brain complexity: chemical controls (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, January 12, 2020, 16:05 (1775 days ago) @ dhw

QUOTE:"It is now commonly appreciated that peripheral immune stem cells (and even fetal cells from pregnant moms circulating in maternal blood) can migrate across the adult BBB [blood brain barrier] and fuse with local neurons to create all kinds of new hybrid entities.

dhw: The article is far too technical for me to follow in its entirety, but this leapt off the page. All kinds of new hybrid entities = innovation, and once again we have stem cells in the thick of it. So are stem cells the key to how evolution works?

DAVID: this shows how difficult it is to understand how the brain does its amazing work as the result of neurogenic and chemical coordinated activities. Not by chance.

dhw: What this shows is that the brain does its amazing work as the result of materials interacting. Some would suggest that this offers support for materialism as opposed to dualism.

All it means to me is the enormous number of automatic underlying controls for brain plasticity to act appropriately. If the brain is like a receiver, it can change from AM to FM, nothing more