Are life sciences all about life？

Dajue Wang （✉）

The National Spinal Injuries Centre， Stoke Mandeville Hospital， Aylesbury HP199QD， UK

Are life sciences all about life？

Dajue Wang （✉）

The National Spinal Injuries Centre， Stoke Mandeville Hospital， Aylesbury HP199QD， UK

ARTICLE INFO

Received： 20 May 2016

Revised： 30 May 2016

Accepted： 31 May 2016

© The authors 2016. This article

is published with open access

at www.TNCjournal.com

Brain function is an extremely active dynamic process. Studing a living organism is ssential for explaination of the sophistication of the brain. Althoughthere are progresses in studying living tissues of acute or cultured slice for prolonged period n vitro， clinicians prefer seeing the lesion directly on an imaging screen or material. Functional MRI （fMRI） is commonly used method to study brain pathology in dynamics.

Are life sciences all about life？ The answer is no！ Most scientific specimens （from molecules to entire organisms） we use to study life， come from biopsies and autopsies and are practically dead. Neuroscience is no exception. Although life and death may be separated only by a few seconds or even milliseconds the differences in the chemical reactions of the two states are enormous. We do not know precisely how well the dead specimens represent the living tissues. However， we can study a series of dead specimens， and use the information obtained to assume what life could be. Combined with animal experiments and live human observations， these assumptions prove to be largely correct， though they may not be completely accurate. While this may satisfy most fields of life sciences， neuroscience definitely does not， as brain function is based on active but not directly invisible bioelectricity， to study which a living organism is essential.

In experimental researches， there are innumerable methods used in neuroscience. The modern advanced ones are noted in the Hippocampus Book［1］. Recently， there is an important breakthrough in studying living tissues of acute or cultured slice for prolonged period in vitro that can survive for several weeks to several months［2， 3］.

Busy clinicians are not used to visualising curves and waves that needs extra special training. They prefer seeing the lesion directly on an imaging screen or material （a film or a sheet of any other card copy）. Although Galvani presented visually the response of an electrical stimulation of a frog gastrocnemius in as early as the 16thcentury， it just displays a basic concept and is far from sufficient to explain the sophistication of the brain we need to understand today. However the necessity of seeing the effect of direct stimulation remains the same. This is direct visualisation in both experimental researches and clinical settings for easy and better understanding. It is particularly appreciated by clinicians. This has made the functional MRI （fMRI） stand out. Please do not mix it with direct vision used to describe operating by seeing the target inside an organ or a cavity by opening it.

Brain function is an extremely active dynamic process. Seeing a static picture can hardly help understand the entire biological activities behind a lesion or disorder， particularly in psychology and psychiatry. Dynamics means a flow of changing events that canbe either continual or episodic one. Again herein， fMRI stands out as the most practical method of studying dynamics. Even when it shows only one picture the blood oxygen level dependent （BOLD） sequence already represents the haemodynamics of the supply of various parts of the brain at a specific time point. That is why it is most commonly used method to study brain pathology in dynamics. fMRI is not only dynamic， it also means live. If possible， repeated fMRI can give us a detailed live dynamics that is as close to the living truth as we can do today.

In summary， both experimental and clinical studies would be ideal if they are visual， dynamic and live. However， it is impossible to be so in all occasions when we have to resort to other methods. In clinical setting it mainly implies other imaging methods. For comprehensive reading， please refer to Section 2 Application of Imaging Technologies in： Stuss DT， Winocur G Robertson IH. Cognitive Neurorehabilitation： Evidence and Application （2nd ed.）. Cambridge Medicine， Cambridge University Press 2010， pp 119-200.

［1］ Anderson P， Morris R， Amaral D， Bliss T， O'Keefe J. Historical perspective： Proposed functions， biological characteristics， and neurobiological models of the hippocampus. In The Hippocampus Book. Anderson P， Morris R， Amaral D， Bliss T， O'Keefe J， Eds. Oxford： Oxford University Press， 2006， pp 9-36.

［2］ Lein PJ， Barnhart CD， Pessah IN. Acute hippocampal slice preparation and hippocampal slice cultures. In In Vitro Neurotoxicology. Costa LG， Giordano G， Guizzetti M， Eds. Totowa， NJ： Humana Press， 2011， pp 115-134.

［3］ Lo DC， McAllister AK， Katz LC. Neuronal transfection in brain slices using particle-mediated gene transfer. Neuron 1994， 13（6）： 1263-1268.

Wang DJ. Are life sciences all about life？ Transl. Neurosci. Clin. 2016， 2（2）： 75-76.

✉ Corresponding author： Dajue Wang， E-mail： dajue.wang@btopenworld.com