Rita
Levi-Montalcini, Stanley
Cohen
neuroscience
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Nerve growth
- Rita Levi-Montalcini studied the growth of nerve fibers
- in chicken embryos, working in a laboratory she set up in her bedroom.
- By amputating limbs inside eggs, she found that nerve growth
- in the embryonic dorsal root ganglion is proportional to the size of the limb tissue.
- Then she discovered that a mouse tumor, transplanted into the embryo,
- produced a substance that promoted nerve growth,
- which Stanley Cohen was able to isolate and analyze.
Growth factors
- Nerve growth factor
- causes axonal growth.
- Other factors,
- proteins that bind
- to cell-receptors
- like keys that unlock doors,
- govern the growth
- of all other tissues.
Factors
- Curiosity,
- luck,
- ignorance,
- ego,
- and a good liberal education . . .
- some combination of traits,
- combined with environmental factors,
- ignoring inessential complaints,
- improves the mind, matures the soul.
- Some say the young must travel,
- learn a language, a musical instrument,
- be exposed to a variety of religious experiences,
- and experience the beauty of wilderness.
- Whatever we can do to counteract the processes
- of nationalism, tribalism, and fanaticism would be good.
- It would be nice if repeating our successes
- were not in conflict with wanting everyone to think for oneself.
Rita Levi-Montalcini took eye drops containing nerve-grown factor and reported increased mental capacity. When people first fall in love, they have higher levels of nerve-growth factor.
See also in The book of science:
Readings on wikipedia: