
The brains cells that guide animals - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/the-brains-cells-that-guide-animals
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musingsole
Identifying high order "neural circuits" is really interesting. I'm curious
about discovering circuits that are more remnants of evolution, like the
gallbladder equivalent of a neural circuit, and what effects that remnant
circuit might have on more mainline processing.

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close04
Did you mean appendix? The gallbladder doesn’t seem like a remnant, it has a
specific known purpose even if it’s not vital or absolutely irreplaceable.

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SubiculumCode
[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071008102334.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071008102334.htm)

May not be useless.

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ruffrey
Cool to see this on HN! I worked in a lab (CSUS) for several years researching
HD Cells and Place Cells with JL Calton.

The methods were quite crude - cut a hole in a rat's head, screw a staging
contraption onto the head of the rat, and send a less-than-hair-width
electrode lead into the hippocampus. Day by day or week by week, tighten a
screw 1/4 turn to send the electrode down. Then have the rat run a maze or do
some kind of task, and "listen" on an oscilloscope for the cells or circuits
of interest firing. Once we found the HD cells or Place Cells, we could apply
some kind of drug to attempt to interfere with the cell's activity.

