Brain Cells in a Dish Keep Time
Networks of brain cells in the laboratory can be trained to track time—suggesting we're not ruled by one master clock, a new study says.
The discovery may help scientists reveal how our brains track time, an ability fundamental to how humans interact with each other and the world. It's also key to how we recognize speech patterns and song rhythms.cn
(See "Making Music Boosts Brain's Language Skills.")
"One issue that's been long debated regarding timing is whether there's a central clock in the brain or whether timing is a general ability in many different circuits of the brain," said study leader Dean Buonomano, a neuroscientist at University of California, Los Angeles.
Buonomano and colleagues kept networks of rat brain cells alive in petri dishes and stimulated them with two electrical pulses separated by intervals ranging
