| Great things are happening in imaging science right | | | | filling substance" in the brain; in fact have a major |
| now. Using a really spectacular method and doing | | | | influence on brain activity regulation. |
| some very painstaking and pioneering work, it became | | | | What really is spectacular about both of the studies is |
| possible to watch cells at work in the living brain. The | | | | the insight they provide into very widely used medical |
| results of this effort are just beginning to flow in. Two | | | | brain imaging: functional magnetic resonance imaging |
| fresh examples are top articles in the well-known | | | | (fMRI). What the studies convincingly are showing is, |
| scientific journals Science and Neuron, respectively. | | | | that the astrocytes make for the actual signal that is |
| The first one of these studies, done at MIT, shows | | | | measured with fMRI, namely the bloof flow changes in |
| that, contrary to prevailing belief, astrocytes influence | | | | the brain, for instance during active perception. So |
| complex neuronal computations such as the duration | | | | there is no meaningful fMRI imaging without functioning |
| and selectivity of brain cell responses to stimuli from | | | | astrocytes. |
| the outside world. Thereby, they are playing an | | | | Importantly, these remarkable results are laying the |
| important role in determining how the "outside world" is | | | | groundwork for further important study of how this |
| perceived. | | | | exquisite neurovascular coupling mediated by |
| The second one of these studies, done by Harvard | | | | astrocytes may go awry in neurodegenerative |
| University neuroscientists, points into the same direction, | | | | diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, as well as in |
| namely the astrocytes, so far considered "passive | | | | the normally aging brain. |