Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by ihodes 5599 days ago
This article was from last year (don't know if it's the one you're thinking of), but the paper just theorizes that glia may be involved in the described mechanism.

I think we can be fairly certain that glial cells are involved in neuronal communications, but I'd not say this paper at all proves that.
1 comments
a-priori 5599 days ago
Now that I think about it, I believe I was remembering an interview on the Brain Science podcast with Douglas Fields[1], author of The Other Brain[2].

So sorry, but I don't have primary sources for what I said in my earlier comment...

[1]: http://www.brainsciencepodcast.com/bsp/2010/5/12/exploring-g...

[2]: http://theotherbrainbook.com/

link
ihodes 5599 days ago
Oh there have definitely been studies on it (a good review: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2062484/), and without a doubt they communicate. It's just that this paper didn't really address that.

What was remarkable about this paper was that they demonstrated action potentials (basically, the neuron's relative charge depolarizing) could start not only in the soma, but in the axon.

link