Despite being human, there is still a lot about our own bodies we don’t understand, especially when it comes to our brains. And now neurologists have detected a new type of signal occurring between cells and they say it’s the first of its kind.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 Despite being humans,
00:05 there is still a lot about our own bodies
00:07 we don't understand,
00:08 especially when it comes to our brains.
00:09 And now neurologists have detected
00:11 a new type of signal occurring between cells,
00:13 and they say it's the first of its kind.
00:16 The signals were first noticed a couple of years ago,
00:18 but more recently,
00:19 doctors were able to examine brain tissue
00:21 removed during surgeries,
00:22 finding that there is a cluster of cells
00:24 in the brain's outer cortex
00:25 that uses calcium to fire neurons,
00:27 not just the standard sodium ions.
00:30 They're now calling these messages
00:31 calcium-mediated dendritic action potentials.
00:34 Action potentials refer to the depolarization
00:36 that occurs in a neuron,
00:38 signaling from one end to the next,
00:39 and eventually through a synapse
00:41 onto adjacent nerve cells.
00:42 This all happens chemically
00:44 at the end of each branching dendrite,
00:45 and the researchers say this is a key point
00:47 in unlocking our understanding
00:49 of the brain's computational power.
00:51 That's because dendrites
00:52 are the gatekeepers of the nervous system,
00:54 detecting whether or not an action potential
00:56 is worth reporting to other parts of the body,
00:58 with the researchers saying that the outer cortex
01:00 is particularly packed with neurons and dendrite branches,
01:04 and is responsible for high-level functions, even thought.
01:07 Meaning, understanding these new signals
01:09 could help us better understand the processes
01:11 of the human brain.
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