Despite the fact that the nervous system of humans and other mammals has been studied quite well, how some of its aspects work is still a mystery. For example, if you compare the structure of the brain of humans and our closest relatives of primates, there are not so many differences. However, all this does not explain the origin of such a unique property in humans as intelligence. And, perhaps, scientists at MIT are closer to understanding what gives us this very intelligence.
New research by experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was made possible by the fact that they were able to obtain samples of human excitatory neurons from the deepest parts of the brain of volunteers who underwent surgery for epilepsy. Each sample was "the size of a fingernail" and, according to scientists, its loss will not affect the functioning of the organ in any way. But for scientists, this is a great way to more fully study human neurons.
The fact is that some time ago, while studying the rate of passage of signals along the processes of neurons, it was found that, in comparison with rat cells, human cells transmit these signals much faster, which led scientists to the idea that in synapses and the cells themselves deeper analysis of information (despite the fact that the anatomically structures look almost identical). According to lead author Mark Harnett, Taking a sample of neurons from the volunteers' brains, the researchers immersed them in cerebrospinal fluid to keep them alive, while they measured how the signals propagated through the cells.
Thanks to the data obtained, it was possible to find out that neurons in the human brain not only transmit signals, but also tune them, processing information. In a sense, they can be thought of as transistors, as they amplify some signals while blocking others.
According to experts, all this means that with "the same volume", individual parts are "more productive." This is not observed in other mammals, and this is what may explain the origin of our intelligence.