Introducing the brain (Introduction)
by David Turell 
, Tuesday, May 08, 2018, 23:49 (2173 days ago)
You have noted on May 7th that you do not understand the brain. I will add as much info as I can to help your understanding of it, and how it function:
https://aeon.co/essays/we-are-more-than-our-brains-on-neuroscience-and-being-human?utm_...
"Brains are undoubtedly somewhat computer-like – computers, after all, were invented to perform brain-like functions – but brains are also much more than bundles of wiry neurons and the electrical impulses they are famous for propagating. The function of each neuroelectrical signal is to release a little flood of chemicals that helps to stimulate or suppress brain cells, in much the way that chemicals activate or suppress functions such as glucose production by liver cells or immune responses by white blood cells. Even the brain’s electrical signals themselves are the products of chemicals called ions that move in and out of cells, causing tiny ripples that can spread independently of neurons.
"Also distinct from neurons are the relatively passive brain cells called glia (Greek for glue) that are roughly equal in number to the neurons but do not conduct electrical signals in the same way. Recent experiments in mice have shown that manipulating these uncharismatic cells can produce dramatic effects on behaviour. In one experiment, a research group in Japan showed that direct stimulation of glia in a brain region called the cerebellum could cause a behavioural response analogous to changes more commonly evoked by stimulation of neurons. Another remarkable study showed that transplantation of human glial cells into mouse brains boosted the animals’ performance in learning tests, again demonstrating the importance of glia in shaping brain function. Chemicals and glue are as integral to brain function as wiring and electricity. With these moist elements factored in, the brain seems much more like an organic part of the body than the idealised prosthetic many people imagine.
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"It has become a cliché to refer to the brain as ‘the most complex thing in the known Universe’. This saying is inspired by the finding that human brains contain something on the order of 100,000,000,000 neurons, each of which makes about 10,000 connections (synapses) to other neurons. The daunting nature of such numbers provides cover for people who argue that neuroscience will never decipher consciousness, or that free will lurks somehow among the billions and billions.
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"Some of the most perspicacious animals are the corvids – crows, ravens, and rooks – which have brains less than 1 per cent the size of a human brain, but still perform feats of cognition comparable to chimpanzees and gorillas. ....Within individual orders, animals with similar characteristics also display huge differences in brain size. Among rodents, for instance, we can find the 80-gram capybara brain with 1.6 billion neurons and the 0.3-gram pygmy mouse brain with probably fewer than 60 million neurons. Despite a greater than 100-fold difference in brain size, these species live in similar habitats, display similarly social lifestyles, and do not display obvious differences in intelligence." (my bold)
Comment: Corvids equal to apes!! Major point. It is the complexity that makes the difference, not the size. Answers dhw's weird point. Complexity of cognition is based on complexity. Until complexity arrives, cognition is less. Complexity is not size, nor is a drive for size necessary to have more advanced cognition.
Introducing the brain
DAVID: You have noted on May 7th that you do not understand the brain. I will add as much info as I can to help your understanding of it, and how it function:
https://aeon.co/essays/we-are-more-than-our-brains-on-neuroscience-and-being-human?utm_...
DAVID’s comment: Corvids equal to apes!! Major point. It is the complexity that makes the difference, not the size. Answers dhw's weird point. Complexity of cognition is based on complexity. Until complexity arrives, cognition is less. Complexity is not size, nor is a drive for size necessary to have more advanced cognition.
Thank you for this interesting article, which raises a number of problems. Not least is your own negation of your belief that your God had to enlarge the pre-sapiens brain before it could think new thoughts. If complexity was all that mattered, there was no need for enlargement. (Contrast my view, that the pre-sapiens capacity for complexification became exhausted, and so greater capacity was needed – and that meant enlargement.) Your comment that complexity of cognition is based on brain complexity once again reinforces your materialism (which may well be true), and the article also emphasizes how both behaviour and intelligence have cells as their source:
QUOTE: Recent experiments in mice have shown that manipulating these uncharismatic cells can produce dramatic effects on behaviour. In one experiment, a research group in Japan showed that direct stimulation of glia in a brain region called the cerebellum could cause a behavioural response analogous to changes more commonly evoked by stimulation of neurons. Another remarkable study showed that transplantation of human glial cells into mouse brains boosted the animals’ performance in learning tests, again demonstrating the importance of glia in shaping brain function. Chemicals and glue are as integral to brain function as wiring and electricity. (My bold)
If you mess with the cells, you mess with the self.
The author of this article, however, not only dismisses the concept of an immaterial soul, but he also opposes the idea that the brain is the central factor that determines the self. These two quotes illustrate both points:
QUOTE: But lost in the public’s romance with the brain is the most fundamental lesson neuroscience has to teach us: that the organ of our minds is a purely physical entity, conceptually and causally embedded in the natural world. Although the brain is required for almost everything we do, it never works alone. Instead, its function is inextricably linked to the body and to the environment around it. The interdependence of these factors is masked however by a cultural phenomenon I call the ‘cerebral mystique’ – a pervasive idealisation of the brain and its singular importance, which protects traditional conceptions about differences between mind and body, the freedom of will and the nature of thought itself.
In other contexts, we miss analogous factors when we attribute drug addiction or adolescent misbehaviour to the brain, or when we credit the brain for creativity and intelligence. In each case, an idealised view that simply locates good and bad personal qualities in the brain is remarkably similar to old-fashioned perspectives that assigned virtue and vice to the metaphysical soul. An updated view should instead accept that any act of brilliance or depravity arises from a combination of brain, body and environment working together.
I’m afraid you cannot claim that his findings support your belief in an immaterial piece of God’s consciousness (soul) or that they refute my hypothesis concerning the enlargement of the pre-sapiens brain. As for the intelligence of other organisms, you can hardly claim that I attribute it to size, when I am the one who is constantly championing the intelligence of insects and microorganisms.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 09, 2018, 17:58 (2172 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID’s comment: Corvids equal to apes!! Major point. It is the complexity that makes the difference, not the size. Answers dhw's weird point. Complexity of cognition is based on complexity. Until complexity arrives, cognition is less. Complexity is not size, nor is a drive for size necessary to have more advanced cognition.
dhw: Thank you for this interesting article, which raises a number of problems. Not least is your own negation of your belief that your God had to enlarge the pre-sapiens brain before it could think new thoughts. If complexity was all that mattered, there was no need for enlargement.
The need for enlargement is the part of the article I quoted: the enormous size and complexity of the human brain creates our consciousness which no one else has! The room for enough complexity is my view of the new size we have.
dhw: Your comment that complexity of cognition is based on brain complexity once again reinforces your materialism (which may well be true),
You constantly conveniently forget that my position is that the s/s/c must use the brains network to think during life. Dualism. I stated that the article takes a materialism view.
dhw: I’m afraid you cannot claim that his findings support your belief in an immaterial piece of God’s consciousness (soul) or that they refute my hypothesis concerning the enlargement of the pre-sapiens brain. As for the intelligence of other organisms, you can hardly claim that I attribute it to size, when I am the one who is constantly championing the intelligence of insects and microorganisms.
Your interpretation and mine continue to differ widely. My only point is the necessity for advanced complexity and then enough room for enough complexity to produce a spot for consciousness itself to do its work, since it must use the networks of the brain to function during life. Nothing else living has what we have, and it requires the complexity demonstrated in the paragraphs I quoted to achieve that result. That is obvious. Insects and microorganisms are intelligently designed.
Introducing the brain
DAVID’s comment: Corvids equal to apes!! Major point. It is the complexity that makes the difference, not the size. Answers dhw's weird point. Complexity of cognition is based on complexity. Until complexity arrives, cognition is less. Complexity is not size, nor is a drive for size necessary to have more advanced cognition. (dhw’s bold)
dhw: Thank you for this interesting article, which raises a number of problems. Not least is your own negation of your belief that your God had to enlarge the pre-sapiens brain before it could think new thoughts. If complexity was all that mattered, there was no need for enlargement.
DAVID: The need for enlargement is the part of the article I quoted: the enormous size and complexity of the human brain creates our consciousness which no one else has! The room for enough complexity is my view of the new size we have.
First contradiction: You wrote (first quote bolded): “It is the complexity that makes the difference, not the size”, but now it is the complexity AND the size, and under THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE you have written: Of more interest to our discussion is that the Neanderthal cerebellum is smaller than the sapiens and the conjecture is that is why they failed and we persisted. […]. Size matters. You also keep saying your God had to ENLARGE the pre-sapiens brain before it could think new thoughts. Your arguments change from day to day.
Second contradiction, which you keep making over and over again: if the enormous size and complexity of our brain CREATES our consciousness, you are a materialist. In the days when you are a dualist, you claim that our consciousness is a piece of God’s consciousness. The room for enough complexity is also my view of the new size: the brain expanded when it did not have the capacity to implement new concepts. Your (materialist) view is that your God gave the brain more capacity so that it could think up new concepts.
dhw: Your comment that complexity of cognition is based on brain complexity once again reinforces your materialism (which may well be true).
DAVID: You constantly conveniently forget that my position is that the s/s/c must use the brains network to think during life. Dualism.
The essence of dualism is that the immaterial soul uses the brain to gather information and to implement its thinking materially. That is why dualists can believe that the immaterial soul (which you call a piece of God’s consciousness) can still be itself after the death of the brain.
dhw: I’m afraid you cannot claim that his findings support your belief in an immaterial piece of God’s consciousness (soul) or that they refute my hypothesis concerning the enlargement of the pre-sapiens brain. As for the intelligence of other organisms, you can hardly claim that I attribute it to size, when I am the one who is constantly championing the intelligence of insects and microorganisms.
DAVID: Your interpretation and mine continue to differ widely. My only point is the necessity for advanced complexity and then enough room for enough complexity to produce a spot for consciousness itself to do its work, since it must use the networks of the brain to function during life.
“Enough room”? How big is your immaterial soul, and how do you measure it? What need room are the material tools the dualist’s “soul” uses to gather information and implement its thoughts. And that, I suggest, is why the pre-sapiens brain expanded – until further expansion would have been impractical and so complexification took over.
DAVID: Insects and microorganisms are intelligently designed.
If God exists, all life was intelligently designed. That does not mean all life is robotic. My comment though was to refute your claim that I attribute intelligence to size.It is you who say this one day and say the opposite the next day.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Thursday, May 10, 2018, 18:56 (2171 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The need for enlargement is the part of the article I quoted: the enormous size and complexity of the human brain creates our consciousness which no one else has! The room for enough complexity is my view of the new size we have.
dhw: First contradiction: You wrote (first quote bolded): “It is the complexity that makes the difference, not the size”, but now it is the complexity AND the size, and under THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE you have written: Of more interest to our discussion is that the Neanderthal cerebellum is smaller than the sapiens and the conjecture is that is why they failed and we persisted. […]. Size matters. You also keep saying your God had to ENLARGE the pre-sapiens brain before it could think new thoughts. Your arguments change from day to day.
My quote is taken out of context. The clear meaning is that small brain intense complexity can equal larger brain less complexity: corvid=ape. Thus our intense complexity coupled with massive enlargement results in being able to use the advanced thoughts of our current s/s/c
dhw: Second contradiction, which you keep making over and over again: if the enormous size and complexity of our brain CREATES our consciousness, you are a materialist. In the days when you are a dualist, you claim that our consciousness is a piece of God’s consciousness.
Second misconception. anyone following this discussion knows I view the s/s/c as having to use the brain's complex networks to think in life. I AM ALWAYS A DUELIST. This statement is ALWAYS implied.
dhw: Your comment that complexity of cognition is based on brain complexity once again reinforces your materialism (which may well be true).
DAVID: You constantly conveniently forget that my position is that the s/s/c must use the brains network to think during life. Dualism.dhw: The essence of dualism is that the immaterial soul uses the brain to gather information and to implement its thinking materially. That is why dualists can believe that the immaterial soul (which you call a piece of God’s consciousness) can still be itself after the death of the brain.
Your form of dualism is not mine.
dhw: I’m afraid you cannot claim that his findings support your belief in an immaterial piece of God’s consciousness (soul) or that they refute my hypothesis concerning the enlargement of the pre-sapiens brain. As for the intelligence of other organisms, you can hardly claim that I attribute it to size, when I am the one who is constantly championing the intelligence of insects and microorganisms.DAVID: Your interpretation and mine continue to differ widely. My only point is the necessity for advanced complexity and then enough room for enough complexity to produce a spot for consciousness itself to do its work, since it must use the networks of the brain to function during life.
dhw: “Enough room”? How big is your immaterial soul, and how do you measure it? What need room are the material tools the dualist’s “soul” uses to gather information and implement its thoughts. And that, I suggest, is why the pre-sapiens brain expanded – until further expansion would have been impractical and so complexification took over.
The soul obviously requires the complexity and size of our brain for consciousness to appear. No one else with a brain has it.
DAVID: Insects and microorganisms are intelligently designed.dhw: If God exists, all life was intelligently designed. That does not mean all life is robotic. My comment though was to refute your claim that I attribute intelligence to size.It is you who say this one day and say the opposite the next day.
Conscious behavior requires a brain. We've been here before. True human consciousness requires the presence of a massively complex large brain for the s/s/c to think with in life. The autonomic system which runs our bodies is automatic.
Introducing the brain
I’ve transferred the “all over Africa” post to this thread, as it has shifted its focus to the brain, so we can avoid some of the repetition. We start with brain enlargement:
DAVID: The apes have the same implementation areas we have with the same connections. You can't get around that the major area of enlargement is frontal lobe, but of course, there is some enlargement elsewhere.
You keep ignoring the explanation I have suggested! The control centre would have to create new connections to all the different areas. Lots of new connections in the centre, only a few in the other areas. The more connections, the more materials required, and hence expansion.
DAVID: Shrinkage negates your point that the pressure of thinking new concepts forces enlargement of brain and skull.
dhw: […] you are still ignoring the point that even your own shrinkage hypothesis now has new thoughts changing the brain instead of God changing the brain before the s/s/c can have new thoughts.
DAVID: We know God gave the brain plasticity; therefore the brain could shrink on its own as it pruned unnecessary areas.
Pruning is the explanation I have offered. Shrinkage is therefore irrelevant to the question of why the pre-sapiens brain expanded.
DAVID: My form of dualism is not the one you constantly define. I believe the immaterial soul must use the brain networks to think in life. I have every right to my interpretation of a dualistic philosophy.
I am simply pointing out that you constantly contradict yourself, but of course you have the right to contradict yourself and to believe whatever you like.
DAVID: The clear meaning is that small brain intense complexity can equal larger brain less complexity: corvid=ape. Thus our intense complexity coupled with massive enlargement results in being able to use the advanced thoughts of our current s/s/c.
I shan’t bother with the first set of contradictions you are responding to here, since this new statement makes it very clear that it is only through complexification and enlargement that the thoughts of the s/s/c can be “used” (which I take to mean materially implemented). The s/s/c therefore does the thinking, and the brain does the implementing. Thank you.
dhw: Second contradiction, which you keep making over and over again: if the enormous size and complexity of our brain CREATES our consciousness, you are a materialist. In the days when you are a dualist, you claim that our consciousness is a piece of God’s consciousness.
DAVID: Second misconception. anyone following this discussion knows I view the s/s/c as having to use the brain's complex networks to think in life. I AM ALWAYS A DUELIST. This statement is ALWAYS implied.
Anyone following this discussion will recognize that the above example is as glaring a contradiction of dualism as one could possibly find: if you think the large and complex brain creates our consciousness, you are a materialist no matter how loudly you protest that you are a dualist (although, dear friend, you are certainly a duelist, because you love a good fight!).
The rest of your post hinges on the same point: “True human consciousness requires the presence of a massively complex large brain for the s/s/c to think with in life.” I suggest we now abandon the term s/s/c (self/soul/consciousness) and confine ourselves to “soul” in the context of dualism. Materialists also have a self and consciousness. If we substitute “self” in your sentence, we have pure materialism: the self thinks with its brain. If we substitute “soul”, your dualistic argument seems to be that the soul can only think if it is inside a brain, except that it continues to think when there is no brain (NDEs, an afterlife). If we are kind, we might call that a paradox. We obviously can’t substitute “consciousness” here.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Friday, May 11, 2018, 17:47 (2170 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The apes have the same implementation areas we have with the same connections. You can't get around that the major area of enlargement is frontal lobe, but of course, there is some enlargement elsewhere.
dhw: You keep ignoring the explanation I have suggested! The control centre would have to create new connections to all the different areas. Lots of new connections in the centre, only a few in the other areas. The more connections, the more materials required, and hence expansion.
Once again, all the basic areas exist in apes. The homo frontal lobes enlarged and you are correct more connective axons would go to the implmentation areas, but those fibers don't take up much room. you can't escape that the frontal lobers are the maim enlargement and created a base for consciousness.
DAVID: The clear meaning is that small brain intense complexity can equal larger brain less complexity: corvid=ape. Thus our intense complexity coupled with massive enlargement results in being able to use the advanced thoughts of our current s/s/c.dhw: I shan’t bother with the first set of contradictions you are responding to here, since this new statement makes it very clear that it is only through complexification and enlargement that the thoughts of the s/s/c can be “used” (which I take to mean materially implemented). The s/s/c therefore does the thinking, and the brain does the implementing. Thank you.
dhw: Second contradiction, which you keep making over and over again: if the enormous size and complexity of our brain CREATES our consciousness, you are a materialist. In the days when you are a dualist, you claim that our consciousness is a piece of God’s consciousness.
DAVID: Second misconception. anyone following this discussion knows I view the s/s/c as having to use the brain's complex networks to think in life. I AM ALWAYS A DUELIST. This statement is ALWAYS implied.
dhw: Anyone following this discussion will recognize that the above example is as glaring a contradiction of dualism as one could possibly find: if you think the large and complex brain creates our consciousness, you are a materialist no matter how loudly you protest that you are a dualist (although, dear friend, you are certainly a duelist, because you love a good fight!).
The rest of your post hinges on the same point: “True human consciousness requires the presence of a massively complex large brain for the s/s/c to think with in life.” I suggest we now abandon the term s/s/c (self/soul/consciousness) and confine ourselves to “soul” in the context of dualism. Materialists also have a self and consciousness. If we substitute “self” in your sentence, we have pure materialism: the self thinks with its brain. If we substitute “soul”, your dualistic argument seems to be that the soul can only think if it is inside a brain, except that it continues to think when there is no brain (NDEs, an afterlife). If we are kind, we might call that a paradox. We obviously can’t substitute “consciousness” here.
But it sees now we are discussng the same point. Again I view the soul as God's implant on the brain He created. We have our soul having to use the brain in life and it leaves us in death and joins Him in the afterworld. It has two mechanism forms in the two states. Thus a damaged brain by illness, injury or drugs cannot formulate proper thoughts from the soul. It is not clear whether the soul thinks in garbled fashion because of a damaged brain, or the brain mishandles proper original thought from the soul. One is correct. This is how I see dualism.
Introducing the brain
dhw: You keep ignoring the explanation I have suggested! The control centre would have to create new connections to all the different areas. Lots of new connections in the centre, only a few in the other areas. The more connections, the more materials required, and hence expansion.
DAVID: Once again, all the basic areas exist in apes. The homo frontal lobes enlarged and you are correct more connective axons would go to the implmentation areas, but those fibers don't take up much room. you can't escape that the frontal lobers are the maim enlargement and created a base for consciousness.
Once again you have missed the point. If the frontal lobes are the “base”, they are the control centre, which means that the connections start there. ALL of them. Any new concept requires new connections, but these will join up with existing connections in the implementation areas. So it is the control centre that has to expand the most.
dhw: The rest of your post hinges on the same point: “True human consciousness requires the presence of a massively complex large brain for the s/s/c to think with in life.” I suggest we now abandon the term s/s/c (self/soul/consciousness) and confine ourselves to “soul” in the context of dualism. Materialists also have a self and consciousness. If we substitute “self” in your sentence, we have pure materialism: the self thinks with its brain. If we substitute “soul”, your dualistic argument seems to be that the soul can only think if it is inside a brain, except that it continues to think when there is no brain (NDEs, an afterlife). If we are kind, we might call that a paradox. We obviously can’t substitute “consciousness” here.
DAVID: But it sees now we are discussng the same point. Again I view the soul as God's implant on the brain He created. We have our soul having to use the brain in life and it leaves us in death and joins Him in the afterworld. It has two mechanism forms in the two states. Thus a damaged brain by illness, injury or drugs cannot formulate proper thoughts from the soul. It is not clear whether the soul thinks in garbled fashion because of a damaged brain, or the brain mishandles proper original thought from the soul. One is correct. This is how I see dualism.
A few days ago you dismissed your idea of the soul thinking “proper thoughts”, in favour of the first of these options (the soul’s thoughts are garbled). But of course this option supports materialism, so back you go to “it is not clear whether….” You say the soul has “two mechanism forms”. This needs clarification. If the soul is a separate entity (which you now claim in your answer to my THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE, though elsewhere you insist that in life it is not, contradicting your own software/hardware analogy), it remains the same in an afterlife as in life. It is the thinking/feeling immaterial section of identity which interacts with the material information-gathering, thought-implementing body in material life, and then lives on as itself, but in a different immaterial world. I would like to think that all your contradictions, which mirror the great dichotomy between dualism and materialism, are resolved by my theory, which inverts the usual basis of dualism, thereby reconciling it with materialism. But I would welcome the pinpointing of any flaws in its logic.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Sunday, May 13, 2018, 00:24 (2169 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Once again, all the basic areas exist in apes. The homo frontal lobes enlarged and you are correct more connective axons would go to the implmentation areas, but those fibers don't take up much room. you can't escape that the frontal lobers are the maim enlargement and created a base for consciousness.
dhw: Once again you have missed the point. If the frontal lobes are the “base”, they are the control centre, which means that the connections start there. ALL of them. Any new concept requires new connections, but these will join up with existing connections in the implementation areas. So it is the control centre that has to expand the most.
To my way of interpreting you, you have simply repeated me. Of course it is the frontal control area that has to enlarged to be capable of advanced thought and to drive implementation.
DAVID: But it sees now we are discussng the same point. Again I view the soul as God's implant on the brain He created. We have our soul having to use the brain in life and it leaves us in death and joins Him in the afterworld. It has two mechanism forms in the two states. Thus a damaged brain by illness, injury or drugs cannot formulate proper thoughts from the soul. It is not clear whether the soul thinks in garbled fashion because of a damaged brain, or the brain mishandles proper original thought from the soul. One is correct. This is how I see dualism.
dhw: A few days ago you dismissed your idea of the soul thinking “proper thoughts”, in favour of the first of these options (the soul’s thoughts are garbled). But of course this option supports materialism, so back you go to “it is not clear whether….”
I have always described the two possibilties about garbled thought: either the soul can think straight but the brain cannot translate straight, or the soul, using the brain to think while in life, cannot formulate correct thoughts, because I think the immaterial soul must use the brain networks during life.
dhw: You say the soul has “two mechanism forms”. This needs clarification. If the soul is a separate entity (which you now claim in your answer to my THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE, though elsewhere you insist that in life it is not, contradicting your own software/hardware analogy), it remains the same in an afterlife as in life. It is the thinking/feeling immaterial section of identity which interacts with the material information-gathering, thought-implementing body in material life, and then lives on as itself, but in a different immaterial world.
You operate under a different premise as to how the soul and brain relate. The soul has two forms interlocking with the brain in life and in a different form not requiring the brain in death.
dhw:I would like to think that all your contradictions, which mirror the great dichotomy between dualism and materialism, are resolved by my theory, which inverts the usual basis of dualism, thereby reconciling it with materialism. But I would welcome the pinpointing of any flaws in its logic.
I don't see contradictions because you keep insisting only your view of brain/ soul relationship is true.
Introducing the brain
DAVID: Once again, all the basic areas exist in apes. The homo frontal lobes enlarged and you are correct more connective axons would go to the implmentation areas, but those fibers don't take up much room. you can't escape that the frontal lobers are the maim enlargement and created a base for consciousness.
dhw: Once again you have missed the point. If the frontal lobes are the “base”, they are the control centre, which means that the connections start there. ALL of them. Any new concept requires new connections, but these will join up with existing connections in the implementation areas. So it is the control centre that has to expand the most.
DAVID: To my way of interpreting you, you have simply repeated me. Of course it is the frontal control area that has to enlarged to be capable of advanced thought and to drive implementation.
I have offered a different explanation from yours for the expansion of the frontal lobe. You keep on emphasizing that it does the thinking, which is why your God expanded it, so that pre-sapiens would be ”capable of advanced thought”. That is pure materialism, which contradicts your claim to be a dualist. I say that in dualism, it is the soul that does the thinking, and so the frontal lobe has to expand when it needs new connections in order to organize material expression/implementation of the immaterial soul’s new thoughts. My “theory of intelligence” is an attempt to reconcile your materialism with the tenets of your dualism.
DAVID: It is not clear whether the soul thinks in garbled fashion because of a damaged brain, or the brain mishandles proper original thought from the soul. One is correct. This is how I see dualism.
dhw: A few days ago you dismissed your idea of the soul thinking “proper thoughts”, in favour of the first of these options (the soul’s thoughts are garbled). But of course this option supports materialism, so back you go to “it is not clear whether….”
DAVID: I have always described the two possibilties about garbled thought: either the soul can think straight but the brain cannot translate straight, or the soul, using the brain to think while in life, cannot formulate correct thoughts, because I think the immaterial soul must use the brain networks during life.
Here is the exchange (leaving out remarks concerning interdependence, which would apply to both hypotheses), culminating on Sunday May 6, where you categorically state that the s/s/c cannot think properly if the networks are sick. That eliminates the possibility of the soul “thinking straight” and then having its thoughts garbled by the brain.
dhw: Which of your statements do you now stand by? That the s/s/c’s thought is proper, but the diseased brain does not express it properly (garbles it), or the diseased brain causes the s/s/c to think improperly?
DAVID: The s/s/c must use the brain to think during life, so it is likely the s/s/c cannot produce a proper thought with a damaged brain, and may not be able to even form a proper initial thought.
dhw: Thank you. We can now forget the idea that the s/s/c thinks properly but the brain can’t express the thoughts properly...I find it difficult to understand how a piece of your God's immaterial consciousness can be damaged by material disease, but I can fully understand how consciousness that emerges from a material source can be damaged if the source is damaged.
DAVID: You have agreed that the s/s/c and brain are interlocked to work together. The point remains the same. The s/s/c must think using the brain networks and cannot think properly if the networks are sick.
I’m afraid it’s another case of x one day and y the next.
dhw: You say the soul has “two mechanism forms”. This needs clarification. If the soul is a separate entity (which you now claim in your answer to my THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE, though elsewhere you insist that in life it is not, contradicting your own software/hardware analogy), it remains the same in an afterlife as in life. It is the thinking/feeling immaterial section of identity which interacts with the material information-gathering, thought-implementing body in material life, and then lives on as itself, but in a different immaterial world.
DAVID: You operate under a different premise as to how the soul and brain relate. The soul has two forms interlocking with the brain in life and in a different form not requiring the brain in death.
I can see no difference between us on this, except that you want to give the immaterial soul different “forms” (what different "forms" can you give to something immaterial?), whereas I say it’s the same soul operating in different worlds.
dhw:I would like to think that all your contradictions, which mirror the great dichotomy between dualism and materialism, are resolved by my theory, which inverts the usual basis of dualism, thereby reconciling it with materialism. But I would welcome the pinpointing of any flaws in its logic.
DAVID: I don't see contradictions because you keep insisting only your view of brain/ soul relationship is true.
There are at least three examples of your self-contradictions above. These are inevitable so long as you see yourself as a dualist and yet continue to insist that the soul depends on the brain for its ability to think.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Sunday, May 13, 2018, 17:32 (2168 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I have offered a different explanation from yours for the expansion of the frontal lobe. You keep on emphasizing that it does the thinking, which is why your God expanded it, so that pre-sapiens would be ”capable of advanced thought”. That is pure materialism, which contradicts your claim to be a dualist. I say that in dualism, it is the soul that does the thinking, and so the frontal lobe has to expand when it needs new connections in order to organize material expression/implementation of the immaterial soul’s new thoughts. My “theory of intelligence” is an attempt to reconcile your materialism with the tenets of your dualism.
"My materialism" is a recognition that the soul must use the brain to think. We know the areas where it interlocks. I don't accept your single view that it is a one-way street. There are two logical possibilities, but you only like yours. From before:
DAVID: It is not clear whether the soul thinks in garbled fashion because of a damaged brain, or the brain mishandles proper original thought from the soul. One is correct. This is how I see dualism.
DAVID: I have always described the two possibilties about garbled thought: either the soul can think straight but the brain cannot translate straight, or the soul, using the brain to think while in life, cannot formulate correct thoughts, because I think the immaterial soul must use the brain networks during life.
dhw: Which of your statements do you now stand by? That the s/s/c’s thought is proper, but the diseased brain does not express it properly (garbles it), or the diseased brain causes the s/s/c to think improperly?DAVID: The s/s/c must use the brain to think during life, so it is likely the s/s/c cannot produce a proper thought with a damaged brain, and may not be able to even form a proper initial thought.
dhw: Thank you. We can now forget the idea that the s/s/c thinks properly but the brain can’t express the thoughts properly...I find it difficult to understand how a piece of your God's immaterial consciousness can be damaged by material disease, but I can fully understand how consciousness that emerges from a material source can be damaged if the source is damaged.
Despite making a choice as above, since you asked me which I preferred, I still see the two possibilities, but simply favor one of them. That is not a rigid position.
DAVID: You have agreed that the s/s/c and brain are interlocked to work together. The point remains the same. The s/s/c must think using the brain networks and cannot think properly if the networks are sick.dhw: I’m afraid it’s another case of x one day and y the next.
My thinking is not as rigid as you want it. I cannot get rid of either possibility. we are discussing theory, not fact.
DAVID: You operate under a different premise as to how the soul and brain relate. The soul has two forms interlocking with the brain in life and in a different form not requiring the brain in death.
dhw: I can see no difference between us on this, except that you want to give the immaterial soul different “forms” (what different "forms" can you give to something immaterial?), whereas I say it’s the same soul operating in different worlds.
Fair enough. The soul must work a little differently in an afterlife
dhw:I would like to think that all your contradictions, which mirror the great dichotomy between dualism and materialism, are resolved by my theory, which inverts the usual basis of dualism, thereby reconciling it with materialism. But I would welcome the pinpointing of any flaws in its logic.DAVID: I don't see contradictions because you keep insisting only your view of brain/ soul relationship is true.
dhw: There are at least three examples of your self-contradictions above. These are inevitable so long as you see yourself as a dualist and yet continue to insist that the soul depends on the brain for its ability to think.
All we know is a brain produces the soul's thought's. A sick brain produces garbled thoughts. The two possible arrangements are the only choices. You want a soul dictating to the brain and the brain is a simple a receptacle for thought. That is only one side of the possibilities. I have not contradicted myself. I know what I think. I've given you opinions as to what is most likely the possible arrangement. Both of us make sophisticated guesses so I keep my thoughts fluid based on eh possibilities. Please remember my starting points.
Introducing the brain
dhw: I have offered a different explanation from yours for the expansion of the frontal lobe. You keep on emphasizing that it does the thinking, which is why your God expanded it, so that pre-sapiens would be ”capable of advanced thought”. That is pure materialism, which contradicts your claim to be a dualist. I say that in dualism, it is the soul that does the thinking, and so the frontal lobe has to expand when it needs new connections in order to organize material expression/implementation of the immaterial soul’s new thoughts. My “theory of intelligence” is an attempt to reconcile your materialism with the tenets of your dualism.
DAVID: "My materialism" is a recognition that the soul must use the brain to think. We know the areas where it interlocks. I don't accept your single view that it is a one-way street. There are two logical possibilities, but you only like yours.
I don’t “like” either possibility, which is why I keep repeating that I am neutral in the debate between materialism and dualism, and why I have been striving to find a reconciliation between the two hypotheses. I am trying to point out that you have the same dilemma: materialism claims that the brain is the source of thought; dualism claims that an immaterial soul is the source of thought (and you have now agreed that according to NDEs and your belief in an afterlife, the same soul lives on independently of the brain). The “one-way street” is dualism, as exemplifed by YOUR insistence that the brain is the receiver, and by YOUR analogy of software (the thought content) and hardware (the implementer). So whenever you insist that the soul cannot think without the brain, you contradict yourself.
dhw: Which of your statements do you now stand by? That the s/s/c’s thought is proper, but the diseased brain does not express it properly (garbles it), or the diseased brain causes the s/s/c to think improperly?
DAVID: The s/s/c must think using the brain networks and cannot think properly if the networks are sick.
That is materialism.
DAVID: Despite making a choice as above, since you asked me which I preferred, I still see the two possibilities, but simply favor one of them. That is not a rigid position.
So you favour materialism. I remain neutral, and have tried to find a way of reconciling the two approaches.
DAVID: My thinking is not as rigid as you want it. I cannot get rid of either possibility. we are discussing theory, not fact.
Yes indeed. You are in the same position as I am, though you refuse to recognize it: you are torn between materialism and dualism. You favour materialism (see also your next comment), but you believe you are a dualist.
dhw: There are at least three examples of your self-contradictions above. These are inevitable so long as you see yourself as a dualist and yet continue to insist that the soul depends on the brain for its ability to think.
DAVID: All we know is a brain produces the soul's thought's. A sick brain produces garbled thoughts. The two possible arrangements are the only choices.
Pure materialism. The other “possible arrangement” you offered was that the thinking soul thinks “proper thoughts” and the receiver brain garbles them. That is the one you have again rejected here, though you insist you cannot get rid of it.
DAVID: You want a soul dictating to the brain and the brain is a simple a receptacle for thought.
It’s not what I want! That is the dualism you espouse on a Monday and reject on a Tuesday. It is YOU who called the brain a receiver!
DAVID: That is only one side of the possibilities.
Yes, the other side is materialism, in which the brain is the producer of thought, as exemplified by the belief that the s/s/c cannot think independently of the brain.
DAVID: I have not contradicted myself. I know what I think. I've given you opinions as to what is most likely the possible arrangement.
Yes, today you have rejected your dualistic idea that the brain is a receiver, and you have chosen the materialist option that a sick brain produces garbled thoughts.
DAVID: Both of us make sophisticated guesses so I keep my thoughts fluid based on the possibilities. Please remember my starting points.
The starting point is dualism versus materialism, and as I keep pointing out, there is evidence for both approaches. That is why anyone who keeps his thoughts fluid would inevitably contradict himself – because the evidence is contradictory! You seem to be taking all these comments personally, but I don’t think it’s possible for ANYONE to avoid contradictions in this debate. Can a materialist honestly say that consciousness, thought, emotion, willpower etc. are NOT immaterial? Can a dualist honestly say that the brain plays no part in our consciousness, thought, emotion, willpower etc.? In all these posts, I am only trying to point out that there is a dichotomy between the two approaches, and you are as caught up in it as the rest of us, though you can’t see it. I would like to think that my “theory of intelligence” together with my post on “Reconciling materialism and dualism” (Jan 5, 2018) offers a solution.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Monday, May 14, 2018, 17:51 (2167 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: "My materialism" is a recognition that the soul must use the brain to think. We know the areas where it interlocks. I don't accept your single view that it is a one-way street. There are two logical possibilities, but you only like yours.dhw:...I am trying to point out that you have the same dilemma: materialism claims that the brain is the source of thought; dualism claims that an immaterial soul is the source of thought (and you have now agreed that according to NDEs and your belief in an afterlife, the same soul lives on independently of the brain). The “one-way street” is dualism, as exemplifed by YOUR insistence that the brain is the receiver, and by YOUR analogy of software (the thought content) and hardware (the implementer). So whenever you insist that the soul cannot think without the brain, you contradict yourself.
I have always thought the soul was one entity, not two as you imply operating differently in life and death. As for the brain/soul relationship There are two possibilities: either the soul must use the brain to think during life, or the soul dictates to specific parts of the brain the thought to produce. Based on what I know about how intentionality works in the brain, I feel the sou/brain interface means the soul uses the brain circuits to think during life. I admit I have no proof, and your thought is definitely a possibility.
DAVID: The s/s/c must think using the brain networks and cannot think properly if the networks are sick.
dhw: That is materialism.
No it isn't. As explained above. The soul must use the material brain to produce thought, by one of two mechanisms. Pure logic.
DAVID: Despite making a choice as above, since you asked me which I preferred, I still see the two possibilities, but simply favor one of them. That is not a rigid position.dhw: So you favour materialism. I remain neutral, and have tried to find a way of reconciling the two approaches.
I am not favoring materialism. Open your mind to the two possibilities
DAVID: My thinking is not as rigid as you want it. I cannot get rid of either possibility. we are discussing theory, not fact.dhw: Yes indeed. You are in the same position as I am, though you refuse to recognize it: you are torn between materialism and dualism. You favour materialism (see also your next comment), but you believe you are a dualist.
DAVID: I have not contradicted myself. I know what I think. I've given you opinions as to what is most likely the possible arrangement.
Yes, today you have rejected your dualistic idea that the brain is a receiver, and you have chosen the materialist option that a sick brain produces garbled thoughts.
DAVID: Both of us make sophisticated guesses so I keep my thoughts fluid based on the possibilities. Please remember my starting points.
dhw: ...Can a materialist honestly say that consciousness, thought, emotion, willpower etc. are NOT immaterial? Can a dualist honestly say that the brain plays no part in our consciousness, thought, emotion, willpower etc.? In all these posts, I am only trying to point out that there is a dichotomy between the two approaches, and you are as caught up in it as the rest of us, though you can’t see it. I would like to think that my “theory of intelligence” together with my post on “Reconciling materialism and dualism” (Jan 5, 2018) offers a solution.
Explain your 'dichotomy' again. I'm sure I don't understand it as you think about it. I accept your discussion above. I find your solution is not one.
Introducing the brain
dhw:...I am trying to point out that you have the same dilemma: materialism claims that the brain is the source of thought; dualism claims that an immaterial soul is the source of thought (and you have now agreed that according to NDEs and your belief in an afterlife, the same soul lives on independently of the brain). The “one-way street” is dualism, as exemplifed by YOUR insistence that the brain is the receiver, and by YOUR analogy of software (the thought content) and hardware (the implementer). So whenever you insist that the soul cannot think without the brain, you contradict yourself.
DAVID: I have always thought the soul was one entity, not two as you imply operating differently in life and death. As for the brain/soul relationship There are two possibilities: either the soul must use the brain to think during life, or the soul dictates to specific parts of the brain the thought to produce. Based on what I know about how intentionality works in the brain, I feel the sou/brain interface means the soul uses the brain circuits to think during life. I admit I have no proof, and your thought is definitely a possibility.
Later you ask me to explain the dichotomy again. I can hardly make the two possibilities clearer than in the passages I have now bolded. However, you continually fudge the division with your formula of “the soul must use the brain to think”. In dualism the soul is one entity, as I have always maintained and you now acknowledge, and for those who believe in an afterlife, it is the thinking part of the duality of mind and body that survives the death of the body. Hence your dualistic analogies “software/hardware” and the brain as “receiver”, which are contradicted by your claim that the soul depends on the brain for its ability to THINK. Materialism means there is no such entity as an immaterial, thinking “soul” that can live on after death, and the brain does the thinking.
DAVID: The s/s/c must think using the brain networks and cannot think properly if the networks are sick.
dhw: That is materialism.
DAVID: No it isn't. As explained above. The soul must use the material brain to produce thought, by one of two mechanisms. Pure logic.
There are not two possible mechanisms in dualism! Either the soul does the thinking (dualism) or the brain does the thinking (materialism). If the brain’s sickness results in sick thought, then the brain is the thinker. You keep rejecting your other hypothesis that the dementia victim, the drunkard, the drug addict continue to think “properly” but the brain garbles their proper thoughts – and then it seems that you reinstate it as a possibility when you realize that the alternative is pure materialism.
dhw: ...Can a materialist honestly say that consciousness, thought, emotion, willpower etc. are NOT immaterial? Can a dualist honestly say that the brain plays no part in our consciousness, thought, emotion, willpower etc.? In all these posts, I am only trying to point out that there is a dichotomy between the two approaches, and you are as caught up in it as the rest of us, though you can’t see it. I would like to think that my “theory of intelligence” together with my post on “Reconciling materialism and dualism” (Jan 5, 2018) offers a solution.
DAVID: Explain your 'dichotomy' again. I'm sure I don't understand it as you think about it. I accept your discussion above. I find your solution is not one.
Dichotomy explained above in bold. You reject my solution here, and you accept that it is possible in your post under “THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE”! Please explain why it is not a solution on this thread, but it is possible on the other. Meanwhile, thank you for the new article and video about consciousness. I’m afraid neither of them shed any new light for me.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 15, 2018, 17:55 (2166 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Later you ask me to explain the dichotomy again. I can hardly make the two possibilities clearer than in the passages I have now bolded. However, you continually fudge the division with your formula of “the soul must use the brain to think”. In dualism the soul is one entity, as I have always maintained and you now acknowledge, and for those who believe in an afterlife, it is the thinking part of the duality of mind and body that survives the death of the body. Hence your dualistic analogies “software/hardware” and the brain as “receiver”, which are contradicted by your claim that the soul depends on the brain for its ability to THINK. Materialism means there is no such entity as an immaterial, thinking “soul” that can live on after death, and the brain does the thinking.
I repeat, I am not trained in philosophic dualism theory. You appear to be following definitions I know nothing about. I am following my own logic:
DAVID: The s/s/c must think using the brain networks and cannot think properly if the networks are sick.
dhw: That is materialism.
DAVID: No it isn't. As explained above. The soul must use the material brain to produce thought, by one of two mechanisms. Pure logic.dhw: There are not two possible mechanisms in dualism! Either the soul does the thinking (dualism) or the brain does the thinking (materialism). If the brain’s sickness results in sick thought, then the brain is the thinker. You keep rejecting your other hypothesis that the dementia victim, the drunkard, the drug addict continue to think “properly” but the brain garbles their proper thoughts – and then it seems that you reinstate it as a possibility when you realize that the alternative is pure materialism.
I don't recognize your form of 'pure materialism'. The soul must work through the brain to produce thoughts we recognize. We do not connect with the soul without the brain. I accept the soul as the source of thought, but not separate from brain circuits. The soul using the brain circuits to generate its thoughts is the immaterial using the material. That is my dualism, from my logical thought.
Introducing the brain
DAVID: I repeat, I am not trained in philosophic dualism theory. You appear to be following definitions I know nothing about. I am following my own logic
[…]
I don't recognize your form of 'pure materialism'. The soul must work through the brain to produce thoughts we recognize. We do not connect with the soul without the brain. I accept the soul as the source of thought, but not separate from brain circuits. The soul using the brain circuits to generate its thoughts is the immaterial using the material. That is my dualism, from my logical thought.
I am not a trained philosopher either, but the differences between us have nothing to do with definitions and everything to do with logic. You keep agreeing that your own form of dualism means that your soul and body are entities which work together in life but then separate at death, whereupon your soul continues to be you, independently of the brain. But then your soul cannot THINK in life without the brain. So how can it be an entity? You can't "recognize" your thoughts without the brain, so how will the same you “recognize” your thoughts in your afterlife? Will you turn into a zombie? The sick brain causes sick thoughts (materialism), but then the soul uses the (sick) brain to generate its (sick) thoughts, and sometimes the soul produces “proper” thoughts which the sick brain turns into sick thoughts, though you prefer the materialistic version. The brain is a receiver, but then it becomes a generator (as in the sick brain generating sick thoughts). Your favourite analogy of software/hardware illustrates the difference between the thinking soul and the implementing brain, but then apparently the software soul can't think up its programmes without the hardware brain.
This whole discussion began when you, the dualist, insisted that your God expanded the brain of pre-sapiens to enable him to think new thoughts. That means thought depends on the brain, and that is materialism. All the above convolutions and contradictions have grown out of this single contention, but we don’t need any of them. Either the brain is the source of thought (materialism), or there is an immaterial “soul” which is the source of thought (dualism). There is evidence for both hypotheses. What is illogical is your belief in the latter and your constant advocacy of the former, as exemplified by your insistence that only an expanded brain could think new thoughts and a sick brain causes sick thoughts.
But all is not lost! We can unravel these tangled threads and refashion them into a coherent pattern, the logic of which even you have so far been unable to challenge. We can reconcile materialism and dualism with a theory of intelligence that also dovetails into all beliefs, religious and non-religious. And now that you have opened your mind to its logical feasibility, perhaps we can put all of the above behind us?
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 16, 2018, 19:03 (2165 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I am not a trained philosopher either, but the differences between us have nothing to do with definitions and everything to do with logic. You keep agreeing that your own form of dualism means that your soul and body are entities which work together in life but then separate at death, whereupon your soul continues to be you, independently of the brain. But then your soul cannot THINK in life without the brain. So how can it be an entity?
Why can't it be an entity? The software in a computer is not part of the hardware of the computer, but interprets through use of the network of computing chips.
dhw: You can't "recognize" your thoughts without the brain, so how will the same you “recognize” your thoughts in your afterlife? Will you turn into a zombie?
The NDE's do not describe the afterlife as zombieism. I do not view the soul as one rigid form. It obviously must be different in the afterlife and you have previously agreed.
dhw: The sick brain causes sick thoughts (materialism), but then the soul uses the (sick) brain to generate its (sick) thoughts, and sometimes the soul produces “proper” thoughts which the sick brain turns into sick thoughts, though you prefer the materialistic version. The brain is a receiver,
No wonder you are confused. I have said the brain receives the soul at birth, but I do not view it as a radio receiving signals thereafter. You obviously do. The soul and brain must work intimately together to produce thought in life. All the evidence I've read and been trained in supports that in my view.
dhw: Your favourite analogy of software/hardware illustrates the difference between the thinking soul and the implementing brain, but then apparently the software soul can't think up its programmes without the hardware brain.
No software operates on its own. It is firmly attached to the hardware.
dhw: This whole discussion began when you, the dualist, insisted that your God expanded the brain of pre-sapiens to enable him to think new thoughts. That means thought depends on the brain, and that is materialism.
You refuse to accept that our brain, with all its complexity, is the best brain every produced as shown by its artifacts. I'm not discussing the cause of enlargement. Just pointing out what our brain can do as a material computer for a soul to engage with. Of course the brain is material and the immaterial soul MUST use it to have thought produced.
dhw: All the above convolutions and contradictions have grown out of this single contention, but we don’t need any of them. Either the brain is the source of thought (materialism), or there is an immaterial “soul” which is the source of thought (dualism).
Of course there is a immaterial soul which must use the material brain to produce thought. What confuses you about my so-called materialism, is my training, from which I have described where the brain does its work for the soul.
dhw: What is illogical is your belief in the latter and your constant advocacy of the former, as exemplified by your insistence that only an expanded brain could think new thoughts and a sick brain causes sick thoughts.
Not illogical. The immaterial soul must use a material brain to produce thought. A sick or damaged brain does not produce normal thought. The two possibilities must exist that either the soul can clearly think without the brain networks and the brain is what produces the garbled thought; or the soul is required to use the brain networks in life and cannot produce correct thought. Either is possible.
dhw: But all is not lost! We can unravel these tangled threads and refashion them into a coherent pattern, the logic of which even you have so far been unable to challenge. We can reconcile materialism and dualism with a theory of intelligence that also dovetails into all beliefs, religious and non-religious. And now that you have opened your mind to its logical feasibility, perhaps we can put all of the above behind us?
All is not lost. You view of the soul is that it is entirely a separate entity which somehow transmits to a separate brain while it obviously resides in the brain during life. I dispute your idea of a separation. With this difference, your logic is not my logic. We start at two very different points. Dualism does not require complete separation, as in my computer analogy.
Introducing the brain: altering the mind
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 16, 2018, 21:38 (2165 days ago) @ David Turell
Using psychedelic drugs alters thinking:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-of-altering-consciousness/?utm_s...
"These researchers had found that psilocybin, the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms, could reliably occasion a “mystical experience” in people that they deemed one of the two or three most significant experiences in their lives—comparable to the birth of a child of death of a parent. The experience had changed them in lasting ways. This was something I needed to explore. I wasn’t sure I had ever had a spiritual experience. Would one happen to me? Was there some dimension of existence or consciousness I was missing out on? Was it really possibly to change one’s mind as an adult?
***
" One of the most interesting early findings of recent psychedelic research is that activity in the “default mode network” falls off sharply during the psychedelic experience. This network is a critical hub in the brain that links parts of the cerebral cortex to deeper and older structures involved in memory and emotion. The DMN appears to be involved in a range of “metacognitive” functions such as a self-reflection; mental time travel; theory of mind (the ability to imagine the mental states of other people) and the creation of the so-called “autobiographical self”—the process of weaving what happens to us into the narrative of who we are, thereby giving us a sense of a self that endures over time. (Curiously, fMRI’s of the brains of experienced meditators shows a pattern of activity, or quieting of activity, very similar to that of people who have been given psilocybin.) When the default mode network is taken offline by a psychedelic, not only do we experience a loss of the sense of having a self, but myriad new connections among other brain regions and networks spring up, connections that may manifest in mental experience as hallucination (when, say, your emotion centers talk directly to your visual cortex), synesthesia (as when you can see sound or hear flavors) or, possibly, fresh perspectives and metaphors.
***
"After interviewing dozens of volunteers who had had guided psychedelic trips I became so curious that I decided to have one (actually several) myself. I think the most transformative of these was a guided trip on psilocybin, during which I experienced the complete dissolution of my ego—I could see the entity formerly understood as me “out there” spread over the landscape like a coat of paint. Yet there was still some recording “I” taking in the scene, a sort of disembodied, dispassionate awareness. Though temporary, that perspective was transformative. It suggested to me that I wasn’t necessarily identical to my ego, that there was potentially another ground on which to plant my feet. In subtle ways this has changed my relationship to my ego, which I no longer regard as identical to me, odd as that sounds, but as a kind of useful though sometimes neurotic and annoying character who occasionally needs to be put in his place. Sometimes when I’m reacting to an event or comment I can catch myself before the usual defenses leap into action, because I can see what he’s up to and why. This is the sort of perspective you can occasionally develop with years of meditation or psychoanalysis; psilocybin gave it to me in an afternoon."
Comment: These drugs not only change ego structure in how one thinks about one's self, but can create abnormal mental states. This doesn't solve our problem of how soul and brain relate, but these drugs demonstrate how intimately the state of the brain affects what thinking appears.
Introducing the brain:neurons control muscle impulse control
by David Turell , Tuesday, April 19, 2022, 20:37 (731 days ago) @ David Turell
A new discovery:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-exploring-role-motor-neurons.html
"...researchers from the Cognition and Actions Lab (UCLouvain Institute of Neuroscience, IoNS) made a surprising discovery. Dr. Gérard Derosière and Prof. Julie Duqué, in collaboration with Dr. David Thura (INSERM, Lyon) and Prof. Paul Cisek (University of Montreal), demonstrated that the activity of neurons projecting to the muscles involved in the execution of a chosen action was strongly amplified when subjects favored quick decisions.
"More important, they discovered that this amplification is present in other groups of neurons that project to muscles that are not at all involved in the execution of the chosen action.
"Another discovery was that the activity of a third type of neuron is rapidly reduced during the decision, which not only allows us to decide quickly but also to contract specific muscles quickly and thus move more quickly.
"'We've succeeded in demonstrating that motor system neurons not only control movement but also incite action," explains FNRS scientific collaborator Dr. Derosière. "While decision-making is commonly associated with the brain's prefrontal structures, located just above the eyes, our work shows the importance of the motor system in the speed of our choices and in impulsivity."
"Recent research on decision-making seemed to suggest that rapidly made choices were based on global changes in the activity of these neurons. However, this hypothesis remained speculative and it remained unclear how decision speed was regulated, because the tools used by scientists did not, until now, allow the activity of these neurons to be recorded accurately.
"The UCLouvain team had the idea of using an existing tool, transcranial magnetic stimulation, to establish more precise measurements. The subject is asked to perform a task that requires decision-making; at the same time, neurons in the motor cortex are stimulated and potentials in several muscles (up to nine!) are measured.
***
"The result: the researchers were able to demonstrate, for the first time, an amplification of motor cortex activity in a context of impulsivity, but also an amplification of the potentials in the legs of a subject who moves his hands, even though his lower limbs perform no movement!
"What's the point of this research? Thanks to this study, we know that motor system neurons are directly involved in the regulation of decision speed in healthy subjects. But in addicts (alcoholics, for example), this regulation is disrupted: they decide impulsively and make bad choices. Studying the motor system's role in this context makes sense in the light of this discovery."
Comment: more evidence that our brain is designed to help us, but still allows us free will.
Introducing the brain: noradrenalin effects
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 01, 2022, 18:47 (688 days ago) @ David Turell
A call to action:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-06-brain-events.html
"When your brain needs you to pay attention to something important, one way it can do that is to send out a burst of noradrenaline, according to a new MIT study.
"This neuromodulator, produced by a structure deep in the brain called the locus coeruleus, can have widespread effects throughout the brain. In a study of mice, the MIT team found that one key role of noradrenaline, also known as norepinephrine, is to help the brain learn from surprising outcomes.
"'What this work shows is that the locus coeruleus encodes unexpected events, and paying attention to those surprising events is crucial for the brain to take stock of its environment," says Mriganka Sur, the Newton Professor of Neuroscience in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, a member of MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, and director of the Simons Center for the Social Brain.
"In addition to its role in signaling surprise, the researchers also discovered that noradrenaline helps to stimulate behavior that leads to a reward, particularly in situations where there is uncertainty over whether a reward will be offered.
***
"Noradrenaline is one of several neuromodulators that influence the brain, along with dopamine, serotonin, and acetylcholine. Unlike neurotransmitters, which enable cell-to-cell communication, neuromodulators are released over large swathes of the brain, allowing them to exert more general effects.
"'Neuromodulatory substances are thought to perfuse large areas of the brain and thereby alter the excitatory or inhibitory drive that neurons are receiving in a more point-to-point fashion," Sur says. "This suggests they must have very crucial brain-wide functions that are important for survival and for brain state regulation."
***
"Previous studies of the locus coeruleus, the brain's primary source of noradrenaline, have shown that it receives input from many parts of the brain and also sends its signals far and wide. In the new study, the MIT team set out to study its role in a specific type of learning called reinforcement learning, or learning by trial and error.
***
"The researchers also found that the neurons that generate this noradrenaline signal appear to send most of their output to the motor cortex, which offers more evidence that this signal stimulates the animals to take action.
"While that initial burst of noradrenaline appears to stimulate the mice to take action, the researchers also found that a second burst often occurs after the trial is finished. When the mice received an expected reward, these bursts were small. However, when the outcome of the trial was a surprise, the bursts were much larger. For example, when a mouse received a puff of air instead of the reward it was expecting, the locus coeruleus sent out a large burst of noradrenaline.
"In subsequent trials, that mouse would be much less likely to push the lever when it was uncertain it would receive a reward. "The animal is constantly adjusting its behavior," Sur says. "Even though it has already learned the task, it's adjusting its behavior based on what it has just done."
"The mice also showed bursts of noradrenaline on trials when they received an unexpected reward. These bursts appeared to spread noradrenaline to many parts of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex, where planning and other higher cognitive functions occur.
"'The surprise-encoding function of the locus coeruleus seem to be much more widespread in the brain, and that may make sense because everything we do is moderated by surprise," Sur says."
Comment: it all makes perfect sense. In a dog-eat-dog world, alertness must be present and action taken immediately. Equipping the brain this way, by design, is required. My barn cat, all five pounds of her, is on constant alert as I watch her. She needs this brain mechanism.
Introducing the brain: a specialized memory cell
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 01, 2022, 19:25 (688 days ago) @ David Turell
Still picking te hippocampus apart:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220601092204.htm
"One of the well-established changes in the hippocampus that has been associated with memory is the presence of so-called sharp wave ripples (SWR). These are brief, high-frequency electrical events generated in the hippocampus, and they are believed to represent a major event occurring in the brain in the so-called episodic memory. This type of memory refers to episodes that took place in the life of an individual, such as childhood memories, recollection of the first date with a partner or memory of an old cell phone number.
"However, what happens in the famous seahorse-shaped structures of the brain - the hippocampus - when SRWs are generated has not been well understood.
***
"The study reports the novel neuron type – or nerve cell - in the hippocampus, defines its functional role in the brain, discloses its connectivity with other nerve cells and brain areas and progresses the understanding of brain circuits underlying fast brain waves that are often associated with memory.
“'We have found that this new type of neuron is maximally active during SWRs when the animal is awake - but quiet - or deeply asleep. In contrast, the neuron is not active at all when there is a slow, synchronized neuronal population activity called “theta” that can occur when an animal is awake and moves or in a particular type of sleep when we usually dream,” Professor Marco Capogna says.
"Because of this dichotomic activity, this novel type of neuron is named theta off-ripples on (TORO).
***
“'How come, TORO-neurons are so sensitive to SWRs? The paper tries to answer this question by describing the functional connectivity of TORO-neurons with other neurons and brain areas, an approach called circuit mapping. We find that TOROs are activated by other types of neurons in the hippocampus, namely CA3 pyramidal-neurons and are inhibited by inputs coming from other brain areas, such as the septum,” Marco Capogna says.
“'Furthermore, the study finds that TOROs are inhibitory neurons that release the neurotransmitter GABA. They send their output locally – as most GABAergic neurons do - within the hippocampus, but also project and inhibit other brain areas outside the hippocampus, such as the septum and the cortex. In this way, TORO-neurons propagate the SWR information broadly in the brain and signal that a memory event occurred,” he explains."
Comment: recognizing what is important to remember means the hippocampus has sections designed just for that purpose. The source of EEG wave patters is slowly being explained. As a general rule, if a purpose is fulfilled, design is indicated.
Introducing the brain
DAVID: Using psychedelic drugs alters thinking:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-of-altering-consciousness/?utm_s...
DAVID’s comment: These drugs not only change ego structure in how one thinks about one's self, but can create abnormal mental states. This doesn't solve our problem of how soul and brain relate, but these drugs demonstrate how intimately the state of the brain affects what thinking appears.
Fascinating stuff! Your last comment is spot on - and a clear example of materialism at work. This not only illuminates most of our disagreements, but it also proves a vivid example of how my “theory of intelligence” actually functions and might “solve our problem of how brain and soul relate”. If the cells and their chemicals produce the soul, then anything that changes the cells will change the soul. But the changes will also be governed by which cell communities are affected by the “intruder”. The author feels a kind of divided awareness – he is inside and outside himself. I suggest that different cell communities have their own awareness and know what is happening to other communities, but because they are all part of him, HE is aware. Whether this “soul” can live on or not is the subject of my post on “Reconciling materialism and dualism” (5 January).
I’ve edited the comments below to avoid repetition. Most of them focus on the dichotomy between materialism and dualism which you refuse to recognize. What is interesting for me is that so many of the contradictions simply disappear if we reverse the conventional process of theistic dualism and embrace materialism as your God’s chosen method of creating souls. Atheists have, of course, already embraced materialism but reject the possibility of a “soul” that might survive its producer.
dhw: […] your soul cannot THINK in life without the brain. So how can it be an entity?
DAVID: Why can't it be an entity? [..]
An entity is something that “exists as a single and complete unit” (Longman). According to you, the soul is an entity after death, because it thinks without the brain, but if in life it depends on the brain for its THINKING, it can’t be single and complete. The discrepancy is removed by my theory.
DAVID: [..] I do not view the soul as one rigid form. It obviously must be different in the afterlife and you have previously agreed.
How can an immaterial soul have a form? You keep agreeing that your soul in life and death remains the same thinking you. I have agreed that the same soul must FUNCTION differently (e.g. it would have to communicate by telepathy).
I pointed out that you have always talked of the brain as a receiver.
DAVID: I have said the brain receives the soul at birth, but I do not view it as a radio receiving signals thereafter.
I would rather not waste time producing quotes, but I will if you insist. Your receiver image has always denoted the distinction between the two parts of the duality, in the same way as you use the software/hardware analogy (see final comment).
DAVID: The soul and brain must work intimately together to produce thought in life.
If dualism is correct, the thinking soul (which continues to think after death) and the brain must work intimately together to produce the material expression and implementation of immaterial thought in life.
dhw: This whole discussion began when you, the dualist, insisted that your God expanded the brain of pre-sapiens to enable him to think new thoughts. That means thought depends on the brain, and that is materialism.
DAVID: You refuse to accept that our brain, with all its complexity, is the best brain every produced as shown by its artifacts. I'm not discussing the cause of enlargement.
