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This blog is maintained by the Computational Neuroscience Laboratory, IIT Madras, guided by Prof. Srinivasa Chakravarthy.

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Parallels between the brain and architecture

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At a first glance neuroscience and architecture seem to be fields that are worlds apart, one from science and the other from the world of arts. But on a second look, one might find a connection, however slim, between the two said fields. Loosely put, architecture refers to buildings and built up spaces. More deeply, architecture refers to the form of those built up spaces, the interrelationships of various parts of that form. In that respect architecture comes close to the field of geometry. But an important aspect of architecture that distinguishes it from the purely objective and mathematical study of form which geometry embodies, is the question of the aesthetics of form. The reference to aesthetics immediately brings in the mind of the viewer since that is exactly where beauty is appreciated. Just one more step leads us to the brain since, the brain as an organ in the substrate for all mental activity. The effect of architecture or built up spaces on the though
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Writing is like producing movement

Writing is like producing movement. There is the simplest kind of movement that is produced by the brain… it is produced as a fast reflex to a shock received from the world. It involves no thought. It is a simple conversion of one form of information into another, one form of energy into another. The movement that is released is informed by the stimulus. In the world of writing, certain kinds of translation work are similar to this movement. Then there are movements that are still dependent on and are specified by the sensory information from the world. But these involve thought, a certain permission from the will of the performer.  But here too it is the world that does most of the work. The more serious kinds of writing, something that can be said to be original, are like voluntary movements.  Here too there are types of voluntary movements. In the classification of William James, the 19 th century American psychologist, firstly, there are the ideomotor movements in which there
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HERO or VILLAIN:
Unravelling the functions of Astrocytes

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Dr. Marian Diamond stood in both shock and awe. She found it hard to believe that the only difference between Einstein’s brain and a normal human brain is the number of ‘glial cells’. They were almost four times more in Einstein’s brain, while the number of neurons remained approximately the same. “Was this just a fluke? Could these glial cells be the reason behind Einstein’s brilliance?” - the famous neuroanatomist from University of California, Berkeley wondered. Introduction Glial cells are non-neuronal, electrically inactive cells present in the brain. These cells were discovered in 1856, by German pathologist Rudolph Virchow. Initially, they were considered to be mere connective cells in the brain and hence the name “glia” in Latin, which literally translates to “glue”. It was only later that the varied functions of glial cells were discovered. Glial cells are further classified into - Astrocytes, Oligodendrocytes and the Micro Glia that are present in the Central
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