Science has fads and trends. Researchers don’t really like admitting this because it makes the science seem less credible. But these trends are backed with evidence and when it’s interesting, more people study it. When a topic is exhausted with the current technology (or when the initial high hopes are dissolved with mediocre findings), the field focuses on something else. TI think that this adaption by the community makes science interesting in its search for universal truths. Currently in neurobiology, there’s an emerging community studying the link between pesticides and neurodegenerative diseases, astrocytes (the cells that aren’t neurons in your brain), invertebrate research for studying memory, using “big data”, and more!
A similar process is also apparent in the techniques or technologies used by the researchers. When a better technique becomes available, the field shifts to incorporate it. These trends are probably easier to spot since a new technique can have a rippling effect through a larger community than trending topics. A popular technique right now is to indirectly measure cellular activity using fluorescent calcium sensors. It’s a great technique as fluorescence correlates with neuronal firing (action potentials), but calcium is involved in a lot of cell signaling and might not always correlate with neurons firing. People predict that voltage sensors to more directly measure neurons firing may eventually become popular as the technology gets better.
Originally posted on Instagram JANUARY 29, 2019
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