The starting point of this discussion (some time ago) was not the quality of our brain, which I have always accepted, but your insistence that your God enlarged the pre-sapiens brain so that pre-sapiens could think new thoughts. That is materialism, and has major bearings on our interpretation of evolution and on the dichotomy between materialism and dualism.
DAVID: Your view of the soul is that it is entirely a separate entity which somehow transmits to a separate brain while it obviously resides in the brain during life. I dispute your idea of a separation. With this difference, your logic is not my logic. We start at two very different points. Dualism does not require complete separation, as in my computer analogy.
Your computer analogy has two separate pieces of equipment with different functions, combining thought and implementation of thought. Dualism does not mean “complete separation” – it means that two entities (conventionally, mind and body) combine to produce material expression/implementation of immaterial thought. You can hardly deny that your own view of the soul is that it is an entirely separate entity in your afterlife, but in life it resides in the brain. So why should the soul be the thinking you in death but not in life?
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Friday, May 18, 2018, 00:08 (2164 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: […] your soul cannot THINK in life without the brain. So how can it be an entity?
DAVID: Why can't it be an entity? [..]
dhw: An entity is something that “exists as a single and complete unit” (Longman). According to you, the soul is an entity after death, because it thinks without the brain, but if in life it depends on the brain for its THINKING, it can’t be single and complete. The discrepancy is removed by my theory.
DAVID: [..] I do not view the soul as one rigid form. It obviously must be different in the afterlife and you have previously agreed.
dhw: How can an immaterial soul have a form? You keep agreeing that your soul in life and death remains the same thinking you. I have agreed that the same soul must FUNCTION differently (e.g. it would have to communicate by telepathy).
I was using the term 'form' to mean mechanism, not materialism. We start at an initial point where neither of us knows what a soul is like or of what it might consist. I have suggested pure quanta. Nor do we know what it might be capable of doing on its own. I don't view the soul as an entity within the limits of your very circumscribed definition. We know how closely it is tied to various areas of the brain, primarily the cortex. There is no way to be able to state dogmatically whether a garbled thought is because the soul using the damaged brain produces a garbled thought or the soul produces a correct thought and the brain garbles it. We don't know, and neither does anyone else, whether the result is primary to the soul or secondary. Nor can we solve the dichotomy with your rigid definitions, and if we did we would gain the Nobel.
DAVID: The soul and brain must work intimately together to produce thought in life.
dhw: If dualism is correct, the thinking soul (which continues to think after death) and the brain must work intimately together to produce the material expression and implementation of immaterial thought in life.
For the reasons above I don't accept your view of dualism.
DAVID: You refuse to accept that our brain, with all its complexity, is the best brain every produced as shown by its artifacts. I'm not discussing the cause of enlargement.dhw: The starting point of this discussion (some time ago) was not the quality of our brain, which I have always accepted, but your insistence that your God enlarged the pre-sapiens brain so that pre-sapiens could think new thoughts. That is materialism, and has major bearings on our interpretation of evolution and on the dichotomy between materialism and dualism.
God producing a larger brain for us is materialism? God works immaterially to guide evolution. A larger more complex brain receives a larger more complex soul as its software. I do not accept that the larger brain gives rise to the soul on its own. It is God at work.
DAVID: Your view of the soul is that it is entirely a separate entity which somehow transmits to a separate brain while it obviously resides in the brain during life. I dispute your idea of a separation. With this difference, your logic is not my logic. We start at two very different points. Dualism does not require complete separation, as in my computer analogy.dhw: Your computer analogy has two separate pieces of equipment with different functions, combining thought and implementation of thought. Dualism does not mean “complete separation” – it means that two entities (conventionally, mind and body) combine to produce material expression/implementation of immaterial thought. You can hardly deny that your own view of the soul is that it is an entirely separate entity in your afterlife, but in life it resides in the brain. So why should the soul be the thinking you in death but not in life?
You want the soul to be the same in life and death. We do not know what form the soul takes in death, any more than we know how it is in life. As above I see no reason why it cannot be viewed as having two separate mechanisms in life and in death.
Introducing the brain
DAVID: [..] I do not view the soul as one rigid form. It obviously must be different in the afterlife and you have previously agreed.
dhw: How can an immaterial soul have a form? You keep agreeing that your soul in life and death remains the same thinking you. I have agreed that the same soul must FUNCTION differently (e.g. it would have to communicate by telepathy).
DAVID: I was using the term 'form' to mean mechanism, not materialism.
Fair enough. That is why I gave the example of telepathic communication.
DAVID: We start at an initial point where neither of us knows what a soul is like or of what it might consist. I have suggested pure quanta. Nor do we know what it might be capable of doing on its own. I don't view the soul as an entity within the limits of your very circumscribed definition. We know how closely it is tied to various areas of the brain, primarily the cortex.
But the soul you believe in is NOT tied to the brain when the brain is dead. Your final comment is spot on. If in life the soul depends on the brain for its ability to THINK (as opposed to its ability to express/implement its thoughts materially, which we agree on), then how is it possible for the SAME thinking you to live on after death? In NDEs, the brainless patient does not lose his/her ability to think, remember, recognize, feel, process thought, make decisions etc. This is the split in your logic which you continually try to gloss over.
DAVID: There is no way to be able to state dogmatically whether a garbled thought is because the soul using the damaged brain produces a garbled thought or the soul produces a correct thought and the brain garbles it. We don't know, and neither does anyone else, whether the result is primary to the soul or secondary. Nor can we solve the dichotomy with your rigid definitions, and if we did we would gain the Nobel.
You are quite right. Nobody “knows”. We can only propose theories and then test them to see if we can find any logical flaws in them. Dualism fails to account for the effects of material influences on our thoughts and behaviour; materialism fails to account for the effects of thought on our materials, and it ignores all psychic experiences. I have offered you a theory which explains both sets of effects and can also encompass psychic experiences. You have not offered one single criticism of its logic.
DAVID: You refuse to accept that our brain, with all its complexity, is the best brain every produced as shown by its artifacts. I'm not discussing the cause of enlargement.
dhw: The starting point of this discussion (some time ago) was not the quality of our brain, which I have always accepted, but your insistence that your God enlarged the pre-sapiens brain so that pre-sapiens could think new thoughts. That is materialism, and has major bearings on our interpretation of evolution and on the dichotomy between materialism and dualism.
DAVID: God producing a larger brain for us is materialism? God works immaterially to guide evolution.
Dualism means that mind and body are TWO. Materialism means that mind and body are ONE. If you believe that the mind is incapable of thought without the body (as in your insistence that pre-sapiens could not think new thoughts until he had a larger brain), you are a materialist. God (if he exists) works immaterially with materials, so he could have designed either method.
DAVID: A larger more complex brain receives a larger more complex soul as its software. I do not accept that the larger brain gives rise to the soul on its own. It is God at work.
I’m surprised that you think souls have a measurable size. I’m also surprised by your outright rejection of my theory, in stark contrast to your posts earlier this week: “I admit I can see the possibility that either mechanism for the arrival of consciousness is possible, but for me with an open mind, I must recognize the possibility of both […] Keep an open mind about both possibilities.” The open mind of Tuesday has closed again on Friday. As above, my theory allows for God being “at work”, in so far as he would be the creator of the material “machine” that creates consciousness like his own. (Humans are trying to do exactly the same: create machines that will generate consciousness like our own.)
dhw: You can hardly deny that your own view of the soul is that it is an entirely separate entity in your afterlife, but in life it resides in the brain. So why should the soul be the thinking you in death but not in life?
DAVID: You want the soul to be the same in life and death. We do not know what form the soul takes in death, any more than we know how it is in life. As above I see no reason why it cannot be viewed as having two separate mechanisms in life and in death.
This is all far too vague. I have explained above what I mean by “the same”. NDE patients are still themselves during the experience. I accept different “mechanisms”, because obviously ways of perceiving and communicating will be different if you don’t have eyes, ears and vocal chords.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Friday, May 18, 2018, 20:54 (2163 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: We start at an initial point where neither of us knows what a soul is like or of what it might consist. I have suggested pure quanta. Nor do we know what it might be capable of doing on its own. I don't view the soul as an entity within the limits of your very circumscribed definition. We know how closely it is tied to various areas of the brain, primarily the cortex.
dhw: But the soul you believe in is NOT tied to the brain when the brain is dead. Your final comment is spot on. If in life the soul depends on the brain for its ability to THINK (as opposed to its ability to express/implement its thoughts materially, which we agree on), then how is it possible for the SAME thinking you to live on after death? In NDEs, the brainless patient does not lose his/her ability to think, remember, recognize, feel, process thought, make decisions etc. This is the split in your logic which you continually try to gloss over.
I understand your objection, but you should remember that I always say that the soul acts somewhat differently in death by changing its mechanism. We do not know that it is rigidly the same in each state.
DAVID: There is no way to be able to state dogmatically whether a garbled thought is because the soul using the damaged brain produces a garbled thought or the soul produces a correct thought and the brain garbles it. We don't know, and neither does anyone else, whether the result is primary to the soul or secondary. Nor can we solve the dichotomy with your rigid definitions, and if we did we would gain the Nobel.You are quite right. Nobody “knows”. We can only propose theories and then test them to see if we can find any logical flaws in them. Dualism fails to account for the effects of material influences on our thoughts and behaviour; materialism fails to account for the effects of thought on our materials, and it ignores all psychic experiences. I have offered you a theory which explains both sets of effects and can also encompass psychic experiences. You have not offered one single criticism of its logic.
Logic starts at a beginning assumption. With your starting point I see no flaws. But my starting point recognizes we do not know how the soul thinks in life with the two possibilities I see.
DAVID: God producing a larger brain for us is materialism? God works immaterially to guide evolution.dhw: Dualism means that mind and body are TWO. Materialism means that mind and body are ONE. If you believe that the mind is incapable of thought without the body (as in your insistence that pre-sapiens could not think new thoughts until he had a larger brain), you are a materialist. God (if he exists) works immaterially with materials, so he could have designed either method.
DAVID: A larger more complex brain receives a larger more complex soul as its software. I do not accept that the larger brain gives rise to the soul on its own. It is God at work.
dhw: I’m surprised that you think souls have a measurable size. I’m also surprised by your outright rejection of my theory, in stark contrast to your posts earlier this week: “I admit I can see the possibility that either mechanism for the arrival of consciousness is possible, but for me with an open mind, I must recognize the possibility of both […] Keep an open mind about both possibilities.” The open mind of Tuesday has closed again on Friday. As above, my theory allows for God being “at work”, in so far as he would be the creator of the material “machine” that creates consciousness like his own. (Humans are trying to do exactly the same: create machines that will generate consciousness like our own.)
I see the two possibilities and I agree that from your starting point you are logical. God could create a brain that then forms a consciousness like His own, or He could simply supply a software from His own consciousness. Either of these fit what we observe.
dhw: You can hardly deny that your own view of the soul is that it is an entirely separate entity in your afterlife, but in life it resides in the brain. So why should the soul be the thinking you in death but not in life?DAVID: You want the soul to be the same in life and death. We do not know what form the soul takes in death, any more than we know how it is in life. As above I see no reason why it cannot be viewed as having two separate mechanisms in life and in death.
dhw: This is all far too vague. I have explained above what I mean by “the same”. NDE patients are still themselves during the experience. I accept different “mechanisms”, because obviously ways of perceiving and communicating will be different if you don’t have eyes, ears and vocal chords.
We are vague because we are theorizing from outside the process. I am conscious and I suspect you are. Philosophers make the point that being conscious and experiencing it does not tell us why we are.
Introducing the brain
DAVID: I don't view the soul as an entity within the limits of your very circumscribed definition. We know how closely it is tied to various areas of the brain, primarily the cortex.
dhw: But the soul you believe in is NOT tied to the brain when the brain is dead. Your final comment is spot on. If in life the soul depends on the brain for its ability to THINK (as opposed to its ability to express/implement its thoughts materially, which we agree on), then how is it possible for the SAME thinking you to live on after death? In NDEs, the brainless patient does not lose his/her ability to think, remember, recognize, feel, process thought, make decisions etc. This is the split in your logic which you continually try to gloss over.
DAVID: I understand your objection, but you should remember that I always say that the soul acts somewhat differently in death by changing its mechanism. We do not know that it is rigidly the same in each state.
You understand the split in your logic, but once again you gloss it over. I have given you a list of the attributes retained by NDE patients. Do you or don’t you accept it? If you do, the soul has the same identity in death as it has in life: it is the thinking you. As regards “mechanism”, I wrote: ”I accept different “mechanisms”, because obviously ways of perceiving and communicating will be different if you don’t have eyes, ears and vocal chords.” What “mechanisms” do you have in mind that might prevent you from being the same thinking you?
dhw: We can only propose theories and then test them to see if we can find any logical flaws in them. Dualism fails to account for the effects of material influences on our thoughts and behaviour; materialism fails to account for the effects of thought on our materials, and it ignores all psychic experiences. I have offered you a theory which explains both sets of effects and can also encompass psychic experiences. You have not offered one single criticism of its logic.
DAVID: Logic starts at a beginning assumption. With your starting point I see no flaws. But my starting point recognizes we do not know how the soul thinks in life with the two possibilities I see.
The starting point is our shared belief that we are conscious, and the fact that there are two apparently opposite views concerning the source of that consciousness: materialism and dualism. You believe that God implants an immaterial soul into the brain, which makes you a dualist. You then proceed to tell us that the soul cannot think without the brain. That makes you a materialist. You have understood the split in your own logic, and you can find no flaw in the logic of an explanation that reconciles BOTH views. Perhaps, then, logically speaking, would you not say that the view with no flaws in its logic might well be regarded as more likely than the view which does have flaws in its logic?
DAVID: A larger more complex brain receives a larger more complex soul as its software. I do not accept that the larger brain gives rise to the soul on its own. It is God at work.
dhw: I’m surprised that you think souls have a measurable size. I’m also surprised by your outright rejection of my theory, in stark contrast to your posts earlier this week: “I admit I can see the possibility that either mechanism for the arrival of consciousness is possible .” […] The open mind of Tuesday has closed again on Friday. […]
DAVID: I see the two possibilities and I agree that from your starting point you are logical. God could create a brain that then forms a consciousness like His own, or He could simply supply a software from His own consciousness. Either of these fit what we observe.
From our joint starting point that we are conscious, and dualism and materialism offer two different explanations, my theory is logical. I am relieved to see that you have opened your mind again!
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Saturday, May 19, 2018, 20:22 (2162 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I understand your objection, but you should remember that I always say that the soul acts somewhat differently in death by changing its mechanism. We do not know that it is rigidly the same in each state.
dhw: You understand the split in your logic, but once again you gloss it over. I have given you a list of the attributes retained by NDE patients. Do you or don’t you accept it? If you do, the soul has the same identity in death as it has in life: it is the thinking you. As regards “mechanism”, I wrote: ”I accept different “mechanisms”, because obviously ways of perceiving and communicating will be different if you don’t have eyes, ears and vocal chords.” What “mechanisms” do you have in mind that might prevent you from being the same thinking you?
The frontal cortex is the seat of consciousness. It receives all sensory information from elsewhere in the brain, those you have listed, but also smell, proprioception. touch, and internal sensations, etc. In NDE's the memories do not need any of those areas of perception.They do see and learn. You insist thinking remains the same in both states. We do not know if that is true. In life the soul may have to use the brain networks to think or it may not. In your theory of God having the brain create a soul like His, the soul might very well have to use brain networks. Both arrangements are possibilities. I'm glossing over nothing. You are the one who demands an unchanging soul from life to death. If God gifts it as brain software in a quantum pure form, the weirdness of quantum mechanism might solve the transition easily. The quantum facet of my entries is to make the point that quantum mechanism is the basis of all we understand nd don't understand
dhw: We can only propose theories and then test them to see if we can find any logical flaws in them. Dualism fails to account for the effects of material influences on our thoughts and behaviour; materialism fails to account for the effects of thought on our materials, and it ignores all psychic experiences. I have offered you a theory which explains both sets of effects and can also encompass psychic experiences. You have not offered one single criticism of its logic.DAVID: Logic starts at a beginning assumption. With your starting point I see no flaws. But my starting point recognizes we do not know how the soul thinks in life with the two possibilities I see.
dhw: The starting point is our shared belief that we are conscious, and the fact that there are two apparently opposite views concerning the source of that consciousness: materialism and dualism. You believe that God implants an immaterial soul into the brain, which makes you a dualist. You then proceed to tell us that the soul cannot think without the brain. That makes you a materialist. You have understood the split in your own logic, and you can find no flaw in the logic of an explanation that reconciles BOTH views. Perhaps, then, logically speaking, would you not say that the view with no flaws in its logic might well be regarded as more likely than the view which does have flaws in its logic?
I repeat: it is more likely to me that God supplies a software to the brain which must use the hardware to think. I've simply made a logical choice of two possibilities. And you say that is my dualism.
DAVID: A larger more complex brain receives a larger more complex soul as its software. I do not accept that the larger brain gives rise to the soul on its own. It is God at work.
dhw: I’m surprised that you think souls have a measurable size. I’m also surprised by your outright rejection of my theory, in stark contrast to your posts earlier this week: “I admit I can see the possibility that either mechanism for the arrival of consciousness is possible .” […] The open mind of Tuesday has closed again on Friday. […]
DAVID: I see the two possibilities and I agree that from your starting point you are logical. God could create a brain that then forms a consciousness like His own, or He could simply supply a software from His own consciousness. Either of these fit what we observe.
dhw: From our joint starting point that we are conscious, and dualism and materialism offer two different explanations, my theory is logical. I am relieved to see that you have opened your mind again!
My mind is always open to all possibilities. Bu t I make choices. You rigidly want one form of the soul, the same in life and death. There are two possibilities.
Introducing the brain
Dhw: […] If in life the soul depends on the brain for its ability to THINK (as opposed to its ability to express/implement its thoughts materially, which we agree on), then how is it possible for the SAME thinking you to live on after death?
DAVID: I understand your objection, but you should remember that I always say that the soul acts somewhat differently in death by changing its mechanism. We do not know that it is rigidly the same in each state.
dhw: You understand the split in your logic, but once again you gloss it over. I have given you a list of the attributes retained by NDE patients. Do you or don’t you accept it? If you do, the soul has the same identity in death as it has in life: it is the thinking you. As regards “mechanism”, I wrote: ”I accept different “mechanisms”, because obviously ways of perceiving and communicating will be different if you don’t have eyes, ears and vocal chords.” What “mechanisms” do you have in mind that might prevent you from being the same thinking you?
DAVID: The frontal cortex is the seat of consciousness. It receives all sensory information from elsewhere in the brain, those you have listed, but also smell, proprioception, touch, and internal sensations, etc. In NDE's the memories do not need any of those areas of perception.They do see and learn. You insist thinking remains the same in both states.
You are repeating my argument as if somehow it supports you! I keep saying that in life the dualist’s brain supplies information and implements the thoughts of the dualist’s “soul”. Now you tell us the brain supplies information. In NDEs there is no brain, and yet the “soul” learns, remembers, feels, thinks, takes decisions etc. So why would it not have the same function in life?
DAVID: In life the soul may have to use the brain networks to think or it may not.
If the “soul” is a piece of God’s consciousness, as you believe, and if there are TWO parts of the self, is not reasonable to assume that the role of God’s consciousness is to be the conscious part of the self, which then retains its consciousness when the material part dies?
DAVID: In your theory of God having the brain create a soul like His, the soul might very well have to use brain networks.
Of course it does. My theory advocates the very indivisibility that you keep advocating: the soul emerges from the interplay between the different sections of the brain, and all the sections use one another. (This is materialism which may engender dualism. See “Reconciling materialism and dualism”.)
DAVID: You are the one who demands an unchanging soul from life to death.
I don’t demand it. If there is such a thing as a “soul” that survives death, NDEs show that it is the SAME person in death as in life.
DAVID: If God gifts it as brain software in a quantum pure form, the weirdness of quantum mechanism might solve the transition easily. The quantum facet of my entries is to make the point that quantum mechanism is the basis of all we understand nd don't understand.
Whether you call the “soul” a “quantum” this, that and the other, or “a piece of God’s consciousness”, makes no difference. The “soul”, according to NDEs, is still the same thinking person. That is why it is illogical to claim that the soul depends on the brain for its ability to think, UNLESS you accept that the brain is the source of thought and might produce a form of energy that can survive its own death (again, see “Reconciling materialism and dualism”).
DAVID: I repeat: it is more likely to me that God supplies a software to the brain which must use the hardware to think. I've simply made a logical choice of two possibilities. And you say that is my dualism.
You also believe that the software can do its thinking without the hardware when there isn’t any hardware. You have acknowledged this logical split in your thinking, but you call your choice logical.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Sunday, May 20, 2018, 15:36 (2162 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The frontal cortex is the seat of consciousness. It receives all sensory information from elsewhere in the brain, those you have listed, but also smell, proprioception, touch, and internal sensations, etc. In NDE's the memories do not need any of those areas of perception.They do see and learn. You insist thinking remains the same in both states.
dhw: You are repeating my argument as if somehow it supports you! I keep saying that in life the dualist’s brain supplies information and implements the thoughts of the dualist’s “soul”. Now you tell us the brain supplies information. In NDEs there is no brain, and yet the “soul” learns, remembers, feels, thinks, takes decisions etc. So why would it not have the same function in life?
How do you know the afterlife soul does all those things? We have no evidence other Than NDE's descriptions. The episodes describe seeing and observing. "I'd like to stay, no, you have to go back", indicates no soul controls of activity. Afterlife can be nothing like living. Two veru different states for the soul.
DAVID: In life the soul may have to use the brain networks to think or it may not.dhw: If the “soul” is a piece of God’s consciousness, as you believe, and if there are TWO parts of the self, is not reasonable to assume that the role of God’s consciousness is to be the conscious part of the self, which then retains its consciousness when the material part dies?
Those are your 'ifs'. The material brain is not part of the soul.
DAVID: You are the one who demands an unchanging soul from life to death.dhw: I don’t demand it. If there is such a thing as a “soul” that survives death, NDEs show that it is the SAME person in death as in life.
Same person different functions. Afterlife does not require the same functions as in life, only thought and observation although no sensory organs are available.
DAVID: If God gifts it as brain software in a quantum pure form, the weirdness of quantum mechanism might solve the transition easily. The quantum facet of my entries is to make the point that quantum mechanism is the basis of all we understand and don't understand.dhw: Whether you call the “soul” a “quantum” this, that and the other, or “a piece of God’s consciousness”, makes no difference. The “soul”, according to NDEs, is still the same thinking person. That is why it is illogical to claim that the soul depends on the brain for its ability to think, UNLESS you accept that the brain is the source of thought and might produce a form of energy that can survive its own death (again, see “Reconciling materialism and dualism”).
You refuse to accept that there are two logical possibilities for brain soul relationship to start a logical discussion. Your 'unless' sentence is pure materialism.
DAVID: I repeat: it is more likely to me that God supplies a software to the brain which must use the hardware to think. I've simply made a logical choice of two possibilities. And you say that is my dualism.dhw: You also believe that the software can do its thinking without the hardware when there isn’t any hardware. You have acknowledged this logical split in your thinking, but you call your choice logical.
I've explained it by stating the soul mechanism is different in life and in death. Immaterial in both states. Same person, your point to say the soul is unchanged is dealing with wholly immaterial concepts: 'personage' and soul. I believe they are at a quantum level and couterintuitive, with changing mechanism forms. Again the reason why I present quantum mechanics as the basis for the universe. Same personage does not require the same quantum substrate.
Introducing the brain
dhw: In NDEs there is no brain, and yet the “soul” learns, remembers, feels, thinks, takes decisions etc. So why would it not have the same function in life?
DAVID: How do you know the afterlife soul does all those things? We have no evidence other Than NDE's descriptions.
You use NDEs as evidence that you will still survive as your own good self after death. Now you want to discount the evidence of NDEs!
DAVID: The episodes describe seeing and observing. "I'd like to stay, no, you have to go back", indicates no soul controls of activity. Afterlife can be nothing like living. Two very different states for the soul.
Various episodes describe feelings of joy, fear, recognizing (= remembering) people, being in the presence of God (part of a remembered earthly culture), remembering earthly life and not wanting to go back to it – doesn’t all that represent the “thinking” soul having a new experience? Yes, different states for the SAME thinking, feeling soul the patient had in his/her lifetime. What will the new state consist of? No idea. I find the idea of immaterial life without end vastly less imaginable than material life with a dead end.
DAVID: Same person different functions. Afterlife does not require the same functions as in life, only thought and observation although no sensory organs are available.
You are now repeating what I keep saying to you: that the soul is the same thinking self, but has to function differently (e.g. by using telepathy).
dhw: If the “soul” is a piece of God’s consciousness, as you believe, and if there are TWO parts of the self, is not reasonable to assume that the role of God’s consciousness is to be the conscious part of the self, which then retains its consciousness when the material part dies?
DAVID: Those are your 'ifs'. The material brain is not part of the soul.
They are YOUR ifs! You claim to be a dualist, which = having a material self and an immaterial self, and you claim that the “soul” is a piece of God’s consciousness which separates from the body at material death. And yet you keep saying that in life the brain and soul are inseparable, because the soul can’t think without the brain. Now apparently the brain is NOT part of the soul, which can only mean they ARE separate entities (as in dualism – though of course they work together in life). And so to complete the confusion, your “soul” can’t think without a material brain, but it can think when there is no material brain. Or maybe it can’t (see above and welcome to zombie heaven) because NDEs are the only evidence we have that it CAN.
dhw: The “soul”, according to NDEs, is still the same thinking person. That is why it is illogical to claim that the soul depends on the brain for its ability to think, UNLESS you accept that the brain is the source of thought and might produce a form of energy that can survive its own death (again, see “Reconciling materialism and dualism”).
DAVID: You refuse to accept that there are two logical possibilities for brain soul relationship to start a logical discussion. Your 'unless' sentence is pure materialism.
The two possible relationships are that your God inserted the “soul” (his consciousness), which uses the brain/body to gather information and to implement its thoughts, or that the “soul” is generated by the cells of the brain/body. My theory is a materialism which might lead to dualism (a form of energy that may exist independently of materials), and that is how we can reconcile the two schools of thought. You have acknowledged the logical split in your own thinking, and you have not yet found any logical flaws in mine.
DAVID: I repeat: it is more likely to me that God supplies a software to the brain which must use the hardware to think. I've simply made a logical choice of two possibilities. And you say that is my dualism.
dhw: You also believe that the software can do its thinking without the hardware when there isn’t any hardware. You have acknowledged this logical split in your thinking, but you call your choice logical.
DAVID: I've explained it by stating the soul mechanism is different in life and in death.
See below on your vagueness concerning “mechanisms”.
DAVID: Immaterial in both states. Same person, your point to say the soul is unchanged is dealing with wholly immaterial concepts: 'personage' and soul. I believe they are at a quantum level and couterintuitive, with changing mechanism forms. Again the reason why I present quantum mechanics as the basis for the universe. Same personage does not require the same quantum substrate.
I have asked you what mechanisms you mean, other than those of observation and communication, in which material means will have to be replaced by immaterial (e.g. telepathy) and you have not responded. If you wish to call the new means of observation and communication “quantum substrates”, feel free. That still doesn’t change the fact that if the same piece of your God’s consciousness CAN’T think without a brain but CAN think without a brain (see above), you have a contradiction which I suggest can only be resolved by the theory I have proposed.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Monday, May 21, 2018, 20:09 (2160 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Monday, May 21, 2018, 20:15
dhw: If the “soul” is a piece of God’s consciousness, as you believe, and if there are TWO parts of the self, is not reasonable to assume that the role of God’s consciousness is to be the conscious part of the self, which then retains its consciousness when the material part dies?
DAVID: Those are your 'ifs'. The material brain is not part of the soul.
dhw: They are YOUR ifs! You claim to be a dualist, which = having a material self and an immaterial self, and you claim that the “soul” is a piece of God’s consciousness which separates from the body at material death. And yet you keep saying that in life the brain and soul are inseparable, because the soul can’t think without the brain. Now apparently the brain is NOT part of the soul, which can only mean they ARE separate entities (as in dualism – though of course they work together in life). And so to complete the confusion, your “soul” can’t think without a material brain, but it can think when there is no material brain. Or maybe it can’t (see above and welcome to zombie heaven) because NDEs are the only evidence we have that it CAN.
Iv have fully thought about your approach to the soul, and that is why I have always stated the soul operates by different mechanism in life and in death. In life it is within the body, and there is no body in death. You want a static soul but it must alter itself in an afterlife.
dhw: The two possible relationships are that your God inserted the “soul” (his consciousness), which uses the brain/body to gather information and to implement its thoughts, or that the “soul” is generated by the cells of the brain/body. My theory is a materialism which might lead to dualism (a form of energy that may exist independently of materials), and that is how we can reconcile the two schools of thought. You have acknowledged the logical split in your own thinking, and you have not yet found any logical flaws in mine.
If the soul arises from the brain that is pure materialism n o matter how you try to alter the concept.
DAVID: I repeat: it is more likely to me that God supplies a software to the brain which must use the hardware to think. I've simply made a logical choice of two possibilities. And you say that is my dualism.dhw: You also believe that the software can do its thinking without the hardware when there isn’t any hardware. You have acknowledged this logical split in your thinking, but you call your choice logical.
DAVID: I've explained it by stating the soul mechanism is different in life and in death.
dhw: See below on your vagueness concerning “mechanisms”.
DAVID: Immaterial in both states. Same person, your point to say the soul is unchanged is dealing with wholly immaterial concepts: 'personage' and soul. I believe they are at a quantum level and couterintuitive, with changing mechanism forms. Again the reason why I present quantum mechanics as the basis for the universe. Same personage does not require the same quantum substrate.
dhw: I have asked you what mechanisms you mean, other than those of observation and communication, in which material means will have to be replaced by immaterial (e.g. telepathy) and you have not responded. If you wish to call the new means of observation and communication “quantum substrates”, feel free. That still doesn’t change the fact that if the same piece of your God’s consciousness CAN’T think without a brain but CAN think without a brain (see above), you have a contradiction which I suggest can only be resolved by the theory I have proposed.
I've gone to quantum mechanics, which no one understands. I can go no further to answer your obviously impossible demands. I have always proposed that soul is based in quantum mechanics, which is the basis of the universe and the basis of a seemingly intelligent universe. You must take all of these factors in analysis of how soul might work. A soul that lives in a living body obviously works with that body. In afterlife there is no body. For me it must operate differently, and not just by your aspect of telepathy.
Introducing the brain
dhw: In NDEs there is no brain, and yet the “soul” learns, remembers, feels, thinks, takes decisions etc. So why would it not have the same function in life?
DAVID: How do you know the afterlife soul does all those things? We have no evidence other that NDE’s descriptions.
dhw: You use NDEs as evidence that you will still survive as your own good self after death. Now you want to discount the evidence of NDEs!
[…]
dhw: You claim to be a dualist, which = having a material self and an immaterial self, and you claim that the “soul” is a piece of God’s consciousness which separates from the body at material death. And yet you keep saying that in life the brain and soul are inseparable, because the soul can’t think without the brain. Now apparently the brain is NOT part of the soul, which can only mean they ARE separate entities (as in dualism – though of course they work together in life). And so to complete the confusion, your “soul” can’t think without a material brain, but it can think when there is no material brain. Or maybe it can’t (see above and welcome to zombie heaven) because NDEs are the only evidence we have that it CAN.
DAVID: Iv have fully thought about your approach to the soul, and that is why I have always stated the soul operates by different mechanism in life and in death. In life it is within the body, and there is no body in death. You want a static soul but it must alter itself in an afterlife.
I have never denied the blatantly obvious fact that an immaterial soul which uses the material self to express and implement its thoughts materially in a material world, would have to operate differently if it had no material self and had entered an immaterial world. (I suggested telepathy as one possible mechanism). This doesn’t alter the fact that you believe the immaterial thinking “you” of life (your piece of God’s consciousness) will survive as the immaterial thinking “you” after life. The soul is the same, as you keep agreeing and then disagreeing, but the means of observation and communication have to be different.
DAVID: I've gone to quantum mechanics, which no one understands. I can go no further to answer your obviously impossible demands. I have always proposed that soul is based in quantum mechanics, which is the basis of the universe and the basis of a seemingly intelligent universe. You must take all of these factors in analysis of how soul might work. A soul that lives in a living body obviously works with that body. In afterlife there is no body. For me it must operate differently, and not just by your aspect of telepathy.
Yes, even though it’s the same thinking you, it must operate differently, as agreed above. We don’t know how a bodiless soul observes and communicates, but if you think it has something to do with quantum mechanics, which nobody understands, that’s fine with me. It doesn’t resolve the total confusion I have summarized above, in which you have the same “piece of God’s consciousness” unable to think without a brain until it has no brain to think with, or maybe it doesn’t even think at all (zombies in heaven).
DAVID; If the soul arises from the brain that is pure materialism no matter how you try to alter the concept.
I have said so many times, and have pointed out to you many times that if you can't think without your brain, as you keep insisting, that also means materialism, which you reject because you then go on to say that you CAN think without your brain, i.e. when you haven't got a brain. If we are to reconcile materialism and dualism, and if I stick rigidly to the theistic version of the theory, we have God using materials to create life and consciousness, so life and consciousness are produced by materials. The reconciliation with dualism – still in theistic mode – would be that the conscious energy thus produced mirrors his own (just as humans are striving to create a consciousness that will mirror their own) and may even live on after the death of the machine that produced it (just as images live on after the disappearance of the materials that produced them). You still haven’t offered a single objection to the logic of this proposal, which resolves the logical split (summarized above) which you have acknowledged in your own thinking. You prefer to focus on the obvious fact that immaterial observation and communication must be different from material observation and communication.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 22, 2018, 18:37 (2159 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I have never denied the blatantly obvious fact that an immaterial soul which uses the material self to express and implement its thoughts materially in a material world, would have to operate differently if it had no material self and had entered an immaterial world. (I suggested telepathy as one possible mechanism). This doesn’t alter the fact that you believe the immaterial thinking “you” of life (your piece of God’s consciousness) will survive as the immaterial thinking “you” after life. The soul is the same, as you keep agreeing and then disagreeing, but the means of observation and communication have to be different.
DAVID: I've gone to quantum mechanics, which no one understands. I can go no further to answer your obviously impossible demands. I have always proposed that soul is based in quantum mechanics, which is the basis of the universe and the basis of a seemingly intelligent universe. You must take all of these factors in analysis of how soul might work. A soul that lives in a living body obviously works with that body. In afterlife there is no body. For me it must operate differently, and not just by your aspect of telepathy.
dhw: Yes, even though it’s the same thinking you, it must operate differently, as agreed above. We don’t know how a bodiless soul observes and communicates, but if you think it has something to do with quantum mechanics, which nobody understands, that’s fine with me. It doesn’t resolve the total confusion I have summarized above, in which you have the same “piece of God’s consciousness” unable to think without a brain until it has no brain to think with, or maybe it doesn’t even think at all (zombies in heaven).
We are at the same disagreement point. All I am proposing is that if the soul uses the brain in life and doesn't have it in death it can maintain the same personality construct but work by an altered mechanism.
DAVID; If the soul arises from the brain that is pure materialism no matter how you try to alter the concept.
dhw: I have said so many times, and have pointed out to you many times that if you can't think without your brain, as you keep insisting, that also means materialism, which you reject because you then go on to say that you CAN think without your brain, i.e. when you haven't got a brain. If we are to reconcile materialism and dualism, and if I stick rigidly to the theistic version of the theory, we have God using materials to create life and consciousness, so life and consciousness are produced by materials. The reconciliation with dualism – still in theistic mode – would be that the conscious energy thus produced mirrors his own (just as humans are striving to create a consciousness that will mirror their own) and may even live on after the death of the machine that produced it (just as images live on after the disappearance of the materials that produced them). You still haven’t offered a single objection to the logic of this proposal, which resolves the logical split (summarized above) which you have acknowledged in your own thinking. You prefer to focus on the obvious fact that immaterial observation and communication must be different from material observation and communication.
You have summarized our difference. Your point is logical from the position that the soul imposes thought on the brain, and I say the soul is implanted on the brain and must use its networks to think. As always, my dualism is not your dualism.
Introducing the brain
dhw: Yes, even though it’s the same thinking you, it must operate differently, as agreed above. We don’t know how a bodiless soul observes and communicates, but if you think it has something to do with quantum mechanics, which nobody understands, that’s fine with me. It doesn’t resolve the total confusion I have summarized above, in which you have the same “piece of God’s consciousness” unable to think without a brain until it has no brain to think with, or maybe it doesn’t even think at all (zombies in heaven).
DAVID: We are at the same disagreement point. All I am proposing is that if the soul uses the brain in life and doesn't have it in death it can maintain the same personality construct but work by an altered mechanism.
There is no disagreement. Your comment is a precise echo of mine: “...even though it’s the same thinking you, it must operate differently.” In dualistic life, the soul is the thinking you, and operates by using the brain to gather information and give material expression/implementation to its thoughts. In an immaterial world the SAME thinking you gathers information and gives expression/implementation to its thoughts by different, unknown means. In both cases, thinking is done by the immaterial soul.
dhw: You still haven’t offered a single objection to the logic of this proposal, which resolves the logical split (summarized above) which you have acknowledged in your own thinking. You prefer to focus on the obvious fact that immaterial observation and communication must be different from material observation and communication.
DAVID: You have summarized our difference. Your point is logical from the position that the soul imposes thought on the brain, and I say the soul is implanted on the brain and must use its networks to think. As always, my dualism is not your dualism.
The soul being implanted on the brain is certainly dualism. The soul using the brain’s networks to provide information and to implement its thoughts is also dualism. The soul being dependent on the brain for its ABILITY TO THINK (as illustrated by your insistence that the brain had to be enlarged before it could THINK of new concepts) is materialism. The soul being dependent on the brain for its ability to think, and then not being dependent on the brain for its ability to think, is neither one nor the other, or both mixed into all the contradictions and confusions I keep pointing out. I have offered a theory to make the mixture possible, and so far you have not come up with any logical loopholes in my theistic version of it.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 23, 2018, 22:10 (2158 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You have summarized our difference. Your point is logical from the position that the soul imposes thought on the brain, and I say the soul is implanted on the brain and must use its networks to think. As always, my dualism is not your dualism.
dhw: The soul being implanted on the brain is certainly dualism. The soul using the brain’s networks to provide information and to implement its thoughts is also dualism. The soul being dependent on the brain for its ABILITY TO THINK (as illustrated by your insistence that the brain had to be enlarged before it could THINK of new concepts) is materialism. The soul being dependent on the brain for its ability to think, and then not being dependent on the brain for its ability to think, is neither one nor the other, or both mixed into all the contradictions and confusions I keep pointing out. I have offered a theory to make the mixture possible, and so far you have not come up with any logical loopholes in my theistic version of it.
The soul using the brain mechanisms to think is explained in the software/hardware analogy. Software is implanted on an existing material computer network, but the soul/software is immaterial. There is no right or wrong here. My concept differs from yours: you want a rigid soul formulation, but it very well may be malleable and work somewhat differently in each situation while producing the same personality. It certainly fits the facts we have. Each of us has invented our own form of soul, and mine fits my theory about increasing frontal lobe size through God's intervention. Habilis' weak thinking would not force brain enlargement like exercise increases muscle size. The brain, involves size and amazing complexity of networks. Muscles simply enlarge existing muscle bands by enlarging existing fibers.
Introducing the brain
dhw: The soul being implanted on the brain is certainly dualism. The soul using the brain’s networks to provide information and to implement its thoughts is also dualism. The soul being dependent on the brain for its ABILITY TO THINK (as illustrated by your insistence that the brain had to be enlarged before it could THINK of new concepts) is materialism. The soul being dependent on the brain for its ability to think, and then not being dependent on the brain for its ability to think, is neither one nor the other, or both mixed into all the contradictions and confusions I keep pointing out. I have offered a theory to make the mixture possible, and so far you have not come up with any logical loopholes in my theistic version of it.
DAVID: The soul using the brain mechanisms to think is explained in the software/hardware analogy. Software is implanted on an existing material computer network, but the soul/software is immaterial.
That part of your analogy is perfectly clear, and is the essence of conventional dualism. But software contains the thought that is to be implemented by hardware, and the task of the hardware is to obey the software’s instructions. The programmes are not invented AFTER insertion into the hardware. And if the software/soul’s programmes cannot be implemented by your existing hardware/brain, you have to change your computer (i.e. get a larger or more complex brain).
DAVID: There is no right or wrong here. My concept differs from yours: you want a rigid soul formulation, but it very well may be malleable and work somewhat differently in each situation while producing the same personality.
I have never said the soul must be rigid! As the thinking, feeling part of your being, it changes all the time throughout its lifetime of experience. But it is always the immaterial thinking, feeling you, as opposed to the material implementing you.
DAVID: It certainly fits the facts we have. Each of us has invented our own form of soul, and mine fits my theory about increasing frontal lobe size through God's intervention. Habilis' weak thinking would not force brain enlargement like exercise increases muscle size. The brain, involves size and amazing complexity of networks. Muscles simply enlarge existing muscle bands by enlarging existing fibers.
Your theory demands an increase in frontal lobe size to enable the soul to think. The fallacy is amply covered by your software/hardware analogy above, in which the software soul instructs the hardware brain to implement its programmes/thoughts. We know that the brain involves size and amazing complexity of networks, and we know that in some cases (musicians, taxi drivers) thinking INCREASES the size of certain parts of the sapiens brain and INCREASES the complexity (the illiterate women learning to read and write). It is therefore perfectly logical that the existing cells of earlier brains should also have complexified and expanded through thought. To forestall your usual digression: sapiens brain has shrunk. This is most likely because there had to be a limit to skull expansion, or we’d have finished up with elephant-sized heads. Complexification proved so efficient that some cells were no longer required.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Friday, May 25, 2018, 00:04 (2157 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The soul using the brain mechanisms to think is explained in the software/hardware analogy. Software is implanted on an existing material computer network, but the soul/software is immaterial.
dhw: That part of your analogy is perfectly clear, and is the essence of conventional dualism. But software contains the thought that is to be implemented by hardware, and the task of the hardware is to obey the software’s instructions. The programmes are not invented AFTER insertion into the hardware. And if the software/soul’s programmes cannot be implemented by your existing hardware/brain, you have to change your computer (i.e. get a larger or more complex brain).
You have just described my theory. If God wants more advanced thought with more complex software, the hardware has to be enlarged to accommodate the larger more complex software.
DAVID: There is no right or wrong here. My concept differs from yours: you want a rigid soul formulation, but it very well may be malleable and work somewhat differently in each situation while producing the same personality.dhw: I have never said the soul must be rigid! As the thinking, feeling part of your being, it changes all the time throughout its lifetime of experience. But it is always the immaterial thinking, feeling you, as opposed to the material implementing you.
I'm describing your concept of a rigid unchanging mechanism of soul in life and death. There can be a different mode of thought in life and in death with the personage/soul kept entirely the same.
DAVID: It certainly fits the facts we have. Each of us has invented our own form of soul, and mine fits my theory about increasing frontal lobe size through God's intervention. Habilis' weak thinking would not force brain enlargement like exercise increases muscle size. The brain, involves size and amazing complexity of networks. Muscles simply enlarge existing muscle bands by enlarging existing fibers.dhw: Your theory demands an increase in frontal lobe size to enable the soul to think.
Not to just think but to have m ore advanced thinking, as explained above
dhw: The fallacy is amply covered by your software/hardware analogy above, in which the software soul instructs the hardware brain to implement its programmes/thoughts. We know that the brain involves size and amazing complexity of networks, and we know that in some cases (musicians, taxi drivers) thinking INCREASES the size of certain parts of the sapiens brain and INCREASES the complexity (the illiterate women learning to read and write). It is therefore perfectly logical that the existing cells of earlier brains should also have complexified and expanded through thought. To forestall your usual digression: sapiens brain has shrunk. This is most likely because there had to be a limit to skull expansion, or we’d have finished up with elephant-sized heads. Complexification proved so efficient that some cells were no longer required.
And once again you have neatly skipped the related problems: bigger skull to accommodate the bigger brain, and change the mother's pelvis so she can dump the bigger-headed kid without dying in the process or killing the baby. There are three interval changes that must occur here, all coordinated by different DNA's in different organs and people..
Introducing the brain
dhw: […] the task of the hardware is to obey the software’s instructions. The programmes are not invented AFTER insertion into the hardware. And if the software/soul’s programmes cannot be implemented by your existing hardware/brain, you have to change your computer (i.e. get a larger or more complex brain).
DAVID: You have just described my theory. If God wants more advanced thought with more complex software, the hardware has to be enlarged to accommodate the larger more complex software.
Accommodation does not mean invention. The more advanced programmes/thoughts contained in the software depend on the enlarged accommodation for their IMPLEMENTATION, not their invention. The bigger hardware (brain) does nothing without the programmes/thoughts and instructions provided/invented by the software (soul). Your theory is that you had to have a new computer before the new programmes could be designed. Which comes first: thought or implementation of thought?
DAVID: […] you want a rigid soul formulation, but it very well may be malleable and work somewhat differently in each situation while producing the same personality.
dhw: I have never said the soul must be rigid! As the thinking, feeling part of your being, it changes all the time throughout its lifetime of experience. But it is always the immaterial thinking, feeling you, as opposed to the material implementing you.
DAVID: I'm describing your concept of a rigid unchanging mechanism of soul in life and death. There can be a different mode of thought in life and in death with the personage/soul kept entirely the same.
I keep asking what mechanism you are thinking of beyond that of observation and communication, where without eyes and ears and voice, the soul must obviously use immaterial “mechanisms” of a psychic nature. Now you refer to “modes of thought”. If that is different from “mechanism”, perhaps you mean ways of looking at things. Yes, of course. If you are placed in a different world from the one you are used to, it will unquestionably change your mode of thinking. But as you rightly say, that part of the personage which in life did the thinking and feeling will continue to do the thinking and feeling. That is the essence of dualism.
dhw: Your theory demands an increase in frontal lobe size to enable the soul to think.
DAVID: Not to just think but to have more advanced thinking, as explained above.
What does this mean? If the bigger frontal lobe enables the soul to think bigger thoughts, then the smaller frontal lobe only enables it to think smaller thoughts. You still have the frontal lobe responsible for thought, which is the direct opposite of the dualistic belief that the soul does the thinking.
dhw: […] we know that in some cases (musicians, taxi drivers) thinking INCREASES the size of certain parts of the sapiens brain and INCREASES the complexity (the illiterate women learning to read and write). It is therefore perfectly logical that the existing cells of earlier brains should also have complexified and expanded through thought.[ …]
DAVID: And once again you have neatly skipped the related problems: bigger skull to accommodate the bigger brain, and change the mother's pelvis so she can dump the bigger-headed kid without dying in the process or killing the baby. There are three interval changes that must occur here, all coordinated by different DNA's in different organs and people.
Once again you resort to one of your digressions, to which I give the same answer every time: any major change in the body will require major changes elsewhere in the body. In the theistic version of my theory I have your God endowing cooperative cell communities with the ability to design all the changes themselves. In your post on my theory of intelligence, you wrote: “You are invoking God's unlimited powers to do anything He wants.” You have him drawing up a computer programme 3.8 billion years ago that will implement every single innovation leading from single cells to every new species, every lifestyle, every natural wonder, and the enlargement of the frontal lobe and the change in the mother’s pelvis. Whatever he didn’t preprogramme had to be personally dabbled on the spot, e.g. he personally taught the weaverbird to build its nest, or he personally expanded Adam and Eve’s skulls, and wiggled Eve’s pelvis, so that they would be able to think bigger thoughts, because thought depends on the brain – except when there isn’t a brain to depend on. One invention (my theory) is replaced by billions of inventions and interventions (your theory). But you have every right to invoke God’s unlimited powers to do anything you want.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Friday, May 25, 2018, 20:03 (2156 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You have just described my theory. If God wants more advanced thought with more complex software, the hardware has to be enlarged to accommodate the larger more complex software.
dhw: Your theory is that you had to have a new computer before the new programmes could be designed. Which comes first: thought or implementation of thought?
Software and hardware are designed to work together as capacity is enlarged. Obviously thought must initiate implementation, as they work together.
dhw: Your theory demands an increase in frontal lobe size to enable the soul to think.
DAVID: Not to just think but to have more advanced thinking, as explained above.dhw: What does this mean? If the bigger frontal lobe enables the soul to think bigger thoughts, then the smaller frontal lobe only enables it to think smaller thoughts. You still have the frontal lobe responsible for thought, which is the direct opposite of the dualistic belief that the soul does the thinking.
The frontal lobe capacity for working with the soul is the exact point. The soul is a non-material mechanism that is tied to the human brain networks to think. Since neither of us know what is real, my theory is just as likely as yours.
dhw: […] we know that in some cases (musicians, taxi drivers) thinking INCREASES the size of certain parts of the sapiens brain and INCREASES the complexity (the illiterate women learning to read and write). It is therefore perfectly logical that the existing cells of earlier brains should also have complexified and expanded through thought.[ …]DAVID: And once again you have neatly skipped the related problems: bigger skull to accommodate the bigger brain, and change the mother's pelvis so she can dump the bigger-headed kid without dying in the process or killing the baby. There are three interval changes that must occur here, all coordinated by different DNA's in different organs and people.
dhw: Once again you resort to one of your digressions, to which I give the same answer every time: any major change in the body will require major changes elsewhere in the body.
Which changes require complex design changes in a speciation. It is still only chance or design, to which you have never offered anything substantive, since there is nothing else.
dhw: In the theistic version of my theory I have your God endowing cooperative cell communities with the ability to design all the changes themselves. In your post on my theory of intelligence, you wrote: “You are invoking God's unlimited powers to do anything He wants.” You have him drawing up a computer programme 3.8 billion years ago that will implement every single innovation leading from single cells to every new species, every lifestyle, every natural wonder, and the enlargement of the frontal lobe and the change in the mother’s pelvis. Whatever he didn’t preprogramme had to be personally dabbled on the spot, e.g. he personally taught the weaverbird to build its nest, or he personally expanded Adam and Eve’s skulls, and wiggled Eve’s pelvis, so that they would be able to think bigger thoughts, because thought depends on the brain – except when there isn’t a brain to depend on. One invention (my theory) is replaced by billions of inventions and interventions (your theory). But you have every right to invoke God’s unlimited powers to do anything you want.
Thank you.
Introducing the brain
dhw: Your theory is that you had to have a new computer before the new programmes could be designed. Which comes first: thought or implementation of thought?
DAVID: Software and hardware are designed to work together as capacity is enlarged. Obviously thought must initiate implementation, as they work together.
I have never disputed the fact that soul/software and brain/hardware work together. But they fulfil different functions: the former provides the thought and the latter implements the thought. That is the whole point of this metaphor for dualism. If you believe the programmes have not already been designed before the software is inserted into the computer, then please say so.
dhw: Your theory demands an increase in frontal lobe size to enable the soul to think.
DAVID: Not to just think but to have more advanced thinking, as explained above.
dhw: What does this mean? If the bigger frontal lobe enables the soul to think bigger thoughts, then the smaller frontal lobe only enables it to think smaller thoughts. You still have the frontal lobe responsible for thought, which is the direct opposite of the dualistic belief that the soul does the thinking.
DAVID: The frontal lobe capacity for working with the soul is the exact point. The soul is a non-material mechanism that is tied to the human brain networks to think. Since neither of us know what is real, my theory is just as likely as yours.
The dualist’s brain and soul work together in earthly life, but that is not the “exact point”. The “exact point” is that they perform different functions, as above, and that is why it is logical to argue that the immaterial thinking self can live on without the brain, and it is illogical to argue that the immaterial thinking self cannot think without the brain, until it doesn’t have a brain to think with.
dhw: […] we know that in some cases (musicians, taxi drivers) thinking INCREASES the size of certain parts of the sapiens brain and INCREASES the complexity (the illiterate women learning to read and write). It is therefore perfectly logical that the existing cells of earlier brains should also have complexified and expanded through thought.
[ …]
DAVID: And once again you have neatly skipped the related problems: bigger skull to accommodate the bigger brain, and change the mother's pelvis etc.
dhw: Once again you resort to one of your digressions, to which I give the same answer every time: any major change in the body will require major changes elsewhere in the body.
DAVID: Which changes require complex design changes in a speciation. It is still only chance or design, to which you have never offered anything substantive, since there is nothing else.
You scuttled from the findings of modern science to the female pelvis, and from there to chance v design (and I dealt earlier with your other favourite digression of shrinkage). In the theistic version of my theory, your God has designed the mechanism which enables cells/cell communities to do their own designing. Chance has no place. Now please tell me why it is illogical to argue that since modern science tells us that the sapiens brain expands and complexifies as a result of thought, the same process may have taken place in the pre-sapiens brain.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Saturday, May 26, 2018, 15:27 (2156 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Software and hardware are designed to work together as capacity is enlarged. Obviously thought must initiate implementation, as they work together.
dhw: I have never disputed the fact that soul/software and brain/hardware work together. But they fulfil different functions: the former provides the thought and the latter implements the thought. That is the whole point of this metaphor for dualism. If you believe the programmes have not already been designed before the software is inserted into the computer, then please say so.
You sit at a computer and your thinking drives your fingers to type the thought which appear before you in words. The software is your servant. What is your question?
DAVID: The frontal lobe capacity for working with the soul is the exact point. The soul is a non-material mechanism that is tied to the human brain networks to think. Since neither of us know what is real, my theory is just as likely as yours.
dhw: The dualist’s brain and soul work together in earthly life, but that is not the “exact point”. The “exact point” is that they perform different functions, as above, and that is why it is logical to argue that the immaterial thinking self can live on without the brain, and it is illogical to argue that the immaterial thinking self cannot think without the brain, until it doesn’t have a brain to think with.
My theory is the soul is a quantum malleable mechanism that can change as I have described. You want a rigid unchanging form.
dhw: Once again you resort to one of your digressions, to which I give the same answer every time: any major change in the body will require major changes elsewhere in the body.
DAVID: Which changes require complex design changes in a speciation. It is still only chance or design, to which you have never offered anything substantive, since there is nothing else.dhw: You scuttled from the findings of modern science to the female pelvis, and from there to chance v design (and I dealt earlier with your other favourite digression of shrinkage). In the theistic version of my theory, your God has designed the mechanism which enables cells/cell communities to do their own designing. Chance has no place. Now please tell me why it is illogical to argue that since modern science tells us that the sapiens brain expands and complexifies as a result of thought, the same process may have taken place in the pre-sapiens brain.
You have scuttled to God, as usual, when you have no answer. The only brain we know has shrunk 150 cc since it appeared. It is the only fact we can extrapolate to the past forms of brains. Known areas of enlargement ( taxi drivers) occurred as the brain shrunk! That is consistent thinking about expansion.
Introducing the brain
DAVID: Software and hardware are designed to work together as capacity is enlarged. […]
dhw: I have never disputed the fact that soul/software and brain/hardware work together. But they fulfil different functions: the former provides the thought and the latter implements the thought. That is the whole point of this metaphor for dualism. If you believe the programmes have not already been designed before the software is inserted into the computer, then please say so.
DAVID: You sit at a computer and your thinking drives your fingers to type the thought which appear before you in words. The software is your servant. What is your question?
Software/hardware is supposed to be an analogy for dualism! My thinking soul drives my material brain to direct my fingers to give material expression to its thoughts. The software is a metaphor for the thinking soul, and the hardware is a metaphor for the implementing brain.
DAVID: My theory is the soul is a quantum malleable mechanism that can change as I have described. You want a rigid unchanging form.
Dealt with under THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE.
dhw: In the theistic version of my theory, your God has designed the mechanism which enables cells/cell communities to do their own designing. Chance has no place. Now please tell me why it is illogical to argue that since modern science tells us that the sapiens brain expands and complexifies as a result of thought, the same process may have taken place in the pre-sapiens brain.
DAVID: You have scuttled to God, as usual, when you have no answer.
I have offered you a theistic version of my theory. Atheists can attribute the mechanism to chance if they wish. It makes no difference to the logic of the theory itself.
DAVID: The only brain we know has shrunk 150 cc since it appeared. It is the only fact we can extrapolate to the past forms of brains. Known areas of enlargement ( taxi drivers) occurred as the brain shrunk! That is consistent thinking about expansion.
Back we go to your other digression! Complexification and limited expansion are also known facts in the sapiens brain, and expansion is a known fact in the pre-sapiens brain. There is no evidence of shrinkage in the pre-sapiens brain. What is your objection to the explanation for shrinkage that I keep offering? (Continued overall expansion would have given us elephant-sized heads. Enhanced complexification resulted in some cells becoming superfluous, and so the brain shrunk. The existing capacity still allows for the expansion of individual sections of the brain.)
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Sunday, May 27, 2018, 20:42 (2154 days ago) @ dhw
David: You sit at a computer and your thinking drives your fingers to type the thought which appear before you in words. The software is your servant. What is your question?
dhw: Software/hardware is supposed to be an analogy for dualism! My thinking soul drives my material brain to direct my fingers to give material expression to its thoughts. The software is a metaphor for the thinking soul, and the hardware is a metaphor for the implementing brain.
There is another part to this that adds to the mystery. You sit at your keyboard and use your soul through your brain to have a thought which is then typed. We know where the soul is interfaced in the brain. There is no reason not to except the idea that the soul uses the brain networks to think as well as transmit. It still fits software/hardware, an the software can be quantum mechanical immaterial.
DAVID: The only brain we know has shrunk 150 cc since it appeared. It is the only fact we can extrapolate to the past forms of brains. Known areas of enlargement ( taxi drivers) occurred as the brain shrunk! That is consistent thinking about expansion.
dhw: Back we go to your other digression! Complexification and limited expansion are also known facts in the sapiens brain, and expansion is a known fact in the pre-sapiens brain. There is no evidence of shrinkage in the pre-sapiens brain. What is your objection to the explanation for shrinkage that I keep offering? (Continued overall expansion would have given us elephant-sized heads. Enhanced complexification resulted in some cells becoming superfluous, and so the brain shrunk. The existing capacity still allows for the expansion of individual sections of the brain.)
Not a digression. I'm simply repeating the only facts we know about a thinking brain. And a brain with obviously lots more thinking capacity than those previously evolved.
Introducing the brain
DAVID: You sit at a computer and your thinking drives your fingers to type the thought which appear before you in words. The software is your servant. What is your question?
dhw: Software/hardware is supposed to be an analogy for dualism! My thinking soul drives my material brain to direct my fingers to give material expression to its thoughts. The software is a metaphor for the thinking soul, and the hardware is a metaphor for the implementing brain.
DAVID: There is another part to this that adds to the mystery. You sit at your keyboard and use your soul through your brain to have a thought which is then typed. We know where the soul is interfaced in the brain. There is no reason not to except the idea that the soul uses the brain networks to think as well as transmit. It still fits software/hardware, an the software can be quantum mechanical immaterial.
The dualist’s “you” in this earthly life is supposed be a combination of mind and body, or soul and brain if you prefer. Your soul and brain do not use your soul through your brain: the two parts of “you” work together to compose the living “you”, but they have different functions, as exemplified by your analogy of the thinking software and the implementing hardware. Otherwise your analogy for dualism (= TWO components) makes no sense, especially when you argue that the soul CANNOT think without the brain, but the soul CAN think without the brain when there isn’t a brain.
DAVID: The only brain we know has shrunk 150 cc since it appeared. It is the only fact we can extrapolate to the past forms of brains. Known areas of enlargement ( taxi drivers) occurred as the brain shrunk! That is consistent thinking about expansion.
dhw: Back we go to your other digression! Complexification and limited expansion are also known facts in the sapiens brain, and expansion is a known fact in the pre-sapiens brain. There is no evidence of shrinkage in the pre-sapiens brain. What is your objection to the explanation for shrinkage that I keep offering? (Continued overall expansion would have given us elephant-sized heads. Enhanced complexification resulted in some cells becoming superfluous, and so the brain shrunk. The existing capacity still allows for the expansion of individual sections of the brain.)
DAVID: Not a digression. I'm simply repeating the only facts we know about a thinking brain. And a brain with obviously lots more thinking capacity than those previously evolved.
