The MacArthur and the Mole
You found that the part of the brain corresponding to the nose is organized in a similar way?
Yes, if you stained the brain [for study], you'd actually see a star. The touch fovea [the most sensitive part of the nose] takes up the most space. The obvious reason is to save neural tissue: You can specialize a very small part in the sensory system to be very high resolution. It has parallels to the visual system in humans and auditory system in bats-the same patterns recur for those high-resolution sensory systems as well. In humans, if the entire eye were as sensitive as the eye's fovea, your head would be the size of a refrigerator.
Any other comparisons?
Well, we can see how these brain maps change in relation to behavior. In humans, you get an expansion of the area of the brain representing the hand if you were a guitar player or a Braille reader. When someone loses a limb, they may still feel as if it's there, and that may be because the brain area [of the missing limb] is being activated by regions that shouldn't be there. It's being invaded by other parts of the brain map.
How does it feel to know that someone anonymously nominated you for the MacArthur grant?
That's one of the most touching things about it. You're always struggling to do good work and don't know what other people think of it. Most people who are trying to do something a little unusual wonder if it's the right thing to be doing.
And what will you do with the money?
One way or another, it will support the studies, though I'm still thinking about what to do. I'll keep studying a range of species-naked mole rats, elephant shrews-as well as the star-nosed mole. One thing might be to do more photography of these species and bring the fascination of these animals to the general public. I also might try to preserve some habitat sites. And I might go in different directions: I am always interested in other mysteries.
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