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Science is starting to understand the complex cellular communication 
that takes place. Why do cells do what they do when they do it and how 
do they communicate. It really got started when Candace Perth discovered 
the opiate receptor while at Hopkins. During her work she spent a lot of 
time in the physics/math departments trying to understand how we dealt 
and modeled the "spooky action at a distance" that some seem to think is 
part of quantum physics. Since my area at that time was the mathematics 
associated with quantum field theory I took great interest in her work. 
There are some amazing similarities between the way particles at the 
quantum level "communicate" and the way receptors communicate. In 
physics certain particles have been renamed to reflect this. The photon 
(particle of light) is know to be the messenger particle for the 
electromagnetic force. When two electrons repel one another for example 
they trade photons in the process to communicate the force. Same for 
when a proton and an electron attract. The strong nuclear force has it 
own messenger particle (gulon) as does the weak nuclear force which has 
two (Z and W bosons). Even gravity has its own - the graviton. While 
this all sounds absurd - many know phenomenon that were difficult to 
explain - became crystal clear. It just works to explain how the world 
works. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton has a good lay discussion 
of the graviton and messenger particles. Perth popularized her work in 
lay terms in a book called "Molecules of Emotion." She I believe is at 
Georgetown Medical School now.

Perth basically paved the way to the understanding of many other types 
of receptors that regulate at the cellular level much of the workings of 
the body - which led to the discovery of more. They literally are the 
antenna's and information processors of the cell and their actions are 
becoming more and more important in the understanding of the regulation 
and control of the functions of the human body. In fact from what I 
remember most of the internal automatic control at he cellular level is 
thought now to be through a enzyme, peptide receptor mechanism. It's 
been awhile since I have followed the work in any detail - but the 
implications were fascinating. Much as the discovery of the messenger 
particles changed our thinking about physics - so it seems the discovery 
of the multitude of receptors have changed how microbiologist view the 
control at the cellular.

The reason for the statement below is just to point that we are just 
peeling yet another layer off our understand of how biological organisms 
function and how the control mechanisms work. We need not become locked 
into a narrow focused view of how to best determine the stresses on a 
horse or how the stresses will translate on a particular day. Our 
parameters we use today are pretty coarse and their ability to address 
what is going on to predict what might go awry is educated conjecture at 
best based more on experience than science. Of course we have to do 
something and these indicators is all we have at the present. However, I 
would rather we focus on how to better estimate the true state - for 
example hydration - than to push as coarse parameter such as pulse rate 
or even CRI past there limit of the information they convey. An 
unintended consequence in becoming more reliant on a fixed parameter is 
to minimize the reliance on other parameters which are as important - 
maybe more. At the end of the day the source of the best indicators is a 
good vet that has seen the horse multiple times and a rider that has 
been riding the horse for several years.

Tough problem, but I think we can do better. Fiddling with the pulse 
rate or recovery time (especially when it will impact a lot of other 
things) is not a silver bullet - we can do better and should be looking 
to do better.

Truman

Bruce Weary wrote:
> Truman said:
> " the role and impact of the various receptors that are key to the 
> control process of the various systems. We are just starting to 
> understand the role many of these and understand their ability to 
> actually process information for directing the processes at the cell 
> level."
>
> What in THE hell does that mean? Dr Q
>
>
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--

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a 
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also 
into you.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil


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