throwitawayday

The question of how neurons find each other to connect was recently studied with experimental connectomics--altering neurons and then mapping their synaptic circuits with electron microscopy--in this paper by Javier Valdes Aleman et al. 2019 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/697763v1 , using Drosophila's somatosensory axons and central interneurons as a model.

If the OP's website Disqus worked (can't ever get the "post" button for comments after login), the above could have gone straight into the page.

Having recently visited the Yellowstone National Park, the situation you describe for the North Sea side of Germany applies but worse, the cell phone data connection being non-existent, and with the added issue that only one hotel offered wifi, and it was out of service for the entire duration of our visit.

On 3), the giant fiber is fast but not faster than other descending fibers. If anything, it is more reliable in its ability to signal.

See: https://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v17/n7/full/nn.3741.htm...

Short abstract snippet (the "parallel circuits" are other, non-giant descending neurons that also trigger the escape behavior upon a looming stimulus):

"Intracellular recording of the descending giant fiber (GF) interneuron during head-fixed escape revealed that GF spike timing relative to parallel circuits for escape actions determined which of the two behavioral responses was elicited. The process was well described by a simple model in which the GF circuit has a higher activation threshold than the parallel circuits, but can override ongoing behavior to force a short takeoff. Our findings suggest a neural mechanism for action selection in which relative activation timing of parallel circuits creates the appropriate motor output."

On eyes in general: the retina is not like a camera pixel array, rather, it extracts all kinds of features and detects motion:

"Eye smarter than scientists believed: neural computations in circuits of the retina." Gollisch, Tim, and Markus Meister. Neuron 65.2 (2010): 150-164.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627309...

This could be one case where using a preprint server like the http://biorxiv.org/ would be key. Getting positive peer reviews when peers are opposed in principle is hard: no amount of data will convince them.

That said, she stated to be new to the field. She should have a publication record from work in her prior field of research.

The correction:

“Empathy and pro-social behavior in rats” by I. B.-A. Bartal et al. (9 December 2011, p. 1427). On p. 1428, the last full paragraph of column 1 was incorrect. The paragraph should be replaced by this corrected text: “All female rats (6/6) and most male rats (17/24) in the trapped condition became door-openers. Female rats in the trapped condition opened the restrainer door at a shorter latency than males on days 7 to 12 (P < 0.01, MMA, Fig. 3A), consistent with suggestions that females are more empathic than males (7, 12, 13). Furthermore, female rats were also more active than males in the trapped condition (P < 0.001, ANOVA) but not in the empty condition (Fig. 3B).”