According to you, the only fact we know is shrinkage. You still haven’t said why you object to my explanation of it, and you ignore the other facts revealed by modern scientific research, that the modern brain expands (though in limited areas) and complexifies. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that the pre-sapiens brain did the same. The “thinking brain” is the province of the materialist; the thinking soul is the province of the dualist. I do not doubt that our “thinking capacity” is greater than that of pre-sapiens. If you think that is because of our larger brains, you are a materialist. Nothing wrong with that at all, except that you claim to be a dualist.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Monday, May 28, 2018, 15:05 (2154 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: The dualist’s “you” in this earthly life is supposed be a combination of mind and body, or soul and brain if you prefer. Your soul and brain do not use your soul through your brain: the two parts of “you” work together to compose the living “you”, but they have different functions, as exemplified by your analogy of the thinking software and the implementing hardware. Otherwise your analogy for dualism (= TWO components) makes no sense, especially when you argue that the soul CANNOT think without the brain, but the soul CAN think without the brain when there isn’t a brain.
You refuse to recognize my theory that the soul has two mechanisms of action in life and death. Your theories about soul are not the only ones available.
dhw: Back we go to your other digression! Complexification and limited expansion are also known facts in the sapiens brain, and expansion is a known fact in the pre-sapiens brain. There is no evidence of shrinkage in the pre-sapiens brain. What is your objection to the explanation for shrinkage that I keep offering? (Continued overall expansion would have given us elephant-sized heads. Enhanced complexification resulted in some cells becoming superfluous, and so the brain shrunk. The existing capacity still allows for the expansion of individual sections of the brain.)
DAVID: Not a digression. I'm simply repeating the only facts we know about a thinking brain. And a brain with obviously lots more thinking capacity than those previously evolved.
dhw: According to you, the only fact we know is shrinkage. You still haven’t said why you object to my explanation of it, and you ignore the other facts revealed by modern scientific research, that the modern brain expands (though in limited areas) and complexifies. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that the pre-sapiens brain did the same. The “thinking brain” is the province of the materialist; the thinking soul is the province of the dualist. I do not doubt that our “thinking capacity” is greater than that of pre-sapiens. If you think that is because of our larger brains, you are a materialist. Nothing wrong with that at all, except that you claim to be a dualist.
And you blithely skip over 150 cc of brain volume loss since sapiens appeared. Sure areas are seen to have enlarged, but overall you skip the 150 cc loss. When I discuss a brain thinking, it is under the control of the software soul.
Introducing the brain
dhw: The dualist’s “you” in this earthly life is supposed be a combination of mind and body, or soul and brain if you prefer. Your soul and brain do not use your soul through your brain: the two parts of “you” work together to compose the living “you”, but they have different functions, as exemplified by your analogy of the thinking software and the implementing hardware. Otherwise your analogy for dualism (= TWO components) makes no sense, especially when you argue that the soul CANNOT think without the brain, but the soul CAN think without the brain when there isn’t a brain.
DAVID: You refuse to recognize my theory that the soul has two mechanisms of action in life and death. Your theories about soul are not the only ones available.
Under THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE I asked you yet again, as follows, to explain the differences between the “two mechanisms” of thought/action:
dhw: No, I don’t understand your theory. I keep asking you what is the difference between an immaterial thinking soul (or piece of your God’s consciousness) in life and an immaterial thinking soul in death, apart from the fact that in life it uses the material brain to provide information and to express/implement its immaterial thoughts materially, whereas in death (a different world) it will have to observe and communicate by different (psychic) means. Please explain what other form of “thought mechanism” you are referring to.
DAVID: What not to understand? I propose the soul has two operating mechanisms, one in life, one in death. Alternative software. In leaving the body it joins God's universal consciousness and changes its operative mode. You want a static soul mechanism in life and death. I let God in, you don't. My soul in theory remains the same personality just as yours does.
All you have done is repeat that it has two mechanisms, and changes its mode of operation. I have described two mechanisms – one material, one psychic. I have also accepted the obvious fact that if there is an afterlife, it will be different from material life, while you have accepted that the soul will remain the same personality. I don’t have a problem with “letting God in” if there is an afterlife. None of this tells me the differences in “operative modes” or “mechanisms of action”, so please explain what other forms you are referring to besides those I have covered.
dhw: Complexification and limited expansion are also known facts in the sapiens brain, and expansion is a known fact in the pre-sapiens brain. There is no evidence of shrinkage in the pre-sapiens brain. What is your objection to the explanation for shrinkage that I keep offering? (Continued overall expansion would have given us elephant-sized heads. Enhanced complexification resulted in some cells becoming superfluous, and so the brain shrunk. The existing capacity still allows for the expansion of individual sections of the brain.)
DAVID: And you blithely skip over 150 cc of brain volume loss since sapiens appeared. Sure areas are seen to have enlarged, but overall you skip the 150 cc loss.
I have offered you an explanation of the loss (see above), and instead of telling us why you object, you say I’ve ignored it!I have also pointed out that there is no evidence of shrinkage in pre-sapiens, but we know that his brain expanded.
DAVID: I'm simply repeating the only facts we know about a thinking brain. And a brain with obviously lots more thinking capacity than those previously evolved.
They are not “the only facts we know”, as I have specified above.
dhw: The “thinking brain” is the province of the materialist; the thinking soul is the province of the dualist. I do not doubt that our “thinking capacity” is greater than that of pre-sapiens. If you think that is because of our larger brains, you are a materialist. Nothing wrong with that at all, except that you claim to be a dualist.
DAVID: When I discuss a brain thinking, it is under the control of the software soul.
So do you believe that the software soul and the hardware brain BOTH think, but the soul/software makes the final decision, or do you believe that the software soul does the thinking and gives instructions to the hardware brain?
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 29, 2018, 15:18 (2153 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: No, I don’t understand your theory. I keep asking you what is the difference between an immaterial thinking soul (or piece of your God’s consciousness) in life and an immaterial thinking soul in death, apart from the fact that in life it uses the material brain to provide information and to express/implement its immaterial thoughts materially, whereas in death (a different world) it will have to observe and communicate by different (psychic) means. Please explain what other form of “thought mechanism” you are referring to.
DAVID: What not to understand? I propose the soul has two operating mechanisms, one in life, one in death. Alternative software. In leaving the body it joins God's universal consciousness and changes its operative mode. You want a static soul mechanism in life and death. I let God in, you don't. My soul in theory remains the same personality just as yours does.
All you have done is repeat that it has two mechanisms, and changes its mode of operation. I have described two mechanisms – one material, one psychic. I have also accepted the obvious fact that if there is an afterlife, it will be different from material life, while you have accepted that the soul will remain the same personality. I don’t have a problem with “letting God in” if there is an afterlife. None of this tells me the differences in “operative modes” or “mechanisms of action”, so please explain what other forms you are referring to besides those I have covered.
I will repeat the same point for different mechanisms: in life the soul uses the brain networks to think, experience and direct actions to be taken. In death it communicates telepathically, but since I think the afterlife is unchanging and is observing what is happening in life what the soul does is conversation.
DAVID: And you blithely skip over 150 cc of brain volume loss since sapiens appeared. Sure areas are seen to have enlarged, but overall you skip the 150 cc loss.dhw: I have offered you an explanation of the loss (see above), and instead of telling us why you object, you say I’ve ignored it!I have also pointed out that there is no evidence of shrinkage in pre-sapiens, but we know that his brain expanded.
The fossils are few and far between and at each step there are individual differences. Currently you are correct, that we cannot prove shrinkage at each step, except ours. You try to present that thoughts of desires expands the brain and we see our intense thoughts shrank it. It came 315,000 years ago so complex it didn't need to expand. Your answer is a worry it shouldn't get any bigger for anatomic reasons. On the other hand another 150 cc added would not have been top heavy. Your argument is without basis.
dhw: The “thinking brain” is the province of the materialist; the thinking soul is the province of the dualist. I do not doubt that our “thinking capacity” is greater than that of pre-sapiens. If you think that is because of our larger brains, you are a materialist. Nothing wrong with that at all, except that you claim to be a dualist.DAVID: When I discuss a brain thinking, it is under the control of the software soul.
dhw: So do you believe that the software soul and the hardware brain BOTH think, but the soul/software makes the final decision, or do you believe that the software soul does the thinking and gives instructions to the hardware brain?
I did not say BOTH think. The brain and the soul are two parts of the thinking mechanism in life. The soul uses the brain networks in thought in life..
Introducing the brain: the GPS system
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 29, 2018, 18:24 (2152 days ago) @ David Turell
Specialized neurons are identified:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/brains-positioning-system-linked-to-memory-20141007/
"In 1971, O’Keefe discovered special neurons called place cells, which fire whenever an animal is in a certain location. More recently, the Mosers identified grid cells, which are thought to act like a dead-reckoning system, telling the animal its location independent of external cues. Though first discovered in rats, both kinds of cells are widespread in mammalian brains, including those of humans.
"One striking feature of this system of grid and place cells is that it seems to encode abstract properties. “The big breakthrough is that these cells are not just responding to sensory cues, like an odor on the ground,” said David Redish, a neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Instead, grid cells form an internal positioning system, and place cells use that information along with other cues to create a sense of place. Together, they create a rich map.
***
"Rather than simply forming our inner GPS, place cells and grid cells may provide a system for anchoring our memories.
"Place cells are found in the hippocampus, which has long been considered the brain’s memory hub. Removing it, as happened with the famous patient H.M., wipes out the brain’s ability to form new memories. But O’Keefe’s discovery showed that the hippocampus is also essential for navigation.
"David Bishop, UCL O’Keefe recorded the impulses from neurons in a specific part of the hippocampus in rats as they explored an open space. He discovered that individual neurons would fire only when the rat was in a certain spot. By altering the surrounding environment, he showed that the animal wasn’t simply responding to sensory cues. Rather, the neurons were responding to a more sophisticated sense of location.
***
"..the Mosers discovered a system of cells that are believed to provide spatial information to place cells. They probed individual neurons inside rats’ entorhinal cortex, an area of the brain that connects to the hippocampus. They then let the animals run around an empty space. Occasionally, the target neuron would fire. By mapping the points on the floor where this happened, the researchers discovered that the points where the neurons fired mapped out a grid of equilateral triangles. The arrangement was so well-defined that the researchers initially suspected an equipment malfunction.
***
“'Once the Mosers discovered grid cells” — the neurons that fired in the grid pattern — “we had a new handle on the GPS part of the [memory] system.” (While GPS is a convenient metaphor, scientists believe that grid cells actually use a dead-reckoning system to calculate location.)
"One intriguing discovery is that grid cells can function in complete darkness, absent any visual cues. “This must reflect some internal brain dynamics that are in some sense independent of external sensory input,” Knierim said. “That’s one reason it’s so phenomenal — it gives us a window on understanding internal processing.”
***
"Scientists have also used place cells to learn more about memory. As a rat runs through a maze, a particular sequence of place cells fire. The sequence replays after the rat goes to sleep; researchers think that this replay helps to transfer the rat’s memory of the maze from the hippocampus into long-term storage.
"More recent sleep studies suggest that the rat will replay the same pattern when it is in the maze again and needs to make a decision about where to go next. This may indicate that the rat is accessing memories of the maze as it mulls over the best path. “We know rats can do mental time travel,” Redish said, as they relive past events. “We are only able to know that because of place cells.”
"Many researchers believe that memory and space are even more intricately linked. In a popular trick for remembering speeches, dating back to ancient Greece, the orator calls to mind a familiar path through a city and attaches a segment of the speech to each location along the path. This mnemonic may unwittingly exploit the fact that the hippocampus encodes both location information and autobiographical memories. “It just happens that space is a good way of organizing experiences,” Wilson said."
Comment: This is part of conscious automatic brain activity we and animals have. It informs consciousness of what is happening.
Introducing the brain: fear and anxiety
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 29, 2018, 19:30 (2152 days ago) @ David Turell
The Amygdala is the center:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-05-scientists-brain-circuit-anxiety.html
"Neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have identified a neural circuit in the amygdala, the brain's seat of emotion processing, that gives rise to anxiety. Their insight has revealed the critical role of a molecule called dynorphin, which could serve as a target for treatment of anxiety-related disorders including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
"Though they are distinct, fear and anxiety operate hand in hand, as anxiety almost always follows brief fearful experiences and can in turn influence fear responses to a perceived threat. However, very intense fearful experiences, especially those that are life threatening, are often "over-learned" and can lead to an unhealthy level of anxiety or to anxiety disorders.
"Previous studies indicate that two regions in the amygdala—the central amygdala and the BNST (bed nucleus of the stria terminalis)—coordinate short-term and long-term responses to various kinds of threatening stimuli. "What we haven't known are the underlying circuit and cellular mechanisms in these regions that control the generation of anxiety," says CSHL Professor Bo Li, who led the research.
"The central amygdala forges strong inhibitory connections with the BNST. To learn about what happens to these connections during anxiety, his team genetically manipulated one specific type of neuron called SOM+ because of a peptide they express called somatostatin. Li's prior work showed that these "SOM+" neurons are necessary for the learning of fear responses. The team knocked out a gene called Erbb4 in SOM+ neurons—a gene that's been linked to disorders including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
"Sandra Ahrens, a postdoctoral investigator in the Li lab, led experiments showing that when Erbb4 was deleted from SOM+ neurons in the central amygdala, mice displayed heightened anxiety. The team traced the mechanism behind this anxiety within a circuit that runs between the central amygdala and the BNST.
"The process leading to anxiety began with increased excitation of SOM+ neurons in the central amygdala. This led to a large increase in signaling by dynorphin, a peptide made by these neurons. This aberrant signaling interfered with normal inhibition of SOM+ neurons in the BNST and resulted in their becoming overactive. The net result was a display of anxious behavior.
"Dynorphin signaling was in this way identified as the driver of elevated anxiety. The team not only showed this in mice with neurons lacking Erbb4, but also, importantly, in genetically normal mice that were exposed to stress. "That's why we think this is an important circuit in anxiety," says Li. "By manipulating it in mice, we are actually able to ameliorate anxiety.'"
Comment: An other area of the brain that informs the soul. Animals are in danger at all times and must remain anxious and alert, like I see our barn cat react to every minor sound. We have received that in our brain in our evolution although our human situation is not as dangerous while we are at peace.
Introducing the brain
Dhw: All you have done is repeat that it [the soul] has two mechanisms, and changes its mode of operation. I have described two mechanisms – one material, one psychic. I have also accepted the obvious fact that if there is an afterlife, it will be different from material life, while you have accepted that the soul will remain the same personality. I don’t have a problem with “letting God in” if there is an afterlife. None of this tells me the differences in “operative modes” or “mechanisms of action”, so please explain what other forms you are referring to besides those I have covered.
DAVID: I will repeat the same point for different mechanisms: in life the soul uses the brain networks to think, experience and direct actions to be taken. In death it communicates telepathically, but since I think the afterlife is unchanging and is observing what is happening in life what the soul does is conversation.
In other words, there are no other forms besides those I have covered. If dualism is true, then of course the soul uses the brain, and judging by your comment below, I don’t think there is any real difference between your concept of the relationship and my own: the soul uses the brain to gather the information it thinks about, and to express/implement those thoughts materially. You have also agreed now that in the afterlife its “operative mode” has to be psychic. Again, no difference. I’m afraid I don’t quite understand your last sentence but again I suspect it means exactly the same as my own concept: the soul observes the material world in life and an immaterial world in the afterlife, and thinks about both, but observes and communicates (converses) by different modes (material and psychic). The only difference I can see between us is your insistence that even though the dualist’s soul is the same in life as in death, in life it depends on the brain for its ability to THINK, but in death it can THINK without the brain. And that is what doesn’t make sense to me.
DAVID: When I discuss a brain thinking, it is under the control of the software soul.
dhw: So do you believe that the software soul and the hardware brain BOTH think, but the soul/software makes the final decision, or do you believe that the software soul does the thinking and gives instructions to the hardware brain?
DAVID: I did not say BOTH think. The brain and the soul are two parts of the thinking mechanism in life. The soul uses the brain networks in thought in life.
Good. Then presumably you agree that only the soul thinks. Yes, the thinking part and the information-gathering and implementing part are the two parts. Yes, the soul uses the brain in life. But if the soul thinks and the brain doesn’t think, then it makes no sense to argue that the brain must expand (pre-sapiens) before the soul can think new thoughts! To use your favourite analogy, do you get a new computer before the new software exists, or do you get it when the old one can’t implement the programmes of the new software?
DAVID: And you blithely skip over 150 cc of brain volume loss since sapiens appeared. Sure areas are seen to have enlarged, but overall you skip the 150 cc loss.
dhw: I have offered you an explanation of the loss (see above), and instead of telling us why you object, you say I’ve ignored it!I have also pointed out that there is no evidence of shrinkage in pre-sapiens, but we know that his brain expanded.
DAVID: The fossils are few and far between and at each step there are individual differences. Currently you are correct, that we cannot prove shrinkage at each step, except ours. You try to present that thoughts of desires expands the brain and we see our intense thoughts shrank it. It came 315,000 years ago so complex it didn't need to expand. Your answer is a worry it shouldn't get any bigger for anatomic reasons. On the other hand another 150 cc added would not have been top heavy. Your argument is without basis.
Why do you think the pre-sapiens brain expanded if it also shrank? It wouldn’t have NEEDED to expand if complexification was efficient enough to implement all the new thoughts! And it’s not a matter of intense thought shrinking the brain, or of adding another 150 cc! I am suggesting that the capacity was reached x years ago (315,000 years, if you like). Complexification then had to take over from expansion. The thoughts didn’t shrink the brain – the illiterate women’s brains didn’t shrink as a result of their learning to read and write! They complexified, and that is an ongoing process. Over the course of x thousand years, complexification has proved so efficient that some cells have become redundant. There is therefore still room for at least another 150 cc capacity within the existing skull. And you continue to ignore the proven fact that thought changes the brain by complexification and limited expansion.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 30, 2018, 18:15 (2151 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I will repeat the same point for different mechanisms: in life the soul uses the brain networks to think, experience and direct actions to be taken. In death it communicates telepathically, but since I think the afterlife is unchanging and is observing what is happening in life what the soul does is conversation.
dhw: In other words, there are no other forms besides those I have covered. If dualism is true, then of course the soul uses the brain, and judging by your comment below, I don’t think there is any real difference between your concept of the relationship and my own: the soul uses the brain to gather the information it thinks about, and to express/implement those thoughts materially. You have also agreed now that in the afterlife its “operative mode” has to be psychic. Again, no difference. I’m afraid I don’t quite understand your last sentence but again I suspect it means exactly the same as my own concept: the soul observes the material world in life and an immaterial world in the afterlife, and thinks about both, but observes and communicates (converses) by different modes (material and psychic). The only difference I can see between us is your insistence that even though the dualist’s soul is the same in life as in death, in life it depends on the brain for its ability to THINK, but in death it can THINK without the brain. And that is what doesn’t make sense to me.
It doesn't make sense to you because you can only visualize an unchanging soul mechanism of operation. I propose two mechanisms with the soul maintaining its unity as a personage in life and death. Otherwise we generally agree.
DAVID: When I discuss a brain thinking, it is under the control of the software soul.dhw: So do you believe that the software soul and the hardware brain BOTH think, but the soul/software makes the final decision, or do you believe that the software soul does the thinking and gives instructions to the hardware brain?
DAVID: I did not say BOTH think. The brain and the soul are two parts of the thinking mechanism in life. The soul uses the brain networks in thought in life.
dhw: Good. Then presumably you agree that only the soul thinks. Yes, the thinking part and the information-gathering and implementing part are the two parts. Yes, the soul uses the brain in life. But if the soul thinks and the brain doesn’t think, then it makes no sense to argue that the brain must expand (pre-sapiens) before the soul can think new thoughts! To use your favourite analogy, do you get a new computer before the new software exists, or do you get it when the old one can’t implement the programmes of the new software?
You are not thinking clearly about computers. Your old computer is dying. So you get a new bigger one with new better software. The new one comes all complete with better hardware and software capable of more complex activity. AS in erectus to habilis to sapiens. What you suggest is several steps to new computing.
DAVID: The fossils are few and far between and at each step there are individual differences. Currently you are correct, that we cannot prove shrinkage at each step, except ours. You try to present that thoughts of desires expands the brain and we see our intense thoughts shrank it. It came 315,000 years ago so complex it didn't need to expand. Your answer is a worry it shouldn't get any bigger for anatomic reasons. On the other hand another 150 cc added would not have been top heavy. Your argument is without basis.
dhw:Why do you think the pre-sapiens brain expanded if it also shrank? It wouldn’t have NEEDED to expand if complexification was efficient enough to implement all the new thoughts! And it’s not a matter of intense thought shrinking the brain, or of adding another 150 cc! I am suggesting that the capacity was reached x years ago (315,000 years, if you like). Complexification then had to take over from expansion. The thoughts didn’t shrink the brain – the illiterate women’s brains didn’t shrink as a result of their learning to read and write! They complexified, and that is an ongoing process. Over the course of x thousand years, complexification has proved so efficient that some cells have become redundant. There is therefore still room for at least another 150 cc capacity within the existing skull. And you continue to ignore the proven fact that thought changes the brain by complexification and limited expansion.
I'm not ignoring complexification. You propose frustrated attempts at thought forced a new brain size to accommodate that thought in earlier homos, as I interpret your theory. What we see in the only living brain we can study is a shrinking brain. No evidence of forced expansion despite enormous efforts at complex thought. Instead we see a built-in mechanism of shrinkage.
Introducing the brain
dhw: The only difference I can see between us is your insistence that even though the dualist’s soul is the same in life as in death, in life it depends on the brain for its ability to THINK, but in death it can THINK without the brain. And that is what doesn’t make sense to me.
DAVID: It doesn't make sense to you because you can only visualize an unchanging soul mechanism of operation. I propose two mechanisms with the soul maintaining its unity as a personage in life and death. Otherwise we generally agree.
And I keep asking you what mechanisms of operation you are referring to, and your last reply merely repeated my own distinction between material and psychic. If the soul maintains its unity in life and death, it can only be as the thinking, feeling, remembering “personage”. Therefore the now dead material part of the dualist’s being cannot have been responsible for the processes of thinking, feeling, remembering etc. – unless it actually PRODUCED the immaterial part, which somehow forms an entity that survives (just as the image survives the “death” of the materials that produced it). My proposal supports your materialistic contention that the soul cannot think without the brain, but it does not support the illogical claim that the soul is a separate entity (a “piece of God’s consciousness”) inserted into the brain, unable to think without the brain, and yet able to think when there is no brain. But of course it does depend on the brain to provide information and to implement its thoughts.
dhw: To use your favourite analogy, do you get a new computer before the new software exists, or do you get it when the old one can’t implement the programmes of the new software?
DAVID: You are not thinking clearly about computers. Your old computer is dying. So you get a new bigger one with new better software. The new one comes all complete with better hardware and software capable of more complex activity. AS in erectus to habilis to sapiens. What you suggest is several steps to new computing.
You are not thinking clearly about the whole purpose of your dualist’s analogy, which is to indicate the dual composition of the living being: mind and body. You agree that it is the software that does the thinking (“I did not say BOTH think”), so what are you left with? Thinking software soul and implementing hardware brain. And frankly, if I were the dualist you claim to be, I would indeed have thought that a piece of God’s consciousness would do the thinking both inside and outside the brain, instead of depending on the brain to think and then not depending on the brain to think.
DAVID: I'm not ignoring complexification. You propose frustrated attempts at thought forced a new brain size to accommodate that thought in earlier homos, as I interpret your theory. What we see in the only living brain we can study is a shrinking brain. No evidence of forced expansion despite enormous efforts at complex thought. Instead we see a built-in mechanism of shrinkage.
And you say you are not ignoring complexification! What we see in the living brain is complexification and limited expansion of particular areas (both in response to particular thoughts) and shrinkage over the past x thousand years. And you still refuse to tell me why you do not accept my proposed explanation for shrinkage (efficient complexification making some cells redundant). And you also refuse to tell me why the pre-sapiens brain would have expanded if it shrank. You keep saying we must base our hypotheses on what we actually know. My hypothesis that the implementation of new concepts forced changes in the pre-sapiens brain is based on the proven fact that the implementation of new concepts forces changes in the sapiens brain: complexification and in certain cases limited expansion. We have evidence that the pre-sapiens brain expanded, but there is no evidence that it shrank. Nor is there any evidence that your God expanded the hippocampus and the auditory cortex of taxi drivers and musicians BEFORE they took up their careers.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Thursday, May 31, 2018, 18:17 (2150 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: It doesn't make sense to you because you can only visualize an unchanging soul mechanism of operation. I propose two mechanisms with the soul maintaining its unity as a personage in life and death. Otherwise we generally agree.
dhw: And I keep asking you what mechanisms of operation you are referring to, and your last reply merely repeated my own distinction between material and psychic. If the soul maintains its unity in life and death, it can only be as the thinking, feeling, remembering “personage”. Therefore the now dead material part of the dualist’s being cannot have been responsible for the processes of thinking, feeling, remembering etc. – unless it actually PRODUCED the immaterial part, which somehow forms an entity that survives (just as the image survives the “death” of the materials that produced it). My proposal supports your materialistic contention that the soul cannot think without the brain, but it does not support the illogical claim that the soul is a separate entity (a “piece of God’s consciousness”) inserted into the brain, unable to think without the brain, and yet able to think when there is no brain. But of course it does depend on the brain to provide information and to implement its thoughts.
You have to remember my thinking that the Biblical assertion that we are made in God's image is a guide to a conclusion. My insistence that we recognize the role of consciousness in basic energy particle quantum mechanics adds up to the fact that I see a universal consciousness as the basis of the existence of the universe. You doubt all of this but that is your role as an agnostic with an aversion to anything not proven.
dhw: You are not thinking clearly about the whole purpose of your dualist’s analogy, which is to indicate the dual composition of the living being: mind and body. You agree that it is the software that does the thinking (“I did not say BOTH think”), so what are you left with? Thinking software soul and implementing hardware brain. And frankly, if I were the dualist you claim to be, I would indeed have thought that a piece of God’s consciousness would do the thinking both inside and outside the brain, instead of depending on the brain to think and then not depending on the brain to think.
In my view software has to use hardware to produce its thought, as occurs in life. In afterlife there is no hardware, so the software (soul) is somehow able to do it on its own. I also have noted that afterlife is primarily observation and telepathy for discussion implying a simpler underlying mechanism of operation. New concepts occur in life, not death
DAVID: I'm not ignoring complexification. You propose frustrated attempts at thought forced a new brain size to accommodate that thought in earlier homos, as I interpret your theory. What we see in the only living brain we can study is a shrinking brain. No evidence of forced expansion despite enormous efforts at complex thought. Instead we see a built-in mechanism of shrinkage.dhw: And you say you are not ignoring complexification! What we see in the living brain is complexification and limited expansion of particular areas (both in response to particular thoughts) and shrinkage over the past x thousand years. And you still refuse to tell me why you do not accept my proposed explanation for shrinkage (efficient complexification making some cells redundant).
No refusal. I fully agree with you that sapiens brain is 150 cc smaller from new complexity.
dhw: And you also refuse to tell me why the pre-sapiens brain would have expanded if it shrank.
God did it. No refusal! God speciates. Natural evolutionary theory does NOT explain speciation
dhw: You keep saying we must base our hypotheses on what we actually know. My hypothesis that the implementation of new concepts forced changes in the pre-sapiens brain is based on the proven fact that the implementation of new concepts forces changes in the sapiens brain: complexification and in certain cases limited expansion. We have evidence that the pre-sapiens brain expanded, but there is no evidence that it shrank. Nor is there any evidence that your God expanded the hippocampus and the auditory cortex of taxi drivers and musicians BEFORE they took up their careers.
All we don't know is how the brain naturally jumped from 400 cc to 1,200 cc in several jumps over 3-4 million years. You are looking for some logical explanation. All I see is God.
Introducing the brain
DAVID: You have to remember my thinking that the Biblical assertion that we are made in God's image is a guide to a conclusion. My insistence that we recognize the role of consciousness in basic energy particle quantum mechanics adds up to the fact that I see a universal consciousness as the basis of the existence of the universe. You doubt all of this but that is your role as an agnostic with an aversion to anything not proven.
As an agnostic, I accept the possibility that your God exists, and if he does, then of course he must be the basis of the universe. What I object to is the illogicality of arguments such as your belief that a piece of God’s consciousness is incapable of thought without a brain until there is no brain. The illogicality has nothing to do with my agnosticism or with the impossibility of proof.
dhw: You are not thinking clearly about the whole purpose of your dualist’s analogy, which is to indicate the dual composition of the living being: mind and body. You agree that it is the software that does the thinking (“I did not say BOTH think”), so what are you left with? Thinking software soul and implementing hardware brain.
DAVID: In my view software has to use hardware to produce its thought, as occurs in life.
Another of your obfuscations. By “produce” do you mean that the software soul is unable to think, or is unable to express/implement its thoughts without the hardware brain?
DAVID: In afterlife there is no hardware, so the software (soul) is somehow able to do it on its own. I also have noted that afterlife is primarily observation and telepathy for discussion implying a simpler underlying mechanism of operation.
Unable to do what – think, or express itself? If it’s the latter, you are again repeating what I keep saying: the difference between the dualist’s soul in life and in death is that it must have different means of observing/expressing itself. Its function – as you keep agreeing – remains the same: it is the thinking, feeling, remembering self (as opposed to the information-gathering, expressing and implementing self) which it was in life.
DAVID: New concepts occur in life, not death.
How do you know? If an atheist (Eben Alexander?) thinks he’s in heaven, and has a whole new world opened up to him, do you think he’s incapable of thinking new thoughts at the time?
DAVID: What we see in the only living brain we can study is a shrinking brain. No evidence of forced expansion despite enormous efforts at complex thought. Instead we see a built-in mechanism of shrinkage.
dhw: […] What we see in the living brain is complexification and limited expansion of particular areas (both in response to particular thoughts) and shrinkage over the past x thousand years. And you still refuse to tell me why you do not accept my proposed explanation for shrinkage (efficient complexification making some cells redundant).
DAVID: No refusal. I fully agree with you that sapiens brain is 150 cc smaller from new complexity.
Thank you. Then perhaps you will stop telling me that the only brain response to new thoughts is shrinkage.
dhw: And you also refuse to tell me why the pre-sapiens brain would have expanded if it shrank.
DAVID: God did it. No refusal! God speciates. Natural evolutionary theory does NOT explain speciation.
We are talking about brain expansion! Your argument was that new thought shrank the brain. My argument is that new thought changes the brain – by complexification and limited enlargement (shrinkage being a consequence of complexification, as you now acknowledge). The pre-sapiens brain expanded. Shrinkage is irrelevant, and it is perfectly logical to suppose that if implementation of thought changes the brain now, it would have done so then.
DAVID: All we don't know is how the brain naturally jumped from 400 cc to 1,200 cc in several jumps over 3-4 million years. You are looking for some logical explanation. All I see is God.
Of course I am looking for a logical explanation, and the one I am offering does not in any way exclude your God. What it does exclude is the illogicality I keep complaining about, as repeated at the beginning of this post.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Friday, June 01, 2018, 14:41 (2150 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Friday, June 01, 2018, 15:01
As an agnostic, I accept the possibility that your God exists, and if he does, then of course he must be the basis of the universe. What I object to is the illogicality of arguments such as your belief that a piece of God’s consciousness is incapable of thought without a brain until there is no brain. The illogicality has nothing to do with my agnosticism or with the impossibility of proof.
Not illogical to me. In life the soul must work with the brain circuits to produce thought we recognize within ourselves.
DAVID: In my view software has to use hardware to produce its thought, as occurs in life.dhw: Another of your obfuscations. By “produce” do you mean that the software soul is unable to think, or is unable to express/implement its thoughts without the hardware brain?
Why do you approach the living soul as separate from the living you? The living you produces thoughts through your living brain. When the soul reaches death it carries all of the recorded past with it.
DAVID: In afterlife there is no hardware, so the software (soul) is somehow able to do it on its own. I also have noted that afterlife is primarily observation and telepathy for discussion implying a simpler underlying mechanism of operation.dhw:Unable to do what – think, or express itself? If it’s the latter, you are again repeating what I keep saying: the difference between the dualist’s soul in life and in death is that it must have different means of observing/expressing itself. Its function – as you keep agreeing – remains the same: it is the thinking, feeling, remembering self (as opposed to the information-gathering, expressing and implementing self) which it was in life.
No it is not the same. In death it only remembers, observes and discusses.
DAVID: New concepts occur in life, not death.How do you know? If an atheist (Eben Alexander?) thinks he’s in heaven, and has a whole new world opened up to him, do you think he’s incapable of thinking new thoughts at the time?
His book simply shows he brought back his memories of what he saw.
DAVID: No refusal. I fully agree with you that sapiens brain is 150 cc smaller from new complexity.dhw: Thank you. Then perhaps you will stop telling me that the only brain response to new thoughts is shrinkage.
It shrank due to massive new usage!
dhw: We are talking about brain expansion! Your argument was that new thought shrank the brain. My argument is that new thought changes the brain – by complexification and limited enlargement (shrinkage being a consequence of complexification, as you now acknowledge).
We both know that heavy use of the brain shrinks it and we also know there are areas within the shrinkage of local enlargement with special use. What is your problem? See this article on varying size and areas of usage:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2170532-people-with-big-brains-have-a-different-br...
"Analysing these, they found that some particular areas expanded more than others in people who had an overall larger brain size. These regions seem to be involved in integrating information from across the brain, he says.
"These expanded areas are the same regions that have grown relatively larger throughout our evolution, and they continue to grow in our early lives, becoming relatively larger in adult brains than they are in child brains."
dhw: The pre-sapiens brain expanded. Shrinkage is irrelevant, and it is perfectly logical to suppose that if implementation of thought changes the brain now, it would have done so then.
Which means shrinkage back then was possible.
DAVID: All we don't know is how the brain naturally jumped from 400 cc to 1,200 cc in several jumps over 3-4 million years. You are looking for some logical explanation. All I see is God.dhw: Of course I am looking for a logical explanation, and the one I am offering does not in any way exclude your God. What it does exclude is the illogicality I keep complaining about, as repeated at the beginning of this post.
The illogical approach you have is viewing your soul as separate from the living you.
Introducing the brain
dhw: As an agnostic, I accept the possibility that your God exists, and if he does, then of course he must be the basis of the universe. What I object to is the illogicality of arguments such as your belief that a piece of God’s consciousness is incapable of thought without a brain until there is no brain. The illogicality has nothing to do with my agnosticism or with the impossibility of proof.
DAVID: Not illogical to me. In life the soul must work with the brain circuits to produce thought we recognize within ourselves.
But you believe that in death the same soul doesn’t need the brain circuits to produce thought we recognize. Or do you believe you will be a zombie in the afterlife, unable to think? (See below regarding the word "produce".)
DAVID: Why do you approach the living soul as separate from the living you?
When did I ever say it was separate? That is your idea, when you claim that it is a piece of God’s consciousness which lives in the brain and consciously says goodbye to the brain when the brain dies. I keep trying to explain that the dualistic self you claim to believe in has TWO parts, and that is why it is called DUALISM: one part is the soul and one part is the brain/body, and in life they work together performing different FUNCTIONS (not the same as separation). But then, as you keep agreeing and then disagreeing, the same thinking, feeling, remembering soul of you the dualist separates from the brain.
DAVID: The living you produces thoughts through your living brain. When the soul reaches death it carries all of the recorded past with it.
In dualism the “living you” is a combination of mind/soul and body. You have not explained what you mean by “produce”. If the soul produces thoughts through the brain, do you mean the soul does the thinking, and the brain does the expressing/implementing? Or do you – with your Alice in Wonderland logic - mean the same soul can only have memories, feelings and the ability to think so long as it is in the brain, except that it has memories, feelings and the ability to think when it is not within the brain?
DAVID: No it is not the same. In death it only remembers, observes and discusses.
I’m amazed that you should think that the soul in death can discuss things without being able to think, and can observe things without having any feelings about them. Especially when you keep agreeing that the soul in life is the same “personage” as the soul in death. How can you be the same personage if you can’t think or feel?
DAVID: I fully agree with you that sapiens brain is 150 cc smaller from new complexity.
dhw: Thank you. Then perhaps you will stop telling me that the only brain response to new thoughts is shrinkage.
DAVID: We both know that heavy use of the brain shrinks it and we also know there are areas within the shrinkage of local enlargement with special use. What is your problem?
That is precisely my question to you. The quotes you have given us confirm what I keep telling you: that particular areas expand. You have agreed that shrinkage is the result of complexification over thousands and thousands of years. It is irrelevant to the question of why pre-sapiens’ brain EXPANDED, and the only evidence we have is that parts of the brain are known to expand BECAUSE of new usage – not in anticipation of new usage. The latter is your argument when you say God had to expand the brain to enable pre-sapiens to have new thoughts.
DAVID: All we don't know is how the brain naturally jumped from 400 cc to 1,200 cc in several jumps over 3-4 million years. You are looking for some logical explanation. All I see is God.
dhw: Of course I am looking for a logical explanation, and the one I am offering does not in any way exclude your God. What it does exclude is the illogicality I keep complaining about, as repeated at the beginning of this post.
DAVID: The illogical approach you have is viewing your soul as separate from the living you.
Separation is dealt with above. The real irony in your remark is that my THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE offers you complete unity of brain and soul, and you don’t like it because it opposes your idea of a SEPARATE soul (piece of God’s consciousness) that pops in and then out of the brain, although it is NOT separate because it can’t think without the brain, except that it IS separate because it CAN think without the brain.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Saturday, June 02, 2018, 15:07 (2149 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Why do you approach the living soul as separate from the living you?
dhw: When did I ever say it was separate? That is your idea, when you claim that it is a piece of God’s consciousness which lives in the brain and consciously says goodbye to the brain when the brain dies. I keep trying to explain that the dualistic self you claim to believe in has TWO parts, and that is why it is called DUALISM: one part is the soul and one part is the brain/body, and in life they work together performing different FUNCTIONS (not the same as separation). But then, as you keep agreeing and then disagreeing, the same thinking, feeling, remembering soul of you the dualist separates from the brain.
I view dualism as different than your view. First dualism is immaterial soul and material brain to which it is totally bonded in life. Then life and death are two different states in which the soul exists, another form of dualism, and it probably has different mechanism to adopt to the different existences it is in. Your separatism is in stating the soul seems to sit off in mid-air and fires thoughts at the brain which it then accepts, when it is obvious the soul is working with the brain's circuits. I/soul can only communicate by using the brain circuits. Do your thoughts pop into your brain as a total surprise? Mine don't.
DAVID: The living you produces thoughts through your living brain. When the soul reaches death it carries all of the recorded past with it.dhw: In dualism the “living you” is a combination of mind/soul and body. You have not explained what you mean by “produce”. If the soul produces thoughts through the brain, do you mean the soul does the thinking, and the brain does the expressing/implementing? Or do you – with your Alice in Wonderland logic - mean the same soul can only have memories, feelings and the ability to think so long as it is in the brain, except that it has memories, feelings and the ability to think when it is not within the brain?
It is more 'Through the Looking Glass' to use Louis Carroll. I see me and my soul looks back. I am my soul. Are you sure yours isn't floating away somewhere. I see full attachment. I don't think you realize how you try to keep brain and soul separate.
DAVID: No it is not the same. In death it only remembers, observes and discusses.dhw: I’m amazed that you should think that the soul in death can discuss things without being able to think, and can observe things without having any feelings about them. Especially when you keep agreeing that the soul in life is the same “personage” as the soul in death. How can you be the same personage if you can’t think or feel?
Of course the soul thinks. Can you discuss without thought? I can't.
dhw: Of course I am looking for a logical explanation, and the one I am offering does not in any way exclude your God. What it does exclude is the illogicality I keep complaining about, as repeated at the beginning of this post.DAVID: The illogical approach you have is viewing your soul as separate from the living you.
dhw: Separation is dealt with above. The real irony in your remark is that my THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE offers you complete unity of brain and soul, and you don’t like it because it opposes your idea of a SEPARATE soul (piece of God’s consciousness) that pops in and then out of the brain, although it is NOT separate because it can’t think without the brain, except that it IS separate because it CAN think without the brain.
I am not discussing 'separate' as the difference between life and death for the soul. You still don't understand how you deliberately look at the soul as a separate mechanism dictating to a brain, and I know I create the structure of my personage/soul from birth by working through my brain which is the only way I can reach my living soul. Please study the implications of that sentence. You created you. How?
I assume/know parts of the soul's software is no longer required in the afterlife: no more structural change of personality. It is fixed. It observes the living, comments by telepathy, and is most likely relaxed and benign in thought about everything, especially the foolishness of humans struggling in life. My core memories and beliefs are retained. There should be no changes, no new concepts as none are required. Perhaps afterlife is boring.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
by David Turell , Saturday, June 02, 2018, 15:35 (2149 days ago) @ David Turell
As usual science repeats. Andrew Newberg, M.D. covered this years ago in two books:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180601170056.htm
"Yale scientists have identified a possible neurobiological home for the spiritual experience -- the sense of connection to something greater than oneself.
Activity in the parietal cortex, an area of the brain involved in awareness of self and others as well as attention processing, seems to be a common element among individuals who have experienced a variety of spiritual experiences, according to a study published online May 29 in the journal Cerebral Cortex.
"'Spiritual experiences are robust states that may have profound impacts on people's lives," said Marc Potenza, professor of psychiatry, of the Yale Child Study Center, and of neuroscience. "Understanding the neural bases of spiritual experiences may help us better understand their roles in resilience and recovery from mental health and addictive disorders."
"Spiritual experiences can be religious in nature or not, such as feeling of oneness in nature or the absence of self during sporting events. Researchers at Yale and the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Columbia University interviewed 27 young adults to gather information about past stressful and relaxing experiences as well as their spiritual experiences. The subjects then underwent fMRI scans while listening for the first time to recordings based on their personalized experiences. While individual spiritual experiences differed, researchers noted similar patterns of activity in the parietal cortex as the subjects imagined experiencing the events in the recordings.
"Potenza stressed other brain areas are probably also involved in formation of spiritual experiences."
Comment: As usual the brain compartmentalizes thought.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
QUOTE: "Yale scientists have identified a possible neurobiological home for the spiritual experience -- the sense of connection to something greater than oneself.
Activity in the parietal cortex, an area of the brain involved in awareness of self and others as well as attention processing, seems to be a common element among individuals who have experienced a variety of spiritual experiences […]
Fits in neatly with my materialistic proposal that the cell communities between them also create something greater than themselves, which we might call the (dualistic) “soul” and which might possibly link up with other consciousnesses, possibly including a God.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
by David Turell , Sunday, June 03, 2018, 15:19 (2148 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: "Yale scientists have identified a possible neurobiological home for the spiritual experience -- the sense of connection to something greater than oneself.
Activity in the parietal cortex, an area of the brain involved in awareness of self and others as well as attention processing, seems to be a common element among individuals who have experienced a variety of spiritual experiences […]dhw: Fits in neatly with my materialistic proposal that the cell communities between them also create something greater than themselves, which we might call the (dualistic) “soul” and which might possibly link up with other consciousnesses, possibly including a God.
You are describing an 'emergent' consciousness, which means the immaterial somehow appears from the material. That's the HARD PROBLEM no one can solve. What 'other consciousnesses' are you referring to in linking? I'm not linked to yours. I can only assume you have one.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
QUOTE: "Yale scientists have identified a possible neurobiological home for the spiritual experience -- the sense of connection to something greater than oneself.
Activity in the parietal cortex, an area of the brain involved in awareness of self and others as well as attention processing, seems to be a common element among individuals who have experienced a variety of spiritual experiences […]
dhw: Fits in neatly with my materialistic proposal that the cell communities between them also create something greater than themselves, which we might call the (dualistic) “soul” and which might possibly link up with other consciousnesses, possibly including a God.
DAVID: You are describing an 'emergent' consciousness, which means the immaterial somehow appears from the material. That's the HARD PROBLEM no one can solve.
That is exactly what the materialistic part of my proposal describes, but I am not pretending it solves the “HARD PROBLEM”. I offer it as a reconciliation between materialism and dualism.
DAVID: What 'other consciousnesses' are you referring to in linking? I'm not linked to yours. I can only assume you have one.
The whole of evolution involves the linking up of cell communities, and if these cell communities are intelligent and together create new organs and organisms, they link their conscious intelligences together. My hypothesis does not exclude Sheldrake’s morphic resonance, in which a kind of generic consciousness emerges from that of individuals, and it does not exclude the possibility that there is a universal consciousness (which you call God) to which ours may be linked.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
by David Turell , Monday, June 04, 2018, 14:07 (2147 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: "Yale scientists have identified a possible neurobiological home for the spiritual experience -- the sense of connection to something greater than oneself.
Activity in the parietal cortex, an area of the brain involved in awareness of self and others as well as attention processing, seems to be a common element among individuals who have experienced a variety of spiritual experiences […]dhw: Fits in neatly with my materialistic proposal that the cell communities between them also create something greater than themselves, which we might call the (dualistic) “soul” and which might possibly link up with other consciousnesses, possibly including a God.
DAVID: You are describing an 'emergent' consciousness, which means the immaterial somehow appears from the material. That's the HARD PROBLEM no one can solve.
That is exactly what the materialistic part of my proposal describes, but I am not pretending it solves the “HARD PROBLEM”. I offer it as a reconciliation between materialism and dualism.
I don't think it works.
DAVID: What 'other consciousnesses' are you referring to in linking? I'm not linked to yours. I can only assume you have one.dhw: The whole of evolution involves the linking up of cell communities, and if these cell communities are intelligent and together create new organs and organisms, they link their conscious intelligences together. My hypothesis does not exclude Sheldrake’s morphic resonance, in which a kind of generic consciousness emerges from that of individuals, and it does not exclude the possibility that there is a universal consciousness (which you call God) to which ours may be linked.
If the cells are intelligent is just as possible that they were designed to contain intelligent information.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
DAVID: You are describing an 'emergent' consciousness, which means the immaterial somehow appears from the material. That's the HARD PROBLEM no one can solve.
dhw: That is exactly what the materialistic part of my proposal describes, but I am not pretending it solves the “HARD PROBLEM”. I offer it as a reconciliation between materialism and dualism.
DAVID: I don't think it works.
It might be helpful if you would tell me WHY you think it doesn’t work.
DAVID: What 'other consciousnesses' are you referring to in linking? I'm not linked to yours. I can only assume you have one.
dhw: The whole of evolution involves the linking up of cell communities, and if these cell communities are intelligent and together create new organs and organisms, they link their conscious intelligences together. My hypothesis does not exclude Sheldrake’s morphic resonance, in which a kind of generic consciousness emerges from that of individuals, and it does not exclude the possibility that there is a universal consciousness (which you call God) to which ours may be linked.
DAVID: If the cells are intelligent is just as possible that they were designed to contain intelligent information.
What does “intelligent information” mean? It sounds impressively scientific, but as an explanation for evolution, what you offer us is computer programmes designed by your God 3.8 billion years ago, to be passed down for billions of organisms to switch on at certain times in order to create every evolutionary innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of life. That doesn’t sound quite so impressively scientific to me.
Under “broken feathers”:
DAVID: Why ask for cell cooperation than simply doing it yourself, which is probably God's view since He is in charge.
dhw: Cell cooperation is essential to all forms of life. If you think billions of computer programmes and personal interventions for each form of cooperation are simpler than a single invention, then so be it.
DAVID: Of course cell communities are designed to work together as they evolve.
So how does that make billions of computer programmes and personal interventions simpler than the single invention I call cellular intelligence?
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 05, 2018, 14:34 (2146 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You are describing an 'emergent' consciousness, which means the immaterial somehow appears from the material. That's the HARD PROBLEM no one can solve.
dhw: That is exactly what the materialistic part of my proposal describes, but I am not pretending it solves the “HARD PROBLEM”. I offer it as a reconciliation between materialism and dualism.
DAVID: I don't think it works.
dhw: It might be helpful if you would tell me WHY you think it doesn’t work.
Because it is pure materialism. I don't see a neutral position between materialism and dualism.
DAVID: If the cells are intelligent is just as possible that they were designed to contain intelligent information.
dhw: What does “intelligent information” mean? It sounds impressively scientific, but as an explanation for evolution, what you offer us is computer programmes designed by your God 3.8 billion years ago, to be passed down for billions of organisms to switch on at certain times in order to create every evolutionary innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of life. That doesn’t sound quite so impressively scientific to me.
I constantly present articles that show how information is carried in biochemical processes of life. You had no response to Sunday's: Sunday, June 03, 2018, 20:41 on non-DNA info and how it is carried in the embryo's cells. Were you not impressed by it? These articles are scientifically impressive to me.
Under “broken feathers”:
DAVID: Why ask for cell cooperation than simply doing it yourself, which is probably God's view since He is in charge.dhw: Cell cooperation is essential to all forms of life. If you think billions of computer programmes and personal interventions for each form of cooperation are simpler than a single invention, then so be it.
DAVID: Of course cell communities are designed to work together as they evolve.
dhw: So how does that make billions of computer programmes and personal interventions simpler than the single invention I call cellular intelligence?
I've shown you in the Sunday article how information is passed in cells.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
DAVID: You are describing an 'emergent' consciousness, which means the immaterial somehow appears from the material. That's the HARD PROBLEM no one can solve.
dhw: That is exactly what the materialistic part of my proposal describes, but I am not pretending it solves the “HARD PROBLEM”. I offer it as a reconciliation between materialism and dualism.
DAVID: I don't think it works.
dhw: It might be helpful if you would tell me WHY you think it doesn’t work.
DAVID: Because it is pure materialism. I don't see a neutral position between materialism and dualism.
It is not a neutral position but an attempt to show that the two positions do not have to oppose each other (= a reconciliation). It also removes the general association of materialism with atheism. This is clear if we take a theistic standpoint and propose that instead of your God inserting his consciousness into our brain, he invented a material mechanism that produces an immaterial soul, or consciousness like his own (much as humans are trying to do in their experiments with AI). My theory allows for (but does not champion – the theory remains neutral at this level) the independent existence of a non-material world. The frustrating thing about your opposition is that this idea removes the illogicality of your belief that the soul can’t think without the brain except when there is no brain!
However, this is best understood through my post of 5 January at 17.33 (under "Reconciling..") to which I referred quite specifically in my "theory". I have summarized it during our discussions, but will reproduce it now as a separate appendix.
DAVID: If the cells are intelligent is just as possible that they were designed to contain intelligent information.
dhw: What does “intelligent information” mean? It sounds impressively scientific, but as an explanation for evolution, what you offer us is computer programmes designed by your God 3.8 billion years ago [see below]. That doesn’t sound quite so impressively scientific to me.
DAVID: I constantly present articles that show how information is carried in biochemical processes of life. You had no response to Sunday's: Sunday, June 03, 2018, 20:41 on non-DNA info and how it is carried in the embryo's cells. Were you not impressed by it? These articles are scientifically impressive to me.
Of course information is carried in biochemical processes and the articles are scientifically impressive. Our human intelligence also conveys information through biochemical processes, but you do not hesitate to maintain that it is autonomous (free will). The question is not whether organisms carry and use information, but whether the billions of innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders are the product of their own autonomous intelligence or of billions of detailed computer programmes (“intelligent information”) planted 3.8 billion years ago in the first living cells or supplemented by direct divine dabbling. You have told us these are the two methods your God has used to control evolution, and I cannot see how you could consider them simpler than the invention of a single mechanism as the source of these products.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens/appendix
This is the post that attempts a reconciliation between materialism and dualism, and is integral to my “Theory of Intelligence”:
This [the reconciliation] entails synthesizing some of the theories we’ve been discussing, but my starting point is very different from all of them. I pointed out in the “brief guide” that someone on a planet billions of miles away with a powerful enough telescope would be able to view the crucifixion. Light is energy, and theoretically the visual image generated by a material event goes on for ever. The source is material (the actual crucifixion), but the image in the form of energy is not. It survives the death of the material source.
If we take this as an analogy, we can argue that although the material brain may be the source of the consciousness which contains all our non-material attributes – our thoughts, emotions, memories etc. – these are also a form of energy, or in other words the “image” produced by the materials is not material.
This ties in with two of the ideas we have already discussed: emergence, as the process whereby the property of the whole cannot be explained by the properties of its parts, and Sheldrake’s morphic field, which I take to mean all the attributes and information that comprise the identity of the individual. Once we think of consciousness in terms of energy produced by materials, and we link it to the analogy of the image produced by light, it seems to me that we have a reconciliation between materialism (materials are the source of consciousness) and dualism (the energy exists independently of the source).
We now come onto the subject of the “immortal soul”. My crucifixion analogy is limited because it is fixed, whereas consciousness is not. It continues to absorb and produce information so long as it exists, and this is where my hypothesis, Penrose’s and Sheldrake’s run into the same difficulty. My “energy”, Penrose’s “quantum information”, and Sheldrake’s “morphic field” are all immaterial products of the material being, and they may survive the death of the individual body in the sense that their already formed information can be accessed by others (like the image of the crucifixion). But that does not necessarily mean that the immaterial information/ energy/ morphic field is capable of undergoing any change once its source is extinguished. Penrose agrees with Hameroff that consciousness is “merely information stored at a quantum level”. But consciousness is not information; consciousness is awareness of information. It contains information – all the information that makes us what we are – but even if we can argue that the information itself may last for ever, the extra dimension of the conscious “I” which is aware of and uses the information cannot be explained as itself BEING information. To go back to my crucifixion image: the being with the telescope could theoretically observe every incident of my whole life, and if he was telepathic he could theoretically read every thought I ever had: all that information lives on. But it can’t go beyond what has already taken place.
I am making two points here. One, that materialism and dualism are not incompatible. But two, we are no nearer to solving the question of whether there is such a thing as a consciousness which can live on as a functioning, communicating, observing “I” after the death of its material source. That would require the purest possible form of dualism, with consciousness preceding materials – a concept that lies at the very heart of most religions and inevitably leads to God. I am not arguing against it, or against the possibility of an immortal, observing and thinking soul, as seems to be suggested by NDEs. I am simply saying that none of the hypotheses (quantum information, morphic field, everlasting energy) are of any help in settling the issue, and I would suggest that science is incapable of doing so, since it is restricted to a materialist approach to the whole subject. That’s why I like Penrose’s caution: “It’s possible,..can exist…perhaps indefinitely, as a soul” We shall just have to wait and see – or not see!
BACK TO THE PRESENT: The only thing I would add to this is that it would explain a number of psychic events that relate to the past: ghosts, déjà vu etc. But it would not, of course, explain those relating to the future or the unknown present (e.g. NDEs in which patients are given information they could not have known).
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens/appendix
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 06, 2018, 19:03 (2144 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: This is the post that attempts a reconciliation between materialism and dualism, and is integral to my “Theory of Intelligence”:
This [the reconciliation] entails synthesizing some of the theories we’ve been discussing, but my starting point is very different from all of them. I pointed out in the “brief guide” that someone on a planet billions of miles away with a powerful enough telescope would be able to view the crucifixion. Light is energy, and theoretically the visual image generated by a material event goes on for ever. The source is material (the actual crucifixion), but the image in the form of energy is not. It survives the death of the material source.
Problem: there is no image until a consciousness sees it. It is all a potential image before that, photons which carry information.
dhw: If we take this as an analogy, we can argue that although the material brain may be the source of the consciousness which contains all our non-material attributes – our thoughts, emotions, memories etc. – these are also a form of energy, or in other words the “image” produced by the materials is not material.This ties in with two of the ideas we have already discussed: emergence, as the process whereby the property of the whole cannot be explained by the properties of its parts, and Sheldrake’s morphic field, which I take to mean all the attributes and information that comprise the identity of the individual. Once we think of consciousness in terms of energy produced by materials, and we link it to the analogy of the image produced by light, it seems to me that we have a reconciliation between materialism (materials are the source of consciousness) and dualism (the energy exists independently of the source).
The energy of the brain which allows us to see the image is ions generated by the brain. No dualism in your statement. I view dualism as requiring a separate consciousness mechanism which is malleable and operates by a different form in life and death.
dhw: We now come onto the subject of the “immortal soul”. My crucifixion analogy is limited because it is fixed, whereas consciousness is not. It continues to absorb and produce information so long as it exists, and this is where my hypothesis, Penrose’s and Sheldrake’s run into the same difficulty. My “energy”, Penrose’s “quantum information”, and Sheldrake’s “morphic field” are all immaterial products of the material being, and they may survive the death of the individual body in the sense that their already formed information can be accessed by others (like the image of the crucifixion). But that does not necessarily mean that the immaterial information/ energy/ morphic field is capable of undergoing any change once its source is extinguished.
But you don't know that. The soul appears to be active, operative, in NDE's when informtion is added.
dhw: I am making two points here. One, that materialism and dualism are not incompatible. But two, we are no nearer to solving the question of whether there is such a thing as a consciousness which can live on as a functioning, communicating, observing “I” after the death of its material source. That would require the purest possible form of dualism, with consciousness preceding materials – a concept that lies at the very heart of most religions and inevitably leads to God. I am not arguing against it, or against the possibility of an immortal, observing and thinking soul, as seems to be suggested by NDEs. I am simply saying that none of the hypotheses (quantum information, morphic field, everlasting energy) are of any help in settling the issue, and I would suggest that science is incapable of doing so, since it is restricted to a materialist approach to the whole subject. That’s why I like Penrose’s caution: “It’s possible,..can exist…perhaps indefinitely, as a soul” We shall just have to wait and see – or not see!
Agreed.
dhw: BACK TO THE PRESENT: The only thing I would add to this is that it would explain a number of psychic events that relate to the past: ghosts, déjà vu etc. But it would not, of course, explain those relating to the future or the unknown present (e.g. NDEs in which patients are given information they could not have known).
It is clear, NDE's present known information from the past, which might be moments old, not the future.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens/appendix
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 06, 2018, 19:06 (2144 days ago) @ David Turell
dhw: This is the post that attempts a reconciliation between materialism and dualism, and is integral to my “Theory of Intelligence”:
This [the reconciliation] entails synthesizing some of the theories we’ve been discussing, but my starting point is very different from all of them. I pointed out in the “brief guide” that someone on a planet billions of miles away with a powerful enough telescope would be able to view the crucifixion. Light is energy, and theoretically the visual image generated by a material event goes on for ever. The source is material (the actual crucifixion), but the image in the form of energy is not. It survives the death of the material source.
Problem: there is no image until a consciousness sees it. It is all a potential image before that, photons which carry information.
dhw: If we take this as an analogy, we can argue that although the material brain may be the source of the consciousness which contains all our non-material attributes – our thoughts, emotions, memories etc. – these are also a form of energy, or in other words the “image” produced by the materials is not material.This ties in with two of the ideas we have already discussed: emergence, as the process whereby the property of the whole cannot be explained by the properties of its parts, and Sheldrake’s morphic field, which I take to mean all the attributes and information that comprise the identity of the individual. Once we think of consciousness in terms of energy produced by materials, and we link it to the analogy of the image produced by light, it seems to me that we have a reconciliation between materialism (materials are the source of consciousness) and dualism (the energy exists independently of the source).
The energy of the brain which allows us to see the image is ions generated by the brain. No dualism in your statement. I view dualism as requiring a separate consciousness mechanism which is malleable and operates by a different form in life and death. You keep mixing up content of soul which adds new info until death and how the soul might operate the same or differently in life and death. Differently is highly possible.
dhw: We now come onto the subject of the “immortal soul”. My crucifixion analogy is limited because it is fixed, whereas consciousness is not. It continues to absorb and produce information so long as it exists, and this is where my hypothesis, Penrose’s and Sheldrake’s run into the same difficulty. My “energy”, Penrose’s “quantum information”, and Sheldrake’s “morphic field” are all immaterial products of the material being, and they may survive the death of the individual body in the sense that their already formed information can be accessed by others (like the image of the crucifixion). But that does not necessarily mean that the immaterial information/ energy/ morphic field is capable of undergoing any change once its source is extinguished.
But you don't know that. The soul appears to be active, operative, in NDE's when informtion is added.
dhw: I am making two points here. One, that materialism and dualism are not incompatible. But two, we are no nearer to solving the question of whether there is such a thing as a consciousness which can live on as a functioning, communicating, observing “I” after the death of its material source. That would require the purest possible form of dualism, with consciousness preceding materials – a concept that lies at the very heart of most religions and inevitably leads to God. I am not arguing against it, or against the possibility of an immortal, observing and thinking soul, as seems to be suggested by NDEs. I am simply saying that none of the hypotheses (quantum information, morphic field, everlasting energy) are of any help in settling the issue, and I would suggest that science is incapable of doing so, since it is restricted to a materialist approach to the whole subject. That’s why I like Penrose’s caution: “It’s possible,..can exist…perhaps indefinitely, as a soul” We shall just have to wait and see – or not see!
