Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: Anin on 05/03/2014 19:20:52
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In the article below, scientists found some evidence that individual cells that respond to a magnetic field in one species of migrating fish.
A team of researchers led by Michael Winklhofera of Ludwig-Maximilians-University took "a sample of olfactory epithelium from the snout of one a rainbow trout and placed it inside a ring of rotating magnets. Then they looked at the specimen under a microscope and found individual cells that spun around on their axis following the artificially induced magnetic field. Upon closer inspection of the cells, the team found iron-rich crystals, most likely single-domain magnetite sitting at just one end of the cell, very near the membrane; which makes sense. To cause a spin, the magnetite would need to be at the tip of a cell just as it is on the tip of a needle in a compass. Only a few of the cells were found, leading the researchers to estimate that the tissue likely holds just one such cell out of ten thousand capable of responding to a magnetic fie".
http://phys.org/news/2012-07-cells-response-earth-magnetic-field.html
Does anyone know of any research testing out the response of cells implicated in navigation in other species (e.g place, grid, head direction cells) to magnetic fields? If there is a reaction - is biomagnetite the source of this?
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I still havent been able to find anything on the response of place cells to magnetic fields, but I did find -
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation increases excitability of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23651978
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Does anyone know of any research testing out the response of cells implicated in navigation in other species
Birds can see magnetic fields, (but only in daylight) ... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2718301/
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Cells that respond to magnetic fields have also been found in pigeons, however there is no specific mention that these scientists have found magnetite in these cells (we will have to wait and see).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17855194
It has also been found that alphaproetobacteria are found in human, primate and non primate brains. As yet there is limited information on which alphaproetobacteria are included, but potentially these could include magnetotatic bacteria which produce biomagnetite. If this was the case then it would suggest that the biomagnetite found in various species comes from such bacteria. There would be many implications, including the possibility that such bacteria have led to the evolution of magnetoreception across various species.
www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/17/scientists-find-bacteria-where-it-isn-t-supposed-to-be-the-brain.html