Neurological Correlates

See what happens when you publish in open source? You get more than your money’s worth — you get bonus art. From Cuntz H, Forstner F, Haag J, Borst A (2008) The Morphological Identity of Insect Dendrites. PLoS Comput Biol 4(12): e1000251. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000251 (artwork is believed to be by H. Cuntz)

The Morphological Identity of Insect Dendrites

This paper throws yet another overlay on neurological correlates of behavior: dendrite branching patterns in neurons. Because of dendritic anatomical variety, it’s tough to make any kind of classification system. The authors study the highly conserved fly dendrite system, and point out that neuron identity may be determined on the spot, rather than predetermined necessarily. There are general rules for dendrite branching, but backstops may include the local environment, genetic or molecular influences (tau and cytoskeletal influences come to my mind), and who knows what else.  Regardless, it sounds like much of the work was done manually, and, your loyal bloggist having previously held jobs requiring manually getting data from individual cells for 8 hours a day (those were tree cells), recognizes massive microscopic cell work as a living death experience. It turns one into a zombie. The experimenter’s dendrites before and after the manual work should be audited.