The Thalamus - The Kernel in Your Mind

corbettw writes "This article on Yahoo Science News describes a new finding that explains how the thalamus is used by your brain to essentially boot your brain, and provide for central processing and control of all impulses going to and from the cortex. The article describes its function as an operating system, but from the description it actually seems closer to the functions of a kernel." From the article: "The finding, published last week in the journal Neuroscience, changes the way scientists understand nitric oxide's role in the brain, and it also has them rethinking the function of the thalamus, where it is released. The thalamus was thought to be a fairly primitive structure, sort of a gate that could either open and allow sensory information to stream into the cortex, the higher functioning part of the brain, or cut off the flow entirely. Godwin says the new research shows it's more accurate to think of the thalamus not as a gate but as a club bouncer, who doesn't simply allow a huge rush of people to go in or no one at all, but picks and chooses whom to let in and out. "

Comments

Re:Research abstract

[phystor]

As a neuroscientist I completely agree that it would be useful to present at least some simplified version of the actual findings instead of some nifty computer analogy to make it sound cool. The actual findings are in stark contrast what is being claimed by the news piece.

The paper you link is a different one. This is the actual paper:

Alexander GM, Kurukulasuriya NC, Mu J, Godwin DW. Cortical feedback to the thalamus is selectively enhanced by nitric oxide. Neuroscience. 2006 Jul 28 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=p ubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=168 76956&query_hl=12&itool=pubmed_docsum

Indeed the area they study is somewhat mysterious: The thalamus provides separate communication channels for essentially all sensory information from the sensory organs (e.g. eyes) to the cerebral cortex. However, unlike most brain areas it appears that there is no transformation going on in the thalamus. So if there is no computation, it must be a relay! As much as much most neuroscientist find the idea of pure "relay" unsatisfactory we simply have no evidence for anything beyond it. Hence all the speculation. Unfortunately, the present paper sheds no light onto the thalamus mystery. The authos cut a slice out of a brain and study in isolation. Clearly you won't get much functional information about what's actually going on in this way. Then the authors dump a drug onto the slice to show that it differentially turns up the gain of one input and turns down the gain of another one. Nice, but we don't know if this is actually going on in the brain or how this chemical would get there. If --as the journalists claim-- this finding were to transform our ideas about the thalamus then it probably wouldn't be published in a third tier journal like 'Neuroscience'.

So much for science journalisms.

-phystor-