Rule department scholar

Zhao Yi asked, "Then how much funding can be given for this kind of project?"

Li Mingdao, "It's hard to apply, isn't it? The funding won't be much, because the foundation is worried that you're defrauding the funding."

"Correct."

Ai Lixin followed suit, "There are a lot of applications for projects that are 'almost impossible' to achieve results. The purpose is to cheat funds.

"This is the most basic theoretical research in medicine. The more basic it is, the more difficult it is."

After hearing this, Zhao Yi nodded and said, "Otherwise, our laboratory should be regarded as the most powerful in the country, right?"

Ai Lixin laughed, and said, "Let's not talk about the country, it's number one in the world!" After he finished speaking, he added, "If you have you, you will be the number one!"

Others laughed too.

Zhao Yi shook his head and said, "Anyway, let's apply and see. The research on nerve conduction is still very meaningful, and it is also the key to the future development of medicine."

"With the strength of our laboratory and our research institute, we should be able to apply for some funding, right? If not, we can ask the research institute for reimbursement."

"Anyway..."

"The Institute's funds can't be spent, so it's a favor."

Li Ming was silent for a while, then nodded immediately, "It makes sense!"

"agree!"

"support!"

"Unanimous approval~~~"

When everyone was about to applaud together to show that they had made the right decision, they saw the sound of knocking on the door with force 'Boom, Boom, Boom'.

Yan Xuelin stood at the door with a dark face, gritted his teeth and shouted, "I heard it all just now."

There was an embarrassment in the room.

"Cough, cough!"

Zhao Yi coughed lightly, turned his head as if he hadn't seen it, and said to Li Ming, "Where did we just talk about? Yes, we will spend as much as the foundation allocates for the nerve signal transduction project, and we will definitely not spend it on the research institute." penny."

"This is the principle, understand?"

"Yes!", "It makes sense!", "Support!", "Academician Zhao is very good!"

A group of people immediately gave praise.

Doorway.

Yan Xue, who suddenly felt that his IQ was insulted, turned darker.

Chapter 4 The same project, different treatment!

Yan Xuelin thinks he is reasonable. He is the director of the Biomedical Research Institute, and he will definitely support the scientific research projects in the institute.

Some basic scientific research projects cannot be completed solely by funding from the scientific research foundation, and some scientific research projects are not within the scope of projects supported by the foundation at all, and it is impossible to even pass the application. Based on the research, funds from the institute are needed support.

In fact.

The research and development funds of scientific research institutions are mainly divided into two parts, one is the allocation of funds supported by the state, and the other is the support of the institution.

The financial support of the Institute is a big aspect. It is precisely because of the emergence of many scientific research results that the Institute receives scientific research funding every year.

This part of the appropriation is for scientific research institutions to use freely.

Although the matter is such a matter, what makes Yan Xuelin feel depressed is that a few researchers got together and said openly, 'the research institute has a lot of funds, if it is not enough, just ask the institute for it'?

That tone sounds like it wants to 'pit' the funds of the research institute.

If the funds in the institute are cheated, they will be scammed. It’s not a big deal. When many laboratories lack funds for a project, they will consider applying for other projects separately and ask for some funds to support the original project.

This is the 'unspoken rule of funding' in scientific research institutions.

Although it doesn't sound very good, at least the starting point is good. The purpose is to use funds for research, but it is restricted by the rules, so you have to find a way to bypass the rules.

But no matter what, it is really unreasonable to openly ask for the funding of the "pit" institute, and to be heard by him when you say it out loud.

Yan Xuelin felt very humiliated, especially when they pretended not to see him and talked to themselves about not using the money from the office.

"These guys..."

"It's too much!"

Yan Xuelin took a deep breath, adjusted his mentality, walked in with a stiff smile, and then asked about the project to be done.

If it was another laboratory, he would definitely turn around and leave, taking things down in his mind.

Zhao Yi's laboratory...

cough cough.

As the leader of a research institution, he must be magnanimous towards scientific researchers. Being ignored is nothing at all. The important thing is to support scientific research.

Yan Xuelin reminded himself.

The others couldn't 'pretend' any longer, and greeted Yan Xuelin in embarrassment, and then talked about the project they were applying for.

