s cells work together in response to infection

Read Also- Latest News | Current Affairs News | Today News | English News | World News Today

TimesofNation.com offer news and information like- English newspaper today | today English news | English news live | times India | today news in English in India | breaking news in India today | India TV news today & Hindustan News.

You can Read on TimesofNation.com latest news today, breaking news headlines, Top news. Discover national and international news on economy, politics, defence, sports, world news & other relatively current affair’s news.

Tags: animal modelBrady WeissbourdClytia hemisphaericaevolutionFormfunctionjellyfish researchMIT Biology DepartmentMIT Picower Institute for Learning and Memorymodelnervousnervous system evolutionneuroscience modelQuestionssystem
Plugin Install : Subscribe Push Notification need OneSignal plugin to be installed.
TimesOfNation

TimesOfNation

Related Posts

A model probing the connection between entangled particles and wormholes in general relativity

A model probing the connection between entangled particles and wormholes in general relativity

by TimesOfNation
September 21, 2023
1

A model probing the connection between entangled particles and wormholes in general relativity- Times Of Nation This shows the simulation,...

Galaxies Breathe Gas, and When They Stop, No More Stars Form

Galaxies Breathe Gas, and When They Stop, No More Stars Form

by TimesOfNation
September 20, 2023
4

Galaxies Breathe Gas, and When They Stop, No More Stars Form: Times Of Nation For most of the history of...

India to launch test of Gaganyaan crew capsule’s emergency escape system this year

India to launch test of Gaganyaan crew capsule’s emergency escape system this year

by TimesOfNation
September 20, 2023
4

India to launch test of Gaganyaan crew capsule's emergency escape system this year: Times Of Nation After successful robotic missions...

Very Large Telescope surprisingly finds exoplanet lurking in 3-body star system

Very Large Telescope surprisingly finds exoplanet lurking in 3-body star system

by TimesOfNation
September 19, 2023
4

Very Large Telescope surprisingly finds exoplanet lurking in 3-body star system: Times Of Nation The Very Large Telescope in Chile...

High-energy electrons in Earth’s magnetic tail may form water on the moon

High-energy electrons in Earth’s magnetic tail may form water on the moon

by TimesOfNation
September 16, 2023
2

High-energy electrons in Earth's magnetic tail may form water on the moon: Times Of Nation High-energy electrons located in a...

A 2022 Gamma Ray Burst Was So Powerful, it was Detected by Spacecraft Across the Solar System

A 2022 Gamma Ray Burst Was So Powerful, it was Detected by Spacecraft Across the Solar System

by TimesOfNation
September 15, 2023
2

A 2022 Gamma Ray Burst Was So Powerful, it was Detected by Spacecraft Across the Solar System: Times Of Nation...

Next Post
Relive SpaceX launch of Ax-2 private astronaut mission with these stunning photos

Relive SpaceX launch of Ax-2 private astronaut mission with these stunning photos

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Recommended

Baddowal school roof collapse: Punjab minister Bains meets family of teacher killed in tragedy; visits children shifted to gurdwara

Baddowal school roof collapse: Punjab minister Bains meets family of teacher killed in tragedy; visits children shifted to gurdwara

3 weeks ago
1
Researchers entangle ions across a 230-meter quantum network

Researchers entangle ions across a 230-meter quantum network

8 months ago
1

Popular News

  • Kauvery Hospital, Radial Road, Launches “Institute of Brain & Spine”

    Kauvery Hospital, Radial Road, Launches “Institute of Brain & Spine”

    2 shares
    Share 1 Tweet 1
  • Lotpot 2.0 Collaborates with Zee Studios for Gadar 2

    1 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Quiet cables set to help reveal rare physics events

    1 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Veligonda project works not fast enough, may miss December deadline: farmers

    1 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • ISRO May Postpone Chandrayaan-3 Lunar Touchdown Based on These Factors

    1 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

About

Times Of Nation

timesofnation.com is a dedicated news website for core sciences, technology, medical research and health news along with current affairs coverage from India. the timesofnation.com website is one of the fast growing online communities for science-minded people....Read more

Category

  • Business News
  • Environment
  • Genetics
  • India
  • Outer space
  • Physics
  • Wildlife

Site Links

  • Corrections Policy
  • Fact Checking Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

Contact Us

Email us to send your suggestions
editor[@]timesofnation.com
Send articles and news to editor[@]timesofnation.com
For other enquiries: admin[@]timesofnation.com
If you find any content violating the editorial code of conduct mail to editor[@]timesofnation.com.

  • Corrections Policy
  • Fact Checking Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

© 2021 Times of Nation. All rights reserved.

ankara escort çankaya escort çankaya escort escort bayan çankaya istanbul rus escort eryaman escort ankara escort kızılay escort istanbul escort ankara escort ankara escort escort ankara istanbul rus Escort atasehir Escort beylikduzu Escort Ankara Escort malatya Escort kuşadası Escort gaziantep Escort izmir Escort
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Genetics
  • Environment
  • Wildlife
  • Outer space
  • Physics

© 2021 Times of Nation. All rights reserved.

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.