Agreed.
dhw: BACK TO THE PRESENT: The only thing I would add to this is that it would explain a number of psychic events that relate to the past: ghosts, déjà vu etc. But it would not, of course, explain those relating to the future or the unknown present (e.g. NDEs in which patients are given information they could not have known).
It is clear, NDE's present known information from the past, which might be moments old, not the future.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 06, 2018, 15:13 (2145 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: It might be helpful if you would tell me WHY you think it doesn’t work.
DAVID: Because it is pure materialism. I don't see a neutral position between materialism and dualism.dhw: It is not a neutral position but an attempt to show that the two positions do not have to oppose each other (= a reconciliation). It also removes the general association of materialism with atheism. This is clear if we take a theistic standpoint and propose that instead of your God inserting his consciousness into our brain, he invented a material mechanism that produces an immaterial soul, or consciousness like his own (much as humans are trying to do in their experiments with AI).
Your idea asks God to make the brain more complex than it is, by having it invent its own soul by some on-board process. Isn't it easier for God just to gift some of His consciousness?
dhw: My theory allows for (but does not champion – the theory remains neutral at this level) the independent existence of a non-material world. The frustrating thing about your opposition is that this idea removes the illogicality of your belief that the soul can’t think without the brain except when there is no brain!
If the soul exists is two realms why can't it have a different mode of function in both? You still describe a static or rigid soul.
DAVID: I constantly present articles that show how information is carried in biochemical processes of life. You had no response to Sunday's: Sunday, June 03, 2018, 20:41 on non-DNA info and how it is carried in the embryo's cells. Were you not impressed by it? These articles are scientifically impressive to me.
dhw: Of course information is carried in biochemical processes and the articles are scientifically impressive. Our human intelligence also conveys information through biochemical processes, but you do not hesitate to maintain that it is autonomous (free will).
Because I use those mechanisms to create original thought.
dhw: The question is not whether organisms carry and use information, but whether the billions of innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders are the product of their own autonomous intelligence or of billions of detailed computer programmes (“intelligent information”) planted 3.8 billion years ago in the first living cells or supplemented by direct divine dabbling. You have told us these are the two methods your God has used to control evolution, and I cannot see how you could consider them simpler than the invention of a single mechanism as the source of these products.
Your 'autonomous intelligence' is just as nebulous a concept as your view of my faith that God supplies the intelligent information is nebulous. Both of your feet are in midair split by the fence you sit on. You have invented auto-intel as your God.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
dhw: It might be helpful if you would tell me WHY you think it doesn’t work.
DAVID: Because it is pure materialism. I don't see a neutral position between materialism and dualism.
dhw: It is not a neutral position but an attempt to show that the two positions do not have to oppose each other (= a reconciliation). It also removes the general association of materialism with atheism. This is clear if we take a theistic standpoint and propose that instead of your God inserting his consciousness into our brain, he invented a material mechanism that produces an immaterial soul, or consciousness like his own (much as humans are trying to do in their experiments with AI).
DAVID: Your idea asks God to make the brain more complex than it is, by having it invent its own soul by some on-board process. Isn't it easier for God just to gift some of His consciousness?
Why “more complex”? Even in your hypothesis, the soul lives in the brain, and consciousness and thought therefore emerge from the brain. So how do you know what the brain “as it is” is capable of? What does “gift” actually mean? Do you think your God spends his time popping into every womb (human and animal) inserting a bit of his immaterial consciousness into the brain of the foetus? Please give us details of how you think your God presents his “gift” if not through the materials of genetics. Or does he do it by some unknown “on-board process”?
DAVID: If the soul exists in two realms why can't it have a different mode of function in both? You still describe a static or rigid soul.
See “Introducing the brain”.
dhw: Of course information is carried in biochemical processes and the articles are scientifically impressive. Our human intelligence also conveys information through biochemical processes, but you do not hesitate to maintain that it is autonomous (free will).
DAVID: Because I use those mechanisms to create original thought.
If an animal, bird, insect or bacterium can solve problems, some of us would say that proves they can think. The fact that they and we convey or implement thoughts by biochemical processes does not prove that they and we are incapable of thought.
DAVID: Your 'autonomous intelligence' is just as nebulous a concept as your view of my faith that God supplies the intelligent information is nebulous. Both of your feet are in midair split by the fence you sit on. You have invented auto-intel as your God.
There is nothing nebulous about either concept. Mine is that organisms can think for themselves (though not at the human level of intelligence), and yours is that every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder was preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago (though you prefer to dress this up as “supplying intelligent information”), or directly dabbled by a universal intelligence you call God. I have not invented auto-intel as my God! Do you regard your own auto-intel (free will) as your God? I even recognize the possibility that your God may have been the inventor of “auto-intel”.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
by David Turell , Thursday, June 07, 2018, 15:19 (2144 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Your idea asks God to make the brain more complex than it is, by having it invent its own soul by some on-board process. Isn't it easier for God just to gift some of His consciousness?
dhw: Please give us details of how you think your God presents his “gift” if not through the materials of genetics. Or does he do it by some unknown “on-board process”?
If God's consciousness pervades the universe, (like your panpsychism) the human baby picks consciousness up from the universal consciousness as its complex frontal cortex develops, which fits the development of consciousness, just as babies have been shown in studies.
dhw: Of course information is carried in biochemical processes and the articles are scientifically impressive. Our human intelligence also conveys information through biochemical processes, but you do not hesitate to maintain that it is autonomous (free will).
DAVID: Because I use those mechanisms to create original thought.dhw: If an animal, bird, insect or bacterium can solve problems, some of us would say that proves they can think. The fact that they and we convey or implement thoughts by biochemical processes does not prove that they and we are incapable of thought.
Of course animals think and initiate their thoughts.
DAVID: Your 'autonomous intelligence' is just as nebulous a concept as your view of my faith that God supplies the intelligent information is nebulous. Both of your feet are in midair split by the fence you sit on. You have invented auto-intel as your God.dhw: I have not invented auto-intel as my God! Do you regard your own auto-intel (free will) as your God? I even recognize the possibility that your God may have been the inventor of “auto-intel”.
How do you explain the appearance 'autonomous intelligence' appearing in an inorganic universe? How do you explain life appearing? There must be an initiating force to create them.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
DAVID: Your idea asks God to make the brain more complex than it is, by having it invent its own soul by some on-board process. Isn't it easier for God just to gift some of His consciousness?
dhw: Please give us details of how you think your God presents his “gift” if not through the materials of genetics. Or does he do it by some unknown “on-board process”?
DAVID: If God's consciousness pervades the universe, (like your panpsychism) the human baby picks consciousness up from the universal consciousness as its complex frontal cortex develops, which fits the development of consciousness, just as babies have been shown in studies.
If the development of consciousness depends on the development of the frontal cortex, that “fits” the theory that the brain is the source of consciousness. Your version of “picking it up” makes it sound as if the frontal cortex becomes conscious of consciousness!
dhw: If an animal, bird, insect or bacterium can solve problems, some of us would say that proves they can think. The fact that they and we convey or implement thoughts by biochemical processes does not prove that they and we are incapable of thought.
DAVID: Of course animals think and initiate their thoughts.
You will have noted that I also included birds, insects and bacteria. Do baby animals, birds and insects (we’ll leave out bacteria for now) also pick up your God’s consciousness as their brains develop? I take consciousness to be a state of awareness – the ability to perceive and to think. It has no content of its own until there is something for it to be aware of, but I’m sure you will agree that the degree of awareness is variable between species and even between individuals. If the degree of awareness depends on the development of the brain (enhanced in humans), it follows the same pattern as mobility depending on the development of the limbs (enhanced in cheetahs), or the sense of smell depending on the number of olfactory receptors (enhanced in dogs). With my theist hat on, I can’t help feeling that if your God designed materials to generate all the other attributes that we associate with the different species, it would also "fit the theory" if he designed materials that enable them all to “think and initiate thoughts” rather than engage in some nebulous process of “picking up” the ability from the universe.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
by David Turell , Friday, June 08, 2018, 17:53 (2142 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: If God's consciousness pervades the universe, (like your panpsychism) the human baby picks consciousness up from the universal consciousness as its complex frontal cortex develops, which fits the development of consciousness, just as babies have been shown in studies.[/i]
dhw:If the development of consciousness depends on the development of the frontal cortex, that “fits” the theory that the brain is the source of consciousness. Your version of “picking it up” makes it sound as if the frontal cortex becomes conscious of consciousness!
I state like most others that animals are conscious, but don't have consciousness, aware that they are aware in simple terms. Your 'consciousness' is too broad. A complex frontal lobe is capable of receiving consciousness is all I've proposed.
DAVID: Of course animals think and initiate their thoughts.dhw: With my theist hat on, I can’t help feeling that if your God designed materials to generate all the other attributes that we associate with the different species, it would also "fit the theory" if he designed materials that enable them all to “think and initiate thoughts” rather than engage in some nebulous process of “picking up” the ability from the universe.
Does your woolly theist hat recognize the universe is conscious? you are back to pure materialism for consciousness.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
DAVID: If God's consciousness pervades the universe, (like your panpsychism) the human baby picks consciousness up from the universal consciousness as its complex frontal cortex develops, which fits the development of consciousness, just as babies have been shown in studies.
dhw:If the development of consciousness depends on the development of the frontal cortex, that “fits” the theory that the brain is the source of consciousness. Your version of “picking it up” makes it sound as if the frontal cortex becomes conscious of consciousness!
DAVID: I state like most others that animals are conscious, but don't have consciousness, aware that they are aware in simple terms. Your 'consciousness' is too broad. A complex frontal lobe is capable of receiving consciousness is all I've proposed.
I have specified elsewhere that there are degrees of consciousness, and human self-awareness is the highest degree known to us. Are you now claiming that only humans “pick up” your God’s consciousness, whereas animal/bird/insect consciousness is the product of their brains. (Actually, I thought you shared the Jewish belief that animals have souls.) Your comment does not change the fact that if the development of consciousness depends on the development of the frontal cortex, this fits in perfectly with the theory that the frontal cortex is the source of consciousness.
DAVID: Of course animals think and initiate their thoughts.
dhw: With my theist hat on, I can’t help feeling that if your God designed materials to generate all the other attributes that we associate with the different species, it would also "fit the theory" if he designed materials that enable them all to “think and initiate thoughts” rather than engage in some nebulous process of “picking up” the ability from the universe.
DAVID: Does your woolly theist hat recognize the universe is conscious? you are back to pure materialism for consciousness.
If I wear my theist’s hat, of course that entails a universal consciousness. And I then propose that your God assembled the materials that produced consciousness. If I wear my atheist hat, I will propose that chance or bottom-up panpsychism assembled the materials. And I will find all three proposals beyond my personal credulity. That makes no difference whatsoever to the theory. I keep emphasizing that the reconciliation between materialism and dualism lies (theistic version) in your God creating consciousness out of materials, and consciousness as a form of energy surviving independently of its source, just as images survive their sources. Whether this “soul” continues to think etc. after death is a matter of faith. You keep picking on ONE aspect of my “theory” and totally ignoring the rest.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
by David Turell , Saturday, June 09, 2018, 15:06 (2142 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I state like most others that animals are conscious, but don't have consciousness, aware that they are aware in simple terms. Your 'consciousness' is too broad. A complex frontal lobe is capable of receiving consciousness is all I've proposed.
dhw: I have specified elsewhere that there are degrees of consciousness, and human self-awareness is the highest degree known to us. Are you now claiming that only humans “pick up” your God’s consciousness, whereas animal/bird/insect consciousness is the product of their brains. (Actually, I thought you shared the Jewish belief that animals have souls.) Your comment does not change the fact that if the development of consciousness depends on the development of the frontal cortex, this fits in perfectly with the theory that the frontal cortex is the source of consciousness.
I have never agreed that animals/bird/insects have consciousness. They are conscious. I still think that the Jewish view of an animal soul is correct. But the animal soul is only conscious. A very complex frontal lobe can receive a mechanism for consciousness from the universal consciousness.
DAVID: Does your woolly theist hat recognize the universe is conscious? you are back to pure materialism for consciousness.
dhw: If I wear my theist’s hat, of course that entails a universal consciousness. And I then propose that your God assembled the materials that produced consciousness. If I wear my atheist hat, I will propose that chance or bottom-up panpsychism assembled the materials. And I will find all three proposals beyond my personal credulity. That makes no difference whatsoever to the theory. I keep emphasizing that the reconciliation between materialism and dualism lies (theistic version) in your God creating consciousness out of materials, and consciousness as a form of energy surviving independently of its source, just as images survive their sources. Whether this “soul” continues to think etc. after death is a matter of faith. You keep picking on ONE aspect of my “theory” and totally ignoring the rest.
I realize you know all the theories while accepting none.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
DAVID: I state like most others that animals are conscious, but don't have consciousness, aware that they are aware in simple terms. Your 'consciousness' is too broad. A complex frontal lobe is capable of receiving consciousness is all I've proposed.
dhw: I have specified elsewhere that there are degrees of consciousness, and human self-awareness is the highest degree known to us. Are you now claiming that only humans “pick up” your God’s consciousness, whereas animal/bird/insect consciousness is the product of their brains. (Actually, I thought you shared the Jewish belief that animals have souls.) Your comment does not change the fact that if the development of consciousness depends on the development of the frontal cortex, this fits in perfectly with the theory that the frontal cortex is the source of consciousness.
DAVID: I have never agreed that animals/bird/insects have consciousness. They are conscious. I still think that the Jewish view of an animal soul is correct. But the animal soul is only conscious. A very complex frontal lobe can receive a mechanism for consciousness from the universal consciousness.
I’m afraid I cannot see any distinction between having consciousness and being conscious. As I said above, there are degrees of consciousness, ranging from rudimentary to human self-awareness. If you think consciousness stems from God, and you accept that animals are conscious, then presumably even a very simple complex frontal lobe can also receive “a mechanism for consciousness from the universal consciousness”. But what exactly IS a mechanism for consciousness? A mechanism is a structure or system that performs a particular function. So you might just as well say your God provided organisms with a system or structure which performs the function of producing consciousness, and the name of the structure is “brain”.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
by David Turell , Sunday, June 10, 2018, 18:22 (2140 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I state like most others that animals are conscious, but don't have consciousness, aware that they are aware in simple terms. Your 'consciousness' is too broad. A complex frontal lobe is capable of receiving consciousness is all I've proposed.
dhw: I have specified elsewhere that there are degrees of consciousness, and human self-awareness is the highest degree known to us. Are you now claiming that only humans “pick up” your God’s consciousness, whereas animal/bird/insect consciousness is the product of their brains. (Actually, I thought you shared the Jewish belief that animals have souls.) Your comment does not change the fact that if the development of consciousness depends on the development of the frontal cortex, this fits in perfectly with the theory that the frontal cortex is the source of consciousness.
DAVID: I have never agreed that animals/bird/insects have consciousness. They are conscious. I still think that the Jewish view of an animal soul is correct. But the animal soul is only conscious. A very complex frontal lobe can receive a mechanism for consciousness from the universal consciousness.
dhw: I’m afraid I cannot see any distinction between having consciousness and being conscious. As I said above, there are degrees of consciousness, ranging from rudimentary to human self-awareness. If you think consciousness stems from God, and you accept that animals are conscious, then presumably even a very simple complex frontal lobe can also receive “a mechanism for consciousness from the universal consciousness”. But what exactly IS a mechanism for consciousness? A mechanism is a structure or system that performs a particular function. So you might just as well say your God provided organisms with a system or structure which performs the function of producing consciousness, and the name of the structure is “brain”.
No animal has the ability to develop the concept of self-awareness. They may look in a mirror and recognize themselves, but have no concept of self. We disagree on the definition of 'consciousness' and it is an important disagreement. Animals are conscious, no more than that, and it requires a brain to have that much awareness.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
DAVID: I have never agreed that animals/bird/insects have consciousness. They are conscious. I still think that the Jewish view of an animal soul is correct. But the animal soul is only conscious. A very complex frontal lobe can receive a mechanism for consciousness from the universal consciousness.
dhw: I’m afraid I cannot see any distinction between having consciousness and being conscious. As I said above, there are degrees of consciousness, ranging from rudimentary to human self-awareness. If you think consciousness stems from God, and you accept that animals are conscious, then presumably even a very simple complex frontal lobe can also receive “a mechanism for consciousness from the universal consciousness”. But what exactly IS a mechanism for consciousness? A mechanism is a structure or system that performs a particular function. So you might just as well say your God provided organisms with a system or structure which performs the function of producing consciousness, and the name of the structure is “brain”.
DAVID: No animal has the ability to develop the concept of self-awareness. They may look in a mirror and recognize themselves, but have no concept of self. We disagree on the definition of 'consciousness' and it is an important disagreement. Animals are conscious, no more than that, and it requires a brain to have that much awareness.
I did not say that animals were self-aware. I said “there are degrees of consciousness, ranging from rudimentary to human self-awareness.” Since you agree that animals are conscious (able to perceive and think, but in their case not to the degree of self-awareness), there is no disagreement between us on the definition of consciousness. You have not explained the difference between being conscious and having consciousness, and since animals have brains, I presume you believe that they too must have received their “mechanism for consciousness” from your God. But you have not explained what you mean by a “mechanism for consciousness”, which I have suggested might be called “brain”. You have ignored my post and set up a straw man of your own invention. Ts ts!
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
by David Turell , Monday, June 11, 2018, 15:43 (2140 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I have never agreed that animals/bird/insects have consciousness. They are conscious. I still think that the Jewish view of an animal soul is correct. But the animal soul is only conscious. A very complex frontal lobe can receive a mechanism for consciousness from the universal consciousness.
dhw: I’m afraid I cannot see any distinction between having consciousness and being conscious. As I said above, there are degrees of consciousness, ranging from rudimentary to human self-awareness. If you think consciousness stems from God, and you accept that animals are conscious, then presumably even a very simple complex frontal lobe can also receive “a mechanism for consciousness from the universal consciousness”. But what exactly IS a mechanism for consciousness? A mechanism is a structure or system that performs a particular function. So you might just as well say your God provided organisms with a system or structure which performs the function of producing consciousness, and the name of the structure is “brain”.
DAVID: No animal has the ability to develop the concept of self-awareness. They may look in a mirror and recognize themselves, but have no concept of self. We disagree on the definition of 'consciousness' and it is an important disagreement. Animals are conscious, no more than that, and it requires a brain to have that much awareness.
dhw: I did not say that animals were self-aware. I said “there are degrees of consciousness, ranging from rudimentary to human self-awareness.” Since you agree that animals are conscious (able to perceive and think, but in their case not to the degree of self-awareness), there is no disagreement between us on the definition of consciousness. You have not explained the difference between being conscious and having consciousness, and since animals have brains, I presume you believe that they too must have received their “mechanism for consciousness” from your God. But you have not explained what you mean by a “mechanism for consciousness”, which I have suggested might be called “brain”. You have ignored my post and set up a straw man of your own invention. Ts ts!
From my theory about universal consciousness, I can accept your comment: all brains receive a conscious state related to the universal consciousness. I have said the mechanism is at a quantum level in its organization and uses the brain for thought and in humans for introspection at a higher level of function.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
DAVID: No animal has the ability to develop the concept of self-awareness. They may look in a mirror and recognize themselves, but have no concept of self. We disagree on the definition of 'consciousness' and it is an important disagreement. Animals are conscious, no more than that, and it requires a brain to have that much awareness.
dhw: I did not say that animals were self-aware. I said “there are degrees of consciousness, ranging from rudimentary to human self-awareness.” Since you agree that animals are conscious (able to perceive and think, but in their case not to the degree of self-awareness), there is no disagreement between us on the definition of consciousness. You have not explained the difference between being conscious and having consciousness, and since animals have brains, I presume you believe that they too must have received their “mechanism for consciousness” from your God. But you have not explained what you mean by a “mechanism for consciousness”, which I have suggested might be called “brain”. You have ignored my post and set up a straw man of your own invention. Ts ts!
DAVID: From my theory about universal consciousness, I can accept your comment: all brains receive a conscious state related to the universal consciousness.
That is not my comment. A mechanism is not a state but, as I said earlier, a structure or system that performs a particular function, and my proposal is that the “mechanism for consciousness” is a structure that GENERATES (not receives) consciousness and is called a brain.
DAVID: I have said the mechanism is at a quantum level in its organization and uses the brain for thought and in humans for introspection at a higher level of function.
Since neither you nor I nor anyone else has a clue about organization “at a quantum level”, the phrase really isn’t very helpful. You keep saying that the soul or “separate consciousness mechanism” uses the brain for thought. So yet again: Does this mean that in dualism the separate mechanism cannot think without the brain (although it does when there is no brain), or does it mean that in life it processes the information provided by the brain, and uses the brain to express/implement its thoughts? In the past, you have sometimes said it’s the latter, but you change from day to day. What is today’s answer?
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 12, 2018, 17:53 (2138 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I did not say that animals were self-aware. I said “there are degrees of consciousness, ranging from rudimentary to human self-awareness.” Since you agree that animals are conscious (able to perceive and think, but in their case not to the degree of self-awareness), there is no disagreement between us on the definition of consciousness. You have not explained the difference between being conscious and having consciousness, and since animals have brains, I presume you believe that they too must have received their “mechanism for consciousness” from your God. But you have not explained what you mean by a “mechanism for consciousness”, which I have suggested might be called “brain”. You have ignored my post and set up a straw man of your own invention. Ts ts!
DAVID: From my theory about universal consciousness, I can accept your comment: all brains receive a conscious state related to the universal consciousness.
dhw: That is not my comment. A mechanism is not a state but, as I said earlier, a structure or system that performs a particular function, and my proposal is that the “mechanism for consciousness” is a structure that GENERATES (not receives) consciousness and is called a brain.
I modified your concept to fit my theory. Your statement above is pure materialism. I theorize that consciousness has an inherent mechanism all its own that can use the brain for thought in life or think without it in death.
DAVID: I have said the mechanism is at a quantum level in its organization and uses the brain for thought and in humans for introspection at a higher level of function.dhw: Since neither you nor I nor anyone else has a clue about organization “at a quantum level”, the phrase really isn’t very helpful. You keep saying that the soul or “separate consciousness mechanism” uses the brain for thought. So yet again: Does this mean that in dualism the separate mechanism cannot think without the brain (although it does when there is no brain), or does it mean that in life it processes the information provided by the brain, and uses the brain to express/implement its thoughts? In the past, you have sometimes said it’s the latter, but you change from day to day. What is today’s answer?
The answer never changes despite your efforts to reinterpret me from day to day. the soul uses the brain in life for receiving info and giving instructions and uses the brain networks to generate thought. It operates on its own in the afterlife because it has more than one method of operation at its disposal.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
dhw: That is not my comment. A mechanism is not a state but, as I said earlier, a structure or system that performs a particular function, and my proposal is that the “mechanism for consciousness” is a structure that GENERATES (not receives) consciousness and is called a brain.
DAVID: I modified your concept to fit my theory. Your statement above is pure materialism. I theorize that consciousness has an inherent mechanism all its own that can use the brain for thought in life or think without it in death.
Of course it is materialism. You have to read the rest of the theory to understand how it can be reconciled to dualism. “Use the brain for thought” is the obfuscation which I keep objecting to and which you keep repeating.
dhw: Does this mean that in dualism the separate mechanism cannot think without the brain (although it does when there is no brain), or does it mean that in life it processes the information provided by the brain, and uses the brain to express/implement its thoughts? In the past, you have sometimes said it’s the latter, but you change from day to day. What is today’s answer?
DAVID: The answer never changes despite your efforts to reinterpret me from day to day. the soul uses the brain in life for receiving info and giving instructions and uses the brain networks to generate thought. It operates on its own in the afterlife because it has more than one method of operation at its disposal.
“Uses the brain networks to generate thought” is the same slippery wording that I keep trying to grasp. Of course in dualistic interaction it uses the brain networks to provide and express what it thinks about, but if the soul is a “SEPARATE CONSCIOUSNESS MECHANISM” (your expression), what is its function in the relationship between soul and brain if it is not to do the thinking, i.e. to process the information provided, to work out its responses, and to pass on its instructions to the brain/body? As regards “methods of operation”, we have agreed that these refer to the means used by the SAME separate conscious mechanism to observe and communicate. See also “Introducing the brain”.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 13, 2018, 15:25 (2138 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: That is not my comment. A mechanism is not a state but, as I said earlier, a structure or system that performs a particular function, and my proposal is that the “mechanism for consciousness” is a structure that GENERATES (not receives) consciousness and is called a brain.
DAVID: I modified your concept to fit my theory. Your statement above is pure materialism. I theorize that consciousness has an inherent mechanism all its own that can use the brain for thought in life or think without it in death.
dhw: Of course it is materialism. You have to read the rest of the theory to understand how it can be reconciled to dualism. “Use the brain for thought” is the obfuscation which I keep objecting to and which you keep repeating.
dhw: Does this mean that in dualism the separate mechanism cannot think without the brain (although it does when there is no brain), or does it mean that in life it processes the information provided by the brain, and uses the brain to express/implement its thoughts? In the past, you have sometimes said it’s the latter, but you change from day to day. What is today’s answer?
DAVID: The answer never changes despite your efforts to reinterpret me from day to day. the soul uses the brain in life for receiving info and giving instructions and uses the brain networks to generate thought. It operates on its own in the afterlife because it has more than one method of operation at its disposal.
dhw: “Uses the brain networks to generate thought” is the same slippery wording that I keep trying to grasp. Of course in dualistic interaction it uses the brain networks to provide and express what it thinks about, but if the soul is a “SEPARATE CONSCIOUSNESS MECHANISM” (your expression), what is its function in the relationship between soul and brain if it is not to do the thinking, i.e. to process the information provided, to work out its responses, and to pass on its instructions to the brain/body? As regards “methods of operation”, we have agreed that these refer to the means used by the SAME separate conscious mechanism to observe and communicate. See also “Introducing the brain”.
If you keep in mind the software/hardware analogy you should not be confused. Both are required to operate the computer. I view the soul as software using the brain to create thought. I view me sitting at my computer to produce written thought in the same way as I visualize me using my brain to create thought. I hope your use of the word "obfuscation" does not imply that I am trying to confuse you.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
I am combining this thread with “Introducing the brain”, as we continue to go round in the same circles. I shall cherry pick quotes in order to avoid excessive repetition. When we talk of “consciousness”, I equate the term with the ability to perceive and think, but not with human self-awareness. On Sunday 10 June I summarized my understanding of dualism as follows:
dhw: Dualists like yourself normally believe that the two entities perform different FUNCTIONS in life, the soul being a “separate consciousness mechanism” which works with your body (brain), using the information your body supplies, and using the body (brain) to express or implement your thoughts. In death this same “separate consciousness mechanism” – your soul which has created the thoughts – survives and continues to create its thoughts, but now uses different methods (“operates by a different form”) to acquire information and to express/implement those thoughts. In life and in death the dualist’s soul remains the same “you”, performing the same function of thinking, feeling, remembering etc. That is the “static” element – you remain you.
DAVID: I can accept this.
However, in your very next post you took back your acceptance and wrote that the only thing you accepted was “operates by a different form”. And yet on 9 June, under “A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE”, you wrote a precise repetition of the description you keep accepting and then rejecting [my comments in square brackets]: “The soul receives observations, sensations, facts [= information supplied by the brain]; it then must analyze and order responses [= the soul does the thinking]. This is the thinking part of the process in life which uses the brain circuits [uses the brain circuits for what, if the soul does the analyzing and orders the responses? It uses the brain circuits to provide the information and to carry out its instructions.] In death the soul does all of that without the brain circuits.”
Exactly. We have agreed over and over again that in death it must change its manner of observing and communicating, but if this “separate consciousness mechanism” (soul) now does its analyzing and responding (= thinking) without the brain circuits, and its “soul personality structure remains the same” (your words), what else changes? Why does anything else NEED to change, if the soul is already a “separate consciousness structure” which in both worlds uses and processes the information provided?
DAVID: In my theory the soul is an immaterial software working with the brain as hardware. I'm stating two parts, a true dualism.
Yes indeed: two separate entities working together, the immaterial software soul providing the programmes/thoughts and the material hardware brain implementing them. And in your latest post you offer a new analogy, which also illustrates precisely the description of dualism I have outlined above:
DAVID: […] I view me sitting at my computer to produce written thought in the same way as I visualize me using my brain to create thought. […]
This time you (= your soul) think the thoughts, and you (your soul) use your computer (your brain) to produce the WRITTEN thought, i.e. to give material expression to your thoughts. You do not use the computer to “create” your thoughts – you use it to write them down.
DAVID: I keep saying the soul has the ability to change its functional mechanism between life and death. It requires/uses the brain in life to generate thought, but works on its own in death.
So when you sit at the computer to write down your thoughts, you (your soul) has not yet generated any thoughts for the computer to write down. Your soul (you) “uses the computer to generate” the thoughts. And your soul (you) is only able to generate its own thoughts when you haven’t got a computer. I'll let you into a secret: I really and truly believe, David, that you are able to generate thoughts without a computer. And I'll go even further. If there's an afterlife, I reckon it'll be the same immaterial "you" thinking, remembering, feeling etc. as the immaterial "you" in life. No new "separate consciousness mechanism" required.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
by David Turell , Thursday, June 14, 2018, 20:42 (2136 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: On Sunday 10 June I summarized my understanding of dualism as follows:
dhw: Dualists like yourself normally believe that the two entities perform different FUNCTIONS in life, the soul being a “separate consciousness mechanism” which works with your body (brain), using the information your body supplies, and using the body (brain) to express or implement your thoughts. In death this same “separate consciousness mechanism” – your soul which has created the thoughts – survives and continues to create its thoughts, but now uses different methods (“operates by a different form”) to acquire information and to express/implement those thoughts. In life and in death the dualist’s soul remains the same “you”, performing the same function of thinking, feeling, remembering etc. That is the “static” element – you remain you.
DAVID: I can accept this.
What I accepted is primarily in bold. You have stated that 'the brain implements' but you don't interpret that as I do. My implementation involves the soul interlocked with the brain to produce new thought. In death you state the soul uses 'a different form' to express...thoughts'. But you don't mean what I mean.
dhw: Exactly. We have agreed over and over again that in death it must change its manner of observing and communicating, but if this “separate consciousness mechanism” (soul) now does its analyzing and responding (= thinking) without the brain circuits, and its “soul personality structure remains the same” (your words), what else changes? Why does anything else NEED to change, if the soul is already a “separate consciousness structure” which in both worlds uses and processes the information provided?
Because the living brain is run by me, and we know where, if not how, thought is manufactured, it seems obvious to me a soul interlocked with brain circuits, then uses those circuits to initiate/produce thought. since it can't do that in death it changes its mechanism to operate a a solo thought processor.
DAVID: In my theory the soul is an immaterial software working with the brain as hardware. I'm stating two parts, a true dualism.Yes indeed: two separate entities working together, the immaterial software soul providing the programmes/thoughts and the material hardware brain implementing them. And in your latest post you offer a new analogy, which also illustrates precisely the description of dualism I have outlined above:
DAVID: […] I view me sitting at my computer to produce written thought in the same way as I visualize me using my brain to create thought. […]
dhw This time you (= your soul) think the thoughts, and you (your soul) use your computer (your brain) to produce the WRITTEN thought, i.e. to give material expression to your thoughts. You do not use the computer to “create” your thoughts – you use it to write them down.
It is just the same as me using my brain to produce thought which I 'hear' in my head.
DAVID: I keep saying the soul has the ability to change its functional mechanism between life and death. It requires/uses the brain in life to generate thought, but works on its own in death.dhw: So when you sit at the computer to write down your thoughts, you (your soul) has not yet generated any thoughts for the computer to write down. Your soul (you) “uses the computer to generate” the thoughts.
In material form!!! But my soul has to use my brain to direct my fingers to respond appropriately as the thoughts in my brain appear!! Stop twisting the discussion.
dhw: And your soul (you) is only able to generate its own thoughts when you haven’t got a computer. I'll let you into a secret: I really and truly believe, David, that you are able to generate thoughts without a computer.
Silliness!!
dhw: And I'll go even further. If there's an afterlife, I reckon it'll be the same immaterial "you" thinking, remembering, feeling etc. as the immaterial "you" in life. No new "separate consciousness mechanism" required.
How do you know that so assuredly when we do not know how consciousness arises? Especially when you state taht without a brain the soul must operate by a different mechanism.
Introducing the brain: where consciousness happens
by David Turell , Thursday, June 14, 2018, 21:45 (2136 days ago) @ David Turell
An intimate look in epileptic brains where consciousness happens:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180613113751.htm
"A new Tel Aviv University study takes researchers a step closer to solving this mystery. The study, drawn from data collected by electrodes implanted in patients with epilepsy, identifies and measures the neural activity associated with a new conscious experience.
***
"Because the conscious experience is private and inaccessible to observers, it is mostly studied in people who are capable of reporting their subjective experiences. Moreover, researchers are often limited to indirect measures of brain activity, such as EEG and fMRI. Here, the researchers took advantage of a unique medical opportunity: the surgical implantation of electrodes in the brains of patients with epilepsy to determine the precise areas responsible for their seizures. Patients were monitored for a week or two, until enough data on their seizures had been collected. During this time, the implanted electrodes recorded the activity of individual neurons in their vicinity.
"The researchers presented two different images to the patient, one to each eye, to probe the moment in which a new experience arises. For example: An image of a house was presented to the right eye and an image of a face to the left eye. In this situation, known as "binocular rivalry," the brain cannot combine the two images. Instead, the subject sees either the house or the face, and this alternates irregularly every few seconds. These alternations happened involuntarily, while the physical stimulus remained constant. This allowed researchers to isolate brain activity related to the change in perception and differentiate it from brain activity related to the physical stimulus.
"The scientists discovered that the activity in frontal lobe neurons changed almost two seconds before the patient reported an alternation in perception, and that the neuronal activity in the medial temporal lobe changed one second before a report.
"'Two seconds is a long time in terms of neural activity," Dr. Gelbard-Sagiv said. "We believe that the activity of these neurons not only correlates with perception, but also may take part in the process that leads to the emergence of a conscious percept."
"'The study captures individual cells in the human brain just before one conscious experience is replaced by another," Prof. Fried said. "It is a unique privilege to gain such a rare glimpse into human consciousness. "
Comment: The long delay in time indicates to me other parts of the brain got into the action to produce he conscious experience.
Introducing the brain: where consciousness happens
DAVID’s comment: The long delay in time indicates to me other parts of the brain got into the action to produce the conscious experience.
Thank you. Again this suggests to me that consciousness is the product of the different cell communities working together, pooling their different intelligences, much as ant communities produce a collective consciousness/intelligence that far exceeds that of the individual ant.
Introducing the brain: where consciousness happens
by David Turell , Saturday, June 16, 2018, 15:01 (2135 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID’s comment: The long delay in time indicates to me other parts of the brain got into the action to produce the conscious experience.
dhw: Thank you. Again this suggests to me that consciousness is the product of the different cell communities working together, pooling their different intelligences, much as ant communities produce a collective consciousness/intelligence that far exceeds that of the individual ant.
Your comments are pure materialism. My meaning is the soul uses more than the frontal cortex.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
dhw: Dualists like yourself normally believe that the two entities perform different FUNCTIONS in life, the soul being a “separate consciousness mechanism” which works with your body (brain), using the information your body supplies, and using the body (brain) to express or implement your thoughts. In death this same “separate consciousness mechanism” – your soul which has created the thoughts – survives and continues to create its thoughts, but now uses different methods (“operates by a different form”) to acquire information and to express/implement those thoughts. In life and in death the dualist’s soul remains the same “you”, performing the same function of thinking, feeling, remembering etc. That is the “static” element – you remain you.
DAVID: What I accepted is primarily in bold. You have stated that 'the brain implements' but you don't interpret that as I do. My implementation involves the soul interlocked with the brain to produce new thought. In death you state the soul uses 'a different form' to express...thoughts'. But you don't mean what I mean.
Thinking of something and implementing the thought are two different things! The concept of the spear is the immaterial thought, and the material production of the spear is the implementation of the immaterial thought. See your own finger image below for an equally vivid example. You agree above that the same SEPARATE consciousness mechanism which creates thought in life continues to create thought in death. So how can it be a SEPARATE consciousness mechanism if it isn’t able to think on its own? Yes, the SEPARATE conscious mechanism is interlocked with the brain in life to express and implement thought materially, but if it survives death, it must observe and communicate by different (psychic) methods. If I don’t mean what you mean by a different form, we are left with the following question:
dhw: […] what else changes? Why does anything else NEED to change, if the soul is already a “separate consciousness structure” which in both worlds uses and processes the information provided?
DAVID: Because the living brain is run by me, and we know where, if not how, thought is manufactured, it seems obvious to me a soul interlocked with brain circuits, then uses those circuits to initiate/produce thought. since it can't do that in death it changes its mechanism to operate a a solo thought processor.
Back you go to separating “me” from your soul! Your soul IS you. That is the identity supposed by dualists to survive the death of the body. If it does, I have agreed that it is housed in the body/brain, and of course they interlock. But if the soul, a SEPARATE consciousness mechanism, does the analyzing and the responding in life, as you made clear on 9 June, and if the same SEPARATE consciousness mechanism – the thinking, remembering, feeling soul – lives on in death, what other role does the brain play in “generating” the thoughts for which it has provided information and which it implements under the soul's directions as illustrated by your finger image below?
DAVID: […] I view me sitting at my computer to produce written thought in the same way as I visualize me using my brain to create thought. […]
dhw This time you (= your soul) think the thoughts, and you (your soul) use your computer (your brain) to produce the WRITTEN thought, i.e. to give material expression to your thoughts. You do not use the computer to “create” your thoughts – you use it to write them down.
DAVID: It is just the same as me using my brain to produce thought which I 'hear' in my head.
Once more: you ARE your soul. And you use your brain/computer to give material expression to your thoughts, as you explain below with three exclamation marks:
dhw: So when you sit at the computer to write down your thoughts, you (your soul) has not yet generated any thoughts for the computer to write down. Your soul (you) “uses the computer to generate” the thoughts.
DAVID: In material form!!! But my soul has to use my brain to direct my fingers to respond appropriately as the thoughts in my brain appear!! […]
Precisely! Your soul uses your brain to give material form (implementation/expression) to the thoughts provided by the soul, which is housed in the brain. (What do you think the soul is doing, if the thoughts only “appear”?) You keep confirming my description of dualism, which you then keep rejecting.
dhw: And I'll go even further. If there's an afterlife, I reckon it'll be the same immaterial "you" thinking, remembering, feeling etc. as the immaterial "you" in life. No new "separate consciousness mechanism" required.
DAVID: How do you know that so assuredly when we do not know how consciousness arises? Especially when you state taht without a brain the soul must operate by a different mechanism.
I don’t “know” or believe any of this. I am simply trying to explain what dualism means and entails. And I keep emphasizing that the “different mechanism” is that of observation and communication, because if the dualist’s “separate consciousness mechanism” or soul survives the death of the brain, clearly both processes will have to be psychic since there are no material means of observing and communicating. But the same SEPARATE consciousness mechanism will continue to analyze and respond etc. as it did in life, and as you keep agreeing and then disagreeing.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
by David Turell , Saturday, June 16, 2018, 14:59 (2135 days ago) @ dhw
dhw:... If I don’t mean what you mean by a different form, we are left with the following question:
dhw: […] what else changes? Why does anything else NEED to change, if the soul is already a “separate consciousness structure” which in both worlds uses and processes the information provided?DAVID: Because the living brain is run by me, and we know where, if not how, thought is manufactured, it seems obvious to me a soul interlocked with brain circuits, then uses those circuits to initiate/produce thought. since it can't do that in death it changes its mechanism to operate a a solo thought processor.
dhw: Back you go to separating “me” from your soul! Your soul IS you. That is the identity supposed by dualists to survive the death of the body.
But that does not have to mean the soul uses the same mechanism to think in life and in death. I/soul use my brain to think in life, but have no brain in death, therefore the soul produces thought in death by a different mechanism. The soul/software in life changes to a hardened form in death, acting as both hardware and software. I have maintained this point always.
DAVID: It is just the same as me using my brain to produce thought which I 'hear' in my head.
dhw: Once more: you ARE your soul. And you use your brain/computer to give material expression to your thoughts, as you explain below with three exclamation marks:
dhw: So when you sit at the computer to write down your thoughts, you (your soul) has not yet generated any thoughts for the computer to write down. Your soul (you) “uses the computer to generate” the thoughts.DAVID: In material form!!! But my soul has to use my brain to direct my fingers to respond appropriately as the thoughts in my brain appear!! […]
dhw: Precisely! Your soul uses your brain to give material form (implementation/expression) to the thoughts provided by the soul, which is housed in the brain. (What do you think the soul is doing, if the thoughts only “appear”?) You keep confirming my description of dualism, which you then keep rejecting.
Your words about the soul are interpreted differently by you and me. We are taking at each other. My point from above won't change:
"But that does not have to mean the soul uses the same mechanism to think in life and in death. I/soul use my brain to think in life, but have no brain in death, therefore the soul produces thought in death by a different mechanism. The soul/software in life changes to a hardened form in death, acting as both hardware and software. I have maintained this point always."
DAVID: How do you know that so assuredly when we do not know how consciousness arises? Especially when you state that without a brain the soul must operate by a different mechanism.dhw: I don’t “know” or believe any of this. I am simply trying to explain what dualism means and entails. And I keep emphasizing that the “different mechanism” is that of observation and communication, because if the dualist’s “separate consciousness mechanism” or soul survives the death of the brain, clearly both processes will have to be psychic since there are no material means of observing and communicating. But the same SEPARATE consciousness mechanism will continue to analyze and respond etc. as it did in life, and as you keep agreeing and then disagreeing.
My answer is above, twice.
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
dhw: […] what else changes? Why does anything else NEED to change, if the soul is already a “separate consciousness structure” which in both worlds uses and processes the information provided?
DAVID: Because the living brain is run by me, and we know where, if not how, thought is manufactured, it seems obvious to me a soul interlocked with brain circuits, then uses those circuits to initiate/produce thought. since it can't do that in death it changes its mechanism to operate a a solo thought processor.
dhw: Back you go to separating “me” from your soul! Your soul IS you. That is the identity supposed by dualists to survive the death of the body.
DAVID: But that does not have to mean the soul uses the same mechanism to think in life and in death. I/soul use my brain to think in life, but have no brain in death, therefore the soul produces thought in death by a different mechanism. The soul/software in life changes to a hardened form in death, acting as both hardware and software. I have maintained this point always.
Your basic premise always seems to be that in life, despite your dualism, the soul does not have the ability to THINK without the brain. If your God inserts a piece of his consciousness, or “separate consciousness mechanism” into your brain, what function does it have if not to think, to “analyze and respond” to information provided by the brain, and to give instructions to the brain to implement its thoughts (to all of which you keep agreeing)? Last Thursday again you agreed that it was the SAME separate consciousness mechanism in life and in death, but now suddenly it is different because it is “hard”! You have never before told us that the immaterial soul becomes “hardened” in death, and I have no idea what you mean. We have agreed that in death the dualist's soul must fulfil the expressing/implementing function of hardware by using psychic methods, but its software function of providing the thoughts that require expression/implementation will remain unchanged. Below is your own example of how soul and brain interact in life, and your changed and “hardened soul” (whatever it means) is totally unnecessary once you accept your own account of the interaction between soul and brain:
dhw: So when you sit at the computer to write down your thoughts, you (your soul) has not yet generated any thoughts for the computer to write down. Your soul (you) “uses the computer to generate” the thoughts.
DAVID: In material form!!! But my soul has to use my brain to direct my fingers to respond appropriately as the thoughts in my brain appear!! […]
dhw: Precisely! Your soul uses your brain to give material form (implementation/expression) to the thoughts provided by the soul, which is housed in the brain. (What do you think the soul is doing, if the thoughts only “appear”?) You keep confirming my description of dualism, which you then keep rejecting.
DAVID: Your words about the soul are interpreted differently by you and me. We are taking at each other. My point from above won't change…
Your point is that the immaterial separate consciousness mechanism, or piece of your God’s consciousness, is unable to think without the brain, and so when the brain dies the already separate mechanism or piece of God's consciousness, becomes ‘hard’ and then it can think. How about this for a hypothesis? Your piece of your God’s consciousness or “soul” or “separate consciousness mechanism” is the ABILITY TO THINK. He inserts it into the material brain, and it thinks about the information provided by the brain, instructs the brain to give its thoughts material form, and when the brain dies it returns to God complete with all the thoughts it has thought during life, and is still able to perform the same function of thinking, though it now uses immaterial (psychic) methods of observing and communicating. What objections do you have to this description of dualism, which dispenses both with a materialistic dependence on the brain for the ability to think, and with some nebulous “hardening” of the soul in death, and is completely consistent with the processes you described on 9 June and above, in which your soul uses your brain to direct your fingers to give material form to the thoughts which it (the soul) has created from inside your brain?
Introducing the brain: where the spiritual happens
by David Turell , Sunday, June 17, 2018, 15:26 (2134 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: But that does not have to mean the soul uses the same mechanism to think in life and in death. I/soul use my brain to think in life, but have no brain in death, therefore the soul produces thought in death by a different mechanism. The soul/software in life changes to a hardened form in death, acting as both hardware and software. I have maintained this point always.
dhw: Your basic premise always seems to be that in life, despite your dualism, the soul does not have the ability to THINK without the brain. If your God inserts a piece of his consciousness, or “separate consciousness mechanism” into your brain, what function does it have if not to think, to “analyze and respond” to information provided by the brain, and to give instructions to the brain to implement its thoughts (to all of which you keep agreeing)? Last Thursday again you agreed that it was the SAME separate consciousness mechanism in life and in death, but now suddenly it is different because it is “hard”! You have never before told us that the immaterial soul becomes “hardened” in death, and I have no idea what you mean.
What 'hardened' means is what was a software/hardware setup in life with soul (soft) and brain (hard) become a solo mechanism in death when the soul operates solely on its own (hardened).
dhw: We have agreed that in death the dualist's soul must fulfill the expressing/implementing function of hardware by using psychic methods, but its software function of providing the thoughts that require expression/implementation will remain unchanged.
How do you KNOW that the software in life and death MUST remain the same? It is a great example of your rigid thinking about the possible mechanisms of the soul in life and death
DAVID: In material form!!! But my soul has to use my brain to direct my fingers to respond appropriately as the thoughts in my brain appear!! […]
dhw: Precisely! Your soul uses your brain to give material form (implementation/expression) to the thoughts provided by the soul, which is housed in the brain. (What do you think the soul is doing, if the thoughts only “appear”?) You keep confirming my description of dualism, which you then keep rejecting.
DAVID: Your words about the soul are interpreted differently by you and me. We are taking at each other. My point from above won't change…
dhw: Your point is that the immaterial separate consciousness mechanism, or piece of your God’s consciousness, is unable to think without the brain, and so when the brain dies the already separate mechanism or piece of God's consciousness, becomes ‘hard’ and then it can think. How about this for a hypothesis? Your piece of your God’s consciousness or “soul” or “separate consciousness mechanism” is the ABILITY TO THINK. He inserts it into the material brain, and it thinks about the information provided by the brain, instructs the brain to give its thoughts material form, and when the brain dies it returns to God complete with all the thoughts it has thought during life, and is still able to perform the same function of thinking, though it now uses immaterial (psychic) methods of observing and communicating. What objections do you have to this description of dualism, which dispenses both with a materialistic dependence on the brain for the ability to think,
I've answered your thought that using the brain to think is materialistic. It is hardware/software, two parts which is a form of dualism. Unlock your rigid brain and really look at the possibilities for function. I recognize your rigidity is to try and defend against my theory th at bigger brains bring better artifacts by using thought more complex than before which is allowed by more complex brain circuits, a perfect explanation of the Lucy/Erectus difference in artifacts. God explains the gap in brain size. chance evolution won't.
Introducing the brain
DAVID: I view dualism as different than your view. First dualism is immaterial soul and material brain to which it is totally bonded in life. Then life and death are two different states in which the soul exists, another form of dualism, and it probably has different mechanism to adopt to the different existences it is in.
There is absolutely no difference between us here, except that there is no dualism in death! There is only soul.
DAVID: Your separatism is in stating the soul seems to sit off in mid-air and fires thoughts at the brain which it then accepts, when it is obvious the soul is working with the brain's circuits. I/soul can only communicate by using the brain circuits.
Where on earth do you get this “mid-air” from? If there is such a thing as a soul in life, it has to be within the brain/body, and I keep agreeing that the two work together. And I keep emphasizing that they have different functions, and the soul has to use the brain in order to express (communicate) its thoughts materially. You are manufacturing differences between us that simply don’t exist.
DAVID: The living you produces thoughts through your living brain.
dhw: In dualism the “living you” is a combination of mind/soul and body. You have not explained what you mean by “produce”. If the soul produces thoughts through the brain, do you mean the soul does the thinking, and the brain does the expressing/implementing? Or do you – with your Alice in Wonderland logic - mean the same soul can only have memories, feelings and the ability to think so long as it is in the brain, except that it has memories, feelings and the ability to think when it is not within the brain?
DAVID: It is more 'Through the Looking Glass' to use Louis Carroll. I see me and my soul looks back. I am my soul. Are you sure yours isn't floating away somewhere. I see full attachment. […]
Yes, you are your soul. And it is you who believe that the same soul will float away somewhere when your brain is dead.
DAVID: No it is not the same. In death it only remembers, observes and discusses.
dhw: I’m amazed that you should think that the soul in death can discuss things without being able to think, and can observe things without having any feelings about them. Especially when you keep agreeing that the soul in life is the same “personage” as the soul in death. How can you be the same personage if you can’t think or feel?
DAVID: Of course the soul thinks. Can you discuss without thought? I can't.
Thank you for repeating my own argument against your statement that it is not the same because “in death it only remembers, observes and discusses”. This whole debate revolves around your insistence that the soul depends on the brain for its ability to THINK!
dhw: The real irony in your remark is that my THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE offers you complete unity of brain and soul, and you don’t like it because it opposes your idea of a SEPARATE soul (piece of God’s consciousness) that pops in and then out of the brain, although it is NOT separate because it can’t think without the brain, except that it IS separate because it CAN think without the brain.
DAVID: I am not discussing 'separate' as the difference between life and death for the soul. You still don't understand how you deliberately look at the soul as a separate mechanism dictating to a brain, and I know I create the structure of my personage/soul from birth by working through my brain which is the only way I can reach my living soul. Please study the implications of that sentence. You created you. How?
You quite rightly said above: “I am my soul”. Now you have your soul “reaching” your soul through your brain. What you are describing is the ongoing development of the thinking, feeling, remembering, communicating, discussing you (soul) through the experiences it has in the material world as it gathers information through the brain, which gives material expression and implementation to its thoughts. There is no separation between soul and brain – but the one is immaterial and the other is material. That’s dualism, and I see no disagreement between us. The disagreement arises when you insist that there is no separation between the functions of the immaterial and the material.
DAVID: I assume/know parts of the soul's software is no longer required in the afterlife: no more structural change of personality. It is fixed. It observes the living, comments by telepathy, and is most likely relaxed and benign in thought about everything, especially the foolishness of humans struggling in life. My core memories and beliefs are retained. There should be no changes, no new concepts as none are required. Perhaps afterlife is boring.
You are welcome to speculate on what happens to you in the afterlife you believe in. Our disagreement concerns the role of the brain and the soul in life. The afterlife is only relevant in so far as you believe the soul cannot think without the brain except when there is no brain for it to think with. I have offered you a solution to this conundrum.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Sunday, June 03, 2018, 19:09 (2147 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: There is absolutely no difference between us here, except that there is no dualism in death! There is only soul.
Of course, in one of two realms the soul exists.
DAVID: Your separatism is in stating the soul seems to sit off in mid-air and fires thoughts at the brain which it then accepts, when it is obvious the soul is working with the brain's circuits. I/soul can only communicate by using the brain circuits.dhw: Where on earth do you get this “mid-air” from? If there is such a thing as a soul in life, it has to be within the brain/body, and I keep agreeing that the two work together. And I keep emphasizing that they have different functions, and the soul has to use the brain in order to express (communicate) its thoughts materially. You are manufacturing differences between us that simply don’t exist.
We do differ. In life I think the soul uses the brain networks to think. You don't.
DAVID: I am not discussing 'separate' as the difference between life and death for the soul. You still don't understand how you deliberately look at the soul as a separate mechanism dictating to a brain, and I know I create the structure of my personage/soul from birth by working through my brain which is the only way I can reach my living soul. Please study the implications of that sentence. You created you. How?
dhw: You quite rightly said above: “I am my soul”. Now you have your soul “reaching” your soul through your brain. What you are describing is the ongoing development of the thinking, feeling, remembering, communicating, discussing you (soul) through the experiences it has in the material world as it gathers information through the brain, which gives material expression and implementation to its thoughts. There is no separation between soul and brain – but the one is immaterial and the other is material. That’s dualism, and I see no disagreement between us. The disagreement arises when you insist that there is no separation between the functions of the immaterial and the material.
We will continue to disagree. You are still separating the soul from the brain in that you are insisting the soul dictates its original thoughts to the brain.
DAVID: I assume/know parts of the soul's software is no longer required in the afterlife: no more structural change of personality. It is fixed. It observes the living, comments by telepathy, and is most likely relaxed and benign in thought about everything, especially the foolishness of humans struggling in life. My core memories and beliefs are retained. There should be no changes, no new concepts as none are required. Perhaps afterlife is boring.dhw: You are welcome to speculate on what happens to you in the afterlife you believe in. Our disagreement concerns the role of the brain and the soul in life. The afterlife is only relevant in so far as you believe the soul cannot think without the brain except when there is no brain for it to think with. I have offered you a solution to this conundrum.
Only you have the conundrum, I don't. I see quantum soul with two modes of action in two different realms.
Introducing the brain
DAVID: […] life and death are two different states in which the soul exists, another form of dualism…
dhw: There is absolutely no difference between us here, except that there is no dualism in death! There is only soul.
DAVID: Of course, in one of two realms the soul exists.
Just to clarify: according to you the soul exists in both realms. Dualism only refers to life, when the self is composed of two parts, the material body and the immaterial soul.
DAVID: Your separatism is in stating the soul seems to sit off in mid-air and fires thoughts at the brain which it then accepts, when it is obvious the soul is working with the brain's circuits. I/soul can only communicate by using the brain circuits.
dhw: Where on earth do you get this “mid-air” from? If there is such a thing as a soul in life, it has to be within the brain/body, and I keep agreeing that the two work together. And I keep emphasizing that they have different functions, and the soul has to use the brain in order to express (communicate) its thoughts materially. You are manufacturing differences between us that simply don’t exist.
DAVID: We do differ. In life I think the soul uses the brain networks to think. You don't.
First you manufacture a “mid-air” difference, and then you scurry back to the ambiguity of “uses...to think”. So let’s try to pin this difference down. I say that the dualist's soul is the thinking part of the self that uses the brain to gather the information it thinks about, and then instructs the brain to give material expression and implementation to its thoughts through the brain’s network of connections with the rest of the body. Please tell me what you disagree with in this version of dualism. I’ll omit the following section of your post, as it revolves round the same question.
dhw: You are welcome to speculate on what happens to you in the afterlife you believe in. Our disagreement concerns the role of the brain and the soul in life. The afterlife is only relevant in so far as you believe the soul cannot think without the brain except when there is no brain for it to think with. I have offered you a solution to this conundrum.
DAVID: Only you have the conundrum, I don't. I see quantum soul with two modes of action in two different realms.
What do you mean by “action”? We have agreed that the soul (if it exists) must use different modes of observation and communication in the two different realms. Again you are manufacturing a difference between us. The conundrum you refuse to recognize is your insistence that the same soul is incapable of THINKING without the brain except when there is no brain to think with.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Monday, June 04, 2018, 23:07 (2146 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Where on earth do you get this “mid-air” from? If there is such a thing as a soul in life, it has to be within the brain/body, and I keep agreeing that the two work together. And I keep emphasizing that they have different functions, and the soul has to use the brain in order to express (communicate) its thoughts materially. You are manufacturing differences between us that simply don’t exist.
DAVID: We do differ. In life I think the soul uses the brain networks to think. You don't.
dhw: First you manufacture a “mid-air” difference, and then you scurry back to the ambiguity of “uses...to think”. So let’s try to pin this difference down. I say that the dualist's soul is the thinking part of the self that uses the brain to gather the information it thinks about, and then instructs the brain to give material expression and implementation to its thoughts through the brain’s network of connections with the rest of the body. Please tell me what you disagree with in this version of dualism. I’ll omit the following section of your post, as it revolves round the same question.
I've been quite clear in the past, as I was in the sentence that precedes your comment above. In life the soul uses the brain's networks to think. That is unchanged. In death the soul thinks on its own with a revised capability. Again the same position I keep stating. You call this incongruous because you think the soul has one static unchanging form, even though the two states of being are entirely different.
DAVID: Only you have the conundrum, I don't. I see quantum soul with two modes of action in two different realms.
dhw: What do you mean by “action”? We have agreed that the soul (if it exists) must use different modes of observation and communication in the two different realms. Again you are manufacturing a difference between us. The conundrum you refuse to recognize is your insistence that the same soul is incapable of THINKING without the brain except when there is no brain to think with.
Difference not manufactured! Two mechanisms in two different realms. Same basic soul personality at the core.
Introducing the brain
DAVID: We do differ. In life I think the soul uses the brain networks to think. You don't.
dhw: First you manufacture a “mid-air” difference, and then you scurry back to the ambiguity of “uses...to think”. So let’s try to pin this difference down. I say that the dualist's soul is the thinking part of the self that uses the brain to gather the information it thinks about, and then instructs the brain to give material expression and implementation to its thoughts through the brain’s network of connections with the rest of the body. Please tell me what you disagree with in this version of dualism.
DAVID: I've been quite clear in the past, as I was in the sentence that precedes your comment above. In life the soul uses the brain's networks to think. That is unchanged.
“Uses the brain networks to think” may be clear to you, but it is not to me, and that is why I have tried to resolve the ambiguity above, explaining the different FUNCTIONS of the two parts that make up the dualist’s self. Do please tell me what you disagree with in the version of dualism I have offered.
DAVID: In death the soul thinks on its own with a revised capability. Again the same position I keep stating. You call this incongruous because you think the soul has one static unchanging form, even though the two states of being are entirely different.
Of course life and death are different, and I keep agreeing that if the soul survives the death of the brain, it will have to observe and communicate differently. What else do you mean by “form”? You keep refusing to answer this question, as below:
DAVID: Only you have the conundrum, I don't. I see quantum soul with two modes of action in two different realms.
dhw: What do you mean by “action”? We have agreed that the soul (if it exists) must use different modes of observation and communication in the two different realms. Again you are manufacturing a difference between us. The conundrum you refuse to recognize is your insistence that the same soul is incapable of THINKING without the brain except when there is no brain to think with.
DAVID: Difference not manufactured! Two mechanisms in two different realms. Same basic soul personality at the core.
No difference here. Unless you are referring to “mechanisms” other than those of observation and communication. If so, please tell us what they are. The same “basic soul personality” has to include the ability to think, feel, remember etc., unless you believe you can be you without these attributes. But according to you, in life the immaterial soul does not have this ability because this ability depends on the brain, and yet in death the same immaterial soul does have this ability without the brain. That is where the incongruity lies.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 05, 2018, 14:47 (2146 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: We do differ. In life I think the soul uses the brain networks to think. You don't.
dhw: First you manufacture a “mid-air” difference, and then you scurry back to the ambiguity of “uses...to think”. So let’s try to pin this difference down. I say that the dualist's soul is the thinking part of the self that uses the brain to gather the information it thinks about, and then instructs the brain to give material expression and implementation to its thoughts through the brain’s network of connections with the rest of the body. Please tell me what you disagree with in this version of dualism.
DAVID: I've been quite clear in the past, as I was in the sentence that precedes your comment above. In life the soul uses the brain's networks to think. That is unchanged.
dhw: “Uses the brain networks to think” may be clear to you, but it is not to me, and that is why I have tried to resolve the ambiguity above, explaining the different FUNCTIONS of the two parts that make up the dualist’s self. Do please tell me what you disagree with in the version of dualism I have offered.
