Customer Reviews

The Root of Thought: Unlocking Glia— the Brain Cell That Will Help Us Sharpen Our Wits, Heal Injury, and Treat Brain Disease

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The Root of Thought is Andrew Koob's book about the emerging research suggesting that the glial cells in our brain ("the other 90% of our brain") may serve more of a vital role in thought processing and other brain functions than was ever previously understood. Koob is a brain scientist, and it is clear from the very beginning of his work that it was written by a researcher and not someone more classically trained in literature. The book seems to have been written without an intended audience in mind because it is this reviewer's opinion that it is not nearly accessible enough to be enjoyed by the casual reader yet oversimplified for the neuroscience aficionado. As a reader, it was difficult to become engaged with the text because it seemed to assume a fair bit of neuroscience fluency that the average individual does not possess. As a college biomedical engineering major I found myself frustrated by a lack of detail at times and at other times inundated with references to brain physiology that were unfamiliar to me. I did not find the book to be an enjoyable read; however, the science upon which the book is written is fascinating.

The first quarter of the book is devoted to the history of brain research from the beginnings of electrophysiology up until the recent decades when the importance of glia has begun to emerge. It summarizes that glial cells were thought to merely be insulators for neurons without serving any other functional purpose, and that the only important cells in the brain were neurons (Neuron Doctrine). Consequently, the research conducted over the nearly 100 years that followed focused almost exclusively on neurons. These three history chapters could (and probably should) be condensed into one short chapter that gives the reader a basic understanding of the Neuron Doctrine and explains why science is only just beginning to understand the importance of glial cells. The history section as it is currently written is overly drawn out, references entirely too many studies that most readers are surely unfamiliar with, and includes several unnecessary and inappropriate personal references from the author revealing his frustrations with the pioneering brain scientists responsible for the establishment of the Neuron Doctrine.

The subsequent chapters discuss the functional mechanism of glia (more specifically astrocytes), their possible role in intelligence and thought generation, their connection to dreams, and their potential to be used to treat brain diseases. These sections are better than the first, but require too much effort by the reader to identify conclusions and determine what is important.

Astrocytes communicate to themselves as well as neurons using calcium waves, and it is hypothesized that these calcium waves are the roots of our thoughts. The calcium waves may be the mechanism by which we store information in our cortex and how we can think about what we have experienced. Astrocytes help to form neuronal synapses which help to increase intelligence by increasing the speed at which we can process information, but astrocytes are also capable of spontaneous firing without neurons, which may be the source of inspiration and imagination. It has been shown that having a higher glia-to-neuron ratio correlates with higher intelligence, and since humans have the highest ratio of any animal, this may explain our intellectual dominance over the animal kingdom. Koob also mentions that "Einstein had a [significantly] higher astrocyte-to-neuron ratio in the area of the left parietal cortex" as compared to "normal" brains, which may explain his increased ability in mathematics and spatial thinking (104).

Astrocytes are thought to be more active at night, doing most of their regeneration during this time. Koob suggests "the rapid eye movements seen in REM sleep could be glia experimenting with the neuronal firing to make sure their connections are solid" (112). The astrocytes respond to a day's worth of sensory input by growing new astrocytes in the regions that were most commonly used. It is thought that this glial activation during the night may be the source of dreaming, and since it is easier to instigate calcium waves in cells that have been previously activated, it seems that our dreams are the direct result of our recent experiences.

Another key function of astrocytes is the maintenance of neurons, mainly in the form of removing cellular waste such as glutamate. There is evidence to suggest that several of the common brain degenerative diseases may be the indirect result of gliadegeneration. It is hypothesized that with fewer astrocytes available to remove the cellular waste, the neurons themselves begin to degenerate. Additionally, it is thought that astrocytes serve to prevent secondary neurodegeneration following a head injury. Much of the research regarding brain injury focusses on the possibility of injecting astrocytes into the damaged brain area to see it will help to maintain the health of the neurons. Koob states, "In the event of a gunshot wound to the head, astrocyte therapy may be the only avenue to regrow areas of the brain" (137).

