Otto Loewi's guest appearances

Otto Loewi

Podcast – Curious Mind, Curious Brain

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Alexis Carrel

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1936 yılında sinapslar arası aktarımın kimyasal yolla olduğunu kanıtlayan Henry Hallett Dale ve Otto Loewi'yi ve aynı zamanda ilk keşfedilen nörotransmitter olan asetilkolin'i konuştuk. 

1936 yılında sinapslar arası aktarımın kimyasal yolla olduğunu kanıtlayan Henry Hallett Dale ve Otto Loewi'yi ve aynı zamanda ilk keşfedilen nörotransmitter olan asetilkolin'i konuştuk.

1936 - Henry Hallett Dale ve Otto Loewi, Nöronlarda kimyasal aktarım

http://somjuan.com/peter/The-Dreams-of-Otto-Loewi.mp3 I’ve been holding onto this story since before I even started this podcast. A professor of mine used the story of Otto Loewi’s dreams (in his version, there were three dreams) to introduce a unit on neurotransmitters. When I sat down to research this week’s episode, I was surprised how much other interesting stuff was in Loewi’s life as well. The experiment he dreamed up got him the Nobel prize, and then the Nobel prize money allowed him to buy his freedom from the Nazis. In fact, the half of the money that went to his research partner and friend ended up coming back to him, and his family survived off of that money while they rebuilt the life that had been shattered by Nazi invasion. So in a way, Otto Loewi had a dream that, years later, saved his life. It’s even more incredibly when you consider that there are about a thousand reasons why Loewi’s experiment shouldn’t have worked, even if his hypothesis about chemical communication was correct. By his own admission, Loewi never would have carried out the research if he had taken time to think about it. “On mature consideration, in the cold light of the morning, I would not have done it. After all, it was an unlikely enough assumption that the vagus should secrete an inhibitory substance; it was still more unlikely that a chemical substance that was supposed to be effective at very close range between nerve terminal and muscle be secreted in such large amounts that it would spill over and, after being diluted by the perfusion fluid, still be able to inhibit another heart.” (Quoted from Wikipedia, which in turn is quoting Otto Loewi) I want to clarify something about what Loewi’s research meant. His findings settled a major scientific debate of his day, showing that nerve cells use chemicals, and not electricity, to communicate. But a lot of you reading this have probably heard that nerve cells do use electricity. So what gives? Nerve cells, like muscle cells, are “excitable,” which means that they do something when they’re stimulated. If you zap a bone cell, nothing will happen, but if you zap a nerve cell in just the right way, a little pulse of electricity will run down its length. So Loewi’s contemporaries knew that electricity was involved in nervous system function, and they knew that there were tiny gaps between nerve cells. When they had to figure out how signals got from one cell to another, it seemed rather obvious to most people that the cells would use their electricity to send a little spark across the gap. Otto Loewi demonstrated that electrical signals are only used within individual cells, and that chemicals are used to transmit a signal from one cell to another. Alas, nature loves exceptions to the rules. We now know that Loewi’s ideas about chemical communication are correct most of the time. In the 1950s, shortly before Loewi’s death, we discovered that some nerve cells don’t have a gap between them. Instead they’re connected directly to each other, with specialized proteins that anchor them in place. This union of cells is called a “gap junction” and they actually do send electrical information from one cell to another. So don’t be afraid to turn to your dreams for inspiration, but don’t be surprised if people later find that they’re only partially correct. References Clinical Neuroscience– Kelly Lambert, Craig H. Kinsley; Macmillan Publishing Inspiration From Dreams in Neuroscience Research– D. Todman; The Internet Journal of Neurology Otto Loewi– Wikipedia Otto Loewi- Biographical– The Nobel Foundation; Nobleprize.org Otto Loewi’s Great Dreams– Renate G. Justin, MD; The Permanente Journal

