From the BBC is a story on new research uncovering surprising things about the power and capabilities that may be present in a single brain cell.

There could be enough computing ability in just one brain cell to allow humans and animals to feel, a study suggests.

The brain has 100 billion neurons but scientists had thought they needed to join forces in larger networks to produce thoughts and sensations.

The Dutch and German study, published in Nature, found that stimulating just one rat neuron could deliver the sensation of touch.

One UK expert said this was the first time this had been measured in mammals.

The complexity of the human brain and how it stores countless thoughts, sensations and memories are still not fully understood.

Not fully understood. No kidding. Yet, somehow, some scientists and doctors seem to have little hesitation in making bland pronouncements as to a given human being’s brain function, as if it’s all as open and shut as a case of appendicitis. Someone once said that there are both known unknowns and unknown unknowns. The latter kind will get you every time.

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Addendum: Thanks much to Hugh for the following:

Here is a quote from a book called “Shuffle Brain” [by Paul Pietsch] now on the Internet
http://www.indiana.edu/~pietsch/shufflebrain-book10.html

You probably know this, but anyway, a paramecium is a single celled animal that
swims around. I used to watch them under the microscope when I was a kid.

“Evidence of memory on single-celled animals dates back at least to 1911, to
experiments of the protozoologists L. M. Day and M. Bentley on paramecia.[3]
Day and Bentley put a paramecium into a snug capillary tube–one whose diameter
less than the animal’s length. The paramecium swam down to the opposite end of
the tube, where it attempted to turn abound. But in the cramped lumen, the
little fellow twisted, curled, ducked, bobbed….but somehow managed by
accident to get faced in the opposite direction. What did it do? It immediately
swam to the other end and got itself stuck again. And again it twisted, curled,
ducked…and only managing to get turned around by pure luck. Then, after a
while Day and Bentley began to notice something. The animal was taking less and
less time to complete the course. It was becoming more and more efficient at the
tricky turn-around maneuver. Eventually, it learned to execute the move on the
first attempt.”

If I recall all this book says, it is that brains are not so important. People
with progressive adult hydroencephalopathy may have close to 100 percent of the
gray matter in their brain destroyed, yet still function as professors, bank
managers etc. (Sir John Lorber discovered this).

This is important in one area. Many say that a fetus cannot have consciousness.
If a paramecium, which is only one cell, can exhibit memory and problem-solving
(you will find more at the link), then all the more …..

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