As was mentioned in a previous review, most of what Koob discusses in this book is purely speculation at this point as the research in this field is only in its infancy. I question whether Koob is justified in making several of the claims that he does regarding the importance of glia without more concrete studies to support such statements. It appears he may be falling into a similar trap as the Neuron Doctrine by focusing so exclusively on glia. The reader is cautioned not to take Koob's writing as fact, but merely as speculation as to the potential functions of glia. Overall, the science that Koob discusses in his book is really quite fascinating, which makes it a shame that it is written so poorly. The average reader with an interest in the subject should pursue an abbreviated outline of the text that summarizes the interesting points rather than the text itself as it is not accessible to those without at least a minor familiarity with the subject matter.

The cover of this book says "The Root of Thought", "Unlocking glia The brain cell that will help us sharpen Our Wits, Heal Injury and Treat Brain Disease" unfortunately there is nothing in this book that validates any of those claims.
It is unclear what audience the author had in mind. It is too complex for a layman and over simplified for anyone with any knowledge of neuroscience. It comes down to glia has calcium currents and we don't know what role it plays as it hasn't been studied.I was disappointed by this book and forced myself to finish it in case it got better. It didn't.
I found this book almost painful to read with its mixed metaphors and bad humor " It is wise to listen to a guy who'll go as far as to cover his own eyes with tin foil." Regarding Volta. Or "Shocking the hell out of you will surely get you out of a funk." Regarding shock treatments for depression,. Or regarding statistical significance "a scientific term to mean that it was "pretty different enough to say that it means something" or talking about the front cortex.... Ouch
Some of the history is interesting, however, I have to wonder how accurate it is.
If you are hoping to have the claims on the cover fulfilled, don't hold your breath.
This book does give inspiration to aspiring authors. If this book got published, anyone can.

This is a rather speculative work. There are a good many "maybe"s, "might"s, and "perhaps"es. Perhaps not enough. (But see below.) There is also the occasional rhetorical excess: "we are our astrocytes." Some stylistic infelicities, the author's self-characterization as a brave and lonely voice and a vendetta against Ramon y Cajal detract only slightly from the overall interest. Attempts at the common touch through pop culture references and a fondness for similes don't always serve the writer well.
BUT data supporting Koob's main point on the significance of neuroglia, specifically astrocytes, for mental functioning is coming in. For example, work cited by [...] in two recent articles:
1."Astrocytes help separate man from mouse"
Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center: "Our
study suggests that astrocytes are part of the higher cognitive functioning that defines who we are as humans." (3/23/09)
2."Star-shaped cells in the brain aid with learning" (9/07/09)

Future books on the brain which ignore this data may risk rapid obsolesce. But I would dearly love to read a review by someone with serious neuroscience cred. 4 1/2 stars
10/03/09 This just in: the oft cited figure of 10 times as many glia as neurons, repeated by Koob, may be wildly off. Some recent
data suggest 1:1--Neurocritic blog 9/27/09.

Update 12/22/10: I would now give Koob 2 or 3 stars for the reason noted above. R Douglas Fields' The Other Brain is more comprehensive, authoritative and accessible. Fields give the ratio of glia to neurons as 6:1. (When I first tried to research the literature on glia 40 years ago, the pickin's were slim. I got overexcited.)

51 years ago I started my PhD program in psychology At UCLA. The next year I started taking the courses I needed at the medical school. After my first course in neurology I started asking questions about the professor's claims that glial cells were nothing but "packing" to protect the neurons. I just couldn't buy it. Every time I tried to start a conversation I was pretty much told to hush and go away. I did. Fortunately, I met a med student in the lounge with whom I made a long-term fond acquaintanceship. He ultimately became the director of the brain research institute and for the next 45 years I checked in with him to learn whether better information had become available on glia yet. If it had, he didn't know or remember that THAT subject was the main reason I had stayed in touch with him. He was, apparently, no more interested in alternatives to the standard crap than anyone else, so Koop's book was the first hint I had that I was not absolutely alone in suspecting that glial cells were WAY more important than so far imagined. When I saw this book reviewed in a magazine, I ordered it and started reading the minute it arrived. [I had been forced to move from researcher to clinician in grad school and then promoted quickly to department head in a hospital so I had not stayed in touch with this research issue]. On the first page I broke into joyous hysterics. I'd been right! Koob, a couple of generations later, had a PILE of findings I hadn't had and he had hypothesized pretty much what I had imagined as a possibility. Now, at age 74, retired from salaried work and enjoying a life of writing and illustrating books about whatever is intriguing me at the moment, I had only one embarrassing problem: I couldn't stop LAUGHING over finally getting a possible ANSWER to my 50 year old question: what the hell do they think 90% of the brain cells are FOR????????? cv

