Let me start by pointing out that there is an article in today's NY Times (04/06/09) by Benedict Carey with the eye-catching title "Brain Researchers Open Door to Editing Memory". See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/health/research/06brain.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all
Now, I do feel a little bit of pride that the research referred to is being done locally (at SUNY-Downstate Medical Center) but I am frustrated by an all too common habit in the media to overextend research findings from animal experiments to humans. In this case, the molecule PKMzeta is implicated in memory formation and a drug called ZIP which interferes with it. All of the research makes use of mice or rats and though the results *MAY* apply to some aspects of human memory functioning, an important point that is never addressed is: How does the human use of language and symbolic representations affect the conclusions about learning and memory observed in animals, especially species that are not "close" to us genetically? Moreover, the focus on molecules as the basis of memory raises its own host of problems, for example, representing a ridiculuous reductionism that cannot begin the hold or represent the kind of information that has to be processed. If molecules affect memory, I believe that one has to examine the context in which it operates, namely the neural circuit(s) where they may influence the operation of neurons. On the latter point, there is another interesting news story (actually a press release) from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories (another local joint but out on Long Island), focusing on a call to neuroscientists to focus on developing a map of the major neural circuits in the brain, comparable to the genone project. See: http://www.cshl.edu/public/releases/09_brain_circuits.html Although the first attempts would be to map out the brains of mice/rodents, it would eventually develop toward identification and modeling of human brains. My feeling is that this is the right direction to go though it will probably take a long time to achieve. I think that eventually, once we have the major and minor circuits of the brain mapped out, we can simulate how the operates in much more detail (e.g., do molecules have an affect only within a local context or a global context or is there a cascade effect from a local context to the entire brain). Perhaps each of us will have our own "brain simulations" to compare our actual brain activity against which might allow us to identify how and why brain or cognitive functions are either positively or negatively affected (e.g., we observe minimal cognitive impairment: is it due to natural aging processes or does it represent an early stage of a dementia -- our brain simulation can show how our brain needs to be functioing to be consistent with one or the other hypothesis which can then be compared with empirical biological and cognitive indicators). Different ways to think about the mind and neuroscience, with different implications for future research programs. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