Your statement: " I say that the dualist's soul is the thinking part of the self that uses the brain to gather the information it thinks about, and then instructs the brain to give material expression and implementation to its thoughts through the brain’s network of connections" does not describe WHERE the soul 'thinks' about the info it uses the brain to gather in order to instruct the brain to express. I say it uses the brain's own networks. You say that the soul doesn't do that is the impression I get from your statements.
dhw: What do you mean by “action”? We have agreed that the soul (if it exists) must use different modes of observation and communication in the two different realms. Again you are manufacturing a difference between us. The conundrum you refuse to recognize is your insistence that the same soul is incapable of THINKING without the brain except when there is no brain to think with.
DAVID: Difference not manufactured! Two mechanisms in two different realms. Same basic soul personality at the core.
dhw: No difference here. Unless you are referring to “mechanisms” other than those of observation and communication. If so, please tell us what they are. The same “basic soul personality” has to include the ability to think, feel, remember etc., unless you believe you can be you without these attributes. But according to you, in life the immaterial soul does not have this ability because this ability depends on the brain, and yet in death the same immaterial soul does have this ability without the brain. That is where the incongruity lies.
Why can't you accept the soul functions differently in life and death in its thought mechanisms? We are both theorizing.
Introducing the brain
dhw: “Uses the brain networks to think” may be clear to you, but it is not to me, and that is why I have tried to resolve the ambiguity above, explaining the different FUNCTIONS of the two parts that make up the dualist’s self. Do please tell me what you disagree with in the version of dualism I have offered.
DAVID: Your statement: " I say that the dualist's soul is the thinking part of the self that uses the brain to gather the information it thinks about, and then instructs the brain to give material expression and implementation to its thoughts through the brain’s network of connections" does not describe WHERE the soul 'thinks' about the info it uses the brain to gather in order to instruct the brain to express. I say it uses the brain's own networks. You say that the soul doesn't do that is the impression I get from your statements.
In saying the soul is the thinking part of the dualistic self (which consists of immaterial mind and material body), and expresses/implements its thoughts through the brain’s network of connections, I mean that it is contained within the material body (or brain if you prefer), and uses the brain’s network of connections to express/implement its thoughts! Yet again you are trying to manufacture a difference that is not there. However, I’m pleased to see that you have NOT objected to the separation of FUNCTIONS: i.e. that the dualist’s soul is the thinking part of the self and uses the brain’s networks to express and implement its thoughts. And that is why it is illogical for you as a dualist to claim that the immaterial soul cannot THINK without the material brain until it doesn’t have a material brain to think with.
DAVID: Difference not manufactured! Two mechanisms in two different realms. Same basic soul personality at the core.
dhw: No difference here. Unless you are referring to “mechanisms” other than those of observation and communication. If so, please tell us what they are. The same “basic soul personality” has to include the ability to think, feel, remember etc., unless you believe you can be you without these attributes. But according to you, in life the immaterial soul does not have this ability because this ability depends on the brain, and yet in death the same immaterial soul does have this ability without the brain. That is where the incongruity lies.
DAVID: Why can't you accept the soul functions differently in life and death in its thought mechanisms? […]
I have accepted it over and over again, and have asked you over and over again what different “thought mechanisms” you are referring to, other than those of observation and communication. Why don’t you answer?
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 06, 2018, 19:13 (2144 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Difference not manufactured! Two mechanisms in two different realms. Same basic soul personality at the core.
dhw: No difference here. Unless you are referring to “mechanisms” other than those of observation and communication. If so, please tell us what they are. The same “basic soul personality” has to include the ability to think, feel, remember etc., unless you believe you can be you without these attributes. But according to you, in life the immaterial soul does not have this ability because this ability depends on the brain, and yet in death the same immaterial soul does have this ability without the brain. That is where the incongruity lies.
DAVID: Why can't you accept the soul functions differently in life and death in its thought mechanisms? […]
dhw: I have accepted it over and over again, and have asked you over and over again what different “thought mechanisms” you are referring to, other than those of observation and communication. Why don’t you answer?
I'm simply saying the soul is malleable in its ability to think. It uses brain networks in life, so we are then realistically connected to our immaterial soul, and in death the immaterial soul can think without the brain as shown by the NDE evidence. It must have the ability to use two forms of action. You demand a rigid fixed mechanism for the soul. For you it can only work one way! How do you know that?
Introducing the brain
DAVID: Why can't you accept the soul functions differently in life and death in its thought mechanisms? […]
dhw: I have accepted it over and over again, and have asked you over and over again what different “thought mechanisms” you are referring to, other than those of observation and communication. Why don’t you answer?
DAVID: I'm simply saying the soul is malleable in its ability to think.
Of course it’s malleable. If it wasn’t, there would be no development in our personality from the moment we were born! And you still haven’t answered my question.
DAVID: It uses brain networks in life, so we are then realistically connected to our immaterial soul and in death the immaterial soul can think without the brain as shown by the NDE evidence.
I keep trying to pin down your “uses”. Yes, the thinking soul uses the brain to gather the information it thinks about and to express/implement its thoughts materially. You keep agreeing and then trying to gloss over the implications. And yes, NDEs show that the same soul can think without the brain, so why do you keep insisting that in life it depends on the brain to THINK?
DAVID: It must have the ability to use two forms of action. You demand a rigid fixed mechanism for the soul. For you it can only work one way! How do you know that?
I demand no such thing. Yet again, I keep agreeing that it has to have two different ways of observing and communicating (= two different forms of action), and I keep asking you what other “forms of action” or “thought mechanisms” you are referring to, and you keeping dodging the question. So once more, please tell us what different forms of action you are referring to, if not observation and communication.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Friday, June 08, 2018, 00:29 (2143 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Why can't you accept the soul functions differently in life and death in its thought mechanisms? […]
dhw: I have accepted it over and over again, and have asked you over and over again what different “thought mechanisms” you are referring to, other than those of observation and communication. Why don’t you answer?
I've answered over and over. What are you missing? The soul has a brain-use mode of thought in life and can think on its own in death because it has that ability to change its functional self. In death it rejoins the universal consciousness from whence it came.
DAVID: I'm simply saying the soul is malleable in its ability to think.dhw: Of course it’s malleable. If it wasn’t, there would be no development in our personality from the moment we were born! And you still haven’t answered my question.
DAVID: It uses brain networks in life, so we are then realistically connected to our immaterial soul and in death the immaterial soul can think without the brain as shown by the NDE evidence.
dhw: I keep trying to pin down your “uses”. Yes, the thinking soul uses the brain to gather the information it thinks about and to express/implement its thoughts materially. You keep agreeing and then trying to gloss over the implications. And yes, NDEs show that the same soul can think without the brain, so why do you keep insisting that in life it depends on the brain to THINK?
Because it is interlocked with the brain in life and we know where thought takes place and where and how we reach ourselves. I can only work with my soul/ consciousness by using my brain.
DAVID: It must have the ability to use two forms of action. You demand a rigid fixed mechanism for the soul. For you it can only work one way! How do you know that?dhw: I demand no such thing. Yet again, I keep agreeing that it has to have two different ways of observing and communicating (= two different forms of action), and I keep asking you what other “forms of action” or “thought mechanisms” you are referring to, and you keeping dodging the question. So once more, please tell us what different forms of action you are referring to, if not observation and communication.
Thought! The soul must think in life and also in death. It has two mechanisms of doing so because it is changeable, using the brain in life and rejoining the universal consciousness in death.
Introducing the brain
This post repeats one of the discussion points under “THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE Part Two", but in each section, David finds different ways of evading the conclusion that the dualist’s soul cannot depend on the brain for its ABILITY TO THINK unless the brain is the generator of the soul, as I propose in my theory.
DAVID: Why can't you accept the soul functions differently in life and death in its thought mechanisms? […]
dhw: I have accepted it over and over again, and have asked you over and over again what different “thought mechanisms” you are referring to, other than those of observation and communication. Why don’t you answer?
DAVID: I've answered over and over. What are you missing? The soul has a brain-use mode of thought in life and can think on its own in death because it has that ability to change its functional self. In death it rejoins the universal consciousness from whence it came.
The thinking soul uses the brain in life to provide information and to give its thoughts material expression and implementation, just as you have described in the theory post. In death (if it really does survive), the SAME thinking soul must use non-material psychic means to gather information and to communicate. Please tell us how else it “functions differently”? You have agreed that it retains its personal identity, so I don’t know what “rejoining” God has to do with the discussion.
dhw: [...] why do you keep insisting that in life it depends on the brain to THINK?
DAVID: Because it is interlocked with the brain in life and we know where thought takes place and where and how we reach ourselves. I can only work with my soul/ consciousness by using my brain.
You ARE your soul, if NDEs are anything to go by. I don’t know what you mean by your soul reaching or working with your soul. We have agreed that in dualism the soul lives in the body/brain, and they work together in life, but the soul retains its individual identity in death. If your soul can only be/reach/work with itself by using the brain, then it can’t be/reach/work with itself when the brain dies.
dhw: […] once more, please tell us what different forms of action you are referring to, if not observation and communication.
DAVID: Thought! The soul must think in life and also in death. It has two mechanisms of doing so because it is changeable, using the brain in life and rejoining the universal consciousness in death.
You keep agreeing that it is the SAME immaterial thinking self in life as in death! But in life it uses material means of observing and communicating, and in death it presumably uses psychic means. So what “two mechanisms” of THINKING does it have?
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Friday, June 08, 2018, 18:09 (2142 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I have accepted it over and over again, and have asked you over and over again what different “thought mechanisms” you are referring to, other than those of observation and communication. Why don’t you answer?
DAVID: I've answered over and over. What are you missing? The soul has a brain-use mode of thought in life and can think on its own in death because it has that ability to change its functional self. In death it rejoins the universal consciousness from whence it came.
dhw: The thinking soul uses the brain in life to provide information and to give its thoughts material expression and implementation, just as you have described in the theory post. In death (if it really does survive), the SAME thinking soul must use non-material psychic means to gather information and to communicate. Please tell us how else it “functions differently”? You have agreed that it retains its personal identity, so I don’t know what “rejoining” God has to do with the discussion.
I repeat: the soul uses the brain networks in life to think, and thinks without it in death. I don't know how the mechanism changes but in the quantum world I views it as entirely possible since quantum studies are fully related to intelligent input to produce different outcomes.
dhw: [...] why do you keep insisting that in life it depends on the brain to THINK?DAVID: Because it is interlocked with the brain in life and we know where thought takes place and where and how we reach ourselves. I can only work with my soul/ consciousness by using my brain.
dhw: You ARE your soul, if NDEs are anything to go by. I don’t know what you mean by your soul reaching or working with your soul. We have agreed that in dualism the soul lives in the body/brain, and they work together in life, but the soul retains its individual identity in death. If your soul can only be/reach/work with itself by using the brain, then it can’t be/reach/work with itself when the brain dies.
It can, but is not interlocked with the brain at that time, so its mechanism is different. You still want a static soul mechanism in two different realms.
dhw: […] once more, please tell us what different forms of action you are referring to, if not observation and communication.DAVID: Thought! The soul must think in life and also in death. It has two mechanisms of doing so because it is changeable, using the brain in life and rejoining the universal consciousness in death.
dhw: You keep agreeing that it is the SAME immaterial thinking self in life as in death! But in life it uses material means of observing and communicating, and in death it presumably uses psychic means. So what “two mechanisms” of THINKING does it have?
Internal rearrangement of quantum parts, with same core soul.
Introducing the brain
Transferred from the THEORY post:
DAVID: […] The soul receives observations, sensations, facts; it then must analyze and order responses. This is the thinking part of the process in life which uses the brain circuits. In death the soul does all of that without the brain circuits. In life it is dual: material brain and immaterial soul.
dhw: That is precisely the theory of dualism that I have been trying to put across to you! The dualist’s soul is the THINKING part of the duality in life. It receives information from the brain, processes (analyzes) it, and “uses the brain circuits” to express or implement its thoughts materially (“order responses”). And it continues to be the same thinking self (“does all of that”) when the brain dies. It does not depend on the brain for its ability to THINK (to “analyze and order responses”). […]
DAVID: […] I see the soul in two forms for thinking. One is life using the brain and a different one in death.
How does a piece of your God’s consciousness have two different FORMS? Your version above is exactly the same as mine: the SAME thinking soul uses the brain in life to receive information, analyze it and “order responses”, i.e. express or implement its thoughts. In death (if it survives), it must use different (psychic) methods for receiving information and expressing/implementing its thoughts.
In this post you make the following comments on the same subject:
DAVID: I don't know how the mechanism changes but in the quantum world I views it as entirely possible since quantum studies are fully related to intelligent input to produce different outcomes.
We have agreed that the mechanism must change from material observation and expression of thought to psychic means. But once again: it is the SAME thinking soul (piece of your God’s consciousness) that is supposed to survive the death of the brain. Why does it NEED two different methods of THINKING? (Quantum studies are irrelevant: they won’t tell you that you have a piece of God’s consciousness which has two different mechanisms for THINKING, let alone what these mechamisms are!)
dhw: If your soul can only be/reach/work with itself by using the brain, then it can’t be/reach/work with itself when the brain dies.
DAVID: It can, but is not interlocked with the brain at that time, so its mechanism is different. You still want a static soul mechanism in two different realms.
And again: The “static” element of the soul is that it is the same thinking, feeling, remembering “you” in both realms. Of course in death it’s not interlocked with the brain which no longer exists, and so the mechanism that changes is that of observation and expression, but not of THINKING.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Saturday, June 09, 2018, 15:21 (2142 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: […] I see the soul in two forms for thinking. One is life using the brain and a different one in death.
dhw: How does a piece of your God’s consciousness have two different FORMS? Your version above is exactly the same as mine: the SAME thinking soul uses the brain in life to receive information, analyze it and “order responses”, i.e. express or implement its thoughts. In death (if it survives), it must use different (psychic) methods for receiving information and expressing/implementing its thoughts.
A good analogy is the AM/FM radio. Two methods of receiving information, and the person listening is the same person.
In this post you make the following comments on the same subject:
DAVID: I don't know how the mechanism changes but in the quantum world I views it as entirely possible since quantum studies are fully related to intelligent input to produce different outcomes.dhw: We have agreed that the mechanism must change from material observation and expression of thought to psychic means. But once again: it is the SAME thinking soul (piece of your God’s consciousness) that is supposed to survive the death of the brain. Why does it NEED two different methods of THINKING? (Quantum studies are irrelevant: they won’t tell you that you have a piece of God’s consciousness which has two different mechanisms for THINKING, let alone what these mechamisms are!)
dhw: If your soul can only be/reach/work with itself by using the brain, then it can’t be/reach/work with itself when the brain dies.
DAVID: It can, but is not interlocked with the brain at that time, so its mechanism is different. You still want a static soul mechanism in two different realms.
dhw: And again: The “static” element of the soul is that it is the same thinking, feeling, remembering “you” in both realms. Of course in death it’s not interlocked with the brain which no longer exists, and so the mechanism that changes is that of observation and expression, but not of THINKING.
You don't seem to realize that in life you imagine a separate soul entity dictating to various parts of the frontal lobe of the brain without using it to create thought. I am my soul, and I can reach it only through my brain networks and I (soul) create my own thoughts at will with those networks. In death my soul survives and operates by the different methods you enumerate above.
Introducing the brain: mnemonic memory tricks
by David Turell , Saturday, June 09, 2018, 18:16 (2141 days ago) @ David Turell
Used by humans who did not have written records:
https://aeon.co/ideas/this-ancient-mnemonic-technique-builds-a-palace-of-memory?utm_sou...
"Although imagined memory palaces are still used by memory champions and the few who practice the memory arts, they are best known from Greco-Roman times when great orators, including Cicero, used them to ensure their rhetoric was smooth, detailed and flawless. The physical memory palace, usually a streetscape or building interior, would become so familiar to the orator that it was always available to them in their imagination. By ‘placing’ one piece of information in each site, they could mentally stroll through their memory palace, location by location, drawing out each portion of the speech in the required order without missing any element.
"Received opinion is that this method of loci, as the technique is also known, dates to before Simonides of Ceos (c556-468 BCE), who is often credited as the inventor. However there is ample circumstantial evidence that indigenous cultures the world over have been using it for far longer than that. There is a continuous record dating back at least 40,000 years for Australian Aboriginal cultures.Their songlines, along with Native American pilgrimage trails, Pacific Islanders’ ceremonial roads and the ceque system of the Inca at Cusco all exhibit exactly the same pattern as the memory palaces described by Cicero. At each sacred location along these paths, elders would sing, dance or tell a story, all making the information associated with the location more memorable.
" Research with the Native American Navajo people, for example, shows that they memorise a classification of more than 700 insects along with identification, habitats and behaviour. And that’s just insects. A fully initiated indigenous elder would be able to relate stories equivalent to a field guide for all the birds, mammals, reptiles, fish and hundreds of insects within their environment.
"Another study shows that the Hanunoo people of the Philippines were able to identify 1,625 plants, many of which were unknown to Western science at the time. Add to that knowledge of astronomy, timekeeping, navigation, legal and ethical guidelines, weather and seasons, complex genealogies and belief systems, and you have a vast encyclopaedia stored in an interwoven memorised web: a web that is tied to a real or imagined memory palace.
"Cultures without writing are referred to as ‘non-literate’, but their identity should not be associated with what they don’t do, but rather with what they do from necessity when there is no writing to record their knowledge. Cultures without writing employ the most intriguing range of memory technologies often linked under the academic term ‘primary orality’, including song, dance, rhyme and rhythm, and story and mythology. Physical memory devices, though, are less often included in this list. The most universal of these is the landscape itself."
Comment: Humans with their amazing brains have all sorts of tricks to save information.
Introducing the brain
DAVID: […] I see the soul in two forms for thinking. One is life using the brain and a different one in death.
dhw: How does a piece of your God’s consciousness have two different FORMS? Your version above is exactly the same as mine: the SAME thinking soul uses the brain in life to receive information, analyze it and “order responses”, i.e. express or implement its thoughts. In death (if it survives), it must use different (psychic) methods for receiving information and expressing/implementing its thoughts.
DAVID: A good analogy is the AM/FM radio. Two methods of receiving information, and the person listening is the same person.
Do we need an analogy? We agree that if the soul survives the death of the body, it will need different, psychic means of observing (receiving information) and communicating.
dhw: […] The “static” element of the soul is that it is the same thinking, feeling, remembering “you” in both realms. Of course in death it’s not interlocked with the brain which no longer exists, and so the mechanism that changes is that of observation and expression, but not of THINKING.
DAVID: You don't seem to realize that in life you imagine a separate soul entity dictating to various parts of the frontal lobe of the brain without using it to create thought. I am my soul, and I can reach it only through my brain networks and I (soul) create my own thoughts at will with those networks. In death my soul survives and operates by the different methods you enumerate above.
On Saturday 9 June you don’t seem to realize that dualism entails TWO entities that work together in making “you”: your mind (soul) and your body (brain). On Wednesday June 6, however, you wrote: “I view dualism as requiring a separate consciousness mechanism which is malleable and operates by a different form in life and death.” And on Friday June 8 you confirmed: “Of course it is a separate quantum mechanism interlocked with the brain…” Dualists like yourself normally believe that the two entities perform different FUNCTIONS in life, the soul being a “separate consciousness mechanism” which works with your body (brain), using the information your body supplies, and using the body (brain) to express or implement your thoughts. In death this same “separate consciousness mechanism” – your soul which has created the thoughts – survives and continues to create its thoughts, but now uses different methods (“operates by a different form”) to acquire information and to express/implement those thoughts. In life and in death the dualist’s soul remains the same “you”, performing the same function of thinking, feeling, remembering etc. That is the “static” element – you remain you.
However, I should repeat that our disagreement here concerns the nature of what we might call “pure” dualism. I am not defending or attacking this concept. The theory I have proposed is an attempt to reconcile the two apparently contradictory approaches of materialism and dualism. It was all sparked off by your insistence that new THOUGHTS depend on the enlargement of the brain (materialism), which is a direct contradiction of your dualistic belief in an immaterial soul which continues to think even when there is no brain.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Sunday, June 10, 2018, 18:48 (2140 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: […] The “static” element of the soul is that it is the same thinking, feeling, remembering “you” in both realms. Of course in death it’s not interlocked with the brain which no longer exists, and so the mechanism that changes is that of observation and expression, but not of THINKING.
DAVID: You don't seem to realize that in life you imagine a separate soul entity dictating to various parts of the frontal lobe of the brain without using it to create thought. I am my soul, and I can reach it only through my brain networks and I (soul) create my own thoughts at will with those networks. In death my soul survives and operates by the different methods you enumerate above.
dhw: On Saturday 9 June you don’t seem to realize that dualism entails TWO entities that work together in making “you”: your mind (soul) and your body (brain). On Wednesday June 6, however, you wrote: “I view dualism as requiring a separate consciousness mechanism which is malleable and operates by a different form in life and death.” And on Friday June 8 you confirmed: “Of course it is a separate quantum mechanism interlocked with the brain…”
The point I am making is the consciousness mechanism is interlocked with the brain and through the brain I use it to develop thoughts and concepts.
dhw: Dualists like yourself normally believe that the two entities perform different FUNCTIONS in life, the soul being a “separate consciousness mechanism” which works with your body (brain), using the information your body supplies, and using the body (brain) to express or implement your thoughts. In death this same “separate consciousness mechanism” – your soul which has created the thoughts – survives and continues to create its thoughts, but now uses different methods (“operates by a different form”) to acquire information and to express/implement those thoughts. In life and in death the dualist’s soul remains the same “you”, performing the same function of thinking, feeling, remembering etc. That is the “static” element – you remain you.
I can accept this.
dhw: However, I should repeat that our disagreement here concerns the nature of what we might call “pure” dualism. I am not defending or attacking this concept. The theory I have proposed is an attempt to reconcile the two apparently contradictory approaches of materialism and dualism. It was all sparked off by your insistence that new THOUGHTS depend on the enlargement of the brain (materialism), which is a direct contradiction of your dualistic belief in an immaterial soul which continues to think even when there is no brain.
You agree to two mechanisms in life and death and then disagree! The larger brain allows a much higher level of conceptualization and shown by the artifacts produced by each level of homo in evolution. There is no denying the relationship. Put another way a more complex network of neurons allows a much deeper level of mental development.
Introducing the brain
DAVID: You don't seem to realize that in life you imagine a separate soul entity dictating to various parts of the frontal lobe of the brain without using it to create thought. I am my soul, and I can reach it only through my brain networks and I (soul) create my own thoughts at will with those networks. In death my soul survives and operates by the different methods you enumerate above.
dhw: On Saturday 9 June you don’t seem to realize that dualism entails TWO entities that work together in making “you”: your mind (soul) and your body (brain). On Wednesday June 6, however, you wrote: “I view dualism as requiring a separate consciousness mechanism which is malleable and operates by a different form in life and death.” And on Friday June 8 you confirmed: “Of course it is a separate quantum mechanism interlocked with the brain…”
DAVID: The point I am making is the consciousness mechanism is interlocked with the brain and through the brain I use it to develop thoughts and concepts.
If you have a "separate consciousness mechanism" which continues to think after the death of the brain, then clearly your consciousness does not use the brain for thinking: it uses your brain to gather the information it thinks about, and then to express or implement the thoughts and concepts it has developed. Hence “DUALism”, as described below.
dhw: Dualists like yourself normally believe that the two entities perform different FUNCTIONS in life, the soul being a “separate consciousness mechanism” which works with your body (brain), using the information your body supplies, and using the body (brain) to express or implement your thoughts. In death this same “separate consciousness mechanism” – your soul which has created the thoughts – survives and continues to create its thoughts, but now uses different methods (“operates by a different form”) to acquire information and to express/implement those thoughts. In life and in death the dualist’s soul remains the same “you”, performing the same function of thinking, feeling, remembering etc. That is the “static” element – you remain you.
DAVID: I can accept this.
Then why do you keep rejecting it? (See above and below).
dhw: However, I should repeat that our disagreement here concerns the nature of what we might call “pure” dualism. I am not defending or attacking this concept. The theory I have proposed is an attempt to reconcile the two apparently contradictory approaches of materialism and dualism. It was all sparked off by your insistence that new THOUGHTS depend on the enlargement of the brain (materialism), which is a direct contradiction of your dualistic belief in an immaterial soul which continues to think even when there is no brain.
DAVID: You agree to two mechanisms in life and death and then disagree!
The two mechanisms concern the mode of observing and of expressing/implementing, not of THINKING!
DAVID: The larger brain allows a much higher level of conceptualization and shown by the artifacts produced by each level of homo in evolution. There is no denying the relationship. Put another way a more complex network of neurons allows a much deeper level of mental development.
And back you go from the dualism you have accepted to the materialism you have rejected – though materialism may very well be true. Above, you agree that in dualism the immaterial soul and material brain interlock (= the relationship, which I do not deny) but perform different functions – respectively thinking, and supplying information plus expressing/implementing the thoughts – and now you say that if the material brain doesn’t get larger, the “consciousness mechanism” (soul) can’t think new thoughts. If your form of dualism is true, the larger brain “allows” the implementation of the soul’s new thoughts, as shown by the artefacts produced by pre-sapiens. You believe your God reaches down to enlarge everyone’s brain so that it can think deeper thoughts, although the brain doesn’t do the thinking, and yet you refuse to consider the possibility (theistic version) that he might have designed a “separate consciousness mechanism” called the brain to generate a form of immaterial consciousness like his own.
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Monday, June 11, 2018, 16:03 (2140 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The point I am making is the consciousness mechanism is interlocked with the brain and through the brain I use it to develop thoughts and concepts.
dhw: If you have a "separate consciousness mechanism" which continues to think after the death of the brain, then clearly your consciousness does not use the brain for thinking: it uses your brain to gather the information it thinks about, and then to express or implement the thoughts and concepts it has developed. Hence “DUALism”, as described below.
You still insist on a static consciousness mechanism, and I see it having two forms.
dhw: Dualists like yourself normally believe that the two entities perform different FUNCTIONS in life, the soul being a “separate consciousness mechanism” which works with your body (brain), using the information your body supplies, and using the body (brain) to express or implement your thoughts. In death this same “separate consciousness mechanism” – your soul which has created the thoughts – survives and continues to create its thoughts, but now uses different methods (“operates by a different form”) to acquire information and to express/implement those thoughts. In life and in death the dualist’s soul remains the same “you”, performing the same function of thinking, feeling, remembering etc. That is the “static” element – you remain you.DAVID: I can accept this.
Then why do you keep rejecting it? (See above and below).
But what I accept is your statement: (“operates by a different form”), which I state is saying it operates one way in life and different way in death. Do you mean what I mean?
dhw: However, I should repeat that our disagreement here concerns the nature of what we might call “pure” dualism. I am not defending or attacking this concept. The theory I have proposed is an attempt to reconcile the two apparently contradictory approaches of materialism and dualism. It was all sparked off by your insistence that new THOUGHTS depend on the enlargement of the brain (materialism), which is a direct contradiction of your dualistic belief in an immaterial soul which continues to think even when there is no brain.DAVID: You agree to two mechanisms in life and death and then disagree!
dhw: The two mechanisms concern the mode of observing and of expressing/implementing, not of THINKING!
There is our difference! The soul uses the brain circuits in life but can think on its own in death (from NDE evidence). Two forms of ability to think.
DAVID: The larger brain allows a much higher level of conceptualization and shown by the artifacts produced by each level of homo in evolution. There is no denying the relationship. Put another way a more complex network of neurons allows a much deeper level of mental development.dhw: And back you go from the dualism you have accepted to the materialism you have rejected – though materialism may very well be true. Above, you agree that in dualism the immaterial soul and material brain interlock (= the relationship, which I do not deny) but perform different functions – respectively thinking, and supplying information plus expressing/implementing the thoughts – and now you say that if the material brain doesn’t get larger, the “consciousness mechanism” (soul) can’t think new thoughts. If your form of dualism is true, the larger brain “allows” the implementation of the soul’s new thoughts, as shown by the artefacts produced by pre-sapiens. You believe your God reaches down to enlarge everyone’s brain so that it can think deeper thoughts, although the brain doesn’t do the thinking, and yet you refuse to consider the possibility (theistic version) that he might have designed a “separate consciousness mechanism” called the brain to generate a form of immaterial consciousness like his own.
We remain apart. A larger brain allows the soul to have more complex thought. It is possible God had the brain generate its own consciousness. If He is reaching in that way, why not just gift part of His own universal consciousness when a new brain appears?
Introducing the brain
dhw: Dualists like yourself normally believe that the two entities perform different FUNCTIONS in life, the soul being a “separate consciousness mechanism” which works with your body (brain), using the information your body supplies, and using the body (brain) to express or implement your thoughts. In death this same “separate consciousness mechanism” – your soul which has created the thoughts – survives and continues to create its thoughts, but now uses different methods (“operates by a different form”) to acquire information and to express/implement those thoughts. In life and in death the dualist’s soul remains the same “you”, performing the same function of thinking, feeling, remembering etc. That is the “static” element – you remain you.
DAVID: I can accept this.
dhw: Then why do you keep rejecting it? (See above and below).
DAVID: But what I accept is your statement: (“operates by a different form”), which I state is saying it operates one way in life and different way in death. Do you mean what I mean?
You keep accepting and then rejecting the WHOLE of the above description of dualism. It is the SAME “separate consciousness mechanism” (soul), but it “operates” – i.e. observes and expresses/implements its thoughts – differently in life and in death.
DAVID: There is our difference! The soul uses the brain circuits in life but can think on its own in death (from NDE evidence). Two forms of ability to think.
Once more: You keep agreeing and then disagreeing that the dualist’s soul is “a separate conscious mechanism” which does the thinking and which remains itself after death, but which “uses the brain circuits in life” to acquire information and to express/implement its thoughts materially. This is not two forms of “ABILITY TO THINK”! There is one ability to think, and two different worlds in which it operates and therefore uses two different means of operation. Your argument results in you now having the SAME piece of your God’s consciousness (i.e. the SAME ability to think, i.e. the SAME “separate conscious mechanism”) – which even returns to your God – unable to think without a brain but able to think without a brain, not separate from the brain but separate from the brain, dependent on the brain but not dependent on the brain.
DAVID: We remain apart. A larger brain allows the soul to have more complex thought. It is possible God had the brain generate its own consciousness.
Thank you. That is the only way you can reconcile your dualism with your materialistic belief that the soul depends on the brain for its “more complex thought”.
DAVID: If He is reaching in that way, why not just gift part of His own universal consciousness when a new brain appears?
How do you think he “just gifts” it? Does he attend the birth of every brained organism? Or (theistic version of my proposal) is his gift of consciousness generated by the brain which, like every other part of the body, stems from material genetics, i.e. does not require any action on his part when a new brain appears?
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 12, 2018, 18:14 (2138 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: But what I accept is your statement: (“operates by a different form”), which I state is saying it operates one way in life and different way in death. Do you mean what I mean?
You keep accepting and then rejecting the WHOLE of the above description of dualism. It is the SAME “separate consciousness mechanism” (soul), but it “operates” – i.e. observes and expresses/implements its thoughts – differently in life and in death.
DAVID: There is our difference! The soul uses the brain circuits in life but can think on its own in death (from NDE evidence). Two forms of ability to think.
dhw: Once more: You keep agreeing and then disagreeing that the dualist’s soul is “a separate conscious mechanism” which does the thinking and which remains itself after death, but which “uses the brain circuits in life” to acquire information and to express/implement its thoughts materially. This is not two forms of “ABILITY TO THINK”! There is one ability to think, and two different worlds in which it operates and therefore uses two different means of operation.
The difference between us, from this statement, is you believe the soul has an independent thinking core mechanism that is unchanged in life and in afterlife, and I think it has to use the brain during life to think. That is what I have called a 'static' form of soul, the basis of your theory in all of our discussions. And why I have used the AM/FM radio as an analogy for my theory.
dhw: Your argument results in you now having the SAME piece of your God’s consciousness (i.e. the SAME ability to think, i.e. the SAME “separate conscious mechanism”) – which even returns to your God – unable to think without a brain but able to think without a brain, not separate from the brain but separate from the brain, dependent on the brain but not dependent on the brain.
All part of being malleable in its function, which you don't accept.
DAVID: We remain apart. A larger brain allows the soul to have more complex thought. It is possible God had the brain generate its own consciousness.dhw: Thank you. That is the only way you can reconcile your dualism with your materialistic belief that the soul depends on the brain for its “more complex thought”.
But having God cause the brain to generate its own consciousness is pure materialism, no vestige of true dualism, in which I think the brain and the consciousness are two separate entities that work together in life.
DAVID: If He is reaching in that way, why not just gift part of His own universal consciousness when a new brain appears?dhw: How do you think he “just gifts” it? Does he attend the birth of every brained organism? Or (theistic version of my proposal) is his gift of consciousness generated by the brain which, like every other part of the body, stems from material genetics, i.e. does not require any action on his part when a new brain appears?
If the universal consciousness pervades all of the universe, it could easily automatically enter each new brain that appears.
Introducing the brain: sleep control center found
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 12, 2018, 18:57 (2138 days ago) @ David Turell
Sleep is an unconscious state we enter every day. The control center is found:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-06-center-brain.html
"Every night we spend several hours asleep and every morning we awaken to go about our lives. How brain circuits control this sleep-wake cycle remains a mystery. Our sleep is divided into two phases, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, and REM (or paradoxical) sleep during which most of our dreaming occurs. Important brain circuits have been identified using both experimental and clinical evidence, yet the precise underlying mechanisms, such as the onset, maintenance and termination of sleep and dreaming, is not well understood.
***
"When we fall asleep, the electroencephalogram (EEG) reveals that our brains generate rhythmic oscillations called "slow waves." These waves are important for keeping us asleep and for recovering after a full day of mental and physical activity. Common hypotheses hold that these slow waves are produced in the cerebral cortex, the upper part of the brain just below the surface of the skull. In contrast, wakefulness was thought to arise from the activity of "wake centers" located in the lower part of the brain including the brainstem that directly activates the neocortex, which is the part of the mammalian brain involved in higher-order brain functions such as sensory perception, cognition and generation of motor commands.
"In an important new study, neuroscientists at the Department of BioMedical Research (DBMR) at the University of Bern and the Department of Neurology at Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, found that neurons in the thalamus, a central hub of the brain, control sleep as well as wakefulness. The thalamus is connected to almost all other brain areas and supports important brain functions including attention, sensory perception, cognition and consciousness.
"The researchers headed by Prof. Dr. Antoine Adamantidis discovered that a small population of these thalamic neurons have a dual control over sleep and wakefulness, by generating sleep slow waves but also waking up from sleep, depending on their electrical activity. The research group used a technique called optogenetics, with which they used light pulses to precisely control the activity of thalamic neurons of mice. When they activated thalamic neurons with regular long-lasting stimuli the animals woke up, but if they activated them in a slow rhythmical manner, the mice had a deeper, more restful sleep.
"This is the first time that an area of the brain has been found to have both sleep and wake promoting functions. "Interestingly, we were also able to show that suppression of thalamic neuronal activity impaired the recovery from sleep loss, suggesting that these neurons are essential for a restful sleep after extended period of being awake," says Dr. Thomas Gent, lead author of the study. This shows that the thalamus is a key player in both sleep and wake."
Comment: We consciously decide to sleep, but the brain allows sleep to happen by activating this thalamic center. In this sense the soul gives up control.
Introducing the brain
dhw: Once more: You keep agreeing and then disagreeing that the dualist’s soul is “a separate conscious mechanism” which does the thinking and which remains itself after death, but which “uses the brain circuits in life” to acquire information and to express/implement its thoughts materially. This is not two forms of “ABILITY TO THINK”! There is one ability to think, and two different worlds in which it operates and therefore uses two different means of operation.
DAVID: The difference between us, from this statement, is you believe the soul has an independent thinking core mechanism that is unchanged in life and in afterlife, and I think it has to use the brain during life to think. That is what I have called a 'static' form of soul, the basis of your theory in all of our discussions. And why I have used the AM/FM radio as an analogy for my theory.
This is not what I believe, but it is the essence of dualism, as exemplified by your own statement that the immaterial soul is a separate consciousness mechanism which interlocks with the material brain, whose function you acknowledge to be the provision of information and the material expression/implementation of the soul’s thoughts. And you keep acknowledging that this same separate consciousness mechanism is what survives the death of the brain. Yes, in that sense, the separate consciousness mechanism is static, as it remains the same thinking, feeling, remembering self (which emphatically does NOT mean that it doesn’t learn and develop) . What is not static is the manner in which it observes and communicates without a brain in the immaterial world you believe in. (I’m afraid different radio signals don’t help me to understand why a piece of your God’s consciousness can’t think without a brain until there is no brain for it to think with.)
dhw: Your argument results in you now having the SAME piece of your God’s consciousness (i.e. the SAME ability to think, i.e. the SAME “separate conscious mechanism”) – which even returns to your God – unable to think without a brain but able to think without a brain, not separate from the brain but separate from the brain, dependent on the brain but not dependent on the brain.
DAVID: All part of being malleable in its function, which you don't accept.
It is malleable in its function of observing and communicating. But it is the same separate immaterial, THINKING part of the self in life and in death.
DAVID: We remain apart. A larger brain allows the soul to have more complex thought. It is possible God had the brain generate its own consciousness.
dhw: Thank you. That is the only way you can reconcile your dualism with your materialistic belief that the soul depends on the brain for its “more complex thought”.
DAVID: But having God cause the brain to generate its own consciousness is pure materialism, no vestige of true dualism, in which I think the brain and the consciousness are two separate entities that work together in life.
Yes, that is the true dualism which you profess to believe in except that you insist that the soul (the thinking part of the self) depends on the brain for its ability to THINK, and that makes you a materialist. (I have no objections to that. I object only to the inconsistency.)
DAVID: If the universal consciousness pervades all of the universe, it could easily automatically enter each new brain that appears.
I presume your God’s consciousness (which I would equate with the ability to think) doesn’t require a brain in order to do its thinking, so why does it need a brain to do its thinking when it easily automatically enters, but doesn’t need it when it easily automatically exits?
Introducing the brain
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 13, 2018, 19:38 (2137 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The difference between us, from this statement, is you believe the soul has an independent thinking core mechanism that is unchanged in life and in afterlife, and I think it has to use the brain during life to think. That is what I have called a 'static' form of soul, the basis of your theory in all of our discussions. And why I have used the AM/FM radio as an analogy for my theory.
dhw: This is not what I believe, but it is the essence of dualism, as exemplified by your own statement that the immaterial soul is a separate consciousness mechanism which interlocks with the material brain, whose function you acknowledge to be the provision of information and the material expression/implementation of the soul’s thoughts. And you keep acknowledging that this same separate consciousness mechanism is what survives the death of the brain.
There is your error in understanding my point in bold! I keep saying the soul has the ability to change its functional mechanism between life and death. It requires/uses the brain in life to generate thought, but works on its own in death.
dhw: Yes, in that sense, the separate consciousness mechanism is static, as it remains the same thinking, feeling, remembering self (which emphatically does NOT mean that it doesn’t learn and develop) . What is not static is the manner in which it observes and communicates without a brain in the immaterial world you believe in.
Your thoughts, never mine. Soul personality structure remains the same, but the thought ability is changed in death.
dhw: It is malleable in its function of observing and communicating. But it is the same separate immaterial, THINKING part of the self in life and in death.
This is your belief which you keep attempting to impose on me.
DAVID: But having God cause the brain to generate its own consciousness is pure materialism, no vestige of true dualism, in which I think the brain and the consciousness are two separate entities that work together in life.dhw: Yes, that is the true dualism which you profess to believe in except that you insist that the soul (the thinking part of the self) depends on the brain for its ability to THINK, and that makes you a materialist.
In my theory the soul is an immaterial software working with the brain as hardware. I'm stating two parts, a true dualism. I don't see your materialism except when you have God making the soul arise from the brain.
DAVID: If the universal consciousness pervades all of the universe, it could easily automatically enter each new brain that appears.dhw: I presume your God’s consciousness (which I would equate with the ability to think) doesn’t require a brain in order to do its thinking, so why does it need a brain to do its thinking when it easily automatically enters, but doesn’t need it when it easily automatically exits?
Explained above. Two states of soul mechanisms for thought. God is immaterial but He created material life. He had to have immaterial thought interface with the material brains that appeared, both the conscious ones and the ones with consciousness.
Introducing the brain: the role of glia cells
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 19, 2018, 00:59 (2132 days ago) @ David Turell
They function in memory and learning :
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-06-overlooked-glial-cell-key-memory.html
"Glial cells surround neurons and provide support—not unlike hospital staff and nurses supporting doctors to keep operations running smoothly. These often-overlooked cells, which include oligodendrocytes and astrocytes, are the most abundant cell types in the central nervous system.
"But these cells do more than support neurons. They also actively influence them, University of California, Riverside, researchers report.
"The researchers focused on astrocytes—star-shaped cells that greatly outnumber neurons—in mice, and found that when these cells overproduce a protein called ephrin-B1, the ability to retain memory weakens.
"We examined mouse learning behaviors and found that overproduction of this protein in astrocytes can lead to impaired retention of contextual memory and the ability to navigate in space," said Iryna Ethell, a professor of biomedical sciences in the School of Medicine, who led the research. "We think that astrocytes expressing too much of ephrin-B1 can attack neurons and remove synapses, the connections through which neurons communicate."
***
"'The overproduction of ephrin-B1 can be a novel mechanism by which unwanted synapses are removed in the healthy brain, with excessive removal leading to neurodegeneration" Ethell said.
"While the research was done on a mouse model, the results are applicable in humans whose astrocytes also produce ephrin-B1. Astrocytes tend to increase ephrin-B1 production during traumatic brain injury – which is what led Ethell to pursue the current research.
***
"'Excessive loss of synapses is a problem," Ethell said. "The hippocampus, the region of the brain associated primarily with memory, is plastic. Here, new neuronal connections are formed when we learn something new. But the hippocampus has a limited capacity; some connections need to go to 'make space' for new connections—new memories. To learn, we must first forget."
"In contrast to an ephrin-B1 increase, when this protein decreases (or is down-regulated) it results in more synapses—and better learning. The astrocytes, in this case, are not able to attach to the synapses.
"'But you don't want to remember everything," said Amanda Q Nguyen, a Neuroscience Graduate Program student working in Ethell's lab, and a co-first author of the research paper. "It's all about maintaining a balance: being able to learn but also to forget."
"Advice the researchers have for the public is simple: keep the brain—that is, the neurons—active.
"'Reading and solving puzzles is a good start," Ethell said."
Comment: Another way the brain/material side of dualism reacts, showing how the brain interfaces with the active soul/consciousness for learning and memory. Note how astrocytes are so plentiful compared to neurons. As usual these represent feedback controls that maintain consistency in the balance of living cells or organs.
Introducing the brain: different consciousness research
by David Turell , Thursday, September 12, 2019, 21:16 (1681 days ago) @ David Turell
Studying it from a brain harmonics viewpoint:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/why-we-need-to-study-consciousness/?u...
"... as philosopher Galen Strawson insightfully pointed out in a New York Times opinion piece, consciousness is “the only thing in the universe whose ultimate intrinsic nature we can claim to know.”
"This is a crucial point. We don’t have direct access to the outer world. Instead we experience it through the filter of our consciousness. We have no idea what the color blue really looks like “out there,” only how it appears to us “in here.” Furthermore, as some cognitive scientists like Donald Hoffman have argued in recent years, external reality is likely to be far different from our perceptions of it. The human brain has been optimized, through the process of evolution, to model reality in the way that’s most conducive to its survival, not in the way that most faithfully represents the world.
***
" It seems that my consciousness of, say, the color of the chair is categorically different from the electrical impulses fired by the neurons in my brain that detect color. Similarly, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to explain how the feeling of pain reduces to the stimulation of certain fibers in my nervous system. Bridging this explanatory gap is known as the “hard problem of consciousness.”
***
"I had the privilege of interning at the Qualia Research Institute (QRI), a San Francisco–based research nonprofit that is dedicated to discovering the science of consciousness (qualia are subjective experiences). Its approach rests on two core philosophical assumptions: The first is “qualia formalism,” which claims that our subjective experience has a mathematical structure. The second is “valence realism,” the view that we can objectively measure the so-called valence of conscious experience—that is, how pleasant an experience feels.
***
"QRI claims that emotional valence corresponds to the weighted sum of the consonance, dissonance and noise in the harmonics of a given brain state. We calculate the dissonance between CSHWs in a way that’s similar to computing the dissonance of a combination of musical notes. Like sound, brain harmonics with alike frequencies (i.e. frequencies falling within a "critical bandwidth") and high amplitudes will cause mutual dissonance, and the total dissonance is equivalent to the sum of the dissonance between all possible pairs of harmonics.
"We can calculate the dissonance between CSHWs by determining their spatiotemporal proximity. In particular, harmonics that overlap with each other in a short interval of time would be highly unpleasant. By subtracting the dissonance and noise from the brain state, we obtain the amount of consonance.
***
QRI is still in the very early stages of testing the symmetry theory of valence, and it needs funding to run scientific trials on human subjects. If the theory proves to be correct, it will have groundbreaking implications for mental well-being and our understanding of consciousness. With an objective framework for determining the brain states that are associated with high and low emotional valence, we can design therapeutics and interventions that dramatically improve the quality of subjective experience. Hence we could treat mental disorders such as depression more effectively than status quo antidepressants while also enhancing the baseline mood for healthy people.
"You may notice that the symmetry theory of valence doesn’t directly solve the hard problem of consciousness. It is meant to explain the valence of experience, not the nature of experience and how, if at all, it emerges from the brain. Valence, however, is arguably the defining feature of consciousness. Indeed, it seems that there is nothing more fundamental to consciousness than the felt-sense of whether the experience is good or bad.
"Without this, the experience wouldn't matter, at least not intrinsically.Indeed, it seems that there is nothing more fundamental to consciousness than the subjective feeling of an experience. QRI has one of the few theories that makes empirical claims about the mathematical structure that corresponds to valence. Consequently, it has a much more tractable approach to consciousness than past philosophical speculation. With this perspective, QRI may carry the keys to unlocking the answer to a profound enigma—that we’ve known all along."
Comment: They are certainly not going to solve the hard problem. I frankly don't know what they are really doing, but it may be worth the trouble to uncover something that helps. It is certainly clear that what the brain gives us is second-hand information compared to absolute reality.
Introducing the brain: different consciousness research
QUOTES: "I had the privilege of interning at the Qualia Research Institute (QRI), a San Francisco–based research nonprofit that is dedicated to discovering the science of consciousness (qualia are subjective experiences). Its approach rests on two core philosophical assumptions: The first is “qualia formalism,” which claims that our subjective experience has a mathematical structure. The second is “valence realism,” the view that we can objectively measure the so-called valence of conscious experience—that is, how pleasant an experience feels.
“QRI is still in the very early stages of testing the symmetry theory of valence, and it needs funding to run scientific trials on human subjects.” (dhw's bold)
DAVID: They are certainly not going to solve the hard problem. I frankly don't know what they are really doing, but it may be worth the trouble to uncover something that helps. It is certainly clear that what the brain gives us is second-hand information compared to absolute reality.
I join you in having no idea what they are on about. We all know that our perception is subjective, but I don’t understand the concept or significance of this subjectivity having a “mathematical structure” or of “valence realism” as an objective measure of how pleasant an experience feels. It all sounds very grand and scientific, but my sceptical mind can’t help feeling that the most significant aspect of the whole thing is the clause I have bolded.
Introducing the brain: new consciousness research
by David Turell , Sunday, July 05, 2020, 23:09 (1384 days ago) @ dhw
Looks for parts of the brain aware of 'I' and 'Me' which brings awareness of the body into the picture:
https://mindmatters.ai/2020/07/the-grammar-of-consciousness-i-vs-me/
"In a long and interesting (paywalled) article about theories of consciousness, we learn about efforts to distinguish between “I” and “me.” In one experiment, a neuroscientist, Catherine Tallon-Baudry has tried to distinguish:
"This time, they homed in on the distinction between “I” and “me”. Tallon-Baudry says “I” captures the most basic aspect of self – the aspect that comes before thought, the unified entity that does the thinking. It is fundamentally different from the kind of reflection about “me” that implies monitoring different bodily functions without that sense of unity.
"To see if they could show that the brain treats those two concepts differently too, Tallon-Baudryʼs team asked people who were having their brain scanned to fixate on a point and then let their mind wander. Every now and then, they were interrupted and asked whether – at that precise moment – they were thinking about “me” or “I”, which they had been trained to recognise. Depending on which they reported, the HEP occurred in different parts of the brain: a region near the front for “me” thoughts and one further back for “I” thoughts. This showed for the first time that the brain does indeed discern between the two concepts.
"It shouldn’t be a big surprise if the brain distinguishes between the two concepts because subject (I, the person who makes things happen) and object (me, the person who experiences something) are more or less fundamental ideas."
Comment: Not a surprise. We have constant internal body awareness as well as positional awareness. There should be two interpretive parts in the brain. But this has to do with the conscious state, an awareness animals also have, not the other meaning of consciousness which has to do with the generation of immaterial concepts
Introducing the brain: the circuit for conscious awareness
by David Turell , Tuesday, October 01, 2019, 01:14 (1663 days ago) @ David Turell
A whole neuron type circuit has been identified:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190930114732.htm
"'Content circuits' within the cortex are plugged into 'switchboard circuits' that allocate awareness, says the theory, via cortical cells called L5p neurons.
***
"Most neuroscientists chasing the neural mechanisms of consciousness focus on its contents, measuring changes in the brain when it thinks about a particular thing -- a smell, a memory, an emotion. Quite separately, others study how the brain behaves during different conscious states, like alert wakefulness, dreaming, deep sleep or anesthesia.
"Most agree the two are indivisible: you can't think or feel or experience anything without being aware, nor be 'aware' of nothing. But because of the divided approach, "nobody knows how and why the contents and state of consciousness are so tightly coupled," says Dr. Jaan Aru, neuroscientist at Humboldt University, Berlin, and lead author of the new theory.
***
"Our conscious state is thought to depend on the activity of so-called 'thalamo-cortical' circuits. These are connections between neurons in the cortex, and neurons in the thalamus -- a thumb-sized relay center in the middle of the brain that controls information inflow from the senses (except smell). Thalamocortical circuits are thought to be the target of general anesthesia, and damage to these neurons due to tumors or stroke often results in coma.
"In contrast, functional brain imaging studies locate the contents of consciousness mostly within the cortex, in 'cortico-cortical' circuits.
"Aru and colleagues believe that L5p neurons are uniquely placed to bridge the divide.
"Thalamo-cortical and cortico-cortical circuits intersect via L5p neurons," explains Aru. "Studies tracing these cells under the microscope suggest they participate in both circuits, by exchanging connections with both thalamus and cortex."
"Functional brain studies suggest these cells may indeed couple the state and contents of consciousness. Cellular-level brain imaging in mice shows that L5p neurons respond to a sensory stimulus (air puff to the leg); that this response increases when the animal is awake; and that it is strongest by far when the animal reacts to the stimulus (moves its leg).
"Nevertheless, this general arrangement could account for some well-known quirks of consciousness.
"For example, the processing delay of this long relay -- from cortico-cortical circuit to thalamo-cortical and back again via L5p neurons -- could explain why rapid changes of stimuli often escape conscious perception. (Think subliminal messages spliced into video.)
"One feature of this phenomenon is 'backward masking': when two images are presented briefly in rapid succession (50-100 ms), only the second image is consciously perceived. In this case, posits Aru, "by the time the stimulus completes the L5p-thalamus-L5p relay, the second image has taken over early cortical representation and steals the limelight lit by the first image."
"The theory could also help explain why we usually have little conscious insight into some brain processes, like planning movement or even syntax.
"'All brain activity that does not (sufficiently) involve L5p neurons remains unconscious," predicts Aru."
Therein lies the key to testing this exciting theory.
Comment: Note this discussion does not differentiate between awareness, the terribly difficult problem of consciousness self-awareness, and simple awareness of various stimuli.
Introducing the brain: the circuit for conscious awareness
by David Turell , Sunday, November 01, 2020, 19:50 (1265 days ago) @ David Turell
Is it due to electromagnetic fields in the brain:
http://nautil.us//blog/are-the-brains-electromagnetic-fields-the-seat-of-consciousness?...
"Christof Koch is a neuroscientist distinguished by his rock-solid scientific work and romantic yearning to understand consciousness. He recently closed an essay by wondering: “What is it about the brain, the most complex piece of active matter in the known universe, that turns its activity into the feeling of life itself?” No coincidence with that phrasing—The Feeling of Life Itself is his latest book. He argues that consciousness is produced by the brain but that it’s also more widespread in nature than we might suppose.
"His essay described new experimental work, from Stanford neuroscientist Kieran Fox and his colleagues, that explored the effects of electrically stimulating the brain, which revealed an ordering principle. That is, the more removed from sensory input or motor output structures a brain region is, the less likely it is that it contributes to our subjective experience. The “exacting data,” Koch wrote, “provides critical causal, not just observational, evidence to identify the neuronal correlates of consciousness.”
***
"What if the electromagnetic fields generated by, but which are not identical to, the neuroanatomy of the brain, are in fact the primary seat of consciousness? The brain’s fields are generated by various physiological processes in the brain, but primarily by trans-membrane currents moving through neurons. These fields are always oscillating and they come in various speeds, clustered around certain bands, from delta on the lower end at 1-2.5 cycles (oscillations) per second (Hertz) up to gamma at 40-120 cycles per second.
"Some neuroscientists have long considered the brain’s oscillating electromagnetic fields to be interesting but merely “epiphenomenal” features of the brain—like a train whistle on a steam-powered locomotive. Electromagnetic fields may just be noise that doesn’t affect the workings of the brain. Koch still seems to lean this way.
***
"It’s far too early to claim that the brain’s electromagnetic fields are the primary seat of consciousness with much confidence. But philosophers and neuroscientists who have proposed electromagnetic field theories of consciousness, of which my own General Resonance Theory is one variety, are building up evidence. The interested reader should check out Douglas Fields’ new book, Electric Brain: How the New Science of Brainwaves Reads Minds, Tells Us How We Learn, and Helps Us Change for the Better, as an introduction to this line of work. It delves into this debate in great detail. “Brainwaves are key to consciousness,” he writes. “But the results thus far are correlations and don’t prove cause and effect.'”
Comment: Still trying hard but all we still know is a conscious active brain is still required to have consciousness. And NDE's confuse the issue of understanding..
Introducing the brain: plasticity & double strand DNA breaks
by David Turell , Monday, August 30, 2021, 17:26 (963 days ago) @ David Turell
A very new finding:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/brain-cells-break-their-dna-to-learn-more-quickly-20210830/
"As an unsettling recent discovery shows, to express learning and memory genes more quickly, brain cells snap their DNA into pieces at many key points, and then rebuild their fractured genome later.
"The finding doesn’t just provide insights into the nature of the brain’s plasticity. It also demonstrates that DNA breakage may be a routine and important part of normal cellular processes — which has implications for how scientists think about aging and disease, and how they approach genomic events they’ve typically written off as merely bad luck.
***
"The double-strand breaks seemed to be essential for regulating gene activity important to the neurons’ function. Tsai and her collaborators hypothesized that the breaks essentially released enzymes that were stuck along twisted pieces of DNA, freeing them to transcribe relevant nearby genes quickly. But the idea “was met with a lot of skepticism,” Tsai said. “People simply have a hard time imagining that double-strand breaks can actually be physiologically important.”
***
"Now, in a study last month in PLOS ONE, Tsai and her colleagues have shown that this counterintuitive mechanism of gene expression might be prevalent in the brain. This time, instead of using cultured neurons, they looked at cells in the brains of living mice that were learning to associate an environment with an electric shock. When the team mapped genes undergoing double-strand breaks in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus of mice that had been shocked, they found breaks occurring near hundreds of genes, many of which were involved in synaptic processes related to memory.
***
"Equally interesting, however, was that some double-strand breaks were also occurring in the neurons of mice that had not been shocked. “These breaks are occurring just normally in the brain,” said Timothy Jarome, a neuroscientist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University who did not participate in the study but has done related work. “I think that’s the most surprising aspect from this, because it suggests that it’s occurring all the time.”
'In further support of that conclusion, the scientists also observed double-strand breaks in non-neuronal brain cells called glia, in which they regulate a different assortment of genes. The finding implies a role for glia in the formation and storage of memories, and it hints that DNA breakage might be a regulatory mechanism in many other cell types. “It’s probably a broader mechanism than we think it is,” Jarome said."
Comment: The ability to recode DNA instructions quickly by rapid recombination of code is a clever design and explains how plasticity can work speedily.
Introducing the brain; increased exercise reprograms
by David Turell , Tuesday, November 06, 2018, 18:26 (1991 days ago) @ dhw
Rodent research makes the point that mental ability is increased by vigorous exercise:
https://www.the-scientist.com/features/this-is-your-brain-on-exercise-64934
"Researchers have long recognized that exercise sharpens certain cognitive skills. Indeed, Maejima and his colleagues have found that regular physical activity improves mice’s ability to distinguish new objects from ones they’ve seen before. Over the past 20 years, researchers have begun to get at the root of these benefits, with studies pointing to increases in the volume of the hippocampus, development of new neurons, and infiltration of blood vessels into the brain. Now, Maejima and others are starting to home in on the epigenetic mechanisms that drive the neurological changes brought on by physical activity.
'In October, Maejima’s team reported that the brains of rodents that ran had greater than normal histone acetylation in the hippocampus, the brain region considered the seat of learning and memory.1 ,The epigenetic marks resulted in higher expression of Bdnf, the gene for brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). By supporting the growth and maturation of new nerve cells, BDNF is thought to promote brain health, and higher levels of it correlate with improved cognitive performance in mice and humans.
"Over the past two decades, researchers have identified many molecular mechanisms underlying exercise’s influence on cognition. Exercise, studies have shown, leads to the release of proteins and other molecules from muscle, fat, and liver tissue that can affect levels of BDNF and other agents that spur neurogenesis, speed new-neuron maturation, promote brain vascularization, and even increase the volume of the hippocampus in humans.
***
"Exercise influences levels of neurotrophins, proteins that promote the proliferation of neurons and support their function. Physical activity enhances DNA demethylation in the promoter region of the Bdnf gene, increasing the expression of the neurogenesis-boosting signaling factor. Moreover, histone acetylation appears to loosen chromatin to bolster Bdnf transcription.
"Exercise leads to the secretion of molecules by muscle and fat cells that affect levels of growth factors in the brain, influencing the shape and function of the hippocampus by accelerating new neuron growth and increasing the volume of the brain region.
"In the sperm of male mice that exercise, the abundance of certain microRNAs associated with learning and memory increases. The mice’s offspring show slight cognitive advantages compared with offspring of sedentary mice.
***
"Since Reul’s study, at least two dozen others have reported acetylation and other epigenetic changes that link exercise to the brain in rodents. Moses Chao, a molecular neurobiologist at the New York University School of Medicine, and colleagues recently found that mice that ran frequently on wheels had higher levels of BDNF and of a ketone that’s a byproduct of fat metabolism released from the liver. Injecting the ketone into the brains of mice that did not run helped to inhibit histone deacetylases and increased Bdnf expression in the hippocampus. The finding shows how molecules can travel through the blood, cross the blood-brain barrier, and activate or inhibit epigenetic markers in the brain.
"While some researchers probe the epigenetic connection between exercise and cognitive prowess, others continue to unveil previously unknown links. In 2016, for example, van Praag, now at the Florida Atlantic University Brain Institute, and colleagues found that a protein called cathepsin B, which is secreted by muscle cells during physical activity, was required for exercise to spur neurogenesis in mice. In tissue cultures of adult hippocampal neural progenitor cells, cathepsin B boosted the expression of Bdnf and the levels of its protein and enhanced the expression of a gene called doublecortin (DCX), which encodes a protein needed for neural migration. Cathepsin B knockout mice had no change in neurogenesis following exercise.
***
"Van Praag’s team also found that nonhuman primates and humans who ran on treadmills had elevated blood serum levels of cathepsin B after exercising. Following four months of running on the treadmill three days per week for 45 minutes or more, participants drew more-accurate pictures from memory than at the beginning of the study, before they started exercising.
***
"Since the 1980s, studies of humans have pointed to a link between exercise and gains in cognitive performance. Understanding this relationship is of particular importance to patients with neurological diseases. University of Southern California neuroscientist Giselle Petzinger has been treating patients with Parkinson’s disease for decades and has observed that those who exercise can improve their balance and gait. Such an observation hinted that the brain retains some plasticity after disease symptoms set in, she says, with neural connections forming to support the gains in motor skills."
