Simplest form with neuron ?

[emrekanca]

What is the simplest living form that have neurons.

I only know worm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worm

Is there simpler one?

[Ringer]

Depend on what you mean by simple. Some animals like the hydra only have a kind of nerve net that serves as their nervous system. So it has neurons but doesn't have any sort of brain.

[emrekanca]

Thanks, hydra is what I meant.

If I want to see the neurons of hydra and model to computer , would that be possible for a regular guy?

If possible what kind of microscope (capability of zoom maybe) would I need?

 

(I would like to track the evolutionary path from simplest to complicated to see when where and how pain occurs)

 

Worms act like they have pain when you sting copper wire on em

 

I don't think hydra 'd. What do you think ?

Edited May 29, 2011 by emrekanca

[Genecks]

Yeah, evolutionary comparisons have been studies. Plenty of people are attempting to make computational models of various species. There is a how evolutionary aspects of the nervous system to be discovered.

 

C. elegans has few neurons.

Rotifers are simple, too.

 

evolutionary discussion of the nervous system: Science 325:24-26 (2009)

 

exc use the typos, i'm tired.

Edited July 27, 2011 by Genecks

[bombus]

What's the point of one neuron? Who would it talk to?

 

It reminds me of the question regarding the sign at Baker Street Tube Station in London which says it was the very first tube station. Where did the trains go to?

[Genecks]

I've recently read of the possibility of amoeba learning, which would classify it as a single-celled learning lifeform. However, I'm not sure how realistic that view is. It's on my list of things to further research.

 

http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.4179

Memristive model of amoeba's learning

 

So, with that in mind, amoebas might communicate with each other.

But perhaps people are being too liberal with defining the concept of "learning."

Edited July 28, 2011 by Genecks

[CharonY]

Neurons are optimized towards long-distance information transfer (via APs). Without any information to relay anywhere else they are not able to do much (as bombus implied).

Chemical memory is quite a different thing, and even bacteria have it. In chemotaxis postranslational modification of a sensor system provides information on the chemical gradient the cell was facing, for instance. In short: existing chemical situations modify future biochemical reactions (or rather, their rate).

[Genecks]

Maybe I'm new-age, but that still seems like learning to me. Perhaps I work off an old paradigm. Meh.

Association of stimuli leads to new behavioral output, seems like a kind of conditioning/learning.

Edited August 2, 2011 by Genecks