neuron photos on Flickr

Single-synapse recordings of spinal cord neurons in culture. Two glass micropipettes are sealed on the cell body of a neuron and one large synaptic varicosity to identify currents from this inhibitory synapse. This experiment was part of a work published in:

Frontiers in Neuroscience

Soma Fire Neuron by naturalturn

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Burning Man 2009 [079603]

Admonishing Japan Style by Timothy Takemoto

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Japan is the empire of mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are brain cells that have become quite the vogue in brain cell research in the 21st century. Mirror neurons can do various things. In the extreme they allow humans to see themselves from external perpectives. Generally speaking, according to the examples given in the book I have read, they allow people to understand other people's behaviour visually, because they create in oneself the feeling that one is doing that which one is seeing. Before mirror neurons were discovered, Lacan pointed out that children cry when other children are hurt. Mirror neuron specialists have shown that we activate the muscles, if only slightly, of the actions that we see other's make. Further, the more we are adept and the movements we see the more this reaction is activated. Pianists jiggle their fingers when they see other pianists playing. Go to a jazz club with a musician to see.

Mirror neurons allow us to identify with visual represntations of bodies. Experiments demonstrate that subjects feel prosthetic limbs to be their own if they watch a prosthetic limb being poked at the same time as have a poke on their own limb. Indeed, perhaps it is only a matter of tradition or culure that we identify with our own bodily visual represtantions. My face may be my face by virtue of convention. It is not as if our consciousness, our being, has a face. On another planet or another culture, the faces of our family membrs could be just as much, or more even, "our own".

The 'centre of gravity' of the human psyche is malleable. At the very least it can be the hero of ones self narrative, or ones face, and very possibily the "I" or face of another.

Returning to mirror neurons, and Japanese culture there is a saying in Japan that one should, or that one does, look at the behaviour of others and in so doing see oneself. or that one can see oneself by looking at the behaviour of others (人のふり見て我が身を振り返る). This is general Japanese advice. It is also a method of admonishig others.

If you see a friend or colleague doing something that you do not approve of, then you can tell that person so. Another, Japanese, method of changing someones behaviour is to impersonate If, for example, your colleague puts his feet on a the cateen table and you do not approve, then, assuiming that your colleauge has mirror neurons, then all you need to do is mimic your colleague's behavour. It works. Your colleague will suddenly become Japanese and see their own behaviour, modelled by yours, as their own.

This also reminds me of parables, and my parable theorey of myth.

2 Samuel 12 New International Version (NIV)

The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, 3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

4 “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

5 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!

Nathan presents David's own behavior to him as that of another, and thus, distanced from it he is able to evaulate it, before Nathan pulls the punchline "You are the man," and brings the evaluation back home. When we are admonished "Japan style" by being mimiced we see another performing an action that we don't like, before realising - I am the man.

It also seems to me that Japanese mythology, and the myth of Narcissus pulling a similar trick. It seems to me that the Japanese are identified with their self image. They have a self "in the mirror stage." In Japanese mythology there is a famous scene where a diety seemingly mistakes a reflection of herself for herself. And even more parable like, except without the punchline, there is a scene in which there are all the clues that someone is being decieved into thinking their own reflection is someone else, but the reflection is presented as another person, just as Echo (but a repetition of Narcissus' voice) is left as a person. "Admonishing Japan Style" is more like myth than parable since there is no punchline. The punchline is "In the Cut." The viewer, or reader, is left to come to the awful conclusion, that they are making that mistake, doing that bad behaviour, on their own.

But as well as "Admonishing Japan Style" and parable and myth mimicing life, it seems to be that conversely life is like a myth in that I am able to identify with the hero of my self-narrative precisely because it is at a 'distance' from me, in the same way that admonishers, parables, and myths contain self-representations that are 'distanced'. The distance allows the identification.

neurogenesis marker timecourses by Jason Snyder

From here:

All cell types within the body express different genes/proteins that serve the cell’s function. Since a muscle cell has a completely different function than a skin cell, it will naturally express different proteins. In like manner, a 1 week-old neuron is functionally distinct from a 4 week-old neuron and the two will also express different proteins (to some extent). Many people have taken advantage of this, using these different proteins as markers that identify a new cell as a neuron vs. a glial cell or, more specifically, an immature neuron vs. a mature neuron. By simultaneously visualizing (via immunohistochemistry) both the birthdating marker (e.g. BrdU) and these phenotypic markers, one can know both the exact age of the neuron and its general degree of maturity. For a 10 sec guide to cell labeling with BrdU and phenotypic markers, see here.

What do these expression timecourses tell us?

some markers (proteins) are increasingly expressed as new neurons mature over 4 weeks (NSE, NeuN, calbindin)

other markers are mainly expressed when new neurons are < 4 weeks-old (DCX, PSA-NCAM, calretinin)

most studies have used the same markers (e.g. DCX, NeuN) to simply demonstrate that new cells are neurons, but some have examined expression of markers that are associated with a more specific function, such as glucocorticoid receptors (Cameron 1993, Garcia 2004) or vascular markers (Palmer 2000)

BrdU (or other birthdating markers) labeled cells express cell division markers (e.g. Ki67) several days after BrdU is administered. This does not mean newborn neurons are dividing – what it represents is the continued division of the stem cell, or precursor cell, that was originally labelled. (therefore you can never know the exact age of a new cell, but pretty close)

neuron_complex_1 by Stefan Weiß

Beitrag der IWPs Mental Raymaker und Parbie Pane zum SL-Award Wettbewerb

Neuron by Roxy Paine (stainless steel, 2010) – looking up from underneath #meijergardens #ilovegr by BillAnder616

Neuron by Nikki Bensted-Smith

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neuron mutiny by Sur Name

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Figure 3A by Libertas Academica

Figure 3A from Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Modulates Vomeronasal Neuron Response to Male Salamander Pheromone Published in Journal of Experimental Neuroscience

Neuron Plasma by Manel Torralba

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neurons by Donna Steinel

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solarized photogram, toned in coffee.

NAKED KNOTTED NEURONS by Penn | Art & Culture

In Naked Knotted Neurons, a group of protesters, some injured, some choking on tear gas, escape violent confrontation with police and other forces by staggering into a safe house they find in the midst of chaos. Strangers to one another, they soon discover they are from different worlds: all were involved in protests, but in different places and times. A trio of dieties, Fate, Chance and Destiny, have gathered them together to charge them with a task: to create a new Hero to solve the world’s most intractable, knotted problems. How to get this message across? Puppets, riddles, and audience participation reveal the secrets the protesters need to fulfill this task.

Following their run at the International Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, the Penn Theatre Ensemble presented the company-devised piece Naked Knotted Neurons at Annenberg Center Live on September 4th and 5th, 2015.

Photo by Dyana Wing So.

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