Comment: From our knowledge of human evolution through a stage of hunter-gatherers, who had lots of exercise and a large brain they needed to learn to use, this connection makes lots of sense.
Introducing the brain; complexity as seen by a computer geek
by David Turell , Tuesday, November 13, 2018, 00:01 (1985 days ago) @ David Turell
An amazing description of the brain massive networks, neurons and controls:
https://medium.com/swlh/do-neural-networks-really-work-like-neurons-667859dbfb4f
"The idea of intelligent machines captivates the imagination of many, and especially how they would compare to humans. Specifically, one fundamental question that seems to come up frequently is about the underlaying mechanisms of intelligence — do these artificial neural networks really work like the neurons in our brain?
"a brain neuron has three components:
"The dendrites (the input mechanism) — tree like structure that receives input through synaptic connections. The input could be sensory input from sensory nerve calls, or “computational” input from other neural cells. A single cell can have as many as 100K inputs (each from a different cell)
"The Soma (the calculation mechanism) — this is the cell body where inputs from all the dendrites come together, and based on all these signals a decision is made whether to fire an output (a “spike”). This is a bit of a generalisation, as some of the calculation already happens before the Soma, and is encoded in the dendritic structure of the cell.
"The axon (the output mechanism) — once a decision was made to fire an output signal (thus making the cell active), the axon is the mechanism that carries the signal, and through a tree like structure as its terminal, it delivers this signal to the dendrites of the next layer of neurons via a synaptic connection.
***
"Plasticity — one of the unique characteristics of the brain, and the key feature that enables learning and memory is its plasticity — ability to morph and change. New synaptic connections are made, old ones go away, and existing connections become stronger or weaker, based on experience. Plasticity even plays a role in the single neuron — impacting its electromagnetic behavior, and its tendency to trigger a spike in reaction to certain inputs.
***
"The complexity and robustness of brain neurons is much more advanced and powerful than that of artificial neurons. This is not just about the number of neurons, and the number of dendritic connections per neuron — which are orders of magnitude of what we have in current ANNs. But it’s also about the internal complexity of the single neuron: as detailed below, the chemical and electric mechanisms of the neurons are much more nuanced, and robust compared to the artificial neurons. For example, a neuron is not isoelectric — meaning that different regions in the cell may hold different voltage potential, and different current running through it. This allows a single neuron to do non linear calculations, identify changes over time (e.g moving object), or map parallel different tasks to different dendritic regions — such that the cell as a whole can complete complex composite tasks. These are all much more advanced structures and capabilities compared to the very simple artificial neuron.
"Implementation — the neurons in the brain are implemented using very complex and nuanced mechanisms that allow very complex non linear computations:
"chemical transmission of signals between neurons in the synaptic gap, through the use of neurotransmitters and receptors, amplified by various excitatory and inhibitory elements.
"Excitatory / inhibitory Post synaptic potential that builds up to action potential, based on complex temporal and spatial electromagnetic waves interference logic
"Ion channels and minute voltage difference a governing the triggering of spikes in the Soma and along the axon.
"the overall network architecture of neurons in the brain is much more complex than most ANNs. Especially, your common next door feed forward network, where each layer is connected only to the previous and next layers. But even compared to multi layered RNNs, or residual networks, the network of neurons in the brain is ridiculously complex, with tens of thousands of dendrites crossing “layers” and regions in numerous directions.
***
"Power consumption — the brain is an extremely efficient computing machine, consuming on the order of 10 Watts. This is about one third the power consumption of a single CPU…"
Comment: I have not included his comments about how the AI computer researchers try to copy the brain, but basically it is an impossible task to achieve the same result. What he seems to describe is that each neuron is like a little computer attached to all those other little computers. But that is really not what is meant: see the next entry
Introducing the brain;complexity seen by a computer geek II
by David Turell , Tuesday, November 13, 2018, 00:17 (1985 days ago) @ David Turell
Another view of the complexity:
https://mindmatters.ai/2018/11/brains-are-not-billions-of-little-computers/
"Brains receive input from the outside world, their neurons do something to that input, and create an output. That output may be a thought (I want curry for dinner); it may be an action (make curry); it may be a change in mood (yay curry!). Whatever the output, that “something” is a transformation of some form of input (a menu) to output (“chicken dansak, please”). And if we think of a brain as a device that transforms inputs to outputs then, inexorably, the computer becomes our analogy of choice…
"Your cortex contains 17 billion neurons. To understand what they do, we often make analogies with computers. Some use these analogies as cornerstones of their arguments. Some consider them to be deeply misguided. Our analogies often look to artificial neural networks: for neural networks compute, and they are made of up neuron-like things; and so, therefore, should brains compute. But if we think the brain is a computer, because it is like a neural network, then now we must admit that individual neurons are computers too. All 17 billion of them in your cortex; perhaps all 86 billion in your brain.
"And so it means your cortex is not a neural network. Your cortex is a neural network of neural networks.
***
“'The complexity and robustness of brain neurons is much more advanced and powerful than that of artificial neurons” and “the neurons in the brain are implemented using very complex and nuanced mechanisms that allow very complex non linear computations,” among many other things. He sees the brain mainly as a source of inspiration rather than a model.
"Of course, that raises a question whether things can be going on in the brain that cannot be modeled in a computer, whether the brain is a source of inspiration or not. The human form is a source of inspiration for classical sculptors, for example, but the human form does much that their works of art cannot do and no one expects them to do in order to achieve their purpose.
"But organisms differ from machines in a fundamental way, according to philosopher Sune Holm at the University of Copenhagen. Holm’s specialty is synthetic biology, the attempt to create life form scratch:
"One of the most basic objections to the identification of organisms and machines is that their behaviour cannot be reduced to the activities and relations of their parts.
In contrast to a mechanical watch, whose activity is fully determined “from the bottom up” by the activities and organisation of its parts, organisms influence the activities of their parts.
"For example, your muscles start to grow if you start to exercise. Moreover, the parts of a watch exist before the watch does. It is not the watch itself that builds its own parts.
"Well, there’s more to the differences though, isn’t there? Living organisms don’t just create themselves; they receive a life that is passed on through other organisms. Termite mound expert J. Scott Turner noted in Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It that life forms exist in a dance with their environment (homeostasis) that requires constant adjustment, an adjustment generated by their inner drive to continue in existence. How does the drive come to be there? So pervasive is this dance in insect colonies that, for example, an individual termite can be seen as a neuron in a giant crawling brain. But why do life forms seek to continue in existence, in homeostasis?
"Dr. Holm thinks that living organisms are the product of natural selection and thus “more like the products of a tinkerer than the results of a master engineer’s rational design.” Yet he acknowledges that “there is also widespread recognition that the production of complex synthetic organisms ‘from scratch’ is not around the corner.”
"We cannot simply “re-tinker” them, it seems. Which is odd when you think of it. If he is correct about life forms merely being tinkered into existence, we ought to be able to re-tinker them.
"Overall, the analogy between life forms and machines like computers is not particularly convincing, on close examination.
"See also: Yes, your brain is a machine—if you choose to see it that way (Michael Egnor)"
Comment: The whole point is life is much more than the sum of its parts. It is in constant work to maintain is homeostasis (the word dhw previously thought doesn't add anything to the discussion). Homeostasis means life is more than the sum of its parts. This entry is a commentary on the previous entry.
Introducing the brain;complexity seen by a computer geek II
DAVID’s comment: The whole point is life is much more than the sum of its parts. It is in constant work to maintain is homeostasis (the word dhw previously thought doesn't add anything to the discussion). Homeostasis means life is more than the sum of its parts. This entry is a commentary on the previous entry.
A silly misrepresentation of my thoughts. Firstly, homeostasis does not mean that life is more than the sum of its parts. Homeostasis means the maintenance of equilibrium, and of course it is essential to all forms of life and to all econiches. My objection is solely to your constant attempts to use “balance of life” (or equilibrium or homeostasis) as some kind of justification for your illogical insistence that your God designed every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder extant and extinct, although his purpose was to produce H. sapiens.
Secondly, emergence is the theory that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and I am the one who has been advocating it as a possible explanation of how materialism may work: namely, that the material elements of the brain produce something that is greater than the sum of its parts: namely, the conscious self. (See my THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE).
Introducing the brain;complexity seen by a computer geek II
by David Turell , Tuesday, November 13, 2018, 17:32 (1984 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID’s comment: The whole point is life is much more than the sum of its parts. It is in constant work to maintain is homeostasis (the word dhw previously thought doesn't add anything to the discussion). Homeostasis means life is more than the sum of its parts. This entry is a commentary on the previous entry.
dhw: A silly misrepresentation of my thoughts. Firstly, homeostasis does not mean that life is more than the sum of its parts. Homeostasis means the maintenance of equilibrium, and of course it is essential to all forms of life and to all econiches. My objection is solely to your constant attempts to use “balance of life” (or equilibrium or homeostasis) as some kind of justification for your illogical insistence that your God designed every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder extant and extinct, although his purpose was to produce H. sapiens.
Secondly, emergence is the theory that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and I am the one who has been advocating it as a possible explanation of how materialism may work: namely, that the material elements of the brain produce something that is greater than the sum of its parts: namely, the conscious self. (See my THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE).
My memory of your initial comments about homeostasis differs from yours, but I am happy to see you now agreeing that homeostasis presents life that emerges as more than the sum of its parts, as in your brain comment.. Our cells are constantly at work to maintain us. Once again, i'd like to point out that repeating the word 'illogical' is proof of nothing. Lots of ID folks agree with me
Introducing the brain;complexity seen by a computer geek II
DAVID’s comment: The whole point is life is much more than the sum of its parts. It is in constant work to maintain is homeostasis (the word dhw previously thought doesn't add anything to the discussion). Homeostasis means life is more than the sum of its parts. This entry is a commentary on the previous entry.
dhw: A silly misrepresentation of my thoughts. Firstly, homeostasis does not mean that life is more than the sum of its parts. Homeostasis means the maintenance of equilibrium, and of course it is essential to all forms of life and to all econiches. My objection is solely to your constant attempts to use “balance of life” (or equilibrium or homeostasis) as some kind of justification for your illogical insistence that your God designed every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder extant and extinct, although his purpose was to produce H. sapiens.
Secondly, emergence is the theory that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and I am the one who has been advocating it as a possible explanation of how materialism may work: namely, that the material elements of the brain produce something that is greater than the sum of its parts: namely, the conscious self. (See my THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE).
DAVID: My memory of your initial comments about homeostasis differs from yours, but I am happy to see you now agreeing that homeostasis presents life that emerges as more than the sum of its parts, as in your brain comment.
My brain comment concerns emergence, not homeostasis. Once again: homeostasis means the maintenance of equilibrium, which is essential to all forms of life and to all econiches, and has nothing whatsoever to do with your theory that your God specially designed every innovation etc. (see bold above).
DAVID: Our cells are constantly at work to maintain us.
Yes indeed.
DAVID: Once again, i'd like to point out that repeating the word 'illogical' is proof of nothing. Lots of ID folks agree with me.
See my Neanderthal post.
Introducing the brain;complexity: autopilot
by David Turell , Sunday, December 09, 2018, 19:56 (1958 days ago) @ dhw
A careful study of different brain systems:
http://maxplanck.nautil.us/article/344/brain-on-autopilot?utm_source=Nautilus&utm_c...
"The structure of the human brain is complex, reminiscent of a circuit diagram with countless connections. But what role does this architecture play in the functioning of the brain? To answer this question, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, in cooperation with colleagues at the Free University of Berlin and University Hospital Freiburg, have for the first time analyzed 1.6 billion connections within the brain simultaneously. They found the highest agreement between structure and information flow in the “default mode network,” which is responsible for inward-focused thinking such as daydreaming.
"Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, they examined a total of 1.6 billion possible anatomical connections between these different regions in 19 participants aged between 21 and 31 years. The research team compared these connections with the brain signals actually generated by the nerve cells.
"Their results showed the highest agreement between brain structure and brain function in areas forming part of the “default mode network,” which is associated with daydreaming, imagination, and self-referential thought. “In comparison to other networks, the default mode network uses the most direct anatomical connections. We think that neuronal activity is automatically directed to level off at this network whenever there are no external influences on the brain,”
***
"... the default mode network seems to become active in the absence of external influences. In other words, the anatomical structure of the brain seems to have a built-in autopilot setting. It should not, however, be confused with an idle state. On the contrary, daydreaming, imagination, and self-referential thought are complex tasks for the brain.
“Our findings suggest that the structural architecture of the brain ensures that it automatically switches to something useful when it is not being used for other activities,” says Andreas Horn. “But the brain only stays on autopilot until an external stimulus causes activity in another network, putting an end to the daydreaming. A buzzing fly, a loud bang in the distance, or focused concentration on a text, for example.”
Comment: Our brain works at several levels in very complex ways. Much more than simple survival requires. As I see it here is little real evidence that survival plays any role in evolution, if humans are used as an example.
Introducing the brain;complexity: autopilot
QUOTE: “Our findings suggest that the structural architecture of the brain ensures that it automatically switches to something useful when it is not being used for other activities,” says Andreas Horn. “But the brain only stays on autopilot until an external stimulus causes activity in another network, putting an end to the daydreaming. A buzzing fly, a loud bang in the distance, or focused concentration on a text, for example.”
DAVID: Our brain works at several levels in very complex ways. Much more than simple survival requires. As I see it here is little real evidence that survival plays any role in evolution, if humans are used as an example.
The paragraph I have quoted mirrors my proposal concerning the other cells/cell communities in the body. They stay on autopilot until there is a new stimulus which demands an intelligent response.
Why you keep harping on about survival is a mystery to me, except that it is part of your Darwinphobia. Nobody would deny that our own mental activities extend far beyond the need for survival (although survival is the number one priority if it is under threat). But even if we were to accept your view – which I don’t – that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every evolutionary innovation, econiche, lifestyle and natural wonder even before they were required, do you think he gave pre-whales their fins, or pre-baleen whales their baleens, or monarch butterflies their migratory timetable and navigation instruments, or spiders their 50,000 different webs etc. all for no useful purpose? No, you tell us, all of this was to provide food and energy, i.e. so that life would SURVIVE until he could fulfil his one and only purpose of producing you and me. And still with your own hypothesis, did he intervene to expand the pre-sapiens brain – your interpretation of brain evolution – so that it would be able to make tools and weapons and clothes, but these had nothing to do with survival? Do you think they were invented so that pre-sapiens could hold archery contests and fashion shows? I would suggest that even in your hypothesis, survival has played a huge role in evolution, human or not. And, to forestall one possible response, the fact that Darwin thought so too does not invalidate the argument.
Introducing the brain;complexity: autopilot
by David Turell , Monday, December 10, 2018, 15:30 (1957 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: “Our findings suggest that the structural architecture of the brain ensures that it automatically switches to something useful when it is not being used for other activities,” says Andreas Horn. “But the brain only stays on autopilot until an external stimulus causes activity in another network, putting an end to the daydreaming. A buzzing fly, a loud bang in the distance, or focused concentration on a text, for example.”
DAVID: Our brain works at several levels in very complex ways. Much more than simple survival requires. As I see it here is little real evidence that survival plays any role in evolution, if humans are used as an example.
The paragraph I have quoted mirrors my proposal concerning the other cells/cell communities in the body. They stay on autopilot until there is a new stimulus which demands an intelligent response.
dhw: Why you keep harping on about survival is a mystery to me, except that it is part of your Darwinphobia. Nobody would deny that our own mental activities extend far beyond the need for survival (although survival is the number one priority if it is under threat). But even if we were to accept your view – which I don’t – that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every evolutionary innovation, econiche, lifestyle and natural wonder even before they were required, do you think he gave pre-whales their fins, or pre-baleen whales their baleens, or monarch butterflies their migratory timetable and navigation instruments, or spiders their 50,000 different webs etc. all for no useful purpose? No, you tell us, all of this was to provide food and energy, i.e. so that life would SURVIVE until he could fulfil his one and only purpose of producing you and me. And still with your own hypothesis, did he intervene to expand the pre-sapiens brain – your interpretation of brain evolution – so that it would be able to make tools and weapons and clothes, but these had nothing to do with survival? Do you think they were invented so that pre-sapiens could hold archery contests and fashion shows? I would suggest that even in your hypothesis, survival has played a huge role in evolution, human or not. And, to forestall one possible response, the fact that Darwin thought so too does not invalidate the argument.
Same old battle between us. I simply accept God did what we see. You are constantly criticizing his method of creation. If hair is gone, a brain is needed to provide warmth by the invention of hides for clothes. Spears and later bows were for hunting for food. Easier than surrounding an animal and beating it to death. Apes and monkeys are still enjoying the trees and the fruits available. The advent of bipedalism introduced all sorts of problems and dangers not faced by the tree dwellers. Bipedalism is not a survival advancement if apes are compared.
Introducing the brain;complexity: autopilot
DAVID: Our brain works at several levels in very complex ways. Much more than simple survival requires. As I see it here is little real evidence that survival plays any role in evolution, if humans are used as an example.
dhw: Why you keep harping on about survival is a mystery to me, except that it is part of your Darwinphobia. Nobody would deny that our own mental activities extend far beyond the need for survival (although survival is the number one priority if it is under threat). But even if we were to accept your view – which I don’t – that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every evolutionary innovation, econiche, lifestyle and natural wonder even before they were required, do you think he gave pre-whales their fins, or pre-baleen whales their baleens, or monarch butterflies their migratory timetable and navigation instruments, or spiders their 50,000 different webs etc. all for no useful purpose? No, you tell us, all of this was to provide food and energy, i.e. so that life would SURVIVE until he could fulfil his one and only purpose of producing you and me. And still with your own hypothesis, did he intervene to expand the pre-sapiens brain – your interpretation of brain evolution – so that it would be able to make tools and weapons and clothes, but these had nothing to do with survival? Do you think they were invented so that pre-sapiens could hold archery contests and fashion shows? I would suggest that even in your hypothesis, survival has played a huge role in evolution, human or not. And, to forestall one possible response, the fact that Darwin thought so too does not invalidate the argument.
DAVID: Same old battle between us. I simply accept God did what we see. You are constantly criticizing his method of creation.
I am doing no such thing! I am criticizing your interpretation of his method of creation, and I am challenging your view that the quest for survival has played little or no role in evolution.
DAVID: If hair is gone, a brain is needed to provide warmth by the invention of hides for clothes. Spears and later bows were for hunting for food. Easier than surrounding an animal and beating it to death.
But you say this has nothing to do with survival! Do you think clothes and spears and bows were invented for the sake of entertainment, or philosophy, or art?
DAVID: Apes and monkeys are still enjoying the trees and the fruits available. The advent of bipedalism introduced all sorts of problems and dangers not faced by the tree dwellers. Bipedalism is not a survival advancement if apes are compared.
You keep telling us that you do not regard survivability as playing any role in evolution. We are not just talking about humans, but even with humans you tell us your God deliberately expanded pre-human brains, and only then were they able to invent the tools, weapons, clothes etc. which served the sole purpose of improving their chances of survival. The single example of bipedalism – which I have suggested may well have originated through conditions that required the descent of SOME anthropoids, while others remained in the trees – does not cover the whole of evolution. And I would suggest that the brain’s evolution – whatever the method and timing of expansion – was always linked mainly to survival until humans as we know them reached a point of awareness that took them beyond the basic needs and into the realms of thought beyond survival.
Introducing the brain;complexity: autopilot
by David Turell , Tuesday, December 11, 2018, 18:17 (1956 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Same old battle between us. I simply accept God did what we see. You are constantly criticizing his method of creation.
dhw: I am doing no such thing! I am criticizing your interpretation of his method of creation, and I am challenging your view that the quest for survival has played little or no role in evolution.
DAVID: If hair is gone, a brain is needed to provide warmth by the invention of hides for clothes. Spears and later bows were for hunting for food. Easier than surrounding an animal and beating it to death.
dhw: But you say this has nothing to do with survival! Do you think clothes and spears and bows were invented for the sake of entertainment, or philosophy, or art?
If survival was so important, why did humans lose their hair covering? Purposeful God action. Remove hair and give a better brain to allow hide clothing invention.
DAVID: Apes and monkeys are still enjoying the trees and the fruits available. The advent of bipedalism introduced all sorts of problems and dangers not faced by the tree dwellers. Bipedalism is not a survival advancement if apes are compared.dhw: You keep telling us that you do not regard survivability as playing any role in evolution. We are not just talking about humans, but even with humans you tell us your God deliberately expanded pre-human brains, and only then were they able to invent the tools, weapons, clothes etc. which served the sole purpose of improving their chances of survival. The single example of bipedalism – which I have suggested may well have originated through conditions that required the descent of SOME anthropoids, while others remained in the trees – does not cover the whole of evolution. And I would suggest that the brain’s evolution – whatever the method and timing of expansion – was always linked mainly to survival until humans as we know them reached a point of awareness that took them beyond the basic needs and into the realms of thought beyond survival.
Survivability is pure Darwinism. The capabilities of early hominins were well beyond the need for survival as compared to the apes they left behind who did not need any changes to survive for the last eight million years of side by side development..
Introducing the brain;complexity: autopilot
DAVID: Same old battle between us. I simply accept God did what we see. You are constantly criticizing his method of creation.
dhw: I am doing no such thing! I am criticizing your interpretation of his method of creation, and I am challenging your view that the quest for survival has played little or no role in evolution.
DAVID: If survival was so important, why did humans lose their hair covering? Purposeful God action. Remove hair and give a better brain to allow hide clothing invention.
This is getting silly. God: “I’ll take off your hair, give you a bigger brain, and then you can invent clothes.” Pre-human: “Why, God?” “Well, when I specially design H. sapiens, he’ll be able to hold fashion shows, and girls will be able to wear pretty dresses. No, no, my dear pre-human, your invention of clothes has nothing to do with helping you to survive now that I’ve taken off all your hair and left you stark naked in the snow and ice.”
DAVID: Apes and monkeys are still enjoying the trees and the fruits available. The advent of bipedalism introduced all sorts of problems and dangers not faced by the tree dwellers. Bipedalism is not a survival advancement if apes are compared.
dhw: You keep telling us that you do not regard survivability as playing any role in evolution. We are not just talking about humans, but even with humans you tell us your God deliberately expanded pre-human brains, and only then were they able to invent the tools, weapons, clothes etc. which served the sole purpose of improving their chances of survival. The single example of bipedalism – which I have suggested may well have originated through conditions that required the descent of SOME anthropoids, while others remained in the trees – does not cover the whole of evolution. And I would suggest that the brain’s evolution – whatever the method and timing of expansion – was always linked mainly to survival until humans as we know them reached a point of awareness that took them beyond the basic needs and into the realms of thought beyond survival.
DAVID: Survivability is pure Darwinism. The capabilities of early hominins were well beyond the need for survival as compared to the apes they left behind who did not need any changes to survive for the last eight million years of side by side development.
“Pure Darwinism” does not mean it is wrong! I have answered the point about apes in the paragraph you have quoted. Now please tell me: do you think the invention of clothes, tools, weapons had nothing to do with survival? And please tell me if you think that whale fins replacing legs, baleens replacing teeth, fish camouflaging themselves, butterflies migrating to warmer climates, spiders spinning webs etc. had nothing to do with improving their chances of survival.
Introducing the brain;complexity: autopilot
by David Turell , Wednesday, December 12, 2018, 15:27 (1955 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: You keep telling us that you do not regard survivability as playing any role in evolution. We are not just talking about humans, but even with humans you tell us your God deliberately expanded pre-human brains, and only then were they able to invent the tools, weapons, clothes etc. which served the sole purpose of improving their chances of survival. The single example of bipedalism – which I have suggested may well have originated through conditions that required the descent of SOME anthropoids, while others remained in the trees – does not cover the whole of evolution. And I would suggest that the brain’s evolution – whatever the method and timing of expansion – was always linked mainly to survival until humans as we know them reached a point of awareness that took them beyond the basic needs and into the realms of thought beyond survival.
DAVID: Survivability is pure Darwinism. The capabilities of early hominins were well beyond the need for survival as compared to the apes they left behind who did not need any changes to survive for the last eight million years of side by side development.
dhw: “Pure Darwinism” does not mean it is wrong! I have answered the point about apes in the paragraph you have quoted. Now please tell me: do you think the invention of clothes, tools, weapons had nothing to do with survival? And please tell me if you think that whale fins replacing legs, baleens replacing teeth, fish camouflaging themselves, butterflies migrating to warmer climates, spiders spinning webs etc. had nothing to do with improving their chances of survival.
Getting out of the trees or hopping into a watery environment resulted in severe challenges to survivability to the organisms who did it, and required major changes in phenotypical and physiological aspects of each climate jumper. If survival is such an important issue, why not stay put and take the easy road of continued life. That is why I say there is a drive to complexity from God to advance evolution, and then only He can design the necessary changes for survival. Advanced complexity requires survival designs for the new circumstances. Perfectly logical. Suviveability is secondary to advancing complexity. Again Darwin was proposing survivability due to competition, a totally unproven jump in tautological thought.
Introducing the brain;complexity: autopilot
DAVID: Survivability is pure Darwinism. The capabilities of early hominins were well beyond the need for survival as compared to the apes they left behind who did not need any changes to survive for the last eight million years of side by side development.
dhw: “Pure Darwinism” does not mean it is wrong! I have answered the point about apes in the paragraph you have quoted. Now please tell me: do you think the invention of clothes, tools, weapons had nothing to do with survival? And please tell me if you think that whale fins replacing legs, baleens replacing teeth, fish camouflaging themselves, butterflies migrating to warmer climates, spiders spinning webs etc. had nothing to do with improving their chances of survival.
DAVID: Getting out of the trees or hopping into a watery environment resulted in severe challenges to survivability to the organisms who did it, and required major changes in phenotypical and physiological aspects of each climate jumper. If survival is such an important issue, why not stay put and take the easy road of continued life.
What on earth makes you think that life has always been an easy road for every organism? Every change in the environment is a threat to some, and if they don’t change, they die. Why do you refuse to consider the possibility, for example, that at some time certain pre-whales began to run short of food on land, found that there was plenty of food in the water, and so started to go fishing? Yes, we agree that marine life requires major changes, as does all speciation, and we can only guess at how it happened. But that does not mean the environment has always been an easy road, so survival was never a problem, and therefore – sticking to our beloved whales – God had to extract the teeth of pre-baleen whales before they started suction-feeding (which they didn’t need to do), and then gave them baleens before they started filter-feeding (which they didn’t need to do) – all to provide food until he could specially design H. sapiens.
DAVID: That is why I say there is a drive to complexity from God to advance evolution, and then only He can design the necessary changes for survival. Advanced complexity requires survival designs for the new circumstances. Perfectly logical. Suviveability is secondary to advancing complexity. […]
If only God can design the changes for survival, and advanced complexity requires survival designs – how can you say survival plays little or no role in evolution? As for complexity, I would reverse your guesswork. I see no point whatsoever in complexity for the sake of complexity, and I would suggest that advanced complexity was the result of the quest for survival. But you now seem to have your God saying to himself: “I must make organisms more complex and therefore I must find a means of helping them to survive, which I will do by making them more complex.”
Introducing the brain;complexity: autopilot
by David Turell , Thursday, December 13, 2018, 21:24 (1954 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Getting out of the trees or hopping into a watery environment resulted in severe challenges to survivability to the organisms who did it, and required major changes in phenotypical and physiological aspects of each climate jumper. If survival is such an important issue, why not stay put and take the easy road of continued life.
dhw: What on earth makes you think that life has always been an easy road for every organism? Every change in the environment is a threat to some, and if they don’t change, they die. Why do you refuse to consider the possibility, for example, that at some time certain pre-whales began to run short of food on land, found that there was plenty of food in the water, and so started to go fishing? Yes, we agree that marine life requires major changes, as does all speciation, and we can only guess at how it happened. But that does not mean the environment has always been an easy road, so survival was never a problem, and therefore – sticking to our beloved whales – God had to extract the teeth of pre-baleen whales before they started suction-feeding (which they didn’t need to do), and then gave them baleens before they started filter-feeding (which they didn’t need to do) – all provide food until he could specially design H. sapiens. (my bold)
You have stepped around the key point, Why not survive the easy way? Of course species are killed off by adverse events they didn't ask for. Raup covered that in his book about extinctions. As for jumping into the water to find food, what is wrong with migrating on land to where the supply is better and massive phenotypic and physiological changes are not required to be designed?? The choice is not unilateral at any time as you imply. The bold above shows how you give short shrift to whale modifications. I brought them up because it is the most extreme example of speciation I know of, more so than humans in a physiological sense, and you usually brush it off as less than that.
DAVID: That is why I say there is a drive to complexity from God to advance evolution, and then only He can design the necessary changes for survival. Advanced complexity requires survival designs for the new circumstances. Perfectly logical. Suviveability is secondary to advancing complexity. […]dhw: If only God can design the changes for survival, and advanced complexity requires survival designs – how can you say survival plays little or no role in evolution? As for complexity, I would reverse your guesswork. I see no point whatsoever in complexity for the sake of complexity, and I would suggest that advanced complexity was the result of the quest for survival. But you now seem to have your God saying to himself: “I must make organisms more complex and therefore I must find a means of helping them to survive, which I will do by making them more complex.”
The road from single cells to humans is one of constant increasing complexity, a point you cannot deny. And note humans survive better than any other animal on earth with the modifications as they came out of the trees. God did not have the circular reasoning you have invented for Him. Totally irrational.
Introducing the brain;complexity: autopilot
DAVID: Getting out of the trees or hopping into a watery environment resulted in severe challenges to survivability to the organisms who did it, and required major changes in phenotypical and physiological aspects of each climate jumper. If survival is such an important issue, why not stay put and take the easy road of continued life.
dhw: What on earth makes you think that life has always been an easy road for every organism? Every change in the environment is a threat to some, and if they don’t change, they die. Why do you refuse to consider the possibility, for example, that at some time certain pre-whales began to run short of food on land, found that there was plenty of food in the water, and so started to go fishing? Yes, we agree that marine life requires major changes, as does all speciation, and we can only guess at how it happened. But that does not mean the environment has always been an easy road, so survival was never a problem, and therefore – sticking to our beloved whales – God had to extract the teeth of pre-baleen whales before they started suction-feeding (which they didn’t need to do), and then gave them baleens before they started filter-feeding (which they didn’t need to do) – all to provide food until he could specially design H. sapiens. (David’s bold)
DAVID: You have stepped around the key point, Why not survive the easy way? Of course species are killed off by adverse events they didn't ask for. Raup covered that in his book about extinctions. As for jumping into the water to find food, what is wrong with migrating on land to where the supply is better and massive phenotypic and physiological changes are not required to be designed?? The choice is not unilateral at any time as you imply. The bold above shows how you give short shrift to whale modifications. I brought them up because it is the most extreme example of speciation I know of, more so than humans in a physiological sense, and you usually brush it off as less than that.
Nobody knows how speciation happened, extreme or not so extreme, and what you have bolded is hardly “brushing off”. The key point is that pre-whales did not and probably could not survive the “easy way”. They did go into the water, and their bodies changed accordingly. But you want us to believe that there was no need for them to change their environment, and your God simply changed their legs to fins and told them to enter the water because he wanted them to be more complex (see below) – I don’t know why fins should be regarded as more complex than legs – and to provide food – I don’t know why pre-whales couldn’t just go on providing food – to keep life going until he could fulfil his one and only purpose.
DAVID: That is why I say there is a drive to complexity from God to advanced evolution, and then only He can design the necessarychanges for survival. Advanced complexity requires survival designs for the new circumstances. Perfectly logical. Suviveability is secondary to advancing complexity. […]
dhw: If only God can design the changes for survival, and advanced complexity requires survival designs – how can you say survival plays little or no role in evolution? As for complexity, I would reverse your guesswork. I see no point whatsoever in complexity for the sake of complexity, and I would suggest that advanced complexity was the result of the quest for survival. But you now seem to have your God saying to himself: “I must make organisms more complex and therefore I must find a means of helping them to survive, which I will do by making them more complex.”
DAVID: The road from single cells to humans is one of constant increasing complexity, a point you cannot deny.
Of course it is. So is the road from single cells to whales and elephants and the duckbilled platypus. But if he designed all these “necessary changes for survival”, how can you say that survival played little or no role in evolution?
DAVID: And note humans survive better than any other animal on earth with the modifications as they came out of the trees. God did not have the circular reasoning you have invented for Him. Totally irrational.
So although these modifications enabled humans to survive better than any other animal on earth, they apparently had nothing to do with survival. I’m glad you agree that your argument is totally irrational.
Introducing the brain;complexity: autopilot
by David Turell , Friday, December 14, 2018, 19:47 (1953 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Friday, December 14, 2018, 20:02
DAVID: You have stepped around the key point, Why not survive the easy way? Of course species are killed off by adverse events they didn't ask for. Raup covered that in his book about extinctions. As for jumping into the water to find food, what is wrong with migrating on land to where the supply is better and massive phenotypic and physiological changes are not required to be designed?? The choice is not unilateral at any time as you imply. The bold above shows how you give short shrift to whale modifications. I brought them up because it is the most extreme example of speciation I know of, more so than humans in a physiological sense, and you usually brush it off as less than that.
dhw: The key point is that pre-whales did not and probably could not survive the “easy way”. They did go into the water, and their bodies changed accordingly. But you want us to believe that there was no need for them to change their environment, and your God simply changed their legs to fins and told them to enter the water because he wanted them to be more complex (see below) – I don’t know why fins should be regarded as more complex than legs – and to provide food – I don’t know why pre-whales couldn’t just go on providing food – to keep life going until he could fulfil his one and only purpose.
Flippers and legs are very different and require different muscle attachments for differing motions. Flippers flap. Try that with a leg! The marked change is the issue, not the complexity.
DAVID: The road from single cells to humans is one of constant increasing complexity, a point you cannot deny.dhw: Of course it is. So is the road from single cells to whales and elephants and the duckbilled platypus. But if he designed all these “necessary changes for survival”, how can you say that survival played little or no role in evolution?
Extinctions are bad luck is the point. Jumping into water did not help survival, but endangered it without enormous phenotypic and physiologic changes. Looking for a purposeful explanation ( since God is purposeful) it must be diversity for econiche food supply. From the proper theistic standpoint, it is the most logical explanation.
DAVID: And note humans survive better than any other animal on earth with the modifications as they came out of the trees. God did not have the circular reasoning you have invented for Him. Totally irrational.dhw: So although these modifications enabled humans to survive better than any other animal on earth, they apparently had nothing to do with survival. I’m glad you agree that your argument is totally irrational.
You can toss around the word irrationality all you want, but the point is not what you want it to be. Humans would have survived if they stayed as apes and didn't gain all the attributes they have. Survival therefore is not The Issue. The dependence on that concept is pure Darwinianism from which you have never recovered. His view of competition is purely theoretical, never proven and you have agreed survival of the fittest is a tautology.
Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittest
"Interpretations of the phrase as expressing a theory are in danger of being tautological, meaning roughly "those with a propensity to survive have a propensity to survive"; to have content the theory must use a concept of fitness that is independent of that of survival.
"Interpreted as a theory of species survival, the theory that the fittest species survive is undermined by evidence that while direct competition is observed between individuals, populations and species, there is little evidence that competition has been the driving force in the evolution of large groups such as, for example, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. Instead, these groups have evolved by expanding into empty ecological niches. In the punctuated equilibrium model of environmental and biological change, the factor determining survival is often not superiority over another in competition but ability to survive dramatic changes in environmental conditions, such as after a meteor impact energetic enough to greatly change the environment globally. The main land dwelling animals to survive the K-Pg impact 66 million years ago had the ability to live in underground tunnels, for example.
"In 2010 Sahney et al. argued that there is little evidence that intrinsic, biological factors such as competition have been the driving force in the evolution of large groups. Instead, they cited extrinsic, abiotic factors such as expansion as the driving factor on a large evolutionary scale. The rise of dominant groups such as amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds occurred by opportunistic expansion into empty ecological niches and the extinction of groups happened due to large shifts in the abiotic environment."
Pure survivability is a minor issue in the current view.
Introducing the brain;complexity: autopilot
I have shifted this discussion to "Divine purposes and methods", as it is no longer concerned with brain complexity and autopilot.
brain;complexity: detecting one trillion scents
by David Turell , Wednesday, January 09, 2019, 20:30 (1927 days ago) @ dhw
It is done by less than one trillion neurons:
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-genes-nose-scents.html
"The human nose can distinguish one trillion different scents—an extraordinary feat that requires 10 million specialized nerve cells, or neurons, in the nose, and a family of more than 400 dedicated genes. But precisely how these genes and neurons work in concert to pick out a particular scent has long puzzled scientists.
***
"But now, a Columbia study in mice has uncovered a striking resourcefulness: by rearranging itself in three-dimensional space, the genome coordinates the regulation of these genes in each neuron, thereby generating the biological diversity needed to detect the scents we experience.
***
"Smell, also known as olfaction, is mind-bogglingly complex. The receptors in our noses must not only identify a scent, but also gauge how strong it is, scan our memories to determine whether it has been encountered before, and determine if it is pleasing or toxic.
"Olfactory receptor neurons, specialized nerve cells that snake from the nose to the brain, make all this possible. And though each neuron contains the full suite of the 400 dedicated olfactory receptor genes, only one of these genes is active in each neuron. Adding to the confusion: the gene that is active appears randomly chosen, and differs from neuron to neuron.
"This unusual pattern of gene activity is known as the "one gene per neuron" rule, and has long been a focus of study by scientists such as Dr. Lomvardas. Indeed, deciphering how each olfactory receptor neuron manages to activate only one of these genes—and how this process results in such a finely tuned sense of smell—remained mysterious for decades.
***
"Enhancers are not themselves genes but regulate the activity of genes.
"'We previously discovered a group of enhancers, we named the Greek Islands, located near the various olfactory receptor genes," said Dr. Horta. "This work showed that these enhancers create hotspots of activity to regulate the "chosen" olfactory receptor gene.
"The team also found that the protein Ldb1 plays a key role in this process. It holds the Greek Islands together, allowing them to switch on a specific olfactory receptor gene that then—as a team—interpret the particular scent at hand.
"'These teams of genes endow the olfactory system with the ability to respond in diverse ways," said Dr. Monahan. "The flexibility of this process could help to explain how we easily learn and remember new smells.'"
Comment: This type of gene alteration in cooperative design allows for the enormous number of scents we learn to recognize. Note memory has to be involved. This has to be a designed system.
brain;complexity: structure of a hippocampal receptor
by David Turell , Sunday, April 14, 2019, 21:28 (1832 days ago) @ David Turell
Look at the diagram to see the complex structure:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190411145131.htm
"The new research, published in the journal Science, is the first to reveal the structure of AMPA receptors in their natural state. This discovery could lead to new insight about the mechanism behind a wide range of nervous system disorders and diseases.
"'These are the fundamental electrical switches of the brain," said senior author Eric Gouaux, Ph.D., senior scientist and Jennifer and Bernard LaCroute Term Chair of neuroscience in the OHSU Vollum Institute and an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "If these switches don't work right, then the brain doesn't function.
***
"AMPA receptors are activated by the neurotransmitter glutamate, forming permeable ion channels that carry signals between cells throughout the nervous system."
Comment: The importance of this discovery for medical science is that it will hopefully help finding cures for disease defects. The importance as far as the Darwin theory is concerned is that it is impossible to have developed a protein of this complex structure and function by Darwin's proposed chance mechanism. It must be designed all at once to fill its purpose. Hunt and peck trial and error attempts over many chance mutations reasonably cannot work. At each point it must be tested by natural selection for proper function, and how does the organism survive each failure? The alternative is every new step is an unqualified success. Really?
brain complexity: RNA control of neurogenesis very complex
by David Turell , Monday, April 15, 2019, 18:30 (1831 days ago) @ David Turell
The image is not shown but the RNA transport molecular is highly complex in it s attachments:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190415104951.htm
"A team of scientists from Helmholtz Zentrum München and the University of Ulm has discovered that the neuronal transport factor Staufen2 scans and binds to its target transcripts in a much more complex manner than previously thought. RNA is transported within highly complex protein-RNA particles whose structure and specificity are still poorly understood.
***
"Staufen2 is a neuronal RNA-binding protein that plays an important role in the differentiation of neural progenitor cells during neurogenesis. In addition, it is a key factor in the transport of RNA to synapses and is therefore important for synaptic plasticity, the basis of memory and memory formation.
"The team led by Professor Dr. Dierk Niessing, group leader at the Institute of Structural Biology (STB) of Helmholtz Zentrum München and professor and head of the Institute of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the University of Ulm, showed that RNA-binding domains (dsRBDs) 1 and 2 of the mStau2 protein bond to mRNA with the same affinity and kinetics as domains 3 and 4. It was previously thought that the latter were in themselves sufficient for mRNA binding. While RNA recognition by each of these so-called tandem domains is transient, all four RNA-binding domains recognize their target RNA with a high degree of stability.
"Previous studies had suggested that only two RNA binding domains in Staufen2, namely dsRBD 3 and 4, are responsible for binding. Despite this, until now it proved impossible to reproduce stable binding required for RNA transport in the test tube. "That problem has been solved," says Niessing, "because it is now clear that dsRBDs 1 and 2 are also needed to create a stable complex. Using various biochemical and biophysical techniques, we were able to explain the behavior of dsRBD 1 and 2 ." "It turns out that Staufen2 recognizes its target RNAs in a much more complex way than previously thought," adds Dr. Simone Heber, lead author of the article and postdoc at the STB. "Staufen2 scans and binds to its transcripts with four RNA-binding domains in total .'"
Comment: When four parts are involved chance development by a series of mutations is impossible, negating Darwin's theory.
brain complexity: chemical controls
by David Turell , Saturday, January 11, 2020, 20:00 (1560 days ago) @ David Turell
The subject of this article is serotonin:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-01-serotonin-master-neuroregeneration.html
"The serotonergic system has widely been shown to control many aspects of neuroregeneration. In some regions, it facilitates neurogenesis, while in others, it seems to inhibit it. In the case of inhibition, a recent example has been published in PLOS Biology. The authors used a zebrafish model of Alzheimer's disease to show that amyloid-induced interleukin-4 (IL4) promotes neurogenic stem cell proliferation by suppressing the production of serotonin. In these animals, there is a unique neuro-immune interaction through which IL4 secreted by dying neurons activates microglia. In turn, microglia reciprocate by revving up neural stem cell proliferation.
***
"It is now commonly appreciated that peripheral immune stem cells (and even fetal cells from pregnant moms circulating in maternal blood) can migrate across the adult BBB [blood brain barrier] and fuse with local neurons to create all kinds of new hybrid entities. The opposite migration, however, is still largely unknown in nature. Surprisingly, researchers have recently discovered that neural progenitor cells in the developing mouse brain can exit through the BBB to join the general circulation.
***
"Everyone knows that serotonin is one of the major transmitters used in the brain. The perplexing states of mind resulting from use of many popular hallucinogenic drugs that mimic serotonin are believed to act specifically at the 5-HT2A receptor variety. But what might serotonin do that good old glutamate, dopamine or acetylcholine are not known to do? One thing serotonin does, and accomplishes specifically through 5HT2A receptors is control the minting of new mitochondria. That's not to say that the primary occupation of other transmitters is not somehow controlling mitochondria as well, we just don't yet know fully how they might do it.
"Discussing the biogenesis of mitochondria and the neurogenesis of new brain cells entails an instructive dilemma: Mitochondria are forced into competition with their own local master nucleus for access to nucleotides—necessary for both DNA repair and replication.
***
"The larger body-wide tryptophan ecosystem is responsible for maintaining levels of other important products, including nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), and to a lesser extent, the peptide hormone melatonin.
Although NAD can be generated by the so-called "Preiss-Handler" pathway from niacin or from salvage pathways through nicotinamide, its "de novo" synthesis from tryptophan is an essential contributing pathway in the nervous system. Being able to synthesize NAD on demand from scratch is convenient, but also very expensive. The conversion ratio for the synthesis pathways is roughly 67 mg of tryptophan to make 1 mg of niacin.
"The decision to route essential tryptophan stores into either serotonin, or to NAD is made locally in every part of the brain. Diverse anatomical nuclei and specialized cell types use restricted subsets of enzymes which little but the potluck of cell differentiation has apportioned to each them. Deficiencies in the intracellular metabolic circuits that synthesize both nucleotide stores and the many transmitter products required by neural cells and their mitochondria are made whole through the establishment of macrocellular transport circuits between them. Although these resultant neural structures give rise to high effects scarcely imaginable from their comparatively low enzymatic origins, many of their characteristics can now be intuitively comprehended through simple principles of metabolic supply and demand.
"What is still far less certain territory today, but may soon be determined, is that the neural activity supported by different circuits should be explainable in similar terms. In other words, spikes themselves have an intrinsic meaning more basic than that of transmitting information to and from the external world. It has been suggested that other transmitters capable of acting through G-protein receptors, like, for example, GABA, have a primary function of controlling the availability of nucleotides to synaptic mitochondria. In particular, the second messenger systems of these transmitters continually lock and release variously phosphated purines between their cyclic and non-cyclic forms.
"If the largely post-mitotic brain derives much of its singular structure and function (compared to other organs) as a result of a more or less artificially maintained scarcity of nucleotides, it is not much of a stretch to imagine that the fuss and chatter of spikes is largely what we might call nucleotide micromanagement. Any higher-level "signaling" function of spikes and the subsequent transmitter release from vessicles across synapses is therefore merely superimposed on top of what is essentially the corralling, release, and likely also repair, of nucleotides."
Comment: this shows how difficult it is to understand how the brain does its amazing work as the result of neurogenic and chemical coordinated activities. Not by chance
brain complexity: chemical controls
QUOTE:"It is now commonly appreciated that peripheral immune stem cells (and even fetal cells from pregnant moms circulating in maternal blood) can migrate across the adult BBB [blood brain barrier] and fuse with local neurons to create all kinds of new hybrid entities.
The article is far too technical for me to follow in its entirety, but this leapt off the page. All kinds of new hybrid entities = innovation, and once again we have stem cells in the thick of it. So are stem cells the key to how evolution works?
DAVID: this shows how difficult it is to understand how the brain does its amazing work as the result of neurogenic and chemical coordinated activities. Not by chance.
What this shows is that the brain does its amazing work as the result of materials interacting. Some would suggest that this offers support for materialism as opposed to dualism.
brain complexity: chemical controls
by David Turell , Sunday, January 12, 2020, 16:05 (1559 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE:"It is now commonly appreciated that peripheral immune stem cells (and even fetal cells from pregnant moms circulating in maternal blood) can migrate across the adult BBB [blood brain barrier] and fuse with local neurons to create all kinds of new hybrid entities.
dhw: The article is far too technical for me to follow in its entirety, but this leapt off the page. All kinds of new hybrid entities = innovation, and once again we have stem cells in the thick of it. So are stem cells the key to how evolution works?
DAVID: this shows how difficult it is to understand how the brain does its amazing work as the result of neurogenic and chemical coordinated activities. Not by chance.
dhw: What this shows is that the brain does its amazing work as the result of materials interacting. Some would suggest that this offers support for materialism as opposed to dualism.
All it means to me is the enormous number of automatic underlying controls for brain plasticity to act appropriately. If the brain is like a receiver, it can change from AM to FM, nothing more
brain complexity: probably calculating dendrites
by David Turell , Wednesday, January 15, 2020, 00:26 (1557 days ago) @ David Turell
Recent research points to this ability, which increases the brains computing power by many, many times:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/neural-dendrites-reveal-their-computational-power-20200114/
"The latest in a long line of evidence comes from scientists’ discovery of a new type of electrical signal in the upper layers of the human cortex. Laboratory and modeling studies have already shown that tiny compartments in the dendritic arms of cortical neurons can each perform complicated operations in mathematical logic. But now it seems that individual dendritic compartments can also perform a particular computation — “exclusive OR” — that mathematical theorists had previously categorized as unsolvable by single-neuron systems.
***
"The discovery marks a growing need for studies of the nervous system to consider the implications of individual neurons as extensive information processors. “Brains may be far more complicated than we think,” said Konrad Kording, a computational neuroscientist.
***
"Modeling work by the neuroscientist Christof Koch and others, later supported by benchtop experiments, showed that single neurons didn’t express a single or uniform voltage signal. Instead, voltage signals decreased as they moved along the dendrites into the body of the neuron, and often contributed nothing to the cell’s ultimate output.
"This compartmentalization of signals meant that separate dendrites could be processing information independently of one another. “This was at odds with the point-neuron hypothesis, in which a neuron simply added everything up regardless of location,” Mel said.
***
"In theory, almost any imaginable computation might be performed by one neuron with enough dendrites, each capable of performing its own nonlinear operation.
In the recent Science paper, the researchers took this idea one step further: They suggested that a single dendritic compartment might be able to perform these complex computations all on its own.
***
"...the researchers wanted to investigate how electrical signaling might be different in human neurons, which have much longer dendrites. They obtained slices of brain tissue from layers 2 and 3 of the human cortex, which contain particularly large neurons with many dendrites. When they stimulated those dendrites with an electrical current, they noticed something strange.
"They saw unexpected, repeated spiking — and those spikes seemed completely unlike other known kinds of neural signaling. They were particularly rapid and brief, like action potentials, and arose from fluxes of calcium ions. This was noteworthy because conventional action potentials are usually caused by sodium and potassium ions. And while calcium-induced signaling had been previously observed in rodent dendrites, those spikes tended to last much longer.
***
"The model found that the dendrite spiked in response to two separate inputs — but failed to do so when those inputs were combined. This was equivalent to a nonlinear computation known as exclusive OR (or XOR), which yields a binary output of 1 if one (but only one) of the inputs is 1.
***
"For example, Poirazi already knew XOR was possible in a single neuron: Just two dendrites together could achieve it. But in these new experiments, she and her colleagues were offering a plausible biophysical mechanism to facilitate it — in a single dendrite.
***
“Very few people have taken seriously the notion that a single neuron could be a complex computational device,” said Gary Marcus, a cognitive scientist at New York University and an outspoken skeptic of some claims made for deep learning.
"Although the Science paper is but one finding in an extensive history of work that demonstrates this idea, he added, computer scientists might be more responsive to it because it frames the issue in terms of the XOR problem that dogged neural network research for so long. “It’s saying, we really need to think about this,” Marcus said. “The whole game — to come up with how you get smart cognition out of dumb neurons — might be wrong.'”
Comment: Forward looking and not established as yet, but very likely true. Not by chance.
brain complexity: glial cells have functions
by David Turell , Tuesday, January 28, 2020, 00:13 (1544 days ago) @ David Turell
New findings show their many important functions:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/glial-brain-cells-long-in-neurons-shadow-reveal-hidden-p...
"The sting of a paper cut or the throb of a dog bite is perceived through the skin, where cells react to mechanical forces and send an electrical message to the brain. These signals were believed to originate in the naked endings of neurons that extend into the skin. But a few months ago, scientists came to the surprising realization that some of the cells essential for sensing this type of pain aren’t neurons at all. It’s a previously overlooked type of specialized glial cell that intertwines with nerve endings to form a mesh in the outer layers of the skin. The information the glial cells send to neurons is what initiates the “ouch”: When researchers stimulated only the glial cells, mice pulled back their paws or guarded them while licking or shaking — responses specific to pain
***
“'In the human brain, glial cells are as abundant as neurons are. Yet we know orders of magnitude less about what they do than we know about the neurons,” said Shai Shaham, a professor of cell biology at the Rockefeller University who focuses on glia. As more scientists turn their attention to glia, findings have been piling up to reveal a family of diverse cells that are unexpectedly crucial to vital processes.
"It turns out that glia perform a staggering number of functions. They help process memories. Some serve as immune system agents and ward off infection, while some communicate with neurons. Others are essential to brain development. Far from being mere valets to neurons, glia often take leading roles in protecting the brain’s health and directing its development. “Pick any question in the nervous system, and glial cells will be involved,” Shaham said.
***
"Several cell types are contained within the umbrella category of glia, with varied functions that are still coming to light. Oligodendrocytes and Schwann cells wrap around nerve fibers and insulate them in fatty myelin sheaths, which help to confine the electrical signals moving through neurons and speed their passage. Astrocytes, with their complex branching shapes, direct the flow of fluid in the brain, reshape the synaptic connections between neurons, and recycle the released neurotransmitter molecules that enable neurons to communicate, among other jobs.
***
"The work is exposing how microglia respond to brain trauma and other injuries, how they suppress inflammation, and how they behave in the presence of neurodegenerative diseases. The cells “really are at the edge between immunology and neuroscience,” Sierra said.
***
"In recent years, microglia have been found to mimic the macrophages of the immune system by engulfing threats to the brain such as cellular debris and microbes. Microglia also seem to go after obsolete synapses. “If you live-image them, you can see them eating neurons,” Brown said.
"Some of these active functions are shared with other types of glia as well. Astrocytes and Schwann cells, for example, may also prune synaptic connections. But despite the commonalities among different subsets of glia, researchers are starting to realize that there’s little to unify glial cells as a group.
***
"Neurons and glia cannot function independently: Their interactions are vital to the survival of the nervous system and the memories, thoughts and emotions it generates. But the nature of their partnership is still mysterious, notes Staci Bilbo, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. Glia are gaining a reputation for the complexity long attributed to neurons, but it’s still unclear whether one cell type primarily directs the other. “The big unknown in the field is: Who is driving the response?” she said."
Comment: Considering what brains do and control, this degree of complexity is not surprising, and this aspect of brain cellular function is only partially understood. Certainly designed.
brain complexity: astrocyte functions
by David Turell , Friday, April 24, 2020, 23:00 (1456 days ago) @ David Turell
Work with neurons to help with learning and memory:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200423174045.htm
"Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine reveal that astrocytes, the most abundant cells in the brain, play a direct role in the regulation of neuronal circuits involved in learning and memory.
"'It has become increasingly clear that astrocytes are much more than supportive cells in the healthy adult brain. They play a direct role in a wide variety of complex and essential functions, including neuronal communication through synapses and regulation of neural circuit functions," said corresponding author Dr. Benjamin Deneen, professor of neurosurgery and a member of the Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at Baylor.
***
"Previous work showed that astrocytes comprise diverse populations with unique cellular, molecular and functional properties. They occupy distinct brain regions, indicating regional specialization. There is evidence suggesting that transcription factors -- proteins involved in controlling gene expression -- regulate astrocyte diversity. Deneen and his colleagues looked to get a better understanding of the role transcription factor NFIA, a known regulator of astrocyte development, played in adult mouse brain functions.
"'We found that NFIA-deficient astrocytes presented defective shapes and altered functions," said Deneen, who holds the Dr. Russell J. and Marian K. Blattner Chair and is a member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor. "Surprisingly, although the NFIA gene was eliminated in all brain regions, only the astrocytes in the hippocampus were severely altered. Other regions, such as the cortex and the brain stem, were not affected."
"Astrocytes in the hippocampus also had less calcium activity -- calcium is an indicator of astrocyte function -- as well as a reduced ability to detect neurotransmitters released from neurons. NFIA-deficient astrocytes also were not as closely associated with neurons as normal astrocytes.
"Importantly, all these morphological and functional alterations were linked to defects in the animals' ability to learn and remember, providing the first evidence that astrocytes are to some extent controlling the neuronal circuits that mediate learning and memory.
"'Astrocytes in the brain are physically close to and communicate with neurons. Neurons release molecules that astrocytes can detect and respond to," Deneen said. "We propose that NFIA-deficient astrocytes are not able to 'listen' to neurons as well as normal astrocytes, and, therefore, they cannot respond appropriately by providing the support needed for efficient memory circuit function and neuronal transmission. Consequently, the circuit is disrupted, leading to impaired learning and memory.'"
Comment: Finding this functional relationship between astrocytes and neurons should be no surprise, as astrocytes are the most numerous cells in our brain. And our brain is the most complex organ ever developed and probably the most complex item in the universe. Not by chance.
brain complexity: very specialized auditory neurons
by David Turell , Tuesday, September 01, 2020, 18:10 (1326 days ago) @ David Turell
In a trained mouse study:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-holistic-cells-basis-brain-cognition.html
"A single cortical neuron represents a learned complex object as a whole, not as parts.
In the past century, neuroscientists have discovered various functional classes of neurons that are relevant to cognitive functions of the brain. These include orientation selective cells, place cells, grid cells and fear memory engram cells.
"These specific functional classes of neurons have been regarded as cornerstones of the cognitive map of the brain. Recently, scientists from the Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with collaborators at home and abroad, presented the discovery of "holistic bursting" cells, a novel functional class of cortical neurons that represent learned complex objects as wholes rather than parts.
"The researchers found that in mice that had received auditory association training, there existed a special subset of neurons in layer 2/3 of auditory cortex, each of which reliably exhibited a unique mode of high-rate, prolonged burst firing response (instantaneous firing rate ~ 100 Hz, firing duration 100—250 ms) to the trained sound in each trial.
"In contrast, neurons with such strong and reliable burst firing responses were almost absent in the auditory cortices of untrained animals, where the typical neuronal responses were unreliable singlet firings. A set of chronic imaging experiments revealed that the bursting response property emerged due to the associative training but occurred only in a sparse subset (~5%) of neurons in the auditory cortex.
"Of particular interest, the researchers found that mice could be trained with different chords, each consisting of multiple pure tones. The behavioral response showed a "holistic" character, i.e., the mice exhibited a reliable behavioral response exclusively to the trained chords but not to any of the constituent pure tones, even though all sounds were played at nearly the same volume.
"In the animals trained with chords, a special class of neurons was found, referred to as holistic bursting (HB) cells, each of which reliably exhibited a bursting response exclusively to a trained chord, but not to other chords or to individual constituent tones. The experimental precision was sufficient to show that, for these HB cells, the response strength to the preferred chord was significantly larger than the sum of individual response strengths to the four tones that constituted the chord.
"Dr. Israel Nelken, a renowned neuroscience expert in the auditory system and a key contributing author of this paper said, "The groundbreaking finding of this paper is the emergence of few neurons which respond, very powerfully, to a stimulus as a whole, rather than to its components, in contradistinction to most neurons surrounding them."
Comment: Having highly specialized cells in complex brains is not surprising. Just assume the designer knew what He was doing.
brain complexity: glial cells have functions II
by David Turell , Tuesday, September 08, 2020, 22:33 (1319 days ago) @ David Turell
Astrocytes are glial cells with many functions:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-highlights-role-astrocytes-formation-remote.html
"Astrocytes are star-shaped cells that are known to have several functions, including the regulation of the metabolism, detoxification, tissue repair and providing nutrients to neurons. Recent studies have found that these cells can also change synaptic activity in the brain, thus impacting neuronal circuits at multiple levels.
***
"The new findings represent a significant step forward in the understanding of astrocytes and their unique functions. Overall, they provide further evidence that astrocytes can shape neuronal networks in intricate ways and affect many cognitive functions, including the acquisition of remote memories.
"More specifically, the researchers observed that when a mouse was acquiring a new memory, ACC-projecting CA1 neurons were recruited in large numbers and neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) were simultaneously activated. When they activated Gi pathways in astrocytes using chemogenetic techniques, however, the communication between CA3 and CA1 neurons was disturbed, which prevented activation in the ACC.
"As a result of their intervention on astrocytes, the projection typically observed between CA1 and ACC neurons in a mouse brain as the animal is learning something was repressed. This, in turn, appeared to impair the mice's ability to acquire remote memories.
"The findings suggest that astrocytes play an important role in the formation of remote memories in mice and potentially humans, via their ability to regulate the projection of neurons onto other areas of the brain. In this particular instance, they may control the communication between CA1 neurons and the ACC, which seems to be essential for remote memory formation.
"'We revealed another capacity of astrocytes: They affect their neighboring neurons based on their projection target," the researchers concluded in their paper. "This finding further expands the repertoire of sophisticated ways by which astrocytes shape neuronal networks and consequently high cognitive function.'"
Comment: It is not just the number of neurons or how complex the circuitry, it is also the helper cells. Astrocytes are the most numerous type of four different glial cell populations and the largest, and therefore the most important. We are still learning the full design of the brain.
brain complexity: message controls
by David Turell , Friday, September 25, 2020, 23:46 (1302 days ago) @ David Turell
Neuron electrical impulses are controlled to reach only limited areas:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-nerve-cells.html
"Nerve cells in the brain also communicate with each other behind closed doors. But the extent of this protection could be strictly regulated depending on the situation. The findings now presented by the international research team point in this direction.
