Brain Activating Reading Answers

Jan 6, 2023

Brain Activating Reading Answers contains sample answers about Sherrington and his layout about how the brain works. Brain Activating Reading Answers has 13 different questions. IELTS Brain Activating Reading Answers contains three types of questions: match the heading with information, true/false/not given and complete the summary. Candidates are required to read the IELTS Reading passage to answer which paragraph contains the given information. Candidates need to thoroughly go through each paragraph to answer whether the given statement is true or false, else write not given if the information is not stated. To complete the summary, candidates are supposed to answer in no more than three words from the passage. Candidates gain proficiency on diverse topics by undertaking IELTS Reading practice papers.

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Section 1

Read the Passage to Answer the Following Questions

Brain Activating Reading Answers

In 1937 the great neuroscientist Sir Charles Scott Sherrington of the University of Oxford laid out what would become a classic description of the brain at work. He imagined points of light signalling the activity of nerve cells and their connections. During deep sleep, he proposed, only a few remote parts of the brain would twinkle, giving the organ the appearance of a starry night sky. But at awakening, "it is as if the Milky Way entered upon some cosmic dance," Sherrington reflected. "Swiftly the head-mass becomes an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one; a shifting harmony of subpatterns."
Although Sherrington probably did not realise it at the time, his poetic metaphor contained an important scientific idea: that of the brain revealing its inner workings optically. Understanding how neurons work together to generate thoughts and behaviour remains one of the most difficult open problems in all of biology, largely because scientists generally cannot see whole neural circuits in action. The standard approach of probing one or two neurons with electrodes reveals only tiny fragments of a much bigger puzzle, with too many pieces missing to guess the full picture. But if one could watch neurons communicate, one might be able to deduce how brain circuits are laid out and how they function. This alluring notion has inspired neuroscientists to attempt to realise Sherrington's vision.
Their efforts have given rise to a nascent field called optogenetics, which combines genetic engineering with optics to study specific cell types. Already investigators have succeeded in visualising the functions of various groups of neurons. Furthermore, the approach has enabled them to actually control the neurons remotely simply by toggling a light switch. These achievements raise the prospect that optogenetics might one day open the brain's circuitry to neuroscientists and perhaps even help physicians to treat certain medical disorders.
Enchanting the Loom Attempts to turn Sherrington's vision into reality began in earnest in the 1970s. Like digital computers, nervous systems run on electricity; neurons encode information in electrical signals, or action potentials. These impulses, which typically involve voltages less than a tenth of those of a single AA battery, induce a nerve cell to release neurotransmitter molecules that then activate or inhibit connected cells in a circuit. In an effort to make these electrical signals visible, Lawrence B. Cohen of Yale University tested a large number of fluorescent dyes for their ability to respond to voltage changes with changes in colour or intensity. He found that some dyes indeed had voltage sensitive optical properties. By staining neurons with these dyes, Cohen could observe their activity under a microscope.
Dyes can also reveal neural firing by reacting not to voltage changes but to the flow of specific charged atoms, or ions. When a neuron generates an action potential, membrane channels open and admit calcium ions into the cell. This calcium influx stimulates the release of neurotransmitters. In 1980 Roger Y. Tsien, now at the University of California, San Diego, began to synthesise dyes that could indicate shifts in calcium concentration by changing how brightly they fluoresce. These optical reporters have proved extraordinarily valuable, opening new windows on information processing in single neurons and small networks.
Synthetic dyes suffer from a serious drawback, however. Neural tissue is composed of many different cell types. Estimates suggest that the brain of a mouse, for example, houses many hundreds of types of neurons plus numerous kinds of support cells. Because interactions between specific types of neurons form the basis of neural information processing, someone who wants to understand how a particular circuit works must be able to identify and monitor the individual players and pinpoint when they turn on (fire an action potential) and off. But because synthetic dyes stain all cell types indiscriminately, it is generally impossible to trace the optical signals back to specific types of cells.
Optogenetics emerged from the realisation that genetic manipulation might be the key to solving his problem of indiscriminate staining. An individual's cells all contain the same genes, but that makes two cells different from each other is that different mixes of genes get turned on or off in them. Neurons that release the neurotransmitter dopamine when they fire, for instance, need the enzymatic machinery for making and packaging dopamine. The genes encoding the protein components of this machinery are thus switched on in dopamine producing (dopaminergic) neurons but stay off in other, non-dopaminergic neurons. In theory, if a biological switch that turned a dopamine-making gene on was linked to a gene encoding a dye and if the switch-and- dye unit were engineered into the cells of an animal, the animal would make the dye only in dopaminergic cells. If researchers could peer into the brains of these creatures (as is indeed possible), they could see dopaminergic cells functioning in virtual isolation from other cell types. Furthermore, they could observe these cells in the intact, living brain. Synthetic dyes cannot perform this type of magic, because their production is not controlled by genetic switches that flip to on exclusively in certain kinds of cells. The trick works only when a dye is encoded by a gene- that is, when the dye is a protein.
The first demonstrations that were genetically encoded a decade ago, from teams led independently by Tsien, Ehud Y. Isacoff of the University of California, Berkeley with James E. Rothman, now at Yale University. In all cases, the gene for the dye was borrowed from a luminescent marine organism, typically a jellyfish that makes the so-called green fluorescent protein Scientists tweaked the gene so that its protein product could detect and reveal the changes in voltage or calcium that underlie signalling within a cell, as well as the release of neurotransmitters that enable signalling between cells.

