The spine problem: Finding a function for dendritic spines
Why do neurons have dendritic spines? This question— the heart of what Yuste calls the spine problem— presupposes that why-questions of this sort have scientific answers: that empirical findings can favor or count against claims about why neurons have spines. Here we show how such questions can rece...
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2014-09-01
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Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnana.2014.00095/full |
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doaj-53ed7906b68f43269c7adf8d23527d702020-11-24T21:42:16ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Neuroanatomy1662-51292014-09-01810.3389/fnana.2014.00095107423The spine problem: Finding a function for dendritic spinesSarah eMalanowski0Carl F. Craver1Washington University in St. LouisWashington University in St. LouisWhy do neurons have dendritic spines? This question— the heart of what Yuste calls the spine problem— presupposes that why-questions of this sort have scientific answers: that empirical findings can favor or count against claims about why neurons have spines. Here we show how such questions can receive empirical answers. We construe such why-questions as questions about how spines make a difference to the behavior of some mechanism that we take to be significant. Why-questions are driven fundamentally by the effort to understand how some item, such as the dendritic spine, is situated in the causal structure of the world (the causal nexus). They ask for a filter on that busy world that allows us to see a part’s individual contribution to a mechanism, independent of everything else going on. So understood, answers to why-questions can be assessed by testing the claims these answers make about the causal structure of a mechanism. We distinguish four ways of making a difference to a mechanism (necessary, modulatory, component, background condition), and we sketch their evidential requirements. One consequence of our analysis is that there are many spine problems and that any given spine problem might have many acceptable answers.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnana.2014.00095/fullDendritic Spinesfunctionmechanismsfunctional attributioncausal-mechanical explanation |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Sarah eMalanowski Carl F. Craver |
spellingShingle |
Sarah eMalanowski Carl F. Craver The spine problem: Finding a function for dendritic spines Frontiers in Neuroanatomy Dendritic Spines function mechanisms functional attribution causal-mechanical explanation |
author_facet |
Sarah eMalanowski Carl F. Craver |
author_sort |
Sarah eMalanowski |
title |
The spine problem: Finding a function for dendritic spines |
title_short |
The spine problem: Finding a function for dendritic spines |
title_full |
The spine problem: Finding a function for dendritic spines |
title_fullStr |
The spine problem: Finding a function for dendritic spines |
title_full_unstemmed |
The spine problem: Finding a function for dendritic spines |
title_sort |
spine problem: finding a function for dendritic spines |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
series |
Frontiers in Neuroanatomy |
issn |
1662-5129 |
publishDate |
2014-09-01 |
description |
Why do neurons have dendritic spines? This question— the heart of what Yuste calls the spine problem— presupposes that why-questions of this sort have scientific answers: that empirical findings can favor or count against claims about why neurons have spines. Here we show how such questions can receive empirical answers. We construe such why-questions as questions about how spines make a difference to the behavior of some mechanism that we take to be significant. Why-questions are driven fundamentally by the effort to understand how some item, such as the dendritic spine, is situated in the causal structure of the world (the causal nexus). They ask for a filter on that busy world that allows us to see a part’s individual contribution to a mechanism, independent of everything else going on. So understood, answers to why-questions can be assessed by testing the claims these answers make about the causal structure of a mechanism. We distinguish four ways of making a difference to a mechanism (necessary, modulatory, component, background condition), and we sketch their evidential requirements. One consequence of our analysis is that there are many spine problems and that any given spine problem might have many acceptable answers. |
topic |
Dendritic Spines function mechanisms functional attribution causal-mechanical explanation |
url |
http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnana.2014.00095/full |
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