Book Review

There are two states associated with the brain—cognitive and non-cognitive. Cognitive is
where there is awareness, a category that includes being conscious. Non-cognitive is when
there is no awareness, essentially unconsciousness. When one is dreaming, the brain is
cognitive, though not necessarily to reality, but to past experiences and the intrinsic
workings of the brain.
Activity in neurons operate in oscillations along their membranes. Though chaotic, these
oscillations translate to great plasticity of the brain. In phase oscillation that results in
workings in an amplified manner is called resonance.
The presence of a nervous system has been found to be to support moving organisms. First
of all, only motile, multicellular organisms have a nervous system or any form of a brain;
examples supporting this include how plants, despite having developed vasculature, do not
have a nervous system as they are sessile. An interesting example to explore is the sea
squirt, which is motile in early stages of development but sessile in adult stages of life. When
the sea squirt matures and becomes sessile, their nervous system, brain, and even their
notochord disappear, seemingly regressing to a more primitive being.
Prediction, a function localized in the brain, is very important to survival. Prediction is an
integral part of everyday life for humans, even mundane tasks that require little thought
involve prediction. For example, lifting a mug of tea to the mouth is a task that requires
many instances of prediction with motor responses acting accordingly, including predicting
the weight of the mug and the temperature of the tea. The strength with which the hand
picks up the mug is adjusted according to the prediction the brain has made.
A muscle collective achieves synergy through the control of multiple muscles at once.
Though this reduces the degree of freedom of movement of the human body, it makes
movements simpler as there are fewer individual units of muscle to control.
 Lecture Questions
Explain the navigation of principle (Chemotaxis) of single cell life.
• Explain the navigation system of E coli
An E coli does not have a brain. They can sense signals around time, and navigate in random
directions, detecting signals around the way to adjust their paths. This type of navigation is
called random and biased walk.
§ What is the Diffuse Nerve Net and Nerve Ring?
A diffuse nerve net is a primitive and simple brain-like structure, found in hydra, starfishes,
and jellyfishes. These are the beginning of brains.
• Explain the brains of Hydra and Jellyfish.
A hydra has about 100 neurons in a diffuse net, that do not communicate with each other.
§ What is special about the brain of Sea Squirt?
The brain of a sea squirt disappears after they attach to a rock. This suggests that the brain
exists mainly for navigation.
Why is C. elegans ideal to learn the origin of the brain?
C. elegans have only 302 neurons, making them mappable. However, the connections
between the neurons have also become identified to study and extrapolate findings to more
complicated brains.
§ Explain the principle of following navigation of C. elegans.
• Reflex
• Chemotaxis
• Thermotaxis
C. elegans can sense stimuli like NaCl, touch, alcohol, temperature, and more, through
individual, named neurons. C. elegans move through a combination of dolphin kick and
snake motions. Feeding, klinotaxis, and biased random walk are dependent on chemotaxis,
which biased random walk, isothermal, and biased orientation are dependent on
thermotaxis, the latter two that C. elegans can perform, differentiating it from E. coli.
§ Among above navigations, which requires the brain?
Staying in isothermal conditions and biased orientation require the brain.