Action Potential

The next installment of the Nature Network Neuroscience group journal club is now live. The paper discusses a potential therapeutic strategy involving the upregulation of the dopamine receptor D2R that may be beneficial in the treatment of cocaine abuse and addiction.

The contributor discussing this paper for the neuroscience group is Áine Duffy, a postdoctoral fellow at Weill-Cornell Medical College in New York. I want to thank Áine for her participation.

Posted by Noah Gray at 02:28 PM on April 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Interesting Neuroscience, Journal Clubs

Our May editorial takes a brief look back at some of the history of Nature Neuroscience. We also present some of the most-cited papers over the past decade. This is an interesting exercise, as it provides an opportunity to reflect on the interests of both the authors and readers over the past decade.

Continue reading "Nature Neuroscience turns 10!" »

Posted by Noah Gray at 01:20 PM on April 25, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, What's New in NN?

The next installment of the Nature Network Neuroscience group journal club is now live. The paper provides evidence that in unanesthetized animals, sounds are sparsely represented in the auditory cortex.

The contributor discussing this paper for the neuroscience group is Lizzie Buchen, a science writer for Discover Magazine in New York. I want to thank Lizzie for her participation.

Posted by Noah Gray at 10:36 AM on April 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Interesting Neuroscience, Journal Clubs

I recently attended the Alzheimer's Disease Keystone meeting in Keystone, CO and became more acutely aware of something than ever before: academia and drug companies really like one another. Sure, the latter always loved the former, since collaborating with university-based scientists often made the publications arising from the private sector look a little more legit. On the contrary, the reciprocity in this relationship has not always been there. There is without a doubt some sub-disciplinary differences in this complex relationship, but in the basic science departments that I lurked around, if you were associated with a company (or worse, left academia for a position there, succumbing to the power of the Dark Side), there was always talk of whether or not you could be trusted. Because companies need publications to prove the legitimacy of their product, right? And the legitimacy determines how much money everyone makes, right? So with such conflicts of interest, could the scientist, or the data being produced by these people, be trusted?

Continue reading "Big Pharma and academia becoming more and more cozy" »

Posted by Noah Gray at 05:22 PM on April 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Science Policy, Random Thoughts

The next installment of the Nature Network Neuroscience group journal club is now live. The paper discusses the role for brief adaptation in the improvement of population-based encoding accuracy during sensory information processing.

The contributor discussing this paper for the neuroscience group is Adam Packer, a graduate student at Columbia University in the lab of Rafa Yuste. I want to thank Adam for his participation.

Posted by Noah Gray at 02:41 PM on April 08, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Interesting Neuroscience, Journal Clubs

I would say no. Grant proposals are a precious commodity, especially in this day and age of reduced funding and evaporating money. However, in a recent Nature correspondence, Dr. Noam Harel describes his vision for a centralized grant repository, ideally open to the public, where researchers could place their best ideas, allowing various funding agencies to discover the plans most-suited to their respective agendas. Dr. Harel likens this potential web manifestation to something like eBay, Facebook or Google, but for scientists and funding agencies. A more apt analogy might be Monster.com, with both sides searching for their ideal match, and a long-term relationship (perhaps I am now making it sound more like eHarmony.com...).

When it comes to the integration of scientific communication and technology, I am extremely optimistic, and although I don't reject Dr. Harel's idea entirely, I just don't see it taking off in its presently-proposed form.

Continue reading "What to do with your unfunded proposals - place them in a centralized repository? " »

Posted by Noah Gray at 05:34 PM on April 01, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Science Policy, Random Thoughts

The next installment of the Nature Network Neuroscience group journal club is now live. The paper proposes a new strategy to track the location of select synapses using split fluorescent proteins.

The contributor discussing this paper for the neuroscience group is Andrew Hires, a postdoctoral fellow at Janelia Farm Research Campus in the lab of Loren Looger. I want to thank Andrew for his participation.

