Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA12027 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 7 Aug 2000 21:30:09 +0100 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2000 13:27:34 -0700 From: "Scott Chase" <hemidactylus@my-Deja.com> Message-ID: <IDJKFLJEDDFCHCAA@my-deja.com> X-Sent-Mail: off X-Mailer: MailCity Service Subject: RE: Simple neural models X-Sender-Ip: 209.240.220.168 Organization: My Deja Email (http://www.my-deja.com:80) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Language: en Content-Length: 2773 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
--On Mon, 7 Aug 2000 09:56:02 Gatherer, D. (Derek) wrote: >>I only read about NO here and there, but I recall some workers have focused >on >it. > >Oh yes, it was all the rage in the early 90s. I spent a year (most of 1994, >if I remember rightly) working on nitric oxide synthase (known as NOS, >rhyming with boss, in the trade) which is the enzyme that synthesises nitric >oxide, using N-methyl-arginine (NMA), which is a NOS inhibitor, and NADPH >diaphorase staining which is a histochemical technique that stains up cells >that are expressing active NOS. The staining was a real pain the neck >technically, and NMA didn't seems to have any effects in any of the systems >I was looking at. Everyboy was doing it at the time, it became a bit of a >joke at conferences - you had to get nitric oxide into your talk or poster >somehow, even if it wasn't really relevant to the subject! It was one of >the trendiest buzzwords I can remember (although homeoboxes in the >mid-to-late-80s came pretty close). I don't really follow it any more, it >brings back too many memories of having my head stuck in a fume cupboard >doing diaphorase staining. Most people dabbled in it for a while and >drifted onto other things. However, you still occasionally see articles >with titles like the following: > >Shinde UA, Mehta AA, Goyal RK (200) Nitric oxide: a molecule of the >millennium. Indian J Exp Biol 2000 Mar;38(3):201-10 > >so obviously it can still raise some enthusiasm in some people!! > > My professor mentioned NO when we were all discussing synaptic plasticity and LTP as a possible lit search topic. IIRC she said something along the lines of 'molecule of the decade'. I was pretty headstrong in keeping the focus on NMDA-R and the calcium calmodulin kinase. Interesting some of the knockout work has been done by Susumu Tonegawa, who is best known for Nobel work on immunogenetics. I thought that was kinda cool.
My recollection about NO is that it (as "wondermolecule" ;-)) has possible involvements not only with memory etc but also with immune function (IIRC the respiratory burst of macrophages) and also something to do with vasoactivity. If it does all these things perhaps there's been some molecular evolutionary co-option involved. I dunno. My recollections aren't very clear right now.
I've heard stuff here and there about something called CREB with regard to molecular memory components. Have you heard anything on this? I admittedly haven't been paying molecular topics much mind lately, presently losing myself in the foggy morass of Berkeley, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche (don't ask).
Scott
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