<a href="http://somjuan.com/peter/The-Dreams-of-Otto-Loewi.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://somjuan.com/peter/The-Dreams-of-Otto-Loewi.mp3</a> I’ve been holding onto this story since before I even started this podcast. A professor of mine used the story of Otto Loewi’s dreams (in his version, there were three dreams) to introduce a unit on neurotransmitters. When I sat down to research this week’s episode, I was surprised how much other interesting stuff was in Loewi’s life as well. The experiment he dreamed up got him the Nobel prize, and then the Nobel prize money allowed him to buy his freedom from the Nazis. In fact, the half of the money that went to his research partner and friend ended up coming back to him, and his family survived off of that money while they rebuilt the life that had been shattered by Nazi invasion. So in a way, Otto Loewi had a dream that, years later, saved his life. It’s even more incredibly when you consider that there are about a thousand reasons why Loewi’s experiment shouldn’t have worked, even if his hypothesis about chemical communication was correct. By his own admission, Loewi never would have carried out the research if he had taken time to think about it. <blockquote>“On mature consideration, in the cold light of the morning, I would not have done it. After all, it was an unlikely enough assumption that the vagus should secrete an inhibitory substance; it was still more unlikely that a chemical substance that was supposed to be effective at very close range between nerve terminal and muscle be secreted in such large amounts that it would spill over and, after being diluted by the perfusion fluid, still be able to inhibit another heart.” (Quoted from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagusstoff" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>, which in turn is quoting Otto Loewi)</blockquote> I want to clarify something about what Loewi’s research meant. His findings settled a major scientific debate of his day, showing that nerve cells use chemicals, and not electricity, to communicate. But a lot of you reading this have probably heard that nerve cells do use electricity. So what gives? Nerve cells, like muscle cells, are “excitable,” which means that they do something when they’re stimulated. If you zap a bone cell, nothing will happen, but if you zap a nerve cell in just the right way, a little pulse of electricity will run down its length. So Loewi’s contemporaries knew that electricity was involved in nervous system function, and they knew that there were tiny gaps between nerve cells. When they had to figure out how signals got from one cell to another, it seemed rather obvious to most people that the cells would use their electricity to send a little spark across the gap. Otto Loewi demonstrated that electrical signals are only used within individual cells, and that chemicals are used to transmit a signal from one cell to another. Alas, nature loves exceptions to the rules. We now know that Loewi’s ideas about chemical communication are correct most of the time. In the 1950s, shortly before Loewi’s death, we discovered that some nerve cells don’t have a gap between them. Instead they’re connected directly to each other, with specialized proteins that anchor them in place. This union of cells is called a “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_junction" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">gap junction</a>” and they actually do send electrical information from one cell to another. So don’t be afraid to turn to your dreams for inspiration, but don’t be surprised if people later find that they’re only partially correct. References <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=6OgdMLO0CdMC&amp;pg=PA51&amp;lpg=PA51&amp;dq=loewi+dream&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=WH7v_Mz_MW&amp;sig=q1ef1fpTKNfq5qcsnXzU7UN3L7w&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=_V6fUrO8FPHLsQTEg4CgCw&amp;ved=0CEMQ6AEwAzgK#v=onepage&amp;q=loewi%20dream&amp;f=false" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Clinical Neuroscience</a>– Kelly Lambert, Craig H. Kinsley; Macmillan Publishing <a href="http://ispub.com/IJN/9/1/10059" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Inspiration From Dreams in Neuroscience Research</a>– D. Todman; The Internet Journal of Neurology <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Loewi" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Otto Loewi</a>– Wikipedia <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1936/loewi-bio.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Otto Loewi- Biographical</a>– The Nobel Foundation; <a href="http://Nobleprize.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Nobleprize.org</a> <a href="http://www.thepermanentejournal.org/files/Summer2006/otto.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Otto Loewi’s Great Dreams</a>– Renate G. Justin, MD; The Permanente Journal

The Dreams of Otto Loewi

Anlässlich des 70jährigen Jubiläums der Verleihung des Nobelpreises an Otto Loewi im Jahr 2006 wurde die Otto Loewi Memorial Lecture an der Med Uni Graz eingeführt. Dieses Jahr wurde die Vorlesung vom renommierten Forscher Prof. Dr. Edward Dennis von der University of California, San Diego, gehalten.Weitere Informationen unter: http://www.medunigraz.at/?pageName=301&amp;newsId=26112

Anlässlich des 70jährigen Jubiläums der Verleihung des Nobelpreises an Otto Loewi im Jahr 2006 wurde die Otto Loewi Memorial Lecture an der Med Uni Graz eingeführt. Dieses Jahr wurde die Vorlesung vom renommierten Forscher Prof. Dr. Edward Dennis von der University of California, San Diego, gehalten. Weitere Informationen unter: <a href="http://www.medunigraz.at/?pageName=301&amp;newsId=26112" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.medunigraz.at/?pageName=301&amp;newsId=26112</a>