"The information transfer between neurons is mostly done chemically: In response to an electrical signal, the 'transmitting cell' releases a so-called neurotransmitter at a synapse; this may often be glutamate molecules. These migrate through the synaptic cleft to the recipient cell. There, they dock to certain receptors and generate an electrical reaction in the receiving neuron.
"But the nerve cells in the brain are packed very densely. There is therefore a danger that the molecules not only reach the neuron for which they are intended, but also stimulate other neurons in the neighborhood. This is where the 'closed doors' come into play: Specialized cells in the brain, the astrocytes, rapidly reabsorb the glutamate. This way they shield communication to a certain extent. "They do this by sending extensions near synapses, the so-called perisynaptic astrocyte processes or PAPs," explains Prof. Dr. Christian Henneberger...
"PAPs have specialized transporters that remove the glutamate around the synapses, like small vacuum cleaners. The effectiveness of this mechanism is apparently strictly regulated: The researchers triggered a kind of cellular learning through a repeated electrical stimulation. This causes the receiver cell to respond more strongly to the signals of the transmitting cell in the long term. Experts also speak of "long-term potentiation" (LTP).
"'We have now been able to demonstrate that PAPs retreat during this learning process," explains Prof. Dr. Dmitri Rusakov from the Institute of Neurology at University College London. "This increases the likelihood that neighboring cells are also stimulated by the glutamate release." This means that signal transmission also becomes less exclusive, which could explain other interesting observations where the cause was previously unclear: For example, LTP can also affect close connections between other nerve cells. "This may be important for later learning processes," Henneberger suspects.
"Some synapses also seem to be inherently less discreet than others. Together with his colleague Dr. Michel Herde and other researchers, Henneberger was able to show this in a study published a few days ago in Cell Reports. The transmitter cell often releases its glutamate into the synaptic cleft at certain structures, the so-called spines. These are tiny extensions of the downstream receiving nerve cell. The PAPs often cover these spines almost like a glove. However, the larger a spine is, the patchier is this coating and the more glutamate can escape. "In the vicinity of large and strong synapses, other nerve cells are therefore probably excited more frequently," says Herde. In other words: Nerve cells with strong synaptic connections rarely speak behind closed doors."
Comment: This degree of control is very important. The brain can't have a lot of static or garbled messages. The mass of wet neurons stimulated by electric shocks makes us think, see these words on the screen and understand their meaning. How does that happen? We really do not really know but we experience all of this with no effort, automatically, and rarely think about it, unless someone like myself pushes the envelope. We experience a miracle every day just by living as we do. The miracle means a designer exists.
brain complexity: does size control mental capacity
by David Turell , Saturday, September 26, 2020, 00:19 (1302 days ago) @ David Turell
Not in animal studies:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200925113353.htm
"A research team has systematically investigated the cognitive abilities of lemurs, which have relatively small brains compared to other primates. Conducting systematic tests with identical methods revealed that cognitive abilities of lemurs hardly differ from those of monkeys and great apes. Instead, this study revealed that the relationship between brain size and cognitive abilities cannot be generalized and it provides new insights into the evolution of primates.
"A research team from the German Primate Center (DPZ) -- Leibniz Institute for Primate Research in Göttingen has for the first time systematically investigated the cognitive abilities of lemurs, which have relatively small brains compared to other primates. Conducting systematic tests with identical methods revealed that cognitive abilities of lemurs hardly differ from those of monkeys and great apes. Instead, this study revealed that the relationship between brain size and cognitive abilities cannot be generalized and it provides new insights into the evolution of cognitive abilities in primates.
***
"Initial studies have shown that children possess a better social intelligence than non-human primates. In the physical domain, however, the species hardly differed even though they show great variation in their relative brain sizes.
***
"The results of the new study show that despite their smaller brains lemurs' average cognitive performance in the tests of the PCTB was not fundamentally different from the performances of the other primate species. This is even true for mouse lemurs, which have brains about 200 times smaller than those of chimpanzees and orangutans. Only in tests examining spatial reasoning primate species with larger brains performed better. However, no systematic differences in species performances were neither found for the understanding of causal and numerical relationships nor in tests of the social domain. Neither diet, nor social system or brain size could explain the results from the PCTB experiments. "With our study we show that cognitive abilities cannot be generalized, but that species instead differ in domain-specific cognitive skills," says Claudia Fichtel, one of the two first authors of the study funded by the German Research Foundation. "Accordingly, the relationship between brain size and cognitive abilities cannot be generalized.'"
Comment: The corvids show it is not bulk size but neuron count and network complexity But as humans show overall bulk does help if enough neurons and networks are added. The elephants and whales lack that additive.
brain complexity: controlled use of energy
by David Turell , Monday, October 05, 2020, 18:18 (1292 days ago) @ David Turell
The more the neurons are active the more energy is produced in a feedback loop:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-scientists-reveal-brain-fuel-intense.html
"...researchers discovered how the chattiest of some synapses find the energy to support intense conversations thought to underlie learning and memory. Their results, published in Nature Metabolism, suggest that a series of chemical reactions control a feedback loop that senses the need for more energy and replenishes it by recruiting cellular powerplants, called mitochondria, to the synapses.
***
"The team studied synapses that use the neurotransmitter glutamate to communicate. Communication happens when a packet of glutamate is released from presynaptic boutons which are tiny protrusions that stick out, like beads on a string, of long, wiry parts of neurons called axons. Previously, Dr. Sheng's team showed that synaptic communication is an energy-demanding process and that mitochondria traveling along axons can control signals sent by boutons. Boutons that had mitochondria sent stronger and more consistent signals than those that were missing powerplants. The difference was due to higher energy levels produced by the mitochondria in the form of ATP.
***
"They found that this type of signaling quickly dropped energy levels at boutons. These changes triggered a series of chemical reactions controlled by an energy sensor called AMP-activated protein kinases (AMPK) that ultimately led to the rapid recruitment of mitochondria to the boutons. Genetically blocking or chemically interfering with this feedback loop prevented the delivery of mitochondria to boutons and lowered energy levels. This, in turn, reduced synaptic responses during intense communication more than seen in control cells and slowed the recovery of the responses after the bursts ended. The researchers concluded that this feedback loop may normally play a critical role in providing the energy needed to sustain synaptic communication throughout a healthy nervous system."
Comment: Another example of feedback loop control. Feedback loops can only appear through design, since every molecule in the loop must be in place from the start of function.
Introducing the brain: it anticipates senses
by David Turell , Monday, May 13, 2019, 19:50 (1803 days ago) @ dhw
When you anticipate a certain taste, you may be surprised at what happens:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/brains-speed-up-perception-by-guessing-whats-next-20190502/
"Imagine picking up a glass of what you think is apple juice, only to take a sip and discover that it’s actually ginger ale. Even though you usually love the soda, this time it tastes terrible. That’s because context and internal states, including expectation, influence how all animals perceive and process sensory information, explained Alfredo Fontanini, a neurobiologist at Stony Brook University in New York. In this case, anticipating the wrong stimulus leads to a surprise, and a negative response.
***
"Years ago, Fontanini and his team found direct neural evidence of this speedup effect in the gustatory cortex, the part of the brain responsible for taste perception. Since then, they have been trying to pin down the structure of the cortical circuitry that made their results possible. Now they have. Last month, they published their findings in Nature Neuroscience: a model of a network with a specific kind of architecture that not only provides new insights into how expectation works, but also delves into broader questions about how scientists should think about perception more generally. Moreover, it falls in step with a theory of decision making that suggests the brain really does leap to conclusions, rather than building up to them.
***
" Currently, neuroscientists are debating how taste gets processed: Some argue that certain neurons might encode “sweet” and others “salty,” creating very specific neural signatures for specific tastes. Others tie it to broader patterns of activity; most neurons respond to most tastes, and a given neural signature is more roughly correlated with one taste over another. The work done by Fontanini and his colleagues supports the latter theory while providing predictions about what that connectivity should look like. The clusters alone “capture many, many features of the gustatory cortex,” Fontanini said: “the spontaneous activity, the patterns of response to taste, the expectation effect.”
***
"The way experts think about basic sensory perception tends toward the hierarchical: The cortex builds up and integrates features to form perceptions, sending signals to other layers of the network that integrate still more information until the brain ultimately arrives at a decision or behavior.
"Not so in this new work. Instead, the team’s results support a different kind of processing in which “all of this happens at the same time, and … before the stimulus even arrives,” said Leslie Kay, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago who focuses on olfaction. “You learn stuff within a cortical area,” forming a system of connected clusters to reflect that learning, “and then you influence it [with expectation], and what it knows emerges.”
***
"It also highlights the need to move away from focusing on single neurons that respond to particular cues, and toward making internal states and dynamics more explicit in our understanding of sensory networks — even for the most basic sensory stimuli. “It’s much easier to say that a neuron increases its firing rate,” said Anan Moran, a neurobiologist at Tel Aviv University in Israel. But to understand how organisms work, “you cannot account only for the stimulus, but also for the internal state,” he added. “And this means that our previous [understanding of] the mechanism used by the brain to achieve perception and action and so on needs to be reevaluated.”
“'The stuff going on in the gustatory cortex before the stimulus arrives is a large part of how that stimulus gets processed when it gets there,” Katz said. And in this case, examining how those internal states get modified by an experience or cue revealed something about the overall network connectivity."
Comment: This does not show that the brain is in charge of us. It shows that the brain sets up networks to help us by anticipating the next step in the sensory process. This is built into the brain's designed activity.
Introducing the brain: it anticipates senses
DAVID: When you anticipate a certain taste, you may be surprised at what happens:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/brains-speed-up-perception-by-guessing-whats-next-20190502/
QUOTE: "Imagine picking up a glass of what you think is apple juice, only to take a sip and discover that it’s actually ginger ale. Even though you usually love the soda, this time it tastes terrible. That’s because context and internal states, including expectation, influence how all animals perceive and process sensory information, explained Alfredo Fontanini, a neurobiologist at Stony Brook University in New York. In this case, anticipating the wrong stimulus leads to a surprise, and a negative response.
DAVID: This does not show that the brain is in charge of us. It shows that the brain sets up networks to help us by anticipating the next step in the sensory process. This is built into the brain's designed activity.
But it does not show us that the brain is NOT in charge of us. It merely tells us that there are different forms of interaction either between the brain and the so-called soul (dualism), or between different parts of the brain if one believes that the brain is the source of thought (materialism).
Introducing the brain: it anticipates senses
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 14, 2019, 15:13 (1803 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: When you anticipate a certain taste, you may be surprised at what happens:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/brains-speed-up-perception-by-guessing-whats-next-20190502/
QUOTE: "Imagine picking up a glass of what you think is apple juice, only to take a sip and discover that it’s actually ginger ale. Even though you usually love the soda, this time it tastes terrible. That’s because context and internal states, including expectation, influence how all animals perceive and process sensory information, explained Alfredo Fontanini, a neurobiologist at Stony Brook University in New York. In this case, anticipating the wrong stimulus leads to a surprise, and a negative response.
DAVID: This does not show that the brain is in charge of us. It shows that the brain sets up networks to help us by anticipating the next step in the sensory process. This is built into the brain's designed activity.
dhw: But it does not show us that the brain is NOT in charge of us. It merely tells us that there are different forms of interaction either between the brain and the so-called soul (dualism), or between different parts of the brain if one believes that the brain is the source of thought (materialism).
But as I view my use of the brain, it seems to me I introduce my thoughts, just as I purposely answered you by creating this sentence. Since I use my brain as I wish, I have free will.
Introducing the brain: it anticipates senses
DAVID: This does not show that the brain is in charge of us. It shows that the brain sets up networks to help us by anticipating the next step in the sensory process. This is built into the brain's designed activity.
dhw: But it does not show us that the brain is NOT in charge of us. It merely tells us that there are different forms of interaction either between the brain and the so-called soul (dualism), or between different parts of the brain if one believes that the brain is the source of thought (materialism).
DAVID: But as I view my use of the brain, it seems to me I introduce my thoughts, just as I purposely answered you by creating this sentence. Since I use my brain as I wish, I have free will.
We have covered this in great detail during our discussions on materialism versus dualism. As a dualist, you like to separate your “I” into material brain and immaterial soul. Materialists believe that the “I” which “introduces” your thoughts is also the product of your materials.
Introducing the brain: it anticipates senses
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 15, 2019, 18:18 (1801 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: This does not show that the brain is in charge of us. It shows that the brain sets up networks to help us by anticipating the next step in the sensory process. This is built into the brain's designed activity.
dhw: But it does not show us that the brain is NOT in charge of us. It merely tells us that there are different forms of interaction either between the brain and the so-called soul (dualism), or between different parts of the brain if one believes that the brain is the source of thought (materialism).
DAVID: But as I view my use of the brain, it seems to me I introduce my thoughts, just as I purposely answered you by creating this sentence. Since I use my brain as I wish, I have free will.
dhw: We have covered this in great detail during our discussions on materialism versus dualism. As a dualist, you like to separate your “I” into material brain and immaterial soul. Materialists believe that the “I” which “introduces” your thoughts is also the product of your materials.
I know the view, and you try to be neutral. I am not.
Introducing the brain: how Mother's voice shapes it
by David Turell , Saturday, June 01, 2019, 18:30 (1784 days ago) @ David Turell
Even before birth:
https://aeon.co/ideas/how-a-mother-s-voice-shapes-her-baby-s-developing-brain?utm_sourc...
"It is no surprise that a child prefers its mother’s voice to those of strangers. Beginning in the womb, a foetus’s developing auditory pathways sense the sounds and vibrations of its mother. Soon after birth, a child can identify its mother’s voice and will work to hear her voice better over unfamiliar female voices....A mother’s voice can soothe a child in stressful situations, reducing levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, and increasing levels of oxytocin, the social bonding hormone. Scientists have even traced the power of a mother’s voice to infants’ brains: a mother’s voice activates the anterior prefrontal cortex and the left posterior temporal region more strongly than an unfamiliar voice, priming the infant for the specialised task of speech processing.
***
"The researchers examined 24 children between the ages of seven and 12, who had normal IQs, had no development disorders, and were raised by their biological mothers. While in the MRI machine, these children listened to recordings of nonsense words spoken by their mothers or by other women. The researchers specifically chose nonsense words so as not to trigger brain circuits related to semantics. Regardless, the children were able to accurately identify their mother’s voice more than 97 per cent of the time in less than one second.
"But what actually happened when these older children heard their mother’s voice? The team hypothesised that listening to her voice would produce more activity in the so-called ‘voice-selective’ brain regions, involved in recognising voice and processing speech, compared with when they heard unfamiliar female voices. But what the scientists found was even more remarkable. A mother’s voice activated a wide range of brain structures including the amygdala, which regulates emotion, the nucleus accumbens and medial prefrontal cortex, which are part of a major reward circuit, and the fusiform face area, which processes visual face information. This pattern of brain activity can be likened to a neural fingerprint, where a mother’s voice triggers specific activity in her child’s brain.
"The investigation didn’t stop there. The team found that the more neural connection between these ‘voice-selective’ brain regions and those related to mood, reward and face processing, the more social communication abilities a child had. In other words, the neural fingerprint of a mother’s voice within a child’s brain can predict that child’s ability to communicate in the social realm.
***
"... it is now scientifically proven that most of us carry a mother’s voice in the neural patterns of our brain: bedtime stories, dinnertime conversation and the chatter we heard before birth identify us, uniquely, as surely as the fingerprint, enabling emotional development and social communication in childhood and, probably, through life.
Comment: Not at all surprising and it points out how important interaction with a mother is to the early years of an infant's development. Other articles have been reproduced here showing how important conversations and reading to the older child improves overall intelligence. Much of this is produced by the developing brain's plasticity.
Introducing the brain: astrocytes clean up toxic lipids
by David Turell , Saturday, June 01, 2019, 20:05 (1784 days ago) @ David Turell
Recent study shows the process:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-05-astrocytes-neurons-toxic-buildup.html
"The brain cells collect damaged lipids secreted by hyperactive neurons, then recycle those toxic molecules into energy, researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus report May 23, 2019, in the journal Cell. It's a mechanism to protect neurons from the damaging side effects of overactivity. And it's another important role for astrocytes, which support neurons in various ways.
"When a neuron fires fast and furious, lipid molecules in the cell get damaged and can become toxic. While most kinds of cells sequester excess fatty acids away or feed them to mitochondria to prevent buildup, neurons don't seem to rely on those tricks.
"Instead, "neurons unload some of the burden to astrocytes," says study coauthor and Janelia Group Leader Zhe Liu, who worked closely with Maria Ioannou and Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz, a senior group leader at Janelia. "For a long time, people have suspected there was some mechanism like this. The new work shows how this process actually happens."
"The finding arose from a curious observation: Overactive neurons release damaged fatty acids bundled up in lipid particles. "People didn't think that neurons could secrete those lipid particles," Liu says.
"But stimulating mouse neurons in a dish led to the buildup of fatty acids and, eventually, lipid particle release, the team showed. Then, nearby astrocytes engulfed the particles and amped up the activity of genes involved in energy production and detoxification.
"Astrocytes feed neurons' off-loaded damaged lipids to their own mitochondria, converting waste into energy, Liu concluded. Tests in mice showed a similar response. After a lesion to the brain that mimics a stroke—a huge stress to neurons—neurons increased production of proteins involved in transporting fatty acids out of the cell, and fatty acids built up in astrocytes."
Comment: As in other protective systems like this, at the point of evolution of the process
all parts of the mechanism have to be developed together. Stepwise would not accomplish it, since protection depends on the entire process working in a coordinated fashion..
Introducing the brain: the plasticity of the single neuron
by David Turell , Friday, July 12, 2019, 19:21 (1743 days ago) @ David Turell
The dendrites play a huge role in processing the input of information signals:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-07-neuron.html
"How do neurons process information? Neurons are known to break down an incoming electrical signal into sub-units. Now, researchers at Blue Brain have discovered that dendrites, the neuron's tree-like receptors, work together—dynamically and depending on the workload—for learning.
***
"Their results show that when a neuron receives input, the branches of the elaborate tree-like receptors extending from the neuron, known as dendrites, functionally work together in a way that is adjusted to the complexity of the input.
"The strength of a synapse determines how strongly a neuron feels an electric signal coming from other neurons, and the act of learning changes this strength. By analyzing the "connectivity matrix" that determines how these synapses communicate with each other, the algorithm establishes when and where synapses group into independent learning units from the structural and electrical properties of dendrites. In other words, the new algorithm determines how the dendrites of neurons functionally break up into separate computing units and finds that they work together dynamically, depending on the workload, to process information.
***
"This newly observed dendritic functionality acts like parallel computing units meaning that a neuron is able to process different aspects of the input in parallel, like supercomputers. Each of the parallel computing units can independently learn to adjust its output, much like the nodes in deep learning networks used in artificial intelligence (AI) models today.
"Comparable to cloud computing, a neuron dynamically breaks up into the number of separate computing units demanded by the workload of the input.
***
"Additionally, the research reveals how these parallel processing units influence learning, i.e. the change in connection strength between different neurons. The way a neuron learns depends on the number and location of parallel processors, which in turn depend on the signals arriving from other neurons. For instance, certain synapses that do not learn independently when the neuron's input level is low, start to learn independently when the input levels are higher.
***
"'The method finds that in many brain states, neurons have far fewer parallel processors than expected from dendritic branch patterns. Thus, many synapses appear to be in 'grey zones' where they do not belong to any processing unit," explains lead scientist and first author Willem Wybo. "However, in the brain, neurons receive varying levels of background input and our results show that the number of parallel processors varies with the level of background input, indicating that the same neuron might have different computational roles in different brain states."
"'We are particularly excited about this observation since it sheds a new light on the role of up/down states in the brain and it also provides a reason as to why cortical inhibition is so location-specific. With the new insights, we can start looking for algorithms that exploit the rapid changes in pairing between processing units, offering us more insight into the fundamental question of how the brain computes," concludes Gewaltig."
Comment: The neuron turns out to a minicomputer all within itself. No wonder our brain is so powerful at the size it is, compared to animals.
Introducing the brain: the plasticity of the single neuron
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 06, 2019, 20:46 (1718 days ago) @ David Turell
Changing synaptic connections is a constant activity:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-08-brain-cells.html
"Brain cells, or neurons, constantly tinker with their circuit connections, a crucial feature that allows the brain to store and process information. While neurons frequently test out new potential partners through transient contacts, only a fraction of fledging junctions, called synapses, are selected to become permanent.
***
"The team tracked specially labeled neurons in the visual cortex of mice after normal visual experience, and after two weeks in darkness. To their surprise they saw that spines would routinely arise and then typically disappear again at the same rate regardless of whether the mice were in light or darkness. This careful scrutiny of spines confirmed that experience doesn't matter for spine formation, Nedivi said. That upends a common assumption in the field, which held that experience was necessary for spines to even emerge.
"By keeping track of the presence of PSD95 they could confirm that the synapses that became stabilized during normal visual experience were the ones that had accumulated that protein. But the question remained: How does experience drive PSD95 to the synapse? The team hypothesized that CPG15, which is activity dependent and associated with synapse stabilization, does that job.
***
"Indeed, PSD95 recruitment shot up, as if the animals were exposed to visual experience. This showed that CPG15 not only carries the message of experience in the light, it can actually substitute for it in the dark, essentially "tricking" PSD95 into acting as if experience had called upon it.
"'This is a very exciting result, because it shows that CPG15 is not just required for experience-dependent synapse selection, but it's also sufficient," says Nedivi, "That's unique in relation to all other molecules that are involved in synaptic plasticity."
"In all, the paper's data allowed Nedivi to propose a new model of experience-dependent synapse stabilization: Regardless of neural activity or experience, spines emerge with fledgling excitatory synapses and the receptors needed for further development. If activity and experience send CPG15 their way, that draws in PSD95 and the synapse stabilizes. If experience doesn't involve the synapse, it gets no CPG15, very likely no PSD95 and the spine withers away."
Comment: Plasticity is mediated by complex proteins working together. The problem for us is that we do not know how proteins create function. See today's entry: How much can we know? the protein form/function enigma. There must be a level of control that activates each protein and we do not see that level. Too complex for Darwin-style evolutionary theory. Hasad to be designed.
Introducing the brain: cerebellum differs from mouse
by David Turell , Saturday, October 19, 2019, 20:52 (1644 days ago) @ David Turell
There are major differences in our brain from lesser animals:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-10-mouse-cerebellum-human.html
"The work by the team involved very closely studying the development of the cerebellum in mice, humans and macaques—another animal that is used for cerebellum studies. After obtaining human cerebellum tissue samples from hospitals and other institutions, mouse samples from test mice and images of macaque cerebellum tissue from prior research efforts, the team compared them. They found they had enough material and data to compare cerebellum development from 30 days post-conception to approximately nine months after birth.
"The researchers report that they found a completely unexpected difference—a group of progenitor cells that had never before been seen in the human cerebellum or in the brains of either the mice or macaques. Until this finding, such cells had been seen only in the human cerebral cortex. They also found that some of the progenitor cells in an area called the rhombic lip were the source of cerebellar granule neurons. And they found that the rhombic lip took longer to develop in humans than the other two animals—it continued maturing throughout gestation. They suggest such clear differences could mean that comparison of the cerebellum across mice and humans may not be as revealing as has been hoped. They also note that such differences might also explain why it has been so difficult to mimic cerebellum-based human defects in animal models."
Comment: Our brain is really different from lesser organisms as this study shows.
Introducing the brain: the plasticity of body part loss
by David Turell , Tuesday, November 05, 2019, 18:54 (1627 days ago) @ David Turell
Lose a hand and the brain shifts its connections:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-11-human-brain-rewire-traumatic-bodily.html
"...researchers at the University of Missouri have discovered a new insight into how the complex neural map of the human brain operates.
***
"'When a person touches something with their right hand, a specific 'hand area' in the left side of the brain lights up," said Scott Frey, the Miller Family Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychological Sciences. "A similar, but opposite reaction happens with the left hand. But when someone loses a hand, we found both 'hand areas' of the brain—left and right—become dedicated to the remaining healthy hand. This is a striking example of functional reorganization or the plasticity of the human brain."
***
"The researchers saw in their scans that when the brain is deprived of input from a lost hand, it reorganizes its neural map and reroutes those functions to the remaining hand.
***
"'We can think of the areas of the brain that process sensations from our bodies as being organized like a map with separate territories devoted to specific body regions such as the hands, face, or feet," said Frey, who is also the director of the Rehabilitation Neuroscience Laboratory at MU, a joint venture between the MU College of Arts and Science and the MU School of Medicine. "We have long known that injuries such amputation or spinal cord damage change the organization of this map. If you lose a hand, for instance, then the associated 'hand area' may be partially taken over by neighboring functions in the map involved in processing sensations of the arm or face. This is a form of 'brain plasticity.' This work demonstrates that such plasticity also occurs across great distances between the left and right hemispheres of the brain.'"
Comment: Not surprising considering other examples we've seen.
Introducing the brain: keeping track of the body
by David Turell , Saturday, November 09, 2019, 19:33 (1623 days ago) @ David Turell
We are compartmentalized the brain too much new research shows:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/noise-in-the-brains-vision-areas-encodes-body-movements-...
"At every moment, neurons whisper, shout, sputter and sing, filling the brain with a dizzying cacophony of voices. Yet many of those voices don’t seem to be saying anything meaningful at all. They register as habitual echoes of noise, not signal; as static, not discourse.
***
"Now, by analyzing both the neural activity and the behavior of mice in unprecedented detail, researchers have revealed a surprising explanation for much of that variability: Throughout the brain, even in low-level sensory areas like the visual cortex, neurons encode information about far more than their immediately relevant task. They also babble about whatever other behaviors the animal happens to be engaging in, even trivial ones — the twitch of a whisker, the flick of a hind leg.
"Those simple gestures aren’t just present in the neural activity. They dominate it.
The findings are changing how scientists interpret brain activity, and how they design experiments to study it.
***
"Kenneth Harris and Matteo Carandini, neuroscientists at University College London, started with a different goal: to characterize the structure of the spontaneous activity in the visual cortex that occurs even when the rodent gets no visual stimulation. They and other members of their joint team at the university’s Cortexlab recorded from 10,000 neurons at once in mice that were free to act as they wanted — to run, sniff, groom themselves, glance around, move their whiskers, flatten their ears and so on — in the dark.
"The researchers found that even though the animals couldn’t see anything, the activity in their visual cortex was both extensive and shockingly multidimensional, meaning that it was encoding a great deal of information. Not only were the neurons chatting, but “there were many conversations going on at the same time,” wrote Marius Pachitariu, a neuroscientist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
***
“If we look at the mouse as a whole,” McCormick said, “all of a sudden, that general activity, that swirling kaleidoscope of activity in the brain, starts to make sense.” (He and his lab reported similar findings in a recent preprint.) The activity didn’t just reflect the general state of the mouse’s alertness or arousal, or the fact that the animal was moving. The visual cortex knew exactly what the animal was doing, down to the details of its individual movements.
"In fact, this wasn’t unique to the visual cortex. “Everywhere in the brain, it’s the same story. The movement signals are just really unmistakable,” said Matt Smear, a systems neuroscientist at the University of Oregon who did not participate in the study. It cements the idea that “certain intuitive notions about the brain are probably wrong.”
"Even more striking, the same neurons that encoded sensory or other functional information were the ones explicitly encoding these motor signals. “All of a sudden we’re saying, ‘Wait — maybe the brain isn’t noisy. Maybe it’s actually much more precise than we thought,’” McCormick said.
***
"The movement signals therefore aren’t hurting the animal’s ability to process sensory information about the outside world. But scientists still need to explore exactly how those signals might help the brain work better. At its core, this discovery reflects the fact that fundamentally, the brain evolved for action — that animals have brains to let them move around, and that “perception isn’t just the external input,” Stringer said. “It’s modulated at least to some extent by what you’re doing at any given time.”
"Sensory information represents only a small part of what’s needed to truly perceive the environment. “You need to take into account movement, your body relative to the world, in order to figure out what’s actually out there,” Niell said.
“We used to think that the brain analyzed all these things separately and then somehow bound them together,” McCormick said. “Well, we’re starting to learn that the brain does that mixing of multisensory and movement binding [earlier] than we previously imagined.”
***
“'People tend to think of movements as being separate from cognition — as interfering with cognition, even,” Churchland said. “We think that, given this work, it might be time to consider an alternative point of view, that at least for some subjects, movement is really a part of the cognition.”
***
“'What we think of as being weird or unusual signals,” Niell said, “might start to make sense when you actually let an animal do what it would normally do, and not train the mice to be like little humans.'”
Comment: The brain knows everything going on. Experiment on unconstricted mice. Our brain is more than we knew.
Introducing the brain: not understanding how it works
by David Turell , Sunday, February 02, 2020, 19:29 (1538 days ago) @ David Turell
Even if all the connections were known, we still will not fully understand how it works:
http://nautil.us//issue/81/maps/an-existential-crisis-in-neuroscience?utm_source=Nautil...
"Subtitle to article: :We’re mapping the brain in amazing detail—but our brain can’t understand the picture."
"...computer servers were holding on to a precious 48 terabytes of my data. I have recorded the 13 trillion numbers in this dataset as part of my Ph.D. experiments, asking how the visual parts of the rat brain respond to movement.
"Printed on paper, the dataset would fill 116 billion pages, double-spaced
***
"But, as massive as my dataset sounds, it represents just a tiny chunk of a dataset taken from the whole brain. And the questions it asks—Do neurons in the visual cortex do anything when an animal can’t see? What happens when inputs to the visual cortex from other brain regions are shut off?—are small compared to the ultimate question in neuroscience: How does the brain work?
***
"We can identify brain regions that respond to the environment, activate our senses, generate movements and emotions. But we don’t know how different parts of the brain interact with and depend on each other. We don’t understand how their interactions contribute to behavior, perception, or memory. Technology has made it easy for us to gather behemoth datasets, but I’m not sure understanding the brain has kept pace with the size of the datasets.
***
"The mysteries of how brains create memories, thoughts, perceptions, feelings—consciousness itself—must be hidden in this labyrinth of neural connections.
***
"Scientists still need to understand the relationship between those minute anatomical features and dynamical activity profiles of neurons—the patterns of electrical activity they generate—something the connectome data lacks. This is a point on which connectomics has received considerable criticism, mainly by way of example from the worm: Neuroscientists have had the complete wiring diagram of the worm C. elegans for a few decades now, but arguably do not understand the 300-neuron creature in its entirety; how its brain connections relate to its behaviors is still an active area of research.
***
"Lichtman didn’t entertain the far-out ideas in science fiction, but acknowledged that a network that would have the same wiring diagram as a human brain would be scary. “We wouldn’t understand how it was working any more than we understand how deep learning works,” he said. “Now, suddenly, we have machines that don’t need us anymore.”
***
"A strong intuition among many neuroscientists is that individual neurons are exquisitely complicated: They have all of these back-propagating action potentials, they have dendritic compartments that are independent, they have all these different channels there. And so a single neuron might even itself be a network. To caricature that as a rectified linear unit”—the simple mathematical model of a neuron in DNNs [deep neuron networks]—“is clearly missing out on so much.”
***
"It seems likely that Lichtman’s two exabytes of brain slices, and even my 48 terabytes of rat brain data, will not fit through any individual human mind. Or at least no human mind is going to orchestrate all this data into a panoramic picture of how the human brain works...The machines we have built—the ones architected after cortical anatomy—fall short of capturing the nature of the human brain. But they have no trouble finding patterns in large datasets. Maybe one day, as they grow stronger building on more cortical anatomy, they will be able to explain those patterns back to us, solving the puzzle of the brain’s interconnections, creating a picture we understand."
Comment: First of all, this complexity demands a designer. Secondly this applies to our discussion about which came first large brain or from dhw a necessity telling the brain to enlarge and complexify. The dhw approach demands to know how did the brain learn to make itself function better by enlarging and complexifying? Only a designer could have created that mechanism, a mechanism dhw awards to evolving organisms by his suggesting God gave such a mechanism so they could do it themselves. But we know the modern brain shrinks under such circumstances. dhw's theory requires the ancient brains had an enlarging mechanism and now they don't. Evolution in reverse!? Not logical and inconsistent reasoning. In evolution doesn't the present build from the past? We know local brain areas enlarge, when required (London cabbies, illiterate women). Why a limited capacity now?
Introducing the brain: strict blood-brain barrier
by David Turell , Monday, February 10, 2020, 19:35 (1530 days ago) @ David Turell
The brain is very different from all other organs. It is delicate and requires precise protection, but it needs oxygen and glucose and get rid of waste products and CO2 like the other organs:
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-human-brain-meticulous-interface-bloodstream.html
"The brain is the only part of the body outfitted with astrocytes, which regulate nourishment uptake and waste removal in their own, unique way.
"'Upon the brain's request, astrocytes collaborate with the vasculature in real-time what the brain needs and opens its gates to let in only that bit of water and nutrients. Astrocytes go to get just what the brain needs and don't let much else in," Kim said.
"Astrocytes form a protein structure called aquaporin-4 in their membranes that are in contact with vasculature to let in and out water molecules, which also contributes to clearing waste from the brain.
***
"In testing related to drug delivery, nanoparticles moved through the blood-brain-barrier after engaging endothelial cell receptors, which caused these cells to engulf the particles then transport them to what would be inside the human brain in a natural setting. "
Comment: A beautiful example of design. I would guess the first evolved brains had this barrier with its very specialized protein complex..
Introducing the brain: protecting memories of learned info
by David Turell , Monday, February 10, 2020, 20:04 (1530 days ago) @ David Turell
Takes lots of myelin production:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-02-long-term-requires-nerve-insulation.html:
"'We find that a single, brief fear-learning experience can cause long-term changes in myelination and associated neurophysiological changes within the brain that can be detected even a month later,"
***
"Myelin is formed during early development by brain cells called oligodendrocytes, which wrap themselves hundreds of times around the branching axons emanating from certain key neurons. This forms a thick sheath of protein and fat that acts like an insulator around an electrical cable, strengthening and speeding electrical signaling in the nerve pathways that connect one neuron to the next.
"This insulation is particularly important for the brain's busiest information superhighways, like the high-speed nerve fibers that can extend three feet or more, giving your brain nearly instant command over your body's muscles. Damage to this myelin and an associated loss of muscle control are hallmarks of MS, but comparatively little attention has been given to the possibility that myelin could also undergo dynamic changes in the healthy adult brain.
***
"Scientists have known for decades that learning depends initially on the brain's ability to rewire itself by forming new connections between neurons. These new studies represent growing evidence that myelin's ability to reinforce and maintain these new connections may determine what makes certain memories stick.
***
"To test whether this new myelin was required for the animals to learn, the researchers repeated the experiment with mice genetically engineered to be unable to form new myelin. These mice initially froze in the conditioning chamber, but unlike normal mice their fear appeared to fade away after about a month. The researchers concluded that new myelin formation is not needed for initial learning, but plays a specific role in the consolidation and maintenance of long-lasting fear memories.
"Because myelin acts to increase the speed and efficiency of signals passing along axons, changes in myelination may influence important electrical signaling patterns within neural networks. In their new study the researchers discovered that losing the ability to form new myelin produced long-term changes in the activity of neurons in the mouse prefrontal cortex.
***
"'We are now seeing that the process of oligodendrocyte generation and myelination can be quite dynamic in the normal adult brain. It's a form of plasticity that responds to experience and that causes long-lasting changes. This is a very recent concept that we are in the early days of exploring.'"
Comment: Note the last quote which indicates how quickly the brain protects its new learning. The brain is carefully designed in its plasticity and in its methods of protecting memories which help all animals learn to live safely.
Introducing the brain: suppressing extraneous info
by David Turell , Monday, February 10, 2020, 20:17 (1530 days ago) @ David Turell
Too much info stimuli muddies the important information:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-02-evidence-brain-decisions.html
"'Right now, your little toe is sending signals up to your brain, as is every square inch of your body," said Adam Cohen, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology, and of physics, "but most of it is not interesting. Your brain has to ignore all that stuff and only pay attention to the very few things that are actually relevant."
***
"As their optogenetic tool recorded neural signals in live mice, Cohen and his team added stimuli based on the two main types of attention. First, they flicked a mouse's whisker, provoking a "bottom-up" signal that reports new sensory information. Then, they blew a puff of air on the mouse's face, activating a "top-down" signal in which existing knowledge shapes perception of a stimuli. "Think of it like a wake-up call," Cohen explained.
***
"The team discovered that neurons in layer one maintain a careful balance between excitation and inhibition. If too many neurons are firing at once, they suppress others from firing. "The circuit acts like a novelty detector," Cohen said. Sudden inputs can spark most neurons to fire, but with long-lasting inputs, most of the neurons inhibit each other and cause the circuit to turn almost completely off.
***
"Based on their data, the team designed a mathematical model of the circuit, which suggested an intriguing connection to a century-old theory about attention. The so-called Yerkes-Dodson law proposes that a little stress can help increase performance, but it declines when stress increases too much. "Everyone who's ever taken a test knows this," Cohen said. His model showed that layer one neurons behaved in a similar way: A little top-down activation wakes them up so they are more responsive to sensory inputs, but too much activation makes the circuit freeze and ignore incoming information."
Comment: An obviously needed control system, designed to avoid confusing overstimulation.
Introducing the brain: protecting memories of learned info
QUOTES: "Scientists have known for decades that learning depends initially on the brain's ability to rewire itself by forming new connections between neurons. These new studies represent growing evidence that myelin's ability to reinforce and maintain these new connections may determine what makes certain memories stick."
"'We are now seeing that the process of oligodendrocyte generation and myelination can be quite dynamic in the normal adult brain. It's a form of plasticity that responds to experience and that causes long-lasting changes. This is a very recent concept that we are in the early days of exploring.'"
DAVID: Note the last quote which indicates how quickly the brain protects its new learning. The brain is carefully designed in its plasticity and in its methods of protecting memories which help all animals learn to live safely.
I hope you will note both quotes, which could hardly make it clearer that changes to the brain take place as a RESPONSE to new experiences (think of the illiterate women, the taxi-drivers and musicians), not in anticipation of them. You yourself have pointed out that they may even result in expansion of certain sections. There is no reason to assume that this process had to be reversed in the pre-human brain, with expansion preceding new experiences!
XXX
QUOTE: His model showed that layer one neurons behaved in a similar way: A little top-down activation wakes them up so they are more responsive to sensory inputs, but too much activation makes the circuit freeze and ignore incoming information."
DAVID: An obviously needed control system, designed to avoid confusing overstimulation.
Yes indeed, cells respond to sensory inputs and make their decisions accordingly.
Introducing the brain: protecting memories of learned info
by David Turell , Tuesday, February 11, 2020, 14:35 (1530 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTES: "Scientists have known for decades that learning depends initially on the brain's ability to rewire itself by forming new connections between neurons. These new studies represent growing evidence that myelin's ability to reinforce and maintain these new connections may determine what makes certain memories stick."
"'We are now seeing that the process of oligodendrocyte generation and myelination can be quite dynamic in the normal adult brain. It's a form of plasticity that responds to experience and that causes long-lasting changes. This is a very recent concept that we are in the early days of exploring.'"
DAVID: Note the last quote which indicates how quickly the brain protects its new learning. The brain is carefully designed in its plasticity and in its methods of protecting memories which help all animals learn to live safely.
dhw: I hope you will note both quotes, which could hardly make it clearer that changes to the brain take place as a RESPONSE to new experiences (think of the illiterate women, the taxi-drivers and musicians), not in anticipation of them. You yourself have pointed out that they may even result in expansion of certain sections. There is no reason to assume that this process had to be reversed in the pre-human brain, with expansion preceding new experiences!
Of course the brain works this way after it was created this large and this complex and with itsd plasticity mechanism. As such a specialized organ, it is not logical to extrapolate to claim the mechanisms of actual evolution work this way. This is carefully designed.
XXX
QUOTE: His model showed that layer one neurons behaved in a similar way: A little top-down activation wakes them up so they are more responsive to sensory inputs, but too much activation makes the circuit freeze and ignore incoming information."DAVID: An obviously needed control system, designed to avoid confusing overstimulation.
dhw: Yes indeed, cells respond to sensory inputs and make their decisions accordingly.
Yes they are designed to do it automatically
Introducing the brain: microglia have many functions
by David Turell , Wednesday, February 12, 2020, 20:50 (1528 days ago) @ David Turell
Recent findings in mice:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-does-a-mammalian-brain-forget/?utm_sourc...
"Microglia were once seen solely as the brain’s watchdogs—activated exclusively to guzzle pathogens and dead and dying neurons. That view has changed in recent years, as scientists have amassed evidence that these cells have wide-ranging duties: During development, they seem to help sculpt the brain by trimming away excess synapses—the connections between neurons.
***
"Further tests revealed that forgetting was dependent on the microglia’s ability to gobble up synapses—and on the activity of neurons. Suppressing the activation of memory-associated neurons led to more forgetting in the mice, suggesting that microglia-mediated elimination was a mechanism through which less useful memories are lost.
***
"According to Frankland, there have been a number of mechanisms of memory erasure proposed over the past decade or so, including work from his group that has suggested that the formation of new neurons, neurogenesis, enables forgetting. Put simply, the idea is that adding neurons introduces new connections and breaks old ones, altering the existing pattern of synapses within engrams—ensembles of neurons where memories are stored—and making them harder to access.
***
“'This was a really cool study,” says Soyon Hong, a neuroscientist at University College London, who did not take part in the work. She notes that while another group previously demonstrated that microglia are involved in synapse formation during learning, the novelty of the new paper is that it suggests these cells also play a role in synapse elimination in a healthy adult brain. There are still many mysteries that remain about the mechanism underlying this process, however. Prior research has shown that a constituent of the immune system called the complement system is involved in tagging synapses for microglia to prune."
Comment: The key point here is that the brain is very active in altering areas of the brain as current usage dictates. There are chemical and cellular actors in the process. Thnis is highly complex and requires a designer.
Introducing the brain: right/ left lobe asymmetry
by David Turell , Friday, February 14, 2020, 19:22 (1526 days ago) @ David Turell
A new study comparing humans and apes:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-02-left-brains.html
"The left and right sides of the human brain are specialized for some cognitive abilities. For example, in humans, language is processed predominantly in the left hemisphere, and the right hand is controlled by the motor cortex in the left hemisphere. The functional lateralization is reflected by morphological asymmetry of the brain. Left and right hemisphere differ subtly in the distribution of nerve cells, their connectivity and neurochemistry.
***
"Asymmetries of outer brain shape are even visible on endocasts. Most humans have a combination of a more projecting left occipital lobe (located in the back of the brain) with a more projecting right frontal lobe. Brain asymmetry is commonly interpreted as crucial for human brain function and cognition because it reflects functional lateralization.
***
"The team found that the magnitude of asymmetry was about the same in humans and most great apes. Only chimpanzees were less asymmetric, on average, than humans, gorillas and orangutans. The researchers also investigated the pattern of asymmetry and could demonstrate that not only humans, but also chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans showed the asymmetry pattern previously described as typically human: the left occipital lobe, the right frontal lobe, as well as the right temporal pole and the right cerebellar lobe projecting more relatively to their contralateral parts.
"Philipp Mitteroecker, a co-author of the study, says, "What surprised us even more was that humans were least consistent in this asymmetry, with a lot of individual variation around the most common pattern." The authors interpret this as a sign of increased functional and developmental modularization of the human brain. For example, the differential projections of the occipital lobe and the cerebellum are less correlated in humans than in great apes. This finding is interesting because the cerebellum in humans underwent dramatic evolutionary changes and it seems that thereby its asymmetry was affected as well.
"The finding of a shared asymmetry pattern but greater variability in humans is intriguing for the interpretation of human brain evolution. An endocast of one of our fossil ancestors that shows this asymmetry can no longer be interpreted as evidence for human-specific functional brain lateralization without other (archaeological) data. Philipp Gunz, a co-author of the study, explains: "This shared asymmetry pattern of the brain evolved already before the origin of the human lineage. Humans seem to have built upon this morphological pattern to establish functional brain lateralization related to typical human behaviors.'"
Comment: Since the human brain comes with an overall shrinkage mechanism as it complexifies, and it also has a local enlargement mechanism for specific areas, these findings are not unusual. Note the comment about the cerebellum which made large changes from the apes.
See the following:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982214010690
"The human cerebellum, however, contains four times more neurons than the neocortex [2] and is attracting increasing attention for its wide range of cognitive functions. Using a method for detecting evolutionary rate changes along the branches of phylogenetic trees, we show that the cerebellum underwent rapid size increase throughout the evolution of apes, including humans, expanding significantly faster than predicted by the change in neocortex size. As a result, humans and other apes deviated significantly from the general evolutionary trend for neocortex and cerebellum to change in tandem, having significantly larger cerebella relative to neocortex size than other anthropoid primates. These results suggest that cerebellar specialization was a far more important component of human brain evolution than hitherto recognized and that technical intelligence was likely to have been at least as important as social intelligence in human cognitive evolution. Given the role of the cerebellum in sensory-motor control and in learning complex action sequences, cerebellar specialization is likely to have underpinned the evolution of humans’ advanced technological capacities, which in turn may have been a preadaptation for language."
Comment: The great apes shared in some of this enlargement, but it played ca great role in our superior evolutionary result.
Introducing the brain: microglia have many functions
DAVID: The key point here is that the brain is very active in altering areas of the brain as current usage dictates. There are chemical and cellular actors in the process.
Precisely: the brain alters itself as current usage dictates. It is not altered in anticipation of future usages. There is no reason to suppose that this process was reversed in former times.
Introducing the brain: microglia have many functions
by David Turell , Monday, February 17, 2020, 15:01 (1524 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The key point here is that the brain is very active in altering areas of the brain as current usage dictates. There are chemical and cellular actors in the process.
dhw: Precisely: the brain alters itself as current usage dictates. It is not altered in anticipation of future usages. There is no reason to suppose that this process was reversed in former times.
Since brain use allows so many new possible requirements, it has to have its current plastic abilities. God is a great designer allowing and preparing for future possibilities of use.
Introducing the brain: microglia have many functions
by David Turell , Tuesday, December 15, 2020, 15:06 (1221 days ago) @ David Turell
Microglia, which are immune cells that protect the brain also control electrical hyperactivity:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-unexpected-role-brain-immune-cells.html
"An important part of the brain's immune system, cells called microglia constantly extend and retract "branches" from their cell body to survey their environment. Think of an octopus, not moving its body, but reaching its tentacles in every direction. That's how microglia operate. In the span of an hour, each cell will have covered the entire three-dimensional space that surrounds it. And then, it will start all over again.
"This continuous and rapid surveillance is a unique feature reserved for microglial cells in the brain. It occurs in your brain all the time, without the presence of disease, and whether you are awake or asleep. Microglia can also rapidly direct their branches toward a site of injury in the brain. The longstanding theory has been that microglia perform this surveillance to sense invasion by an infectious agent or to sense trauma.
***
"In a recent study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, she and her team show that, in fact, surveillance by microglia helps prevent seizure activity (or hyperexcitability) in the brain. These findings could open new therapeutic avenues for several diseases, given that hyperexcitability is a feature of many neurological disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, and autism.
***
"The scientists discovered that microglia are not extending their branches at random. Instead, microglia reach out primarily to active neurons, one after another, while paying less attention to non-active neurons. Importantly, they noticed that when microglia touch an active neuron, that neuron's activity does not increase further.
"'Microglia seem to sense which neuron is about to become overly active, and keep it in check by making contact with it, which prevents that neuron's activity from escalating," explains the study's other first author, Mario Merlini,..."In contrast, in our mouse model where microglia movements are frozen, we found that the activity of nearby neurons keeps increasing, a bit like a heater with a broken thermostat. This changed our thinking on how neuronal activity is regulated in the brain. Instead of an on-off switch, microglia are the brain's thermostat, controlling excessive neuronal activity".
"These findings helped the team discover a physiological role for microglial surveillance; microglia are essential for maintaining neuronal activity within a normal range by preventing neurons from becoming overactive, or hyperexcitable."
Comment: It is logical that the brain would have its electrical actions under tight controls; such a highly complex system requires design.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Monday, February 17, 2020, 18:47 (1523 days ago) @ dhw
When starting with this condition, everything works out just fine:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532693-300-a-woman-with-half-a-brain-offers-mo...
"THERE is something special about the human brain. Yes, it contains 86 billion neurons and billions of other cells, and yes, it is arguably more complicated than anything else we have discovered in the universe. But more than that, our brains make us who we are. They keep us alive and functioning, while storing our thoughts and memories, shaping our behaviours, relationships and our lives.
"Perhaps that is why it is so remarkable to hear that some people are living with only half a brain. This week, we cover the case of a teenager born without a left hemisphere (see “A woman with half a brain offers more proof of the organ’s superpowers”). Given that this is the half of the brain specialised for language, you might have expected her speaking and reading skills to suffer. Not so. In fact, she has above-average reading skills.
"It appears the right side of her brain is compensating for the left side that isn’t there. The right hemisphere is unusually dense in white matter – the tissue that enables brain regions to communicate with each other – especially in areas involved in language.
"There are other stories of the brain’s astounding capacity to adapt. Perhaps the most famous is the finding that brain regions involved in navigation grow in London taxi drivers – and get larger as they spend more time on the job. Learning new skills, such as juggling, can literally grow your brain, too.
"At the same time, the brain can repurpose regions that aren’t being used. People who are blind appear to use the parts of their brain normally involved in vision for language processing, or for maths, for example. People without hands can learn to use their feet for many of the same functions, including to paint. Such artists’ brains have dedicated “toe maps”: brain regions that represent each toe. Such maps simply don’t exist in people with hands.
"There is plenty to learn about this complicated organ. We are only just discovering the brain’s potential to regenerate neurons later in life, and why sending a jolt of electricity into the brain might treat neurological conditions or improve cognition. But the more we do learn, the more this squidgy organ will continue to fascinate."
Comment: The human brain was initially evolved with this degree of plasticity to handle whatever requirement the future could throw at it. Only foresight in design could have done this. But remember the modern human brain has shown shrinkage, so size is not an issue. The key is the innate complexity the brain has as well as its plasticity ability. Humans can invent any type of work for the brain to adapt to and it will. The fist hominin brain had no idea as to what was coming in terms of complex usage, yet our brain developed in advance of the usage across fossil gaps of major proportions, 200 cc at each jump. God at work.
Introducing the brain: a tiny brain is just fine
by David Turell , Monday, February 17, 2020, 20:04 (1523 days ago) @ David Turell
A tiny brain can run a big body in ancient an animal:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00376-y?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_c...
"A South American rodent had the heft of a Saint Bernard dog — and a brain the weight of a golf ball.
"Behold Neoepiblema acreensis, an 80-kilogram rodent related to chinchillas that lived 10 million years ago in what is now Brazil. José Ferreira and Leonardo Kerber at the Federal University of Santa Maria in Brazil and their colleagues were curious about the brains of these beasts, so they used computerized tomography to peer inside two fossil skulls.
"To compare brain sizes between creatures of varying weights, scientists can calculate a species’ ‘encephalization quotient’, a measurement of the difference between the expected brain size and actual brain size for an animal of a certain weight. Any value under 1 means an animal’s brain is smaller than expected.
"The team estimates that the brain of N. acreensis weighed just 47 grams. The encephalization quotient of one individual studied was 0.20; that of the other individual was 0.33. In other words, N. acreensis’ brain was unusually puny in comparison to its body. By contrast, modern South American rodents have an average encephalization quotient above 1.05.
"The researchers suggest that because N. acreensis had few predators to outwit, a large brain simply wasn’t worth the maintenance costs."
Comment: Just living in a quiet environment doesn't require much brain function. I agree with the reseachers' comment. dhw will respond the brain will expand if the animals are challenged, but think about that approach. how do the animals survive if the needed brain size for survival doesn't yet exist? Especially if one considers homo evolution with gaps in brain size of 200 cc with each new advanced species.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: The key point here is that the brain is very active in altering areas of the brain as current usage dictates. There are chemical and cellular actors in the process.
dhw: Precisely: the brain alters itself as current usage dictates. It is not altered in anticipation of future usages. There is no reason to suppose that this process was reversed in former times.
DAVID: Since brain use allows so many new possible requirements, it has to have its current plastic abilities. God is a great designer allowing and preparing for future possibilities of use.
Of course it has to have its plasticity. And if God exists, of course he is a great designer!
That does not alter the fact that the brain changes as usage dictates. It does not change in anticipation of usage.
DAVID: The human brain was initially evolved with this degree of plasticity to handle whatever requirement the future could throw at it. Only foresight in design could have done this. But remember the modern human brain has shown shrinkage, so size is not an issue. The key is the innate complexity the brain has as well as its plasticity ability. Humans can invent any type of work for the brain to adapt to and it will. The fist hominin brain had no idea as to what was coming in terms of complex usage, yet our brain developed in advance of the usage across fossil gaps of major proportions, 200 cc at each jump. God at work.
Once more you are trying to defend your whole evolutionary thesis that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every new step before it was required. You simply ignore the one fact we know about brain development, which is that the brain RESPONDS to new needs through complexification and even enlargement of individual sections, and does not change in anticipation of them. All brains have to be plastic, or they could not learn, remember, communicate, devise survival strategies etc. You now force me to repeat my proposal: pre-sapiens brains expanded when the capacity was too small to meet new requirements (e.g. the implementation and usage of new means of survival). The expanded brain would suffice for so many thousand years until it could no longer cope with more advances, and so it expanded again. It reached maximum capacity with H. sapiens (further enlargement would damage the rest of the body), and so complexification took over, and this proved so effective that there was even some shrinkage. Development then took the form of complexification, because every change, as we know for a fact, is a RESPONSE to usage, and not a preparation. We do not know of any “development in advance of usage”!
Under "tiny brain":
QUOTES: A tiny brain can run a big body in ancient an animal:
QUOTE: "The researchers suggest that because N. acreensis had few predators to outwit, a large brain simply wasn’t worth the maintenance costs."
DAVID: Just living in a quiet environment doesn't require much brain function. I agree with the reseachers' comment. dhw will respond the brain will expand if the animals are challenged, but think about that approach. how do the animals survive if the needed brain size for survival doesn't yet exist? Especially if one considers homo evolution with gaps in brain size of 200 cc with each new advanced species.
The brain responds to needs! You could hardly wish for a clearer example. Expansion was not required so the brain did not expand!
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Tuesday, February 18, 2020, 18:33 (1522 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Since brain use allows so many new possible requirements, it has to have its current plastic abilities. God is a great designer allowing and preparing for future possibilities of use.
dhw: Of course it has to have its plasticity. And if God exists, of course he is a great designer! That does not alter the fact that the brain changes as usage dictates. It does not change in anticipation of usage.
That view does not take into account the jump of 200 cc with each new advance in homo/hominin fossils accompanied by an advance in artifacts, all after large gaps of time. Your theory requires a record of slow brain growth as individuals adapt to new circumstances, which does not exist
DAVID: The human brain was initially evolved with this degree of plasticity to handle whatever requirement the future could throw at it. Only foresight in design could have done this. But remember the modern human brain has shown shrinkage, so size is not an issue. The key is the innate complexity the brain has as well as its plasticity ability. Humans can invent any type of work for the brain to adapt to and it will. The fist hominin brain had no idea as to what was coming in terms of complex usage, yet our brain developed in advance of the usage across fossil gaps of major proportions, 200 cc at each jump. God at work.dhw: Once more you are trying to defend your whole evolutionary thesis that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every new step before it was required. You simply ignore the one fact we know about brain development, which is that the brain RESPONDS to new needs through complexification and even enlargement of individual sections, and does not change in anticipation of them. All brains have to be plastic, or they could not learn, remember, communicate, devise survival strategies etc. You now force me to repeat my proposal: pre-sapiens brains expanded when the capacity was too small to meet new requirements (e.g. the implementation and usage of new means of survival). The expanded brain would suffice for so many thousand years until it could no longer cope with more advances, and so it expanded again. It reached maximum capacity with H. sapiens (further enlargement would damage the rest of the body), and so complexification took over, and this proved so effective that there was even some shrinkage. Development then took the form of complexification, because every change, as we know for a fact, is a RESPONSE to usage, and not a preparation. We do not know of any “development in advance of usage”!
I can accept the entire story, reflecting its Darwinian presuppositions, as showing the requirements for advancement, but produces no explanation for why the brain size jumped 200 cc each time a more advanced fossil species arrived. Your proposal requires tiny changes a la' Darwin's inadequate theory.
Under "tiny brain":QUOTES: A tiny brain can run a big body in ancient an animal:
QUOTE: "The researchers suggest that because N. acreensis had few predators to outwit, a large brain simply wasn’t worth the maintenance costs."DAVID: Just living in a quiet environment doesn't require much brain function. I agree with the reseachers' comment. dhw will respond the brain will expand if the animals are challenged, but think about that approach. how do the animals survive if the needed brain size for survival doesn't yet exist? Especially if one considers homo evolution with gaps in brain size of 200 cc with each new advanced species.
dhw: The brain responds to needs! You could hardly wish for a clearer example. Expansion was not required so the brain did not expand!
Using a weird double negative argument proves nothing. Nothing required, nothing done. Of course with a more complex life style/requirements the brain MUST be bigger. Our discussion is how it happens. Note, only after large gaps in size, which you really never explain by simply saying the jump was needed.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: God is a great designer allowing and preparing for future possibilities of use.
dhw: … if God exists, of course he is a great designer! That does not alter the fact that the brain changes as usage dictates. It does not change in anticipation of usage.
DAVID: The human brain was initially evolved with this degree of plasticity to handle whatever requirement the future could throw at it. Only foresight in design could have done this. […] The first hominin brain had no idea as to what was coming in terms of complex usage, yet our brain developed in advance of the usage across fossil gaps of major proportions, 200 cc at each jump. God at work.
dhw: Once more you are trying to defend your whole evolutionary thesis that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every new step before it was required. You simply ignore the one fact we know about brain development, which is that the brain RESPONDS to new needs through complexification and even enlargement of individual sections, and does not change in anticipation of them. All brains have to be plastic, or they could not learn, remember, communicate, devise survival strategies etc. You now force me to repeat my proposal: pre-sapiens brains expanded when the capacity was too small to meet new requirements (e.g. the implementation and usage of new means of survival). The expanded brain would suffice for so many thousand years until it could no longer cope with more advances, and so it expanded again. It reached maximum capacity with H. sapiens (further enlargement would damage the rest of the body), and so complexification took over, and this proved so effective that there was even some shrinkage. Development then took the form of complexification, because every change, as we know for a fact, is a RESPONSE to usage, and not a preparation. We do not know of any “development in advance of usage”!
DAVID: I can accept the entire story, reflecting its Darwinian presuppositions, as showing the requirements for advancement, but produces no explanation for why the brain size jumped 200 cc each time a more advanced fossil species arrived. Your proposal requires tiny changes a la' Darwin's inadequate theory.
You quote my theory and then you ignore it! I have bolded the relevant section. The proposal does NOT require tiny changes. The brain expanded when it could no longer cope with new requirements.
Under "tiny brain":
QUOTES: "A tiny brain can run a big body in ancient an animal:"
QUOTE: "The researchers suggest that because N. acreensis had few predators to outwit, a large brain simply wasn’t worth the maintenance costs."
dhw: The brain responds to needs! You could hardly wish for a clearer example. Expansion was not required so the brain did not expand!
DAVID: Using a weird double negative argument proves nothing. Nothing required, nothing done.
Perfectly logical. Just as something required, something done explains why certain actions are performed!
DAVID: Of course with a more complex life style/requirements the brain MUST be bigger. Our discussion is how it happens. Note, only after large gaps in size, which you really never explain by simply saying the jump was needed.
I have explained the jumps over and over again, and I have explained why they happened (new requirements required a greater capacity). How the jumps happen is a different subject. Your theory is that 3.8 billion years ago your God provided the first cells with a programme for brain jumps - along with every life form, econiche, natural wonder for the rest of time – or he popped in every few thousand years to add 200 cc, because for some inexplicable reason he knew H.sapiens (the only species he really wanted) would need about 1400 cc but decided to do it in stages. My proposal is that the cell communities of which all organisms are composed followed precisely the same pattern we observe in the modern brain, and adjusted themselves to new requirements. And even today, complexification is accompanied by expansion in certain sections, according to the requirements of individuals.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Wednesday, February 19, 2020, 19:08 (1521 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Once more you are trying to defend your whole evolutionary thesis that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every new step before it was required. You simply ignore the one fact we know about brain development, which is that the brain RESPONDS to new needs through complexification and even enlargement of individual sections, and does not change in anticipation of them. All brains have to be plastic, or they could not learn, remember, communicate, devise survival strategies etc. You now force me to repeat my proposal: pre-sapiens brains expanded when the capacity was too small to meet new requirements (e.g. the implementation and usage of new means of survival). The expanded brain would suffice for so many thousand years until it could no longer cope with more advances, and so it expanded again. It reached maximum capacity with H. sapiens (further enlargement would damage the rest of the body), and so complexification took over, and this proved so effective that there was even some shrinkage. Development then took the form of complexification, because every change, as we know for a fact, is a RESPONSE to usage, and not a preparation. We do not know of any “development in advance of usage”!
