Medical A First of Its Kind: A Calcium-based signal in the Human Brain

[jedishrfu]

TL;DR Summary

Another signaling pathway was found in the Human brain based on Calcium not Sodium.

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-first-of-its-kind-signal-was-detected-in-the-human-brain

Scientists have identified a unique form of cell messaging occurring in the human brain, revealing just how much we still have to learn about its mysterious inner workings.

Excitingly, the discovery hints that our brains might be even more powerful units of computation than we realized.

 

[deepthyd8426]

Calcium signaling is indeed crucial for various cellular processes, including neuronal communication. Neurons often use changes in intracellular calcium levels to transmit signals. These fluctuations in calcium concentrations play a role in processes such as neurotransmitter release and synaptic plasticity.

 

[Pythagorean]

Systems context can change things and I'm not sure exactly how it's implemented in the brain, but I did some research modeling the Morris-Lecar neurons and, due to their slowness (relative to sodium-based models), you can get all kinds of neat of feedback and interference effects (in fact, chaos, when you couple many of them together via gap junctions.)

Another project I did for one of my theses was calcium-induced calcium release with calcium-modulated receptors, which is neat because it demonstrates a sort of interface between chemical and electrical signaling via activation that you don't get to explore much in pure ion models. This then allows a single neuron to have state transitions with "memory" (hysteresis - not to be confused with human memory).

 

[deepthyd8426]

And, In a groundbreaking discovery, scientists have uncovered a calcium-based signaling system within the human brain, a phenomenon never before observed. This unprecedented finding sheds new light on the intricacies of brain function and opens doors to a deeper understanding of neurological processes. I you want further information go here.