Posted by Noah Gray at 02:09 PM on March 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Interesting Neuroscience, Journal Clubs

The next installment of the Nature Network Neuroscience group journal club is now live. The paper explores the in vivo function of neurexins in the coordination of pre- and postsynaptic apposition using Drosophila.

The contributor discussing this paper for the neuroscience group is Margaret Ho, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica Taiwan in the lab of Cheng-Ting Chien. I want to thank Margaret for her participation.

Posted by Noah Gray at 10:03 AM on March 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Interesting Neuroscience, Journal Clubs

The next installment of the Nature Network Neuroscience group journal club is now live. The paper is on the role of insular cortex in drug craving and the behavioral signs of abstinence-related malaise.

The contributor discussing this paper for the neuroscience group is Ben Saunders, a graduate student at the University of Michigan in the lab of Terry Robinson. I want to thank Ben for his participation.

Posted by Noah Gray at 03:59 PM on March 11, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Interesting Neuroscience, Journal Clubs

In the last couple of years, after the recent explosion in the number of resources where scientific discussions can take place rapidly and without boundaries (i.e., using the internet), one could easily have predicted that we were on the cusp of a revolution; the way in which scientists communicated with each other regarding data was about to change forever. Although poster session chatter at your favorite scientific meeting was never going to be replaced, now researchers could interact, trade ideas and get feedback from anyone, anywhere, at any time. Sounds pretty good, right? Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like neuroscientists are taking advantage of these cool new offerings. I could extrapolate to biology in general, but for more simplicity (and other obvious reasons), let's stick to what we know best.

Continue reading "Neuroscience and Web 2.0: Participation may vary" »

Posted by Noah Gray at 03:51 PM on March 07, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Random Thoughts

The next installment of the Nature Network Neuroscience group journal club is now live. The paper is attempting to understand the neural mechanisms that distinguish between conscious and unconscious processing, and is from a collaborative group in Paris.

The contributor discussing this paper for the neuroscience group is Alfredo Pereira, Jr, an adjunct professor at São Paulo State University. I want to thank Alfredo for his participation.

Posted by Noah Gray at 01:29 PM on February 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Interesting Neuroscience, Journal Clubs

A woman in the US has decided that she loved her pit bull (named Booger) so much, that having him all over again is definitely worth the $150,000 price tag. I saw this story in the BBC, reporting how a Korean company, RNL Bio, has taken its initial order for pet dog cloning, the first such venture of commercial scientific canine cloning (a pet cat was first cloned in 2004). The lead scientist at RNL Bio, Dr Lee Byeong-chun, had previously worked with disgraced stem cell scientist Dr Hwang Woo-suk, whose fraudulent publications created quite a stir (we referred to that scandal on Action potential here.)

The client, Bernann McKunney, gave RNL Bio ear tissue from "Booger", preserved by an American biotech firm before the dog died 18 months ago. Ms. McKunney had become quite devoted to her dog after she claimed it saved her life, coming to her aid while she was being attacked by another dog, an encounter that cost her an arm. For those of you wishing you had the six figures required to re-create your close canine companion, never fear, RNL Bio's marketing director, Cho Seong-ryul believes that the cloning costs should come down to be under $50,000, as the industry begins to "take-off".

Continue reading "Pet sematary" »

Posted by Noah Gray at 04:55 PM on February 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Random Thoughts

The next installment of the Nature Network Neuroscience group journal club is now live. The paper is on selective nociceptor inhibition, from the lab of Clifford Woolf at Harvard.

The contributor discussing this paper for the neuroscience group is Damien Samways, a post-doctoral fellow at St. Louis University in the lab of Terrance Egan. I want to thank Damien for his participation.

Posted by Noah Gray at 06:28 PM on February 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Interesting Neuroscience, Journal Clubs

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) at Harvard University voted Tuesday to adopt an open-access policy, providing a free repository for finished papers, according to a recent press release. This move will allow for greater dissemination of scholarly work conducted at Harvard, says Stuart Shieber, a professor at FAS. Shieber states that a combination of a restrictive publishing system and the “astronomical” cost of journals have led the Harvard professors to support such a venture. An official description of the proposal that was actually discussed by the FAS on Tuesday is here.