"Nerve signal transmission!"

The name pretty much says it all.

Neurology is an important branch of medicine. Nerve signal transmission is the basic research of medicine, but its importance and influence can even go beyond medicine.

At the same time, the analysis of nerve signal transmission is also considered to be one of the medical problems that humans cannot overcome in the short term. Its complexity and difficulty can even be equal to that of brain analysis.

"If the mystery of neural signal transmission can be solved, human beings will have a leapfrog understanding of themselves."

"That would be a revolutionary advance in medicine, a revolutionary advance in science."

"It could easily change the world..."

These are the original words of the world-renowned medical expert Ben Morden.

For nearly a century, science has tried to understand nerve impulses, the way nerve signals are transmitted.

For example, when you step on a thumbtack, it takes less than a second for the brain to receive a pain signal, and the speed of the signal along the nerve fibers is about 30 meters per second.

60 years ago, researchers of nerve transmission mastered the technology of measuring the potential difference between the inside and outside of the cell membrane, and found that when the signal passes through the electrode along the nerve transmission, the membrane potential will change sharply within a few milliseconds.

Two British scientists, Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley, discovered that when neurons are excited, sodium ions rush into the cell membrane from the outside of the cell membrane, and then potassium ions rush from the inside of the cell membrane to the outside of the cell membrane, making the membrane Potential returned to normal.

The Hodgkin-Huxley model they proposed became the cornerstone of neuroscience, and they won the Nobel Prize for it.

The success of Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley seems to represent that humans have cracked the way of neural signal transmission, but in fact, the complexity of neural transmission is far beyond the scope of the Hodgkin-Huxley model.

For example, touch, vision or other perceptions rely on the transmission of nerve signals.

If it is just a single change in membrane potential, it will definitely not allow humans to have so many perceptions. The way of nerve signal transmission, the way of signal transmission and the way the brain acquires and analyzes information are all problems that humans have not yet overcome.

In the past 60 years, many people have questioned the theoretical results of Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley, or hoped to supplement the way neural signals are transmitted.

For example, neurobiologist Kazuto Tasaki is a skeptic of the Hodgkin-Huxley model. He is famous in the neuroscience community for discovering the jump conduction of action potentials on the Langvier's junction, and has made a challenge to the tradition in 40 years. The experiment: Dissect the crab's leg, expose a bundle of nerves, and then carefully place a small piece of reflective platinum sheet on it with a microscope, and then irradiate the platinum sheet with a beam of laser light. By measuring the reflection angle of the laser light, it can detect to whether the width of the nerve bundle changes slightly as the action potential passes through.

He and Kunihiko Iwasa, his postdoctoral researcher at the time, made hundreds of measurements.

A week later, the data clearly showed that as the action potential passed, the nerve bundle widened and then narrowed slightly, in mere milliseconds.

Although the deformation is very small, and the surface of the cell membrane will only rise by about seven nanometers, this phenomenon is completely consistent with the rhythm of the passing electrical signal, confirming Tasaki's speculation for many years--

The theories proposed by Hodgkin and Huxley are not necessarily correct.

Kazuto Tasaki believes that "a nerve signal is far more than an electrical signal, it is also a mechanical signal. If you only use electrodes to measure nerve cells, you will definitely miss a lot of important information."

Tasaki Ichiji lived to be 98 years old, but his research has not made any other progress. Many people in the medical field believe that his discovery is not the essence of nerve signals, but a by-product of nerve electrical signals.

same.

The famous German neurologist Hemberg also believed that nerve transmission could not be just electrical signals. He admired Kazuo Tazaki, but he found another way to explain the experimental phenomenon.

He believes that "the mechanical waves, changes in optical properties, and transient thermal effects originate from the lipidic nerve cell membrane, rather than from the protein and carbohydrate fibers beneath the membrane."

Hemberg immediately began his own experiments—studying the response of artificial cell membranes to mechanical shock waves by compressing them.

His research led to some important discoveries: The oily lipid molecules that make up cell membranes are normally fluid and have random orientations, but are prone to phase transitions (the process by which a substance changes from one phase to another).

As long as the cell membrane is gently squeezed, the lipid molecules will immediately condense into a highly ordered liquid crystal state.