Section 2

Solution and Explanation

Questions 1-5

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1? In boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

Sherrington's imaginary picture triggered scientists’ enthusiasm of discovering how the whole set of neurons operates.

Answer: True
Supporting Sentence: Although Sherrington probably did not realise it at the time, his poetic metaphor contained an important scientific idea
Keyword : realise, poetic metaphor, scientific idea
Keyword Location: Paragraph B, first two lines
Explanation: As per paragraph B, Sherrington was unaware that his made-up image had aroused the interest of the scientists. particularly for investigating and comprehending how the connections between neurons produce cognition. This means that the answer is True because the assertion and the information are compatible.

A jumped-up domain optogenetic is a pure unexpected accident.

Answer: Not Given
Explanation: The passage does not contain relevant information regarding the statement.

Electric tension is one key component to realise the communication between neurons.

Answer: True
Supporting Sentence: nervous systems run on electricity; neurons encode information in electrical signals, or action potentials.
Keyword : nervous system, electricity, neuron, signals
Keyword Location: paragraph D, line 2
Explanation: The neurological system uses electricity to function, according to paragraph D. The neurons store information as electrical signals called action potentials. Electric tension is therefore one of the key elements to achieving successful neuronal communication. Accordingly, the answer is True because the proposition and the actuality are consistent.

The variation of voltages is the sole response that the coloration of related neurons could provide when neural discharge takes place.

Answer: False
Supporting Sentence: Dyes can also reveal neural firing by reacting not to voltage changes but to the flow of specific charged atoms, or ions.
Keyword : dyes, reacting, voltage, charged
Keyword Location: paragraph E, line 1
Explanation: The dyes can also disclose neuronal activation, according to paragraph E. It only occurs when certain charged atoms or ions flow, not when voltage changes react. As a result of the statement's contradiction with the available data, the correct answer is False.

The vital defect synthetic dyes possess is the most challenging obstacle for researchers to overcome .

Answer: Not Given
Explanation: The passage does not contain relevant information regarding the statement.

Questions 6-10

The reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-H. Which paragraph contains the following information? Write the correct letter A-H, in boxes 6-10 on your answer sheet.

a sea creature producing light triggered by certain genes

Answer: H
Supporting Sentence: the gene for the dye was borrowed from a luminescent marine organism, typically a jellyfish
Keyword : gene, luminescent, marine organism
Keyword Location: paragraph H, line 3-4
Explanation: According to paragraph H, the sea creature was a jellyfish, a marine organism that turned on its lights when it borrowed a gene from a dye. As a result, paragraph H contains the necessary information for the statement. So, paragraph H is the answer.

