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NEURO·science·letter, February 2011
The NEURO science letter is a quarterly electronic newsletter highlighting activities at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital. If you have any comments, please send them to Communications. To subscribe and receive e-mail notification when a new issue becomes available, click here.
Neuroscience 101 What do we mean by "scientific"?
It is commonplace, nowadays, to come across words such as "scientific" and
"unscientific" used to support or condemn various claims. The American
politician Sharon Angle has asserted that the evidence for global warming
is "junk science". Purveyors of homeopathic remedies refer to "scientific"
evidence in support of their products' effectiveness. In cases like these,
the terms "scientific", "junk science" and so forth are being used in the
same sense that North Korea calls itself a "Democratic People's Republic"
or that Rush Limbaugh calls Barak Obama a "fascist". "Scientific" merely
means something that the speaker or writer wants us to believe is good,
something that can be taken seriously, whereas "unscientific", "junk
science", etc. mean just the opposite. In other words, these terms have
been stripped of any deep meaning, and are simply intended to convey praise
or condemnation.
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Of Fox and Mice: wiring the brain for sensory perception
by Jean-François Cloutier, PhD
Upon my arrival as a new Faculty member at the Montreal Neurological
Institute in 2004, I expected to be faced with a wide variety of complex
tasks that would include setting up my laboratory, securing funding for our
research program, hiring and mentoring trainees in the lab, and developing
courses for undergraduate and graduate students. While all these tasks
ended up being challenging, yet rewarding, none turned out to be as
daunting as being a new homeowner in Montreal. Shortly after moving into
our new house, I was confronted with a problem that at times seemed more
complex than understanding how the brain actually works. A big skunk had
made a very comfortable nest under our shed and intended on making this
place its permanent residence...
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Understanding the sleep-waking cycle
I seek to understand how the brain generates waking and sleeping. My
research group studies the chemical neurotransmitters, neuroanatomical
projections and electrophysiology of the specific neurons that generate
waking and those neurons which reciprocally suppress waking and generate
sleep. The sleep-waking cycle is actually composed of three distinct
states: waking, slow wave sleep (SWS), when the brain is resting, and rapid
eye movement sleep (REMS) when the brain is dreaming. To study the neural
systems producing these states, we use immunohistochemical and
neuroanatomical staining combined with electrophysiological recording of
neurons in rats.
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