If the Acknowledgements had been placed at the beginning, rather than at the end of this book and I had read them first, I would not have bothered reading this book. I suspect that's why there were placed at the end. They mostly describe the moments when thoughts occurred to him which he put together to make this book. This book was advertised in Science News, which is why I was unwary.
The author sets out to prove that it's the glia (that comprise 90% of the brain), not the neurons (that comprise only 10%), that do the real thinking as well as healing and are the truly important brain cells. He repeats his thesis innumerable times but offers little evidence to support it except some general descriptions of how brain cells work and a rather cockeyed review of the history of brain research that reads like a conspiracy theory. His insistence that glia do the creative thinking runs contrary to the fact that there are a disproportionately high percentage of artists, writers, composers, etc., with bipolar disorder, a condition characterized by a significant dearth of glia.
Koob writes in an arrogant, condescending tone using informal language cluttered with colorful similes and offbeat references. Some are so obscure and unexplained as to make them ineffective: "Like a game of Tetris", "...it felt like someone was in bed with him (not such a bad thing if it is Natalie Portman or Christina Ricci but very troubling if it is someone who isn't there.)", "...if Marty McFly drove the Delorian into his brain, the surreal nature of the past he'd see would be incomplete, filled with holes, delusions, incongruities all meshed together in a pile to make sense out of a past experience to better understand how to get through life now." Others are merely useless: "High concentrations of calcium are in a mother's milk (among other things.)""A calcium signal tells flowers to bloom (see Figure 5.1)" followed by a photo of a flower captioned "Calcium in action." Some are colorful but irrelevant, as this sentence that begins a lengthy autobiographical reminiscence: "Not all animals are flawless. Toads are clumsy. They flop around in the grass like offensive linemen playing hopscotch" and "We all know a bear avoids eating psychedelic mushrooms. Wolves avoid them as well. But do wolves experience déjà vu?" or adolescent: "A special place is in everyone's heart for the guys that ... name [a protein] Sonic Hedge Hog after a Saga video game.... There's nothing more enjoyable than taking a class in biology taught by a difficult professor who is forced to say Sonic Hedge Hog 30 times in 15 minutes."
Foolish generalizations suddenly appear from time to time almost out of nowhere, as if the author is trying to extract the meaning of life at every turn: "That's the drawback of living on the planet earth, where everything is intertwined with growth."
Some sentences are impossible to parse and give the impression that they were written by someone whose native language is not English.
The beginning paragraphs in the book's final chapter provide a good summary of his thesis and example of his style: "As researchers scour the highways in the land that is our brain, they examine all the potholes and roadside trash as if it exhibits significant meaning. The baked and deteriorating pavement for the transport of electrical signals long distances was believed to contain all the information in the brain. Now, as researchers turn their microscopes and equipment to the astrocytes, the cities in this land, they are beginning to realize where the information in our brain lies and how it is created.
"It has been more than 100 years since Cajal gave Golgi a beating in Stolkholm. However, just because Cajal beat Golgi doesn't mean's he's right. When Mike Tyson slaughtered Spinks and his ridiculous socks 20 years ago in 91 seconds, it didn't mean Tyson had triumphed viscerally or that his boxing philosophy was some tenant of truth -- it just meant he was the strongest. In the mid-1980's, glia was becoming understood to be much more important that Cajal's brother, Pedro, thought.
"However, at that moment in 1906, the year the forward pass was invented, a year after Einstein's miracle year, the same year Sherrington coined the synapse, Cajal was strongest. He was a more dedicated scientist than Golgi at the time and displayed it with ironclad intelligence. Although he knew glia might have an important function, he saved his reputation for generations by hanging his lame idea related to glia on to his poor brother, Pedro--a despicable act by a controlling man. Golgi's notion of a syncytium was completely obliterated by the Neuron Doctrine became the rule and the law. One didn't question it unless they wanted to commit scientific suicide.
"So astrocytes are now getting their day in the sun. ... It is no wonder no cures exist for brain disease when the most abundant cell in the brain was completely neglected for so long.
"The neuron-glial dichotomy is like the chicken and the egg. What came first? It's hard to know if you study only the egg."

I am a "brain/mind enthusiast". I am a science teacher of 13 years whose main study was in physics, but who also enjoyed biology. I am just coming around to secular study of A&P.