first attempts to make a great idea come true

Answer: D
Supporting Sentence: Enchanting the Loom Attempts to turn Sherrington's vision into reality began in earnest in the 1970s
Keyword : Sherrington, reality, 1970
Keyword Location: paragraph D, line 1
Explanation: According to the first sentence of paragraph D, Sherrington's efforts to turn his vision into reality really got going in the 1970s. According to these lines, attempts to realise Sherrington's vision started in the 1970s. The earliest attempts to realise a fantastic concept are described in paragraph D, thus that is where the answer lies.

the reason to explain the failure of synthetic dyes

Answer: F
Supporting Sentence: because synthetic dyes stain all cell types indiscriminately, it is generally impossible to trace
Keyword : synthetic dyes, stain, cell, impossible, trace
Keyword Location: paragraph F, last line
Explanation: Since synthetic dyes stain all cell types uniformly, as shown in the last line of paragraph F, it is typically hard to link particular cell types to optical signals. These lines suggest that it is crucial to trace the optical impulses to particular cell types. Because all cell types are uniformly stained by synthetic dyes. Thus, it serves as a justification for why synthetic colours failed. So, paragraph F is the answer.

difficulty in observing how the whole set of neurons works

Answer: B
Supporting Sentence: Understanding how neurons work together to generate thoughts and behaviour remains one of the most difficult open problems
Keyword : neurons, behaviour, problem
Keyword Location: paragraph B, line 3
Explanation: As per line 3 of paragraph B, one of the most challenging open questions is how to see how the full network of neurons interacts to produce ideas and actions. Particularly since the researchers are unable to observe entire brain circuits in action. So, paragraph B is the answer.

visual indicators to show how information is handled in and between cells in the Brain

Answer: E
Supporting Sentence: proved extraordinarily valuable, opening new windows on information processing in single neurons
Keyword : new windows, information, neurons
Keyword Location: paragraph E, last line
Explanation: The last line of paragraph E demonstrates how important these optical reporters have proven to be. They have provided fresh perspectives on how information is processed in isolated neurons and tiny networks. These lines show the great value of the optical reporters by providing new views on how neurons and tiny networks interpret data. This refers to the visual cues that demonstrate how data is handled by brain cells and between them. Therefore, paragraph E is the answer.

Questions 11-13

Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using no more than three words from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet.

Summary

Synthesised by enzymatic machinery , 11 ……………….. plays as a vehicle for the information flow between cells. Protein is the ingredient of the enzymatic machinery, so first it needs genes in charge of encoding the required protein 12 ……………….. before the neurotransmitter is produced. This 13 ……………….. can be used to differentiate the dopaminergic neurons from the non dopaminergic counterparts with a premise that the dye is a protein after a transfer process.

Question 11:

Answer: Dopamine
Supporting Sentence: Neurons that release the neurotransmitter dopamine when they fire. For instance, need the enzymatic machinery for making and packaging dopamine.
Keyword : neurons, dopamine, enzymatic, machinery
Keyword Location: paragraph G, line 4
Explanation: Dopamine-releasing neurons, as stated in the fourth line of paragraph G, activate and release the neurotransmitter. Creating and packaging dopamine, for example, requires enzymatic machinery. According to these ideas, dopamine
production and packaging require enzymatic machinery in order for neurons to release dopamine when they are firing. Dopamine serves as a vehicle for the transfer of information between cells as it is produced by enzymatic machinery. Dopamine is the answer, thus.

Question 12:

Answer: Switched On
Supporting Sentence: encoding the protein components of this machinery are thus switched on in dopamine
Keyword : encoding, machinery, dopamine
Keyword Location: paragraph G, line 6
Explanation: According to paragraph D, dopaminergic neurons swap the genes that encode the enzymatic machinery's protein component. Protein serves as an essential component of the enzyme system. As a result, genes must encode the protein that turns on before the neurotransmitter is made. Therefore, the answer is Switched on.

Question 13:

Answer: Switch and Dye Unit
Supporting Sentence: if a biological switch that turned a dopamine-making gene on was linked to a gene encoding
Keyword : biological, switch, dopamine, encoding
Keyword Location: paragraph G, line 8
Explanation: As per paragraph G, a biological switch that activated a gene that produces dopamine could theoretically be connected to a gene that codes for a colour. Additionally, if an animal's cells contained a switch-and-dye unit, it would only produce the dye in dopaminergic cells.

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