DAVID: I can accept the entire story, reflecting its Darwinian presuppositions, as showing the requirements for advancement, but produces no explanation for why the brain size jumped 200 cc each time a more advanced fossil species arrived. Your proposal requires tiny changes a la' Darwin's inadequate theory.
You quote my theory and then you ignore it! I have bolded the relevant section. The proposal does NOT require tiny changes. The brain expanded when it could no longer cope with new requirements.
Totally illogical. Assuming an early hominin brain, how did it know what was newly needed so it could force expansion? The spear is invented only after the brain is already expanded and the new idea is developed from its new complexity and new ability to invent. Bass-ackward. The new sized brain dose not come with built-in concepts. They have to be originated with the new ability to think more deeply.
DAVID: Of course with a more complex life style/requirements the brain MUST be bigger. Our discussion is how it happens. Note, only after large gaps in size, which you really never explain by simply saying the jump was needed.
dhw: I have explained the jumps over and over again, and I have explained why they happened (new requirements required a greater capacity). How the jumps happen is a different subject. Your theory is that 3.8 billion years ago your God provided the first cells with a programme for brain jumps - along with every life form, econiche, natural wonder for the rest of time – or he popped in every few thousand years to add 200 cc, because for some inexplicable reason he knew H.sapiens (the only species he really wanted) would need about 1400 cc but decided to do it in stages. My proposal is that the cell communities of which all organisms are composed followed precisely the same pattern we observe in the modern brain, and adjusted themselves to new requirements. And even today, complexification is accompanied by expansion in certain sections, according to the requirements of individuals.
Same weird argument in the bold. A finished product in the modern brain is not an example of an earlier brain and how it formed. Enlarged area now developed from current requirements and are tiny compared to the enlargements of 200 cc's in past jumps in size. The concept of plasticity, cannot be used as an overall theory of enlargement. Plasticity probably existed in all stages of brain size, but simply is a system of localized complexification/enlargement within a brain of a specific fixed size, as shown in our brain. You should remember our brain has actually shrunk 140 cc in the past 30,000 years!!! While certain areas in some individuals (London taxi drivers) do enlarge with use.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: You now force me to repeat my proposal: pre-sapiens brains expanded when the capacity was too small to meet new requirements (e.g. the implementation and usage of new means of survival). The expanded brain would suffice for so many thousand years until it could no longer cope with more advances, and so it expanded again. It reached maximum capacity with H. sapiens (further enlargement would damage the rest of the body), and so complexification took over, and this proved so effective that there was even some shrinkage. Development then took the form of complexification, because every change, as we know for a fact, is a RESPONSE to usage, and not a preparation. We do not know of any “development in advance of usage”!
DAVID: Totally illogical. Assuming an early hominin brain, how did it know what was newly needed so it could force expansion? The spear is invented only after the brain is already expanded and the new idea is developed from its new complexity and new ability to invent. Bass-ackward. The new sized brain dose not come with built-in concepts. They have to be originated with the new ability to think more deeply.
A truly astonishing explanation coming from someone who calls himself a dualist, which means ideas come from the “soul” not the brain. But in fact it makes no difference to my theory whether you are dualist or materialist. The whole point is that the idea precedes implementation of the idea, and we know from observation that it is IMPLEMENTATION of the idea that demands new uses of the brain – whether through enlargement or through complexification. The brain does not expand or complexify in anticipation of new ideas. You then asked how it worked:
dhw: My proposal is that the cell communities of which all organisms are composed followed precisely the same pattern we observe in the modern brain, and adjusted themselves to new requirements. And even today, complexification is accompanied by expansion in certain sections, according to the requirements of individuals.
DAVID: Same weird argument in the bold. A finished product in the modern brain is not an example of an earlier brain and how it formed. Enlarged area now developed from current requirements and are tiny compared to the enlargements of 200 cc's in past jumps in size.
Why weird? There is no reason to suppose that past brains functioned differently.
DAVID: The concept of plasticity, cannot be used as an overall theory of enlargement. Plasticity probably existed in all stages of brain size, but simply is a system of localized complexification/enlargement within a brain of a specific fixed size, as shown in our brain.
Exactly. But in the past, when the specific fixed size proved to be inadequate to perform the tasks required of it, the process of “localized enlargement”, as organized by the intelligent cell community using its own plasticity, would have led to overall enlargement. If it can expand on a small scale, why should it not have been able to expand on a large scale?
DAVID: You should remember our brain has actually shrunk 140 cc in the past 30,000 years!!! While certain areas in some individuals (London taxi drivers) do enlarge with use.
Explained umpteen times: shrinkage would have been the result of efficient complexification. What is your explanation of shrinkage? God popped in again because he realized he didn’t need to give us so much brain? Yes, taxi drivers illustrate the same process which I propose applied at all times to all the different phases of brain development: the brain changes/changed through complexification, minor enlargement (within existing dimensions) or major enlargement (200 cc “jumps”) IN RESPONSE to new requirements, and not in anticipation of them.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Thursday, February 20, 2020, 21:04 (1520 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Totally illogical. Assuming an early hominin brain, how did it know what was newly needed so it could force expansion? The spear is invented only after the brain is already expanded and the new idea is developed from its new complexity and new ability to invent. Bass-ackward. The new sized brain dose not come with built-in concepts. They have to be originated with the new ability to think more deeply.
dhw: A truly astonishing explanation coming from someone who calls himself a dualist, which means ideas come from the “soul” not the brain. But in fact it makes no difference to my theory whether you are dualist or materialist. The whole point is that the idea precedes implementation of the idea, and we know from observation that it is IMPLEMENTATION of the idea that demands new uses of the brain – whether through enlargement or through complexification. The brain does not expand or complexify in anticipation of new ideas.
My view of dualism is not the standard definition in classical philosophy. I've explained this before. 1) Material, wet brain; 2) soul/consciousness makes ideas. Concepts developed by the s/c can only can be as complex as the complexity of the brain itself allows. Erectus saw flying birds, may have wised to do it, but never could figure out how.
dhw: You then asked how it worked:
dhw: My proposal is that the cell communities of which all organisms are composed followed precisely the same pattern we observe in the modern brain, and adjusted themselves to new requirements. And even today, complexification is accompanied by expansion in certain sections, according to the requirements of individuals.
DAVID: Same weird argument in the bold. A finished product in the modern brain is not an example of an earlier brain and how it formed. Enlarged area now developed from current requirements and are tiny compared to the enlargements of 200 cc's in past jumps in size.
dhw: Why weird? There is no reason to suppose that past brains functioned differently.
Yes, I agree previous brain functions and perhaps plasticity was an early form of what our brain does now. But nothing you have proposed tells us how the brain enlarged 200 cc per gap.
DAVID: The concept of plasticity, cannot be used as an overall theory of enlargement. Plasticity probably existed in all stages of brain size, but simply is a system of localized complexification/enlargement within a brain of a specific fixed size, as shown in our brain.dhw: Exactly. But in the past, when the specific fixed size proved to be inadequate to perform the tasks required of it, the process of “localized enlargement”, as organized by the intelligent cell community using its own plasticity, would have led to overall enlargement. If it can expand on a small scale, why should it not have been able to expand on a large scale?
We have the example that refutes you. Our current brain with all its new uses and demands for even more new uses shrunk 140 cc from 30,000 years ago. It never had to enlarge! Except in tiny areas for very special use. So our brain is smaller and the erectus brain had to explode because it didn't have the ability to act like ours. But note above, we've agreed that earlier brains acted in most ways similarly to ours. But we can see our brain really has very special attributes.
DAVID: You should remember our brain has actually shrunk 140 cc in the past 30,000 years!!! While certain areas in some individuals (London taxi drivers) do enlarge with use.dhw: Explained umpteen times: shrinkage would have been the result of efficient complexification. What is your explanation of shrinkage? God popped in again because he realized he didn’t need to give us so much brain? Yes, taxi drivers illustrate the same process which I propose applied at all times to all the different phases of brain development: the brain changes/changed through complexification, minor enlargement (within existing dimensions) or major enlargement (200 cc “jumps”) IN RESPONSE to new requirements, and not in anticipation of them.
Your 'new requirements' were what? When H. sapiens appeared 315,000 years ago what were the demanding new requirements that forced the brain to suddenly enlarge 200 cc? There are currently indigenous tribes now extant that live in roughly the same fashion as 315,000 years ago, with the same sized brain as the rest of us. They just haven't bothered to learn how to use it as we do, but they appear to have the same size, really unrequired. Point, same sized brain but haven't used it for new 'requirements'. Size and complexity first, use second. God supplies brain size as He evolves organisms.
Introducing the brain: Brain control of blood supply
by David Turell , Thursday, February 20, 2020, 22:12 (1520 days ago) @ David Turell
The brain has no stored energy and must use increased fresh blood flow to nourish a newly functional area. This is the reason we can study the brain with fMRI, and this study shows the controls:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/brain-and-arteries-working-together?utm_source=Cosmo...
"The brain is a demanding beast. It consumes about a fifth of the body’s energy but cannot store any, so it needs constant and carefully timed nourishment from the cardiovascular system.
"To keep it happy, “neurovascular coupling” rapidly increases blood flow to areas of heightened neural activity – a process that is impaired in conditions such as hypertension, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease.
"Despite its importance, it has been unclear how the brain and blood vessels communicate to enable neurovascular coupling.
"Now, in a study published in the journal Nature, neuroscientists from Harvard Medical School, US, report the discovery of a control mechanism in the brains of mice that ensures adequate blood flow to areas of heightened neural activity in a rapid and precise manner.
Experiments reveal that arteries in the brain actively regulate neurovascular coupling in response to neural activity, and that the protein Mfsd2a, previously implicated as a key regulator of the protective blood-brain barrier, is critical for this process.
"'We now have a firm handle on the mechanisms involved in neurovascular coupling, including its molecular, cellular and subcellular components, which we've never had before," says senior author Chenghua Gu.
"'This puts us in a position to dissect this process and determine, for example, whether the neurovascular coupling impairments that we see in diseases like Alzheimer's are the result of a pathology or the cause.'”
Comment: I would assume this process is old and is in early brains in evolution. It requires a specific protein to activate the process. Chance evolution would never find one specific protein, but design can.
Introducing the brain: bumble bee brain confirms shapes
by David Turell , Thursday, February 20, 2020, 22:38 (1520 days ago) @ David Turell
Identify shapes by sight and feel:
https://phys.org/news/2020-02-bumblebees.html
"How are we able to find things in the dark? And how can we imagine how something feels just by looking at it?
"It is because our brain is able to store information in such a way that it can be retrieved by different senses. This multi-sensory integration allows us to form mental images of the world and underpins our conscious awareness.
"It turns out that the ability to recognise objects across different senses is present in the tiny brains of an insect.
"Researchers at Queen Mary University of London and Macquarie University in Sydney have published new work in the journal Science showing that bumblebees can also find objects in the dark they've only seen before.
"In the light, but barred from touching the objects, bumblebees were trained to find rewarding sugar water in one type of object (cubes or spheres) and bitter quinine solution in the other shape.
"When tested in the dark, bees preferred the object that was previously rewarding, spending more time exploring them.
"Bumblebees also solved the task the other way around. After bees learned to find a particular shape in the dark, they were tested in the light and again preferred the shape they had learned was rewarding by touch alone.
"This ability is called cross-modal recognition and it allows us to perceive a complete picture of the world with rich representations.
"Dr. Cwyn Solvi is the lead author on the paper who was based at Queen Mary University of London and is now at Macquarie University in Sydney. She said: "The results of our study show that bumblebees don't process their senses as separate channels—they come together as some sort of unified representation."
***
"'We've long known that bees can remember the shapes of flowers. But a smartphone can recognise your face, for example, and does so without any form of awareness. Our new work indicates that something is going on inside the mind of bees that is wholly different from a machine—that bees can conjure up mental images of shapes."
***
"'This is an amazing feat when you consider the miniscule size of a bee's brain. Future investigations of the neural circuitry underlying this ability in bees may one day help reveal how our own brains imagine the world as we do."
"Dr. Solvi cautions: "This doesn't mean bees experience the world the same way we do, but it does show there is more going on in their heads than we have ever given them credit for.'"
Comment: Dr. Solvi exhibits large animal chauvinism. I'm not surprised at the bee brain ability. All animal brains evolved from an early beginning set of neurons. A single neuron has been shown to act like a tiny lone computer. we do not know just how few or many are required for this mental ability. We know bees live by knowing the shapes of flowers.
Introducing the brain: bumble bee brain confirms shapes
QUOTE: "Dr. Solvi cautions: "This doesn't mean bees experience the world the same way we do, but it does show there is more going on in their heads than we have ever given them credit for.'"
DAVID: Dr. Solvi exhibits large animal chauvinism. I'm not surprised at the bee brain ability. All animal brains evolved from an early beginning set of neurons. A single neuron has been shown to act like a tiny lone computer. we do not know just how few or many are required for this mental ability. We know bees live by knowing the shapes of flowers.
Delighted to see you acknowledging that even a single neuron acts like a tiny lone computer. Some people would say that just like bees and every other living organism, it acts like a tiny lone sentient, information-processing, communicating, decision-making being. And even you agree that this theory has a 50/50 chance of being correct, but you reckon 50/50 possibility = 100% impossibility.
DAVID under “control of cell skeletal structure”: By the way, the centrosome and centrioles are part of the Albrecht-Buehler discussion about cell intelligence. A=B does not agree with most researchers theories:
"Yet, the vast majority of today's biologists devote their efforts to prove the opposite, namely that specific molecular interactions create the cellular functions"
http://www.basic.northwestern.edu/g-buehler/FRAME.HTM
DAVID: I wonder what A-B thinks now since his research dates from 25-50 years ago.
He suggested that the centrosome was the equivalent of the brain. I suspect that if he had changed his mind, he would have said so. There are now plenty of scientists in the field who agree with him that cells are intelligent."The times, they are a-changin'."
Introducing the brain: bumble bee brain confirms shapes
by David Turell , Friday, February 21, 2020, 15:00 (1520 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: "Dr. Solvi cautions: "This doesn't mean bees experience the world the same way we do, but it does show there is more going on in their heads than we have ever given them credit for.'"
DAVID: Dr. Solvi exhibits large animal chauvinism. I'm not surprised at the bee brain ability. All animal brains evolved from an early beginning set of neurons. A single neuron has been shown to act like a tiny lone computer. we do not know just how few or many are required for this mental ability. We know bees live by knowing the shapes of flowers.
dhw: Delighted to see you acknowledging that even a single neuron acts like a tiny lone computer. Some people would say that just like bees and every other living organism, it acts like a tiny lone sentient, information-processing, communicating, decision-making being. And even you agree that this theory has a 50/50 chance of being correct, but you reckon 50/50 possibility = 100% impossibility.
You are grasping at your usual straws to support a cell intelligence theory most scientists don't believe. Note today I enter a new layer of genome controls, a new aspect of RNA modification.
DAVID under “control of cell skeletal structure”: By the way, the centrosome and centrioles are part of the Albrecht-Buehler discussion about cell intelligence. A=B does not agree with most researchers theories:
"Yet, the vast majority of today's biologists devote their efforts to prove the opposite, namely that specific molecular interactions create the cellular functions"http://www.basic.northwestern.edu/g-buehler/FRAME.HTM
DAVID: I wonder what A-B thinks now since his research dates from 25-50 years ago.
dhw:He suggested that the centrosome was the equivalent of the brain. I suspect that if he had changed his mind, he would have said so. There are now plenty of scientists in the field who agree with him that cells are intelligent."The times, they are a-changin'."
I assume he is long retired and the research I see is still about molecular reactions. Still all an outlier opinion, but to be fair Shapiro is mainline. Show me your 'plenty of scientists'.
Introducing the brain: Albrecht-Buehler addendum
by David Turell , Friday, February 21, 2020, 22:05 (1519 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Friday, February 21, 2020, 22:24
If one googles 'cell intelligence' A-B's entry pops up first. so that is how you found him and glommed onto him because he so fits your desires for a theory that avoids God's controls. but this is current thinking on the biochemistry of how cells produce their work:
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/biology/biochemistry-i/the-scope-of-biochemist...
"Although there are many possible biochemical reactions, they fall into only a few types to consider:
"Oxidation and reduction: For example, the interconversion of an alcohol and an aldehyde.
"Movement of functional groups within or between molecules For example, the transfer of phosphate groups from one oxygen to another.
"Addition and removal of water: For example, hydrolysis of an amide linkage to an amine and a carboxyl group.
"Bond‐breaking reactions: For example, carbon‐carbon bond breakage.
***
"...it's important that biochemical reactions not go too fast or too slowly, and that the right reactions occur when they are needed to keep the cell functioning.
"The ultimate basis for controlling biochemical reactions is the genetic information stored in the cell's DNA. This information is expressed in a regulated fashion, so that the enzymes responsible for carrying out the cell's chemical reactions are released in response to the needs of the cell for energy production, replication, and so forth. " (my bold)
Comment: It might be worth your wile to read this short article. It may help you understand my approach to biochemistry in cell function.
***
I then looked at A-B's most current work as you suggested he might now have some thoughts:
https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/44601125_Guenter_Albrecht-Buehler
His defense of 'non-molecular' cell biology is all 30 years old with nothing since. Then he knew he was an odd ball. I have no idea how current ideas and findings have influenced him. Your use of Shapiro's brilliant work is much more to the point. I've told you how I interpret it in the whole scheme of things.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: My view of dualism is not the standard definition in classical philosophy. I've explained this before. 1) Material, wet brain; 2) soul/consciousness makes ideas. Concepts developed by the s/c can only can be as complex as the complexity of the brain itself allows. Erectus saw flying birds, may have wised to do it, but never could figure out how.
Your view of dualism is pretty confusing. The soul makes ideas: erectus’s soul would like to fly but his soul, which makes ideas, relies on his brain to come up with ideas about how to fly? Anyway, it makes no difference to the argument. Whatever may be the source of ideas, it remains a fact that nobody has ever seen a brain complexify or expand in anticipation of new ideas. All changes we know of take place as a response to new ideas. […]
DAVID: Yes, I agree previous brain functions and perhaps plasticity was an early form of what our brain does now. But nothing you have proposed tells us how the brain enlarged 200 cc per gap.
I have explained that in post after post after post! Just as the cell communities cooperate in modern brains to produce complexification and minor enlargements, in the past they would have cooperated to produce major enlargements when the existing capacity was unable to meet new requirements.
DAVID: We have the example that refutes you. Our current brain with all its new uses and demands for even more new uses shrunk 140 cc from 30,000 years ago.
In post after post after post I have explained that once complexification took over from enlargement (the body could not take more enlargement), it proved so efficient that the brain did not need so much capacity. I have even asked you for your own theory. (Did God pop in? “Sorry, guys, I gave you a bit too much.”) You have not replied.
DAVID: Your 'new requirements' were what? When H. sapiens appeared 315,000 years ago what were the demanding new requirements that forced the brain to suddenly enlarge 200 cc?
I’m really sorry, but I wasn’t around 315,000 years ago and I wasn’t around at the time of the earlier expansions either. We do have archaeological evidence that new brain size coincided with new weaponry, and so an example which I have repeated over and over again would be pre-human X has a new idea (spear) which requires totally new ways of thinking, moving, calculating and coordinating, and so the IMPLEMENTATION of the idea leads to expansion of the cell community (and its container) which has to create new functions for itself. Hence pre-human Y with the bigger brain. The same process as in the modern brain, in which the cell community complexifies or expands on a smaller scale when it has to IMPLEMENT new ideas.
DAVID: There are currently indigenous tribes now extant that live in roughly the same fashion as 315,000 years ago, with the same sized brain as the rest of us. They just haven't bothered to learn how to use it as we do, but they appear to have the same size, really unrequired. Point, same sized brain but haven't used it for new 'requirements'. Size and complexity first, use second. God supplies brain size as He evolves organisms.
You keep asking me how I think the brain expanded. Now you want to know why, once it is in place, some people use it more than others! The pre-sapiens brain would have expanded because of requirements. Once it had reached its present size, all sapiens would have it. Some sapiens have more requirements than others and so use their brains more, presumably complexify more, and even undergo minor expansions, but have also shrunk because of the efficiency of complexification. What do you think should happen? Do you want your God to pop in and shrink the indigenous tribes’ brains back to pre-sapiens’ size?
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Friday, February 21, 2020, 20:11 (1519 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Your view of dualism is pretty confusing. The soul makes ideas: erectus’s soul would like to fly but his soul, which makes ideas, relies on his brain to come up with ideas about how to fly? Anyway, it makes no difference to the argument. Whatever may be the source of ideas, it remains a fact that nobody has ever seen a brain complexify or expand in anticipation of new ideas. All changes we know of take place as a response to new ideas.
dhw: The bold is a statement as if fact. All we can know from the past is brains enlarged and then new processes and new concepts appeared. Erectus never had concepts habilis exhibited or then H. sapiens developed. Larger brains required for the conceptual advances.
DAVID: Yes, I agree previous brain functions and perhaps plasticity was an early form of what our brain does now. But nothing you have proposed tells us how the brain enlarged 200 cc per gap.dhw: I have explained that in post after post after post! Just as the cell communities cooperate in modern brains to produce complexification and minor enlargements, in the past they would have cooperated to produce major enlargements when the existing capacity was unable to meet new requirements.
You may explain but I don't accept your theory
DAVID: We have the example that refutes you. Our current brain with all its new uses and demands for even more new uses shrunk 140 cc from 30,000 years ago.dhw: In post after post after post I have explained that once complexification took over from enlargement (the body could not take more enlargement), it proved so efficient that the brain did not need so much capacity. I have even asked you for your own theory. (Did God pop in? “Sorry, guys, I gave you a bit too much.”) You have not replied.
God gave us all the brain required with its plasticity/local complexification abilities.
DAVID: Your 'new requirements' were what? When H. sapiens appeared 315,000 years ago what were the demanding new requirements that forced the brain to suddenly enlarge 200 cc?dhw: I’m really sorry, but I wasn’t around 315,000 years ago and I wasn’t around at the time of the earlier expansions either. We do have archaeological evidence that new brain size coincided with new weaponry, and so an example which I have repeated over and over again would be pre-human X has a new idea (spear) which requires totally new ways of thinking, moving, calculating and coordinating, and so the IMPLEMENTATION of the idea leads to expansion of the cell community (and its container) which has to create new functions for itself. Hence pre-human Y with the bigger brain. The same process as in the modern brain, in which the cell community complexifies or expands on a smaller scale when it has to IMPLEMENT new ideas.
An early erectus brain lacks the capacity, as you admit, so cannot know what a habilis can know or imagine. Your view presents us with a totally illogical theory. What pushes brain committees of neurons if they do not know what they do not know and cannot know? You theory still requires the push of foresight.
DAVID: There are currently indigenous tribes now extant that live in roughly the same fashion as 315,000 years ago, with the same sized brain as the rest of us. They just haven't bothered to learn how to use it as we do, but they appear to have the same size, really unrequired. Point, same sized brain but haven't used it for new 'requirements'. Size and complexity first, use second. God supplies brain size as He evolves organisms.dhw: You keep asking me how I think the brain expanded. Now you want to know why, once it is in place, some people use it more than others! The pre-sapiens brain would have expanded because of requirements. Once it had reached its present size, all sapiens would have it. Some sapiens have more requirements than others and so use their brains more, presumably complexify more, and even undergo minor expansions, but have also shrunk because of the efficiency of complexification. What do you think should happen? Do you want your God to pop in and shrink the indigenous tribes’ brains back to pre-sapiens’ size?
Please understand the indigenous simply haven't bothered to use their big brain. They just like it as it is. Note the illogical bold. The indigenous have not required the big brain so why did they get a big one? The Homo Hobbits had a small brain and lived as the indigenous until 30,000 years ago before disappearing. Why didn't they get the required big brain? Your 'requirements' argument is still totally illogical based on our knowledge of human evolution.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: Whatever may be the source of ideas, it remains a fact that nobody has ever seen a brain complexify or expand in anticipation of new ideas. All changes we know of take place as a response to new ideas.
[dhw] DAVID: (This is you speaking, not me!): The bold is a statement as if fact.
Then please give me a known example of brains complexifying or expanding in anticipation of new ideas.
DAVID: All we can know from the past is brains enlarged and then new processes and new concepts appeared. Erectus never had concepts habilis exhibited or then H. sapiens developed. Larger brains required for the conceptual advances.
You have no way of knowing whether the enlargement preceded the concept (larger brain thought of and implemented spear) or was caused by it (small brain thought of spear, needed larger brain to make it). However, once the larger brain was there, then of course there would have been more new concepts and implementations, until once again the capacity was exceeded by new concepts requiring greater capacity. The only clue we have for the sequence is the manner in which the modern brain functions, and that is brain changes in response to concept.
DAVID: You may explain but I don't accept your theory.
Fair enough. But you have yet to give me any logical reason for rejecting it.
DAVID: We have the example that refutes you. Our current brain with all its new uses and demands for even more new uses shrunk 140 cc from 30,000 years ago.
dhw: In post after post after post I have explained that once complexification took over from enlargement (the body could not take more enlargement), it proved so efficient that the brain did not need so much capacity. I have even asked you for your own theory. (Did God pop in? “Sorry, guys, I gave you a bit too much.”) You have not replied.
DAVID: God gave us all the brain required with its plasticity/local complexification abilities.
I answered your point about shrinkage. Why won’t you tell us your own theory about it?
DAVID: Your 'new requirements' were what? When H. sapiens appeared 315,000 years ago what were the demanding new requirements that forced the brain to suddenly enlarge 200 cc?
dhw: I’m really sorry, but I wasn’t around 315,000 years ago and I wasn’t around at the time of the earlier expansions either. [...]
DAVID: An early erectus brain lacks the capacity, as you admit, so cannot know what a habilis can know or imagine. Your view presents us with a totally illogical theory. What pushes brain committees of neurons if they do not know what they do not know and cannot know? You theory still requires the push of foresight.
Habilis preceded erectus. I don’t want to get into specifics, but of course later species would already know the concepts of their ancestors and would then add their own concepts, so the earlier species would not have known what the later species knew. Hardly a revelation. Your question about neurons rejects the possibility of any kind of innovation, assuming neurons are the inventors – which you as a dualist should reject! But even if you subscribed to the dualist belief that the soul is the source of ideas, you might as well ask how a soul can invent anything new. As regards “foresight”, same as usual (e.g. you think your God supplied pre-whales with flippers before they entered the water): My proposal is that the brain enlarged in response to new demands. Your proposal is that God enlarged it in anticipation of new demands (by personal dabbling or through a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for every non-human and human development you can think of).
DAVID: There are currently indigenous tribes now extant that live in roughly the same fashion as 315,000 years ago, with the same sized brain as the rest of us. […]
dhw: You keep asking me how I think the brain expanded. Now you want to know why, once it is in place, some people use it more than others! The pre-sapiens brain would have expanded because of requirements. Once it had reached its present size, all sapiens would have it. Some sapiens have more requirements than others and so use their brains more, presumably complexify more, and even undergo minor expansions, but their brains have also shrunk because of the efficiency of complexification. What do you think should happen? Do you want your God to pop in and shrink the indigenous tribes’ brains back to pre-sapiens’ size?
DAVID: Please understand the indigenous simply haven't bothered to use their big brain.
That’s what I’ve just told you.
DAVID: They just like it as it is. Note the illogical bold. The indigenous have not required the big brain so why did they get a big one? The Homo Hobbits had a small brain and lived as the indigenous until 30,000 years ago before disappearing. Why didn't they get the required big brain?
My point is that they DID get the required brain – though I don’t want to speculate on who turned into who. You have a succession of enlargements and a succession of species, each one caused by new requirements. The smaller brain disappears...stasis…THEN new requirements…enlarged brain…disappearance of smaller brain...on and on until the final enlargement with sapiens. The indigenous are sapiens. They’ve got the big brain but they don’t use it as much as you do. What’s the problem?
.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Saturday, February 22, 2020, 18:16 (1518 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Whatever may be the source of ideas, it remains a fact that nobody has ever seen a brain complexify or expand in anticipation of new ideas. All changes we know of take place as a response to new ideas.
[dhw] DAVID: (This is you speaking, not me!): The bold is a statement as if fact.
dhw: Then please give me a known example of brains complexifying or expanding in anticipation of new ideas.
A conclusion: more advanced artifacts appear only after a new-sized brain is present.
DAVID: All we can know from the past is brains enlarged and then new processes and new concepts appeared. Erectus never had concepts habilis exhibited or then H. sapiens developed. Larger brains required for the conceptual advances.dhw: You have no way of knowing whether the enlargement preceded the concept (larger brain thought of and implemented spear) or was caused by it (small brain thought of spear, needed larger brain to make it). However, once the larger brain was there, then of course there would have been more new concepts and implementations, until once again the capacity was exceeded by new concepts requiring greater capacity.
Totally backward thinking. New artifacts only after big brain is on the scene.
DAVID: God gave us all the brain required with its plasticity/local complexification abilities.dhw: I answered your point about shrinkage. Why won’t you tell us your own theory about it?
Obviously plasticity with complexification created the shrinkage, an attribute of our brain given by God.
DAVID: An early erectus brain lacks the capacity, as you admit, so cannot know what a habilis can know or imagine. Your view presents us with a totally illogical theory. What pushes brain committees of neurons if they do not know what they do not know and cannot know? You theory still requires the push of foresight.dhw: Habilis preceded erectus.
Thank you for correcting. My aging brain stumbles at times
dhw: I don’t want to get into specifics, but of course later species would already know the concepts of their ancestors and would then add their own concepts, so the earlier species would not have known what the later species knew. Hardly a revelation.
Finally good logic. The new big brain gave the later species the ability to add new concepts. So where is the pressure for enlargement if the older group could not conceive of them?
DAVID: There are currently indigenous tribes now extant that live in roughly the same fashion as 315,000 years ago, with the same sized brain as the rest of us. […]
DAVID: Please understand the indigenous simply haven't bothered to use their big brain.
dhw: That’s what I’ve just told you.
My point is why did they bother to get the big brain if it wasn't required. Note the hobbits below.
DAVID: They just like it as it is. Note the illogical bold. The indigenous have not required the big brain so why did they get a big one? The Homo Hobbits had a small brain and lived as the indigenous until 30,000 years ago before disappearing. Why didn't they get the required big brain?dhw: My point is that they DID get the required brain – though I don’t want to speculate on who turned into who. You have a succession of enlargements and a succession of species, each one caused by new requirements. The smaller brain disappears...stasis…THEN new requirements…enlarged brain…disappearance of smaller brain...on and on until the final enlargement with sapiens. The indigenous are sapiens. They’ve got the big brain but they don’t use it as much as you do. What’s the problem?
If a prior species does not have the brain complexity which allows the self/consciousness to know of new concepts/inventions, how can there bean pressure for enlargement? You can't wish for that of which you have no conception.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: […] please give me a known example of brains complexifying or expanding in anticipation of new ideas.
DAVID: A conclusion: more advanced artifacts appear only after a new-sized brain is present.
The artefact cannot appear until the concept has been IMPLEMENTED! In my theory it is the implementation that CAUSES the bigger brain, just as the implementation of reading skills, navigational skills, musical skills CAUSES the brains of illiterate women, taxi drivers and musicians to complexify or expand in certain areas. First the idea, then the complexification or expansion as a RESULT of implementing the idea.
dhw: I answered your point about shrinkage. Why won’t you tell us your own theory about it?
DAVID: Obviously plasticity with complexification created the shrinkage, an attribute of our brain given by God.
So your theory is exactly the same as mine: the efficiency of complexification causes the shrinkage.
dhw: I don’t want to get into specifics, but of course later species would already know the concepts of their ancestors and would then add their own concepts, so the earlier species would not have known what the later species knew. Hardly a revelation.
DAVID: Finally good logic. The new big brain gave the later species the ability to add new concepts. So where is the pressure for enlargement if the older group could not conceive of them?
Once more, here is the sequence: Species A has new idea which requires expansion for its implementation. This leads to Species B with bigger brain. Species B goes on for thousands of years with its bigger brain coping with all its new ideas until bigger brain can no longer cope with The Next Big Thing and once again requires expansion for implementation. Even bigger brain leads to Species C. Process repeated until finally brain can expand no more and complexification takes over. Now you have H. sapiens.
DAVID: There are currently indigenous tribes now extant that live in roughly the same fashion as 315,000 years ago, with the same sized brain as the rest of us. […] My point is why did they bother to get the big brain if it wasn't required.
You’d better ask your God, since you think he did it. My point is that they are H. sapiens, descended from the very first H. sapiens. Some sapiens don’t use their brains as much as other sapiens. What’s the problem?
DAVID: The Homo Hobbits had a small brain and lived as the indigenous until 30,000 years ago before disappearing. Why didn't they get the required big brain?
dhw: My point is that they DID get the required brain – though I don’t want to speculate on who turned into who. [...]
DAVID: If a prior species does not have the brain complexity which allows the self/consciousness to know of new concepts/inventions, how can there bean pressure for enlargement? You can't wish for that of which you have no conception.
What do you mean by the brain “allowing the self to know of new concepts”? We do not know the source of ideas, but regardless of whether it is the dualist’s soul or the materialist’s brain, I keep repeating my proposal that it is the IMPLEMENTATION of ideas that changes the brain. The pressure for enlargement therefore came when the existing brain did not have the capacity to IMPLEMENT the new idea. As illustrated by the fact that the modern brain complexifies and even expands in certain areas when a new idea has to be IMPLEMENTED.
Taken from “Can science prove God?”
DAVID: A need for a spear c an be solved only by a brain ready to conceive of the need and design it. If the earlier form cannot conceive of it, there is no perceived need. The bold is not possible until the brain is actually enlarged.
Answered above, but you have focused on my own example, so here yet again is the process: regardless of whether ideas come from the dualist’s soul or the materialist’s brain, small-brained hunters are sick of being mauled by their prey. Someone has an idea: instead of trying to bash the deer with a sharp stone, attach the stone to a shaft and throw it. But this idea has to be implemented, and the work of converting an abstract idea into a concrete reality requires changes to the brain. The small brain of our hunters cannot cope, and so the very effort of IMPLEMENTING the idea causes the expansion, just as nowadays the IMPLEMENTATION of certain skills results in the complexification or EXPANSION of certain areas of the brain in the illiterate women, taxi-drivers and musicians. The idea occurs within the original brain; the implementation of the idea causes changes to the brain.
!!
by David Turell , Sunday, February 23, 2020, 18:19 (1517 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: A conclusion: more advanced artifacts appear only after a new-sized brain is present.
dhw: The artefact cannot appear until the concept has been IMPLEMENTED! ... First the idea, then the complexification or expansion as a RESULT of implementing the idea.
Throwing out a big term like 'implementation' is not an explanation unless implementation is described and shows how it enlarges the brain. My version: an early Homo knows he can kill with a thrown stone or with a sharpened stout stick. He already uses sharpened stone tools to skin animals and scrape bark off wood. His present brain realizes if he put a sharpened stone on the end of a long stick, he could throw this new invention and kill at a distance. Making the new concept is easy hand work. Why does this enlarge the existing brain that thought up the new tool? It obviously does not. A simple advance from known concepts combined.
Once more, here is the sequence: Species A has new idea which requires expansion for its implementation. This leads to Species B with bigger brain. Species B goes on for thousands of years with its bigger brain coping with all its new ideas until bigger brain can no longer cope with The Next Big Thing and once again requires expansion for implementation. Even bigger brain leads to Species C. Process repeated until finally brain can expand no more and complexification takes over. Now you have H. sapiens.
Same lame example. Advances are based on past concepts. The 'Next Big Thing' is what? Whose brain recognizes the new need? The old species or the new species with the bigger brain? Not nebulous but concrete thought is required in this discussion to be logical.
DAVID: If a prior species does not have the brain complexity which allows the self/consciousness to know of new concepts/inventions, how can there bean pressure for enlargement? You can't wish for that of which you have no conception.
dhw: What do you mean by the brain “allowing the self to know of new concepts”? We do not know the source of ideas, but regardless of whether it is the dualist’s soul or the materialist’s brain, I keep repeating my proposal that it is the IMPLEMENTATION of ideas that changes the brain. The pressure for enlargement therefore came when the existing brain did not have the capacity to IMPLEMENT the new idea.
Same nebulous appeal to implementation. In your example the old smaller brain gets the idea for something important and new but can't do it until it explodes itself. To clarify my thinking, 'bigger' brain always implies a more complex brain for the soul/consciousness to use..
Taken from “Can science prove God?”DAVID: A need for a spear can be solved only by a brain ready to conceive of the need and design it. If the earlier form cannot conceive of it, there is no perceived need. The bold is not possible until the brain is actually enlarged.
dhw: Answered above, but you have focused on my own example, so here yet again is the process: regardless of whether ideas come from the dualist’s soul or the materialist’s brain, small-brained hunters are sick of being mauled by their prey. Someone has an idea: instead of trying to bash the deer with a sharp stone, attach the stone to a shaft and throw it. But this idea has to be implemented, and the work of converting an abstract idea into a concrete reality requires changes to the brain. The small brain of our hunters cannot cope, and so the very effort of IMPLEMENTING the idea causes the expansion, just as nowadays the IMPLEMENTATION of certain skills results in the complexification or EXPANSION of certain areas of the brain in the illiterate women, taxi-drivers and musicians. The idea occurs within the original brain; the implementation of the idea causes changes to the brain.
You explanation is not in reality. See my example above. Conceiving of the spear and making it from past known concepts is how it all works. Bigger brain, more advanced artifacts every time. Brain first, artifacts second. With Einstein's advanced theories, his brain should have exploded. Instead his brain was 150 cc smaller than 30,000 years ago. Our more thoughtful brains have shrunk, the only example of your theory we have! We do see local enlargements. but that is an attribute of our advanced brain, no basis for applying it to previous lesser brains. Please use logic from the evidence we have.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Monday, February 24, 2020, 18:45 (1516 days ago) @ David Turell
Title edited back to what it was. Is that why there was no response given?
by David Turell @, Sunday, February 23, 2020, 18:19 (1 day, 0 hours, 21 min. ago) @ dhw
DAVID: A conclusion: more advanced artifacts appear only after a new-sized brain is present.
dhw: The artefact cannot appear until the concept has been IMPLEMENTED! ... First the idea, then the complexification or expansion as a RESULT of implementing the idea.
Throwing out a big term like 'implementation' is not an explanation unless implementation is described and shows how it enlarges the brain. My version: an early Homo knows he can kill with a thrown stone or with a sharpened stout stick. He already uses sharpened stone tools to skin animals and scrape bark off wood. His present brain realizes if he put a sharpened stone on the end of a long stick, he could throw this new invention and kill at a distance. Making the new concept is easy hand work. Why does this enlarge the existing brain that thought up the new tool? It obviously does not. A simple advance from known concepts combined.
dhw: Once more, here is the sequence: Species A has new idea which requires expansion for its implementation. This leads to Species B with bigger brain. Species B goes on for thousands of years with its bigger brain coping with all its new ideas until bigger brain can no longer cope with The Next Big Thing and once again requires expansion for implementation. Even bigger brain leads to Species C. Process repeated until finally brain can expand no more and complexification takes over. Now you have H. sapiens.
Same lame example. Advances are based on past concepts. The 'Next Big Thing' is what? Whose brain recognizes the new need? The old species or the new species with the bigger brain? Not nebulous but concrete thought is required in this discussion to be logical.
DAVID: If a prior species does not have the brain complexity which allows the self/consciousness to know of new concepts/inventions, how can there bean pressure for enlargement? You can't wish for that of which you have no conception.
dhw: What do you mean by the brain “allowing the self to know of new concepts”? We do not know the source of ideas, but regardless of whether it is the dualist’s soul or the materialist’s brain, I keep repeating my proposal that it is the IMPLEMENTATION of ideas that changes the brain. The pressure for enlargement therefore came when the existing brain did not have the capacity to IMPLEMENT the new idea.
Same nebulous appeal to implementation. In your example the old smaller brain gets the idea for something important and new but can't do it until it explodes itself. To clarify my thinking, 'bigger' brain always implies a more complex brain for the soul/consciousness to use..
Taken from “Can science prove God?”
DAVID: A need for a spear can be solved only by a brain ready to conceive of the need and design it. If the earlier form cannot conceive of it, there is no perceived need. The bold is not possible until the brain is actually enlarged.
dhw: Answered above, but you have focused on my own example, so here yet again is the process: regardless of whether ideas come from the dualist’s soul or the materialist’s brain, small-brained hunters are sick of being mauled by their prey. Someone has an idea: instead of trying to bash the deer with a sharp stone, attach the stone to a shaft and throw it. But this idea has to be implemented, and the work of converting an abstract idea into a concrete reality requires changes to the brain. The small brain of our hunters cannot cope, and so the very effort of IMPLEMENTING the idea causes the expansion, just as nowadays the IMPLEMENTATION of certain skills results in the complexification or EXPANSION of certain areas of the brain in the illiterate women, taxi-drivers and musicians. The idea occurs within the original brain; the implementation of the idea causes changes to the brain.
You explanation is not in reality. See my example above. Conceiving of the spear and making it from past known concepts is how it all works. Bigger brain, more advanced artifacts every time. Brain first, artifacts second. With Einstein's advanced theories, his brain should have exploded. Instead his brain was 150 cc smaller than 30,000 years ago. Our more thoughtful brains have shrunk, the only example of your theory we have! We do see local enlargements. but that is an attribute of our advanced brain, no basis for applying it to previous lesser brains. Please use logic from the evidence we have.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw (under "cerebellar contributions"): Not much room here for the dualist’s concept of a soul which is responsible for the creation of all our ideas.
DAVID: Can't you remember, I have constantly stated my view is that the complexity of the brain allows the soul to deal with more complexity of concepts
And: soul produces only as much complexity of thought as the complexity of the brain it is using allows it to do.
I don’t understand what this means. Please tell us if you think it is the brain or the soul that produces ideas. Which controls which? I suggest that if there is such a thing as a soul, it would use the brain (a) to collect information, and (b) to implement its ideas. However, my original point was that the articles you quoted seemed to take it for granted that the source of all our cognitive faculties was the material brain – hence my comment above.
dhw: Personally, I am extremely wary of restricting individual cognitive functions to individual parts of the brain. I suspect that if materialists are right, it is the interplay between different sections of the brain that produce all the cognitive functions. […] A dualist would presumably propose that there is an immaterial “soul” which directs the different sections of the brain.
DAVID: The function of the entire brain is a coordination of all parts, as is now currently being revealed by research.
Thank you for confirming my own comment. The article appears to suggest otherwise.
DAVID: Title edited back to what it was. Is that why there was no response given?
Sorry. I never saw it!
dhw: The artefact cannot appear until the concept has been IMPLEMENTED! ... First the idea, then the complexification or expansion as a RESULT of implementing the idea.
DAVID: Throwing out a big term like 'implementation' is not an explanation unless implementation is described and shows how it enlarges the brain.
Implementation means performing all the necessary actions to enable an idea to become reality. Our known examples have been illiterate women, taxi drivers and musicians, all of whose brains change as a result of performing the actions that enable them to acquire new or more advanced skills. I can’t explain the process by which the brain expands, and nor can anyone else.
DAVID: My version: an early Homo knows he can kill with a thrown stone or with a sharpened stout stick. He already uses sharpened stone tools to skin animals and scrape bark off wood. His present brain realizes if he put a sharpened stone on the end of a long stick, he could throw this new invention and kill at a distance. Making the new concept is easy hand work. Why does this enlarge the existing brain that thought up the new tool? It obviously does not. A simple advance from known concepts combined.
You adopted my example and wrote that “the spear is invented only after the brain is already expanded”. So you clearly thought the invention required expansion. If you wish to jettison what became your own example, then please tell us what new concepts you think made it necessary for your God to expand the pre-sapiens brain in advance by 200 cc at a time. But whatever you come up with will still be open to the same interpretations because we can only know the material product and not the history of its conception!
DAVID: Whose brain recognizes the new need? The old species or the new species with the bigger brain?
The old brain. And if the existing brain does not have the capacity to implement the solution, it will expand in order to do so, as happens in modern brains on a small scale.
DAVID: In your example the old smaller brain gets the idea for something important and new but can't do it until it explodes itself. To clarify my thinking, 'bigger' brain always implies a more complex brain for the soul/consciousness to use.
First sentence: you’ve got it, though I don’t why you use the world explode. The expansion is the same, whether your God dabbled in advance of the need or the brain cells expanded in response to the need. I don’t find your last comment clarifying at all. More cells will certainly lead to more complexity, but if the soul (if it exists) is the source of ideas and comes up with new ones that the bigger/more complex brain can’t handle, then the brain will have to expand again. However, you believe that although the soul comes up with the ideas, these are limited to what the material brain “allows” it to come up with. (See the beginning of the post concerning this problem.)
DAVID: Our more thoughtful brains have shrunk, the only example of your theory we have! We do see local enlargements. but that is an attribute of our advanced brain, no basis for applying it to previous lesser brains. Please use logic from the evidence we have.
You have already agreed that our brains have shrunk as a result of the efficiency of complexification. The evidence we have is that brains change in response to new requirements. There is no evidence that it was any different in past brains. Please use logic from the evidence we have.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Tuesday, February 25, 2020, 15:25 (1515 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Can't you remember, I have constantly stated my view is that the complexity of the brain allows the soul to deal with more complexity of concepts
And: soul produces only as much complexity of thought as the complexity of the brain it is using allows it to do.dhw: I don’t understand what this means. Please tell us if you think it is the brain or the soul that produces ideas. Which controls which? I suggest that if there is such a thing as a soul, it would use the brain (a) to collect information, and (b) to implement its ideas.
Same as always: My soul/consciousness uses my brain to create thought. The level of complexity of that thought is dictated by the complexity of the brain .
dhw: The artifact cannot appear until the concept has been IMPLEMENTED! ... First the idea, then the complexification or expansion as a RESULT of implementing the idea.
DAVID: Throwing out a big term like 'implementation' is not an explanation unless implementation is described and shows how it enlarges the brain.
dhw: Implementation means performing all the necessary actions to enable an idea to become reality. Our known examples have been illiterate women, taxi drivers and musicians, all of whose brains change as a result of performing the actions that enable them to acquire new or more advanced skills. I can’t explain the process by which the brain expands, and nor can anyone else.
You are back to using our current endpoint brain to explain earlier ancient Home enlargements.
DAVID: My version: an early Homo knows he can kill with a thrown stone or with a sharpened stout stick. He already uses sharpened stone tools to skin animals and scrape bark off wood. His present brain realizes if he put a sharpened stone on the end of a long stick, he could throw this new invention and kill at a distance. Making the new concept is easy hand work. Why does this enlarge the existing brain that thought up the new tool? It obviously does not. A simple advance from known concepts combined.dhw: You adopted my example and wrote that “the spear is invented only after the brain is already expanded”. So you clearly thought the invention required expansion. If you wish to jettison what became your own example, then please tell us what new concepts you think made it necessary for your God to expand the pre-sapiens brain in advance by 200 cc at a time. But whatever you come up with will still be open to the same interpretations because we can only know the material product and not the history of its conception!
The second bold does not answer my point that an earlier brain cannot conceive of an idea it is not capable of conceiving. You don't answer why we see bigger brain and only then improved artifacts, which always follow the appearance of the bigger brain. Only the bigger brain can conceive of the newer advanced artifacts. Your version: tiny brain conceives of newer artifact possibility, but must expand to create it! What a stretch!.
DAVID: In your example the old smaller brain gets the idea for something important and new but can't do it until it explodes itself. To clarify my thinking, 'bigger' brain always implies a more complex brain for the soul/consciousness to use.dhw: The expansion is the same, whether your God dabbled in advance of the need or the brain cells expanded in response to the need. I don’t find your last comment clarifying at all. More cells will certainly lead to more complexity, but if the soul (if it exists) is the source of ideas and comes up with new ones that the bigger/more complex brain can’t handle, then the brain will have to expand again. However, you believe that although the soul comes up with the ideas, these are limited to what the material brain “allows” it to come up with. (See the beginning of the post concerning this problem.)
DAVID: Our more thoughtful brains have shrunk, the only example of your theory we have! We do see local enlargements. but that is an attribute of our advanced brain, no basis for applying it to previous lesser brains. Please use logic from the evidence we have.
dhw: You have already agreed that our brains have shrunk as a result of the efficiency of complexification. The evidence we have is that brains change in response to new requirements. There is no evidence that it was any different in past brains. Please use logic from the evidence we have.
But, the jumps in the past were enlargements of 200 cc. Our brain shrinks and their brains jumped in size. Did they have a degree of plasticity, probably, as a forerunner of ours, but a lesser ability as consistent with the earlier brain's simplicity. My view is consistent: a brain that allows the development of a spear concept will be able to create that physical spear and will not need enlargement. Level of concept must be strictly related to level of brain capacity. An earlier brain cannot conceive what an more advanced brain can conceive and create.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: Implementation means performing all the necessary actions to enable an idea to become reality. Our known examples have been illiterate women, taxi drivers and musicians, all of whose brains change as a result of performing the actions that enable them to acquire new or more advanced skills. [..]
DAVID: You are back to using our current endpoint brain to explain earlier ancient Home enlargements.
I am pointing out that the only evidence we have points to brains changing in response to new ideas, not in anticipation of them.
dhw: You adopted my example and wrote that “the spear is invented only after the brain is already expanded”. So you clearly thought the invention required expansion. If you wish to jettison what became your own example, then please tell us what new concepts you think made it necessary for your God to expand the pre-sapiens brain in advance by 200 cc at a time. But whatever you come up with will still be open to the same interpretations because we can only know the material product and not the history of its conception!
DAVID: The second bold does not answer my point that an earlier brain cannot conceive of an idea it is not capable of conceiving.
Firstly, you spent a whole paragraph dismissing the spear example which you yourself had chosen. Why won’t you give us an example of a new pre-sapiens concept arising from its expanded brain? Secondly, I note that you are back to your materialist version of the brain as the source of ideas, so you really should stop claiming to be a dualist. Thirdly, of course nothing can conceive of something it can’t conceive of! So according to you, no pre-sapiens and indeed no organism on earth ever had a new idea unless its brain grew bigger. Perhaps this is why you believe that every single strategy, lifestyle and natural wonder, including my favourite, the weaverbird’s nest, had to be specially preprogrammed or dabbled by your God. Otherwise, ants would have brains as big as elephant brains by now! I wish you were kidding. But I can accept that ants and crows will only have new ideas that their brains and bodies can cope with, so even the building of cities or the use of primitive tools does not require any additional capacity.
DAVID: You don't answer why we see bigger brain and only then improved artifacts, which always follow the appearance of the bigger brain.
We find improved artefacts ACCOMPANYING the appearance of the bigger brain! According to my theory, it is the process of production that causes enlargement, so you can only find the artefact when the brain has expanded! Just as we only see complexification or local enlargement in our modern brain when new skills have been acquired and not before they have been acquired.
DAVID: Our more thoughtful brains have shrunk, the only example of your theory we have! We do see local enlargements. but that is an attribute of our advanced brain, no basis for applying it to previous lesser brains. Please use logic from the evidence we have.
dhw: You have already agreed that our brains have shrunk as a result of the efficiency of complexification. The evidence we have is that brains change in response to new requirements. There is no evidence that it was any different in past brains. Please use logic from the evidence we have.
DAVID: But, the jumps in the past were enlargements of 200 cc. Our brain shrinks and their brains jumped in size.
I have just explained the jumps and the shrinkage. Why the “but”?
DAVID: Did they have a degree of plasticity, probably, as a forerunner of ours, but a lesser ability as consistent with the earlier brain's simplicity. My view is consistent: a brain that allows the development of a spear concept will be able to create that physical spear and will not need enlargement.
Again, you used the spear as an example of the need for a larger brain to conceive it. I continue to be totally mystified by your idea of a brain that “allows” the dualist’s soul to have new ideas, and the confusion is exacerbated by your next comment:
DAVID: Level of concept must be strictly related to level of brain capacity. An earlier brain cannot conceive what a more advanced brain can conceive and create. (dhw's bold)
Now you unequivocally have the brain both conceiving and creating (I use the word “implementing”). That is absolutely fine with me, because it makes not the slightest difference whether you embrace this totally materialist belief or the dualist belief that ideas are produced by the soul – we still have the known fact that brains are altered by the implementation of ideas, whereas there is no evidence that the CAUSE of pre-Sapiens enlargement is a divine dabble or a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for periodic brain enlargement. But of course each generation builds on what were once the new ideas of its predecessors, and the same would apply to succeeding “species” of hominids and homos. They didn’t need to reinvent the spear. But someone then invented the bow and arrow. And maybe that resulted in another expansion. Neither of us can write a clear history of all this – unless you have discovered your God’s computer programme detailing which inventions caused or followed pre-sapiens brain expansion.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Wednesday, February 26, 2020, 21:11 (1514 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I am pointing out that the only evidence we have points to brains changing in response to new ideas, not in anticipation of them.
But it is evidence from this final finished brain with its sole capacities.
DAVID: You don't answer why we see bigger brain and only then improved artifacts, which always follow the appearance of the bigger brain.dhw: We find improved artefacts ACCOMPANYING the appearance of the bigger brain! According to my theory, it is the process of production that causes enlargement, so you can only find the artefact when the brain has expanded!
Total illogical thought. The exiting brain conceives of the new object and makes it. The old brain smaller brain has nothing to do with it. It can't conceive of the new idea.
DAVID: Our more thoughtful brains have shrunk, the only example of your theory we have! We do see local enlargements. but that is an attribute of our advanced brain, no basis for applying it to previous lesser brains. Please use logic from the evidence we have.
dhw: You have already agreed that our brains have shrunk as a result of the efficiency of complexification. The evidence we have is that brains change in response to new requirements. There is no evidence that it was any different in past brains. Please use logic from the evidence we have.
DAVID: Did they have a degree of plasticity, probably, as a forerunner of ours, but a lesser ability as consistent with the earlier brain's simplicity. My view is consistent: a brain that allows the development of a spear concept will be able to create that physical spear and will not need enlargement.
Again, you used the spear as an example of the need for a larger brain to conceive it. I continue to be totally mystified by your idea of a brain that “allows” the dualist’s soul to have new ideas, and the confusion is exacerbated by your next comment:
DAVID: Level of concept must be strictly related to level of brain capacity. An earlier brain cannot conceive what a more advanced brain can conceive and create. (dhw's bold)
dhw: Now you unequivocally have the brain both conceiving and creating (I use the word “implementing”). That is absolutely fine with me, because it makes not the slightest difference whether you embrace this totally materialist belief or the dualist belief that ideas are produced by the soul – we still have the known fact that brains are altered by the implementation of ideas, whereas there is no evidence that the CAUSE of pre-Sapiens enlargement is a divine dabble or a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for periodic brain enlargement. But of course each generation builds on what were once the new ideas of its predecessors, and the same would apply to succeeding “species” of hominids and homos. They didn’t need to reinvent the spear. But someone then invented the bow and arrow. And maybe that resulted in another expansion. Neither of us can write a clear history of all this – unless you have discovered your God’s computer programme detailing which inventions caused or followed pre-sapiens brain expansion.
You continue your totally illogical idea. The soul uses a more complex brain to create more concepts and create the new needed artifact. Accept the history that bigger brains have better artifacts found with them. No relation to the older brain which you would like to explode trying to develop a new idea.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: I am pointing out that the only evidence we have points to brains changing in response to new ideas, not in anticipation of them.
DAVID: But it is evidence from this final finished brain with its sole capacities.
What are “sole” capacities? But yes, the modern brain is the only one we can observe at work, and so the only concrete evidence we have about how the brain functions is that it changes when trying to implement new ideas.
DAVID: Total illogical thought. The exiting brain conceives of the new object and makes it. The old brain smaller brain has nothing to do with it. It can't conceive of the new idea.
Why are you stating this as a fact? Firstly, you are claiming that the brain conceives the idea, which is the materialist view, though you claim to be a dualist. Secondly, why is it illogical to claim that in the past the brain may have changed (either through complexification or enlargement) in the course of implementing new ideas, when we know for a fact that this is true of the modern brain?
[…]
DAVID: Level of concept must be strictly related to level of brain capacity. An earlier brain cannot conceive what a more advanced brain can conceive and create. (dhw's bold)
dhw: Now you unequivocally have the brain both conceiving and creating (I use the word “implementing”). That is absolutely fine with me, because it makes not the slightest difference whether you embrace this totally materialist belief or the dualist belief that ideas are produced by the soul – we still have the known fact that brains are altered by the implementation of ideas, whereas there is no evidence that the CAUSE of pre-Sapiens enlargement is a divine dabble or a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for periodic brain enlargement. But of course each generation builds on what were once the new ideas of its predecessors, and the same would apply to succeeding “species” of hominids and homos. They didn’t need to reinvent the spear. But someone then invented the bow and arrow. And maybe that resulted in another expansion. Neither of us can write a clear history of all this – unless you have discovered your God’s computer programme detailing which inventions caused or followed pre-sapiens brain expansion.
DAVID: You continue your totally illogical idea. The soul uses a more complex brain to create more concepts and create the new needed artifact. Accept the history that bigger brains have better artifacts found with them. No relation to the older brain which you would like to explode trying to develop a new idea.
First you say it is the brain that conceives concepts, and now – having been informed that this makes you a materialist – you come up with the soul “using” the brain to create concepts. Please explain how it does so, other than by using the information provided by the brain and the rest of the body. But yes, the soul – if it exists – uses the brain “to create the new needed artefact”, which is why the brain has to make changes to itself in order to produce something the body has never produced before. As regards artefacts being found WITH the bigger brains, thank you for changing your terms in accordance with the following exchange:
DAVID: You don't answer why we see bigger brain and only then improved artifacts, which always follow the appearance of the bigger brain. (dhw's bold)
dhw: We find improved artefacts ACCOMPANYING the appearance of the bigger brain! According to my theory, it is the process of production that causes enlargement, so you can only find the artefact when the brain has expanded!
"Accompanying" or "with", not "following". We do not see improved artefacts following the appearance of bigger brains, we see them accompanying bigger brains. There is no way of knowing whether the original expansion preceded or followed the original concept. We only know that implementation causes changes to the brain. Of course subsequent concepts would follow the expansion until the next time implementation of a concept required increased capacity.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Thursday, February 27, 2020, 20:42 (1513 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: But yes, the modern brain is the only one we can observe at work, and so the only concrete evidence we have about how the brain functions is that it changes when trying to implement new ideas.
DAVID: Total illogical thought. The exiting brain conceives of the new object and makes it. The old brain smaller brain has nothing to do with it. It can't conceive of the new idea.
dhw: Why are you stating this as a fact? Firstly, you are claiming that the brain conceives the idea, which is the materialist view, though you claim to be a dualist. Secondly, why is it illogical to claim that in the past the brain may have changed (either through complexification or enlargement) in the course of implementing new ideas, when we know for a fact that this is true of the modern brain?
And I'm pointing out the current brain is, yes, a reflection of past brain development, but please remember our brain has shrunk 125 cc in 30,000 years, so it has very different more advanced set of attributes, and cannot be specifically applied to past brains and how the past brains might have worked and changed. Please use all our knowledge. Don't just pick out part of what we know to further your argument. As for the bold you know full well my theory about soul and brain interlock.
DAVID: You continue your totally illogical idea. The soul uses a more complex brain to create more concepts and create the new needed artifact. Accept the history that bigger brains have better artifacts found with them. No relation to the older brain which you would like to explode trying to develop a new idea.
hw: But yes, the soul – if it exists – uses the brain “to create the new needed artefact”, which is why the brain has to make changes to itself in order to produce something the body has never produced before. As regards artefacts being found WITH the bigger brains, thank you for changing your terms in accordance with the following exchange:
DAVID: You don't answer why we see bigger brain and only then improved artifacts, which always follow the appearance of the bigger brain. (dhw's bold)
dhw: We find improved artefacts ACCOMPANYING the appearance of the