Comments on: How to convert connective tissue directly into neurons

By: Press To Digitate

Press To Digitate — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 20:16:21 +0000

What would prevent these new techniques for converting fibroblasts (and others, demonstrated using skin tissue) into functioning neurons from being used to extend human cognition outside the brain, to a larger – potentially MUCH larger – fraction of our total anatomy? One might envision large increases in human intelligence through such dynamic modification of our epigenetic processes…

By: Bri

Bri — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:55:18 +0000

Hmmmm…… Sounds like a substance abuse problem…… Maybe some public service announcements might be in order. How about this is your brain on sea water. This is your brain on rocks……. Just say no to rocks.

By: Rashid Mostafa

Rashid Mostafa — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 10:34:58 +0000

If this line of discovery is successful, there will be so many improvements to health – both mental and physical – that we will be transformed. Ageing related diseases, depression, psychosis, cancer could all be reduced; who knows what could be achieved? Hooray for the National Institutes of Health grants and the China 973 programs! They sure know where to put their money.

By: Ken

Ken — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 07:13:38 +0000

Life on Earth existed as a Soup-Sea for 3 billion years without the evolutionary impulse to complexity. How can this be? I suspect cells have a multitude of symbiotic options for dealing with geologic disasters.

By: Editor

Editor — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 07:10:48 +0000

Interesting ideas. They reminded me of something startling that neuroscientist Daniel Wolpert said in a TED Talk about “sea quints,” which digest their own brain and nervous system once they are attached to a rock and no longer need a brain, so I just posted it (see 01:45):
http://www.kurzweilai.net/daniel-wolpert-the-real-reason-for-brains. (It’s tempting to draw an analogy to couch potatoes watching television — and perhaps to future 3D VR addicts? — see comment by Johnny here: http://www.kurzweilai.net/ces-2013-hands-on-with-the-oculus-vr-rift-virtual-realitys-greatest-hope)

By: Bri

Bri — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 00:06:00 +0000

This is a fascinating discovery. Fairly recently there was an article about sponges having almost all the right structures to make working synapsis. Apparently their wasn’t any thinking functions related to these structures. Here we have a structure that we don’t associate with thinking and yet it is just a small modification away from being a nervous system component. This opens up a couple of areas of inquiry. First of all it seems that neurons are more primordial. Since turning off this protien reverts the cell to a neuron.. Obviously neurons have evolved to be very effective at processing information necessary for an organisms survival. In a which came first , the chicken or the egg kind of way, precursor neurons may have been present before organisms had diverse forms. Another possibility is that the structure of connective tissue is an extention of an organisms thinking and coordinating systems. We know that cells communicate chemically. Stem cells migrate to specific sites and then differentiate to exactly the right tissue. Maybe there is an underlining connection to these activities. A style of thinking that is slower and more suited for the microscopic world. As we start to understand how biological systems evolved, we may find that connective tissue is more brainy than it looks. It would make more sense in relation to the sponges synaptic precursers. Maybe they are thinking after all.

By: RedQ

RedQ — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 21:55:57 +0000

This sounds transformational—throw a molecular switch and cure the diseases of an aging brain. Based on track record, it’s unlikely to turn out to be of therapeutic value.