Neurological Correlates

Apologies for taking some time off, and I’m fired up and ready to go back to blogging about actual science  in December.

Trip report: Your loyal bloggist did go to Capitol Hill to give a talk on bioethics, if you can believe that. I made the rounds on Capitol Hill with various complaints, that will be the subject of probably many more posts.

My impression: it’s a big money pit with everyone reaching out to grab taxpayer money while it’s being handed out.  If anyone has submitted a grant proposal for science, it’s a shark infested feeding frenzy.  Grant money should be given in small doses in a Pay Pal account or with a debit card that designates particular expenditures already in the grant itemized list.

Moreover: I hear there may be a Botox tax. That would surely cause the SoCal rebellion particularly if the tax revenues subsidize the rubber-sole shoe glasses on a chain crowd circling the science money.  People in these parts would take up pitchforks, except they probably wouldn’t recognize a pitchfork, and anyway, they don’t do manual labor.

Pictures: All the buildings on Capitol Hill are connected by these underground tunnels. This is one between the Library of Congress and the Madison Building, because I wanted to enter the Library of Congress main reading room and needed a library card.

Directions: take the LoC elevator to the “Cellar”. (There’s also an “attic” button). Find this hallway and follow it to the Madison building. Take the elevator to the first floor and go to room 140. Tell them “I’m here to do research.” They snap your photo, and give you a library card to enter the Library of Congress reading rooms.

Tunnel below Capitol Hill

Brief note -  the NYTimes article on oxytocin and behavior  is excellent .

I liked the turn of phrase: “. . .Unlike most neurotransmitters, oxytocin seems to deliver its signal through just one receptor, one protein designed to recognize its shape and shudder accordingly when clasped. . .”  It reminded me of how I think of a cytokine with four alpha helices connected by external loops — sort of like four paper towel tubes connected with pipe cleaners — shudders and bends a little and you can fool with the pipe cleaners any number of ways so long as the paper towel tubes stay in the same basic cluster.  (OK,  protein structure wonkology).

One thing that wasn’t mentioned is the inflammation/immunology connection. CD38 upregulates oxytocin.  Autistic spectrum folks have a CD38  gene that results in lower CD38 protein amount and, I think (have to check) different form.

This could be additive to less sensitive oxytocin receptors, as mentioned in the article, found in less emotional people. Maybe the autistic spectrum can be explained in part by a mixture of this  combo – lower, less effective CD38 with lower oxytocin production combined with lower receptor number/binding affinity.

The other thing that is interesting is that CD38 causes cell signaling — and, environmental stimulus salience is related to particular neural synchronous cell firing. Or, why we find certain things interesting in the environment. Like, why I may think tunnels under Capitol Hill are the coolest things ever and have tunnel-envy, whereas you, dear readers, may find them pedestrian,  to pick a perhaps unfortunately applicable term.

Environmental salience and CD38 cell signaling  cuts two ways. Where there is oxytocin and affiliative behavior, one can understand the “look of love” to quote Bert Bacharach.  Or the gaze of a Madonna and child as someone in the NYT comments pointed out. ( There are some additional papers on oxytocin and cell signal, but I haven’t read those yet.) All your love signals are going out to your most salient environmental stimulus.

Where CD38 is the autistic-spectrum allele things get interesting — why do some autistic spectrum folks have an OCD-quality of being able to focus on a very narrow area? (One of the best literature researchers I know has this quality).   Perhaps this version of CD38 is really really good at cell signaling even if it so-so at oxytocin upregulating. There is no research on this that I found, so it’s a guess.