From these experimental results, Hemberg deduced that nerve impulses are mechanical shock waves that propagate along the nerve cell membrane.

When the shock wave propagates, the liquid cell membrane molecules are squeezed into liquid crystals, and a little heat is released during the phase transition, just like water freezes into ice. Then, when the shock wave passes through, the cell membrane will change back to liquid state again and absorb the heat. The process takes a few milliseconds, and the brief phase transition causes the cell membrane to widen slightly, as Tasaki and Iwasa observed when they irradiated platinum sheets with laser light.

From Hodgkin and Huxley, to Tasaki Ichiji and Humberg, and later many medical scientists, neurologists, and even physicists have conducted research on nerve impulses, hoping to unravel the mystery.

So, until now, there are many theories about the transmission of nerve signals in the world, and some even believe that the human neural network is just a collection of cell membranes, and it is ordinary cells that really play a role in perception.

and many more.

The same is true at home.

If you are looking for papers on neural signal transmission, you only need to open the search website, and you can find many related experiments, conclusions, and inferences. It seems that every researcher can design related experiments and write a paper based on the relevant conclusions. In this way, 'characteristic' inferences can be published.

but……

More than ninety-nine percent of the experimental research and inferences have no meaning for the understanding of nerve signal transmission. Most of them are like different people watching "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and they can say something from different angles. It seems that they can still say It is very reasonable, but no one will know what the original author Luo Guanzhong thinks, most of the analysis is meaningless.

The research on neural signal transmission is the same both at home and abroad.

Yan Xuelin was naturally very relaxed.

After hearing the explanations from several researchers, he thought about it carefully and asked, "Aren't you trying to cheat funding?"

"of course not!"

"We really plan to do research, Director Yan, look at our laboratory... It would be a waste not to do high-end research."

"Zhao Yi said he wanted to do this, anyway, no matter what you do, I will follow Zhao Yi."

"Me too."

"me too!"

Yan Xuelin listened and nodded.

The project of "neural signal transmission" can almost be equated with "defrauding funds", but Zhao Yi is still trustworthy.

In addition, Zhao Yi probably doesn't care about a little funding, as he can easily approve as many applications as he wants.

In the end, Yan Xuelin nodded, "You apply for the project first, and see how much money you get. If it is not enough, the institute will definitely support it."

"How much difference, support!"

Yan Xuelin gritted his teeth and said the last sentence.

The funds in the institute are indeed very ample, and each laboratory can even be equipped with high-end equipment, but the investment in scientific research is a bottomless pit, and no matter how much money is saved, it can be filled in.

"Then apply!"

After Yan Xuelin spoke, Zhao Yi also made a decision, "Apply first, then take a look, and prepare for those who don't have a job at hand."

"I was not joking just now. If you do it, you must do it well. This is a basic and big project, and we want to make results!"

"it is good!"

"no problem!"

"From today onwards, I will die on this project!"

Several researchers expressed their opinions one after another.

They are all very excited and looking forward to it, because with Zhao Yi leading the project, even if it is a difficult project, they all feel that there is hope.

Nerve signal transmission is a super-difficult basic scientific research project. Even if there is only a little bit of results, it must be world-class without completely cracking the way of nerve signal transmission.

soon.

Zhao Yi's laboratory submitted an application for the project 'Neural Signal Transmission' to the National Research Foundation.

Then, it's just waiting.

After the National Research Foundation receives the project application, it will review it for about a week. After the review, it will specifically inquire about the research and development plan and determine the participating personnel, and then make corresponding funding allocations according to the situation.

Zhao Yi has confirmed the nerve signal transmission project, and he is also looking forward to it very much. He still thinks about the problem of the blind, but he also knows that even if the research is fruitful, it is impossible to achieve it in the short term, so that the blind can see the outside world with the help of equipment. To an extent, because it would be a subversive technological revolution.

The scientific and technological revolution cannot be achieved by a single research project.

Every advance in the cracking of nerve signal transmission can be said to be a revolution, and he still has expectations for the research itself.

For example, the most advanced neural research in foreign countries can allow blind people to easily distinguish the transmitted numbers through brain wave transmission.