As my colleague from Nature Precedings, Hilary Spencer, points out in a recent Nature Network forum, this entire policy is very vague with regards to what is meant by the scholarly article or the "final version." Is that the final, journal-produced PDF? The peer-reviewed, unpublished, non-copy-edited version? The non-peer-reviewed pre-print? According to an analysis written up on TheScientist.com, this mandate would require that published articles be submitted. However, go back and re-read the original proposal and tell me where it says that explicitly.

Continue reading "Harvard open-access policy – can you please be more specific?" »

Posted by Noah Gray at 02:03 PM on February 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Breaking News, Scientific Publishing

The next installment of the Nature Network Neuroscience group journal club is now live. The paper focuses on the generation of new hair cells from avian mesenchymal tissue.

The contributor discussing this paper for the neuroscience group is Shelley Batts, a graduate student at the University of Michigan. I want to thank Shelley for her participation.

Posted by Noah Gray at 01:05 PM on February 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Interesting Neuroscience, Journal Clubs

The Darwin Day celebration was initiated by Dr. Robert Stephens and was held at Stanford University on April 22, 1995 to celebrate the scientific accomplishments of Charles Darwin. In subsequent years, the event was changed to be on or around the birthday of Darwin (February 12, 1809) and has had many illustrious speakers take part, including Richard Dawkins and Donald Johanson. The celebration has become a global one, with museums, academic institutes, private foundations, and others sponsoring some form of a tribute to this famous scientist.

A consolidated list of this year's events, held around the world, is here. Tell us what you plan to do on Darwin day, and if you take part, report back here on what you learned, disagreed with, or experienced. If we get a nice response here, perhaps we can prepare an event synopsis for ARJ, in case their readers miss out on the celebration.

Posted by Noah Gray at 05:04 PM on February 08, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Random Thoughts

In mid-January, the Science and Engineering Indicators 2008 was released by the National Science Board. The goal of this report is to provide quantitative information about US science for private and public policymakers, as mandated by law.

This study is full of interesting information, and feel free to point out any gems that you dig up. For now, let's focus on a couple of sections, namely science education and the section entitled "Public Attitudes and Understanding." In science education, there are both reasons to cheer and be alarmed; as for the public understanding of science....be afraid...be very afraid.

Continue reading "Science and Engineering Indicators 2008 = Scary Stuff" »

Posted by Noah Gray at 05:08 PM on February 05, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Science Policy

The next installment of the Nature Network Neuroscience group journal club is now live. The paper is on somatosensory processing in sensory and motor cortex, from the lab of Carl Petersen in Lausanne.

The contributor breaking down the paper for the neuroscience group is Eric Thomson, a post-doctoral fellow at Duke University in the lab of Miguel Nicolelis. I want to thank Eric for his participation in this new endeavor.

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Posted by Noah Gray at 11:17 PM on January 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Interesting Neuroscience, Journal Clubs

Answers in Genesis, a self-described Christianity-defending ministry dedicated to enabling Christians to defend their faith and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively, recently launched a new publication, Answers Research Journal. Their mission:

Addressing the need to disseminate the vast fields of research conducted by creationist experts in theology, history, archaeology, anthropology, biology, geology, astronomy, and other disciplines of science, Answers Research Journal will provide scientists and students the results of cutting-edge research that demonstrates the validity of the young-earth model, the global Flood, the non-evolutionary origin of “created kinds,” and other evidences that are consistent with the biblical account of origins.

As their parental organization teaches, "facts" don't speak for themselves, but must be interpreted. All I can say is..........Wow.

Continue reading "CALL FOR CREATIONIST PAPERS: at the Answers Research Journal" »

Posted by Noah Gray at 01:52 PM on January 18, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBacks (1)
Categories: Noah Gray, Scientific Publishing

Everyone has had that awkward moment at a cocktail party or at the lunch table:

You: Congratulations on the little one; she's beautiful! When was she born?
New mother: Thank you, thank you. Well, let's see, I've kind of lost track, but with today being January 14 and her birthday being December 17...
You: Oh, so she's already 5 weeks old then. Wow!
New Mother: Uhh...no. She is exactly 28 days old.

