This comes courtesy of Anne Marie de Grazia. I haven't noticed it on mainstream but it was published in the journal Science so it must have slipped my gaze. It is also research done on the continent. Go to https://q-mag.org/the-newly-discovered-brain-signal-which-may-be-a-key-t… … the newly discovered brain signal that may be a key to being human. Scientists from the Institute for Biology at Humboldt University in Berlin announce the discovery of a yet unknown form of brain cell messaging which seems unique to humans – and which greatly increases the information processing power of the brain. The Greek Foundation for Research and Technology in Crete also contributed to the research. The study was published in Science on January 3rd 2020. The new found an electrical property, which they claim has never been found in other animal tissue. It seems the discovery is purported to assist cell messaging and is the key to human intelligence.
It's an interesting read, once again. For example, we are told brains are sometimes compared to computers. On some levels they perform tasks in a similar way. Both use the power of an electrical voltage to carry out various operations. In computers it is in the form of a flow of electrons through intersections called transistors. In neurons the signal is in the form of a wave of opening and closing channels that exchange charged particles such as sodium, chloride and potassium. This pulse of flowing ions is called an action potential. Instead of transistors, neurons manage these messages chemically at the end of branches called dendrites.
The dendrites are central to understanding the brain because they are at the core of what determines the computational power of single neurons. Dendrites are the traffic lights of our nervouse system. If an action potential is significant enough it can be passed on to other nerves which in turn can pass on or block the message. This is the logical underpinnings of our brain – ripples of voltage that pass on information or neutralise it. See also https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6473/83