Comments on: Crayfish Psychoanalysis

By: Neurophile

Neurophile — Fri, 12 May 2006 18:24:43 +0000

The Origins of the Discoverer of Memory

Via the Loom, Carl Zimmer’s profile of Eric Kandel for the New York Academy of Sciences…

By: Carl Zimmer

Carl Zimmer — Mon, 08 May 2006 19:26:04 +0000

Henry and Chris–

I appreciate your points–but I think you’re reading something into my post that isn’t there. I’m not saying that studies on organisms are primitive and studies on genes are advanced. I’m just contrasting one example of old science–listening to neurons on a loudspeaker–to an example of new science–measuring gene expression in synapses. I’m sure that when you record activity in neurons, you use a computer to store and analyze that information. And I’m sure your computer doesn’t fill a room.

By: Christopher Mims

Christopher Mims — Mon, 08 May 2006 16:09:27 +0000

I also must take exception to crayfish neuroscience being “primitive.” I spent two years of my life working on just this model system, and Henry (above) is right – it’s very tricky, and provides researchers with a way to ask – and answer – questions that cannot be answered with genes and behavioral observation alone.

Between the genotype and the phenotype lies the mechanics of the organism itself – and insights from this realm inform everything from our understanding of basic processes in the neuron (what Kandel won a Nobel Prize for) to the realization that adding noise to a sensory system can sometimes increase its ability to pick up a signal. Too often in science the sexiness of a new technique trumps its actual utility – which isn’t to say that germ-line manipulations aren’t incredibly powerful – but rather that some older techniques are in their own way equally so.

By: Henry

Henry — Fri, 05 May 2006 23:39:44 +0000

These days he’s observing genes switching on and off at the junctions between neurons. But when he started out, he had to content himself with sticking electrodes into crayfish (chosen for their fat neurons). To observe their neurons, scientists would hook up the electrodes to amplifiers and loudspeakers, and the crackle of nerves would fill the room. With hindsight, we can cluck at the primitiveness of it all.

Nobody who has ever actually performed experiments like those above could describe it as ‘primitive’; it’s far more difficult than just getting spots to show up on your microarray.

Genes are great, but they aren’t the end-all-be-all that so many molecular-oriented people seem to make them out to be. No understanding of genes will ever ellucidate the temporal pattern of a neural or muscular response.

Different techniques are used for different experiments to answer different questions. To dismiss electrical recordings of nerves or muscles as ‘primitive’ is to fall victim to merely idolozing the new and flashy, regardless of its limitations.

But hey, the more people go into molecular, the fewer people there’ll be to compete with me for faculty positions in organismal biology and physiology in 12 years.