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Message:

> A new mouse study:
> 
> https://www.sciencealert.com/stunning-maps-reveal-how-head-injuries-reconfigure-brain-wide-networks-in-mice?utm_source=ScienceAlert+-+Daily+Email+Updates&utm_campaign=af71ad3a96-MAILCHIMP_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fe5632fb09-af71ad3a96-366098385
> 
> "The stunning visualizations of brain-wide connectivity could help scientists understand how a traumatic brain injury, or TBI, alters cross-talk between different cells and brain regions, first in mice and then in humans.
> 
> ***
> 
> "Repeated head traumas leading to a severe condition known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy have been well-documented in professional athletes. But even 'mild' head knocks called concussions can manifest damage years later, recent research shows.
> 
> ***
> 
> "What the researchers saw was striking. Two months after an injury to the hippocampus, a brain region involved in learning and memory, neural circuits in the mice brains had reconfigured themselves.
> 
> "Surviving somatostatin interneurons in the hippocampus became 'hyperconnected hubs', rich with close-range connections but disconnected from long-range inputs; the same connectivity changes were also seen in distant areas of the brain, not directly injured.
> 
> "'It looks like the entire brain is being carefully rewired to accommodate for the damage, regardless of whether there was direct injury to the region or not," explains Alexa Tierno, a neuroscience graduate student at UCI and co-first author of the study.
> 
> "'But different parts of the brain probably aren't working together quite as well as they did before the injury."
> 
> "In their imaging explorations, the team also found signs that the machinery brain cells use to establish distant connections remained intact after a severe injury. This bodes well for recovery because, Hunt says, it suggests there may be a way to entice the injured brain to repair lost connections on its own."
> 
> Comment: brain function is so vital it is easy to see a newly designed brain would come with repair mechanisms in place. A natural chance evolution of a brain might well start without such protective mechanisms. Protective plasticity would have to come as a later adaptation after experiencing injuries. Postulating a designer makes more sense when viewing what is present.