Although mistaken mental math has embarrassed us all, we humans still reign supreme in the nonverbal representation of numerical values, right? A new study in PLoS aimed to find out by directly comparing rhesus monkeys and college students on the same arithmetic task.

Continue reading "Monkeys master mental math" »

Posted by Noah Gray at 05:26 PM on January 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Interesting Neuroscience

I apologize for the blatant promotion, but I wanted to bring your attention to a new forum designed to spur on discussion involving interesting neuroscience papers. I categorized this under "What's new in NN?", except here, the "NN" is different: Nature Network. This platform has been around for some time now, but I am new to it. I recommend that you check out the site, as it aims to connect scientists on both the local and global levels (but unless you are in Boston or London, the local part is still being rolled out).

In the Neuroscience group, we are starting an online journal club featuring interesting papers from any journal for discussion. These journal clubs will be written up by experts in each respective field (except those that I do; I am going to fake my way through whatever topics don't get covered by the experts...). These experts will be students and post-docs discussing somebody else's work, in the classic spirit of a journal club.

Continue reading "Online journal club at Nature Network" »

Posted by Noah Gray at 06:07 PM on January 10, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (1)
Categories: Noah Gray, What's New in NN?, Journal Clubs

A new policy in the Journal of Neuroscience demonstrates the current push towards open access publication. Researchers can pay to have their article freely available immediately upon publication, starting with all articles submitted as of January 1, 2008. It is interesting, because J Neurosci words the new policy a bit like an experiment, essentially telling the authors and funding agencies to put their money where their mouth is. If they want open access, as many are calling for, they can help support it. Hopefully we can return to this policy in 6 months or so to see how many authors took this option, and who funded those choosing to "pay for play."

Posted by Noah Gray at 01:15 PM on January 09, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Scientific Publishing

Well, now, it has been a nice long break since the last post, but time to get this blog rolling again here in 2008. Let's start light, while I finish cooking up the stuff I want to discuss. Let's return to a request I buried in a previous post that received no response:

With regards to moving on, I have plenty of ideas for new discussions, but would also like to offer up the concept of "reader-generated content." If I receive enough participation, I'm willing to discuss what you find interesting as often as you send me promising topics. For now, let's set the modest goal of one reader-selected topic every 2 weeks, and go from there. If you would rather keep your communications and ideas private, feel free to email me at 'Actionpotential' at natureny dot com.

This can take any form, including a nomination for a new study that you think might stimulate conversation, or for clarification on a Nature Neuroscience paper that was recently published (I especially encourage the non-scientist readers to take us up on this offer!).

In addition, if you haven't noticed, we have been working on a modest facelift of the blog homepage, with more organization and categorization. I'd love to hear any feedback on any of these new aspects and will take any other suggestions that might make the blog more user-friendly. Here's looking towards a captivating survey of neuroscience in 2008!

Posted by Noah Gray at 05:53 PM on January 03, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Random Thoughts

Anyone who follows the sports world is well-aware of the concept of doping, in which athletes participate to establish an edge over the competition. This goes back a long ways and includes more famous examples like the East German Olympic machine, and the sprinter Ben Johnson, but also the more recent examples of Todd Landis, Marion Jones and, of course, Barry Bonds.

Competition seems to do that to people, clouding their judgment, confusing their ideals, pushing them to a point where it seems almost immoral not to give yourself any and every possible advantage. Well, doping is extending beyond the physical and entering the realm of cognitive capacity. A new commentary in Nature, written by Barbara Sahakian and Sharon Morein-Zamir of Cambridge, argues that the increased use of "cognitive-enhancing drugs" poses a number of serious ethical issues that can no longer be ignored.

Continue reading "Brain doping" »

Posted by Noah Gray at 01:51 PM on December 19, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Science Policy

Staying on the genetics theme, a recent Science article suggests that a particular variant of the dopamine receptor (D2) causes some people to poorly learn via negative reinforcement. The A1 allele, as this variant is known, has previously been linked to increased vulnerability of addiction.

The researchers recruited volunteers, who performed a learning task while lying in an fMRI machine. Individuals with the A1 allele (at least one copy) were equally successful at selecting a targeted "good" symbol reinforced with positive feedback (the display of a "smiley face") as those individuals completely lacking the A1 allele. However, when the task was changed such that negative reinforcement drove the learning (subjects were asked to avoid the "bad symbol"), those individuals with the A1 allele failed to perform as well as their A1-lacking colleagues.

Continue reading "Learning from your horrible mistakes" »

Posted by Noah Gray at 04:44 PM on December 18, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Interesting Neuroscience

With this entry, I hereby retire from reporting on the details surrounding Dr. James Watson's race row. The subject of IQ and race may rage on in this blog, but it is time to move past the tabloid reporting. Fittingly, I felt that we should return to where it all began...with the release of a new book. Here is a review on Dr. Watson's Avoid Boring People by Jerry Coyne, a geneticist at the University of Chicago. Dr. Coyne paints a complex picture of the author, and attempts to be rather candid, succeeding for the most part. In addition, he does not hide his obvious admiration for the man. You can feel free to contrast Dr. Coyne's review with the opinion of another critic. No mercy given by that Nature editor.

With regards to moving on, I have plenty of ideas for new discussions, but would also like to offer up the concept of "reader-generated content." If I receive enough participation, I'm willing to discuss what you find interesting as often as you send me promising topics. For now, let's set the modest goal of one reader-selected topic every 2 weeks, and go from there. If you would rather keep your communications and ideas private, feel free to email me at 'Actionpotential' at natureny dot com.

Posted by Noah Gray at 10:55 AM on December 14, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)
Categories: Noah Gray, Popular Press

I don't know what it is about Jim Watson and my blog posting, but every time I mention him (as I did in my previous entry), something else pops up and I have to talk about him again. While doing my morning reading, I stumbled upon an entry from the DrugMonkey blog that was simply too good to pass up. Jim Watson is more mixed race than anyone thought, with 16% of his genes likely to have come from an African great-grandparent, as reported in the Sunday Times.

[12/12 - MAKE SURE YOU CHECK THE UPDATE. CLICK BELOW TO CONTINUE READING.]

Continue reading "When it rains...it pours" »

Posted by Noah Gray at 10:23 AM on December 11, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
Categories: Noah Gray, Breaking News, Popular Press

There was a great Op-Ed piece in the NY Times yesterday, written by Dr. Richard Nisbett, that provides a nice set of studies challenging the notion of inherent intelligence differences between races. Dr. Nisbett communicates these findings to the reader in a very clear fashion, providing good information for those of you who followed the news and debate underlying the Watson scandal.

Continue reading "The column that Dr. Watson needed to read" »

Posted by Noah Gray at 11:10 AM on December 10, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (1)
Categories: Noah Gray, Popular Press

Since the recent fall-out of the recent NY Times OP-Ed piece discussing the use of fMRI to predict the inclinations and feelings of swing voters is still fresh in our minds, I wanted to simply provide the link to a recent PLoS ONE paper that touches on the general concept of the media reporting on science.

Continue reading ""All the News That's Fit to Print" (except the part about potential conflicts of interest)" »

Posted by Noah Gray at 01:18 PM on December 06, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)
Categories: Noah Gray, Interesting Neuroscience, Scientific Publishing, Popular Press

If it exists, it must be a tenuous link, right? Well, at least in C. elegans, it is definitely not. Linda Buck and colleagues revealed, in a recent Nature article that drugs modulating the serotonin system in the worm can increase lifespan. Caloric restriction has been a well-documented means to enhance longevity in animals ranging from rodents to worms. We have only recently begun to mechanistically understand why eating less allows us to live longer (remember the sirtuin genes?)

Continue reading "Antidepressants and caloric restriction, what's the connection?" »

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