The large 2-star review was extensive and detailed. The reviewer felt the author premature in making many of his conclusions without more evidence to support them.

I say, THAT is the only way advancement is ever made: someone looking at the status quo with curious doubt, who sets up initial experiments, records results, and makes an "erroneous" claim.

Before I read this book, I thought the brain was only composed of neurons; I didn't have human anatomy/physiology, opting for Zo and Botany classes in general to complete my degree. Besides, nothing is ever said "commercially" about any other cell. I found it shocking that the statement "only 10% of our brain is used" was based on the ratio of glial to neural cells; shouldn't we know by now that Nature doesn't do anything without purpose? Why would 90% of our brain be "inactive"? I also found it shocking that "our" reliance on neurons as the progenitors of thought is based on an earlier-than-19th-century paradigm of electrical stimuli.

Why shouldn't the main function, THOUGHT, be carried out in the main structure, GLIAL cells?

To this, I tell all doubting researchers of academia: DUH! Get out of your boneheaded paradigm and use a little imagination. It's not hard to put it together.

Read the book. It's hilarious at the right times, too.

This book could have been excellent, but instead it is a real disappointment. There are several major problems that I have with the book. Firstly, the subject matter deals with the ultrastructure of the brain at the cellular level. The cellular structure of the brain is extremely complex, and the different types of cells have complicated structures. In order to have any understanding of this subject matter, diagrams and illustrations are essential. Amazingly though, there are almost no illustrations of the various cells, while the author relies on vague written descriptions to make up for the defecit of pictures...this approach fails miserably, and one is left confused, bewildered and frustrated about what he is trying to say. Again, in discussing action potentials and the generation of electrical current in the brain, images of the cell membrane with its associated ion distribution and the subsequent events that lead to action potential are essential, but MIA in this book. Again, in discussing the "calcium wave", no illustrations nor even a good explanation are to be found.

I had high hopes for this book because it deals with an interesting topic, but in a very incomplete and frustrating way.

In recent years there has been an increasing understanding that the functions of the brain cannot be reduced to simple on/off firing of neurons. In addition to new insights into the ways in which networks of neurons cooperate, modulate and recruit each other, there has been growing interest in the glia cells of the brain, that outnumber neurons by around ten to one. Long thought of as no more than supporting and scavenging cells, several years ago we learned that they are electrically active and have far more complex interactions with each other and with neurons than we had ever thought possible. In a recent article in Discover magazine, Carl Zimmer called these cells the "Dark matter" in the brain. Glia cells are able to store information, appear to be involved in many pathological processes in the brain, and the simple observation that most brain tumors are comprised of glial cells ultimately lead to the understanding and demonstration that glia cells are the adult stem cells in the brain.

In the last five years a number of scholarly books, (e.g. The Tripartite Synapse: Glia in Synaptic Transmission, Glial Neurobiology) have detailed some of these new findings, and in this new book by Andrew Koob we have a highly readable account of some of this work, together with some interesting speculations by someone who unashamedly proselytizes about the role of these largely ignored cells. The book begins with an historical overview and a description about what glia do and what is currently known about their function. Andrew focuses on their role in neurogenesis - the creation of new neurons - neuroplasticity - the ability of the brain to adapt to environmental change - and in brain repair. He then goes on to suggest that a better understanding of these cells is important for out understanding of how to help brain injury, Alzheimer's disease schizophrenia and an array of other neurological problems, including tumors on the brain. He also implies that because of their role in neurogenesis and neuroplasticity, glia cells are involved in memory and dreaming.

Time will tell if all of his speculations turn out to be correct, but at the very least he has assembled an impressive body of evidence for a general readership and has thrown down a gauntlet to researchers.

The book is well written and apart from the central argument, contains plenty of factoids to keep your attention.

Very highly recommended.

Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life

If you have any curiosity about where thought originates, or how the brain functions, you will not be disappointed with this book. Andrew Koob gives an excellent presentation of his views. His intelligent reasoning amidst a touch of attitude concerning the stagnation that happens even in the world of science research makes this book most entertaining as well as informative. This is not a dry science read. This is worth reading multiple times.

This book is so badly written and poorly edited that it distracts entirely from the subject. If the author and publisher cared so little for the project that they chose not to invest in a competent co-writer or ghost writer, it's hard to trust they were meticulous with the science. Frankly I'm disappointed that Amazon offers this book for sale. I found it unreadable.