Forum for Science, Industry and Business

Umeå physiologists describe a new principle for information coding in the nervous system

20.01.2004

How does the nervous system code, transmit, and process the information that steers our behaviour? Ronald S. Johansson’s research team at Umeå University in Sweden is now publishing its discovery of a new principle for this.

The prevailing view is that information is coded and transmitted by variations in the number of nerve impulses per time unit in the fibres of the nerve cells, that is, as a frequency code.

Johansson’s research team at the Section for Physiology present in the journal Nature Neuroscience a new principle for how information is coded and transmitted in the nervous system. When we manipulate objects, the brain reacts more quickly to the form of the objects and the direction of the contact forces than would be possible with frequency coding of information from the sensory organs of the fingertips. Frequency coding would require that the individual nerve fibre would have time to signal at least two impulses, and to interpret the message the brain needs to monitor signal traffic for a considerable period of time.

The team of scientists is now demonstrating that the information is effectively coded on the basis of the very first nerve impulse occurring in the nerve fibres that are excited when the fingertip contacts objects. The time gap between the first nerve impulses that occur in the signaling nerve fibres convey the information more rapidly that frequency codes-and fast enough to explain the role of the tactile sense in steering the fine motor movements of the hand.

In experiments carried out on conscious volunteers, signals were registered in individual nerve fibres running from the tactile organs of the fingertips to the spinal cord and brain stem.

In August 2003, Roland S. Johansson published an article in Nature together with a Canadian visiting researcher. It dealt with how the brain can understand the actions of other individuals.

In the new article in Nature Neuroscience, appearing online in January, his co-author is one of his previous doctoral candidates, Ingvars Birznieks, who defended his thesis in 2003 at the Section for Physiology.

Hans Fällman | alfa
Further information:
http://www.umu.se/umu/index_eng.html

All articles from Life Sciences >>>

The most recent press releases about innovation >>>

Die letzten 5 Focus-News des innovations-reports im Überblick:

Im Focus: Stevens team closes in on 'holy grail' of room temperature quantum computing chips

Photons interact on chip-based system with unprecedented efficiency

To process information, photons must interact. However, these tiny packets of light want nothing to do with each other, each passing by without altering the...

Im Focus: Happy hour for time-resolved crystallography

Researchers from the Department of Atomically Resolved Dynamics of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science in Hamburg, the University of Hamburg and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) outstation in the city have developed a new method to watch biomolecules at work. This method dramatically simplifies starting enzymatic reactions by mixing a cocktail of small amounts of liquids with protein crystals. Determination of the protein structures at different times after mixing can be assembled into a time-lapse sequence that shows the molecular foundations of biology.

The functions of biomolecules are determined by their motions and structural changes. Yet it is a formidable challenge to understand these dynamic motions.

Im Focus: Modular OLED light strips

At the International Symposium on Automotive Lighting 2019 (ISAL) in Darmstadt from September 23 to 25, 2019, the Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology FEP, a provider of research and development services in the field of organic electronics, will present OLED light strips of any length with additional functionalities for the first time at booth no. 37.

Almost everyone is familiar with light strips for interior design. LED strips are available by the metre in DIY stores around the corner and are just as often...

Im Focus: Tomorrow´s coolants of choice

Scientists assess the potential of magnetic-cooling materials

Later during this century, around 2060, a paradigm shift in global energy consumption is expected: we will spend more energy for cooling than for heating....

Im Focus: The working of a molecular string phone

Researchers from the Department of Atomically Resolved Dynamics of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science in Hamburg, the University of Potsdam (both in Germany) and the University of Toronto (Canada) have pieced together a detailed time-lapse movie revealing all the major steps during the catalytic cycle of an enzyme. Surprisingly, the communication between the protein units is accomplished via a water-network akin to a string telephone. This communication is aligned with a ‘breathing’ motion, that is the expansion and contraction of the protein.

This time-lapse sequence of structures reveals dynamic motions as a fundamental element in the molecular foundations of biology.

All Focus news of the innovation-report >>>

Top