Introducing the brain: synapse complexity (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, July 16, 2020, 21:37 (1380 days ago) @ David Turell

The synapse survey adds to our realization about how really complex the brain turns out to be:

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6501/253?utm_campaign=toc_sci-mag_2020-07-16...

"Brains can be viewed as vast ensembles of highly diverse and dynamic synapses that shape and store information as it travels through the networks of neurons that generate and interconnect those synapses. There are more than 100 trillion synapses per human neocortex, and each synapse is itself a highly complex entity, comprising thousands of diverse and cooperative signal-transduction proteins. Growing knowledge of these very large and heterogeneous populations of synapses, or “synaptomes,” thus offers perhaps the most compelling glimpse to date of brains as machines deep and wide enough to support the richness and subtlety of the human mind. On page 270 of this issue, Cizeron et al. describe the use of a mouse model to begin the task of systematically mapping synaptomes brain-wide, from birth to old age.

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"Perhaps the most promising avenue toward mapping functional synaptomes at scale would be to develop a “codebook” capable of predicting the difficult-to-measure function of an individual synapse from more readily accessible molecular and/or morphological measurements. The potential payoffs could be enormous, enhancing the much richer understanding of the brain's synaptic network architectures that are now beginning to emerge from electron microscopy connectomics and viral trans-synaptic tracing methods.

"Perhaps the most promising avenue toward mapping functional synaptomes at scale would be to develop a “codebook” capable of predicting the difficult-to-measure function of an individual synapse from more readily accessible molecular and/or morphological measurements. The potential payoffs could be enormous, enhancing the much richer understanding of the brain's synaptic network architectures that are now beginning to emerge from electron microscopy connectomics and viral trans-synaptic tracing methods."

Comment: This comes from review of a complex highly technical article on mouse synapses. I present it to introduce us to the high complexity of synapses themselves. The complexity of neuron networks is further complexified by the communication system of synapse's control over the intesividity of signals from the different neurons purposely modifying signal strength. Design required.