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Neurons Constantly Alter Their DNA (2015)

136 点作者 givan将近 9 年前

8 条评论

maxander将近 9 年前
The use of "rewrite" is a bit misleading- what's being altered in this mechanism is an epigenetic tag that sits "on top" of one of the standard DNA bases; that an individual's epigenetics are altered as they go through life is well known. But since the underlying cytosine is (as far as we know) irrevocably bound to this tag, it has to be replaced by a different (but identical) cytosine. Its more like going over your handwriting to hide an errant punctuation mark than "rewriting."
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astazangasta将近 9 年前
This is a bit silly, eh. Every cell in your body does this kind of epigenetic modification, there are a whole host of factors whose only job is to methylate DNA. Furthermore, this is not really &quot;altering DNA&quot;, the sequence doesn&#x27;t change, this is just a way to mask gene expression - if you methylate cytosines near the promoter region of a gene, RNA polymerase has a harder time sitting down and transcribing the gene, reducing its expression.<p>Neurons do this, germ cells do this, immune cells do this, every cell in the body does this.<p>What&#x27;s interesting here is the specific factor (Tet3), not the occurrence of epigenetic modification. The perils of science journalism, as usual.
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harveywi将近 9 年前
Many years ago I attended a talk by Bernard Widrow (discovered&#x2F;invented a precursor to the backpropagation algorithm; i.e. the least mean squares filter) [1]. He believed that long-term memories are stored in DNA [2]. At the time, I and others thought he was completely wrong.<p>Maybe it is not such a crazy idea. Code is data, after all (especially if our brains are written in LISP).<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Bernard_Widrow" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Bernard_Widrow</a> [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.stanford.edu&#x2F;class&#x2F;ee373b&#x2F;cognitive_memory2.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.stanford.edu&#x2F;class&#x2F;ee373b&#x2F;cognitive_memory2.pdf</a>
starseeker将近 9 年前
I knew it - our brains are written in Lisp!
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spinPhysician将近 9 年前
This is a pretty cool thing for electric amoeba colonies in skull aquariums to be messing around with.<p>I&#x27;d wager white blood cells are a species apart, in this territory.
ArtDev将近 9 年前
Is this the mechanism responible?<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;discovermagazine.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;may&#x2F;13-grandmas-experiences-leave-epigenetic-mark-on-your-genes" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;discovermagazine.com&#x2F;2013&#x2F;may&#x2F;13-grandmas-experiences...</a>
rdiddly将近 9 年前
Is the word &#x27;toggle&#x27; being used correctly in that article? Do they mean &#x27;modulate&#x27; maybe? (If they&#x27;re talking about a continuum, rather than a &quot;one or the other&quot; polarity.)
godembodied将近 9 年前
If this is the case, then we have an intersting problem. Epigenetics change, DNA - due to mutations can differ from cell to cell, people get injected with completely different DNA in the case of organ transplant. New neural pathways are created. Cells in the body are changed constantly. Memories are changed. Things like height, weight, personality traits, name, disorders, spatial location etc. can all be changed as well.<p>So, this raises the question of whether someone can seriously say: &quot;I did something 15 years ago&quot; - when many of the things that make up the human have been changed plus the person saying it is most likely making up a story about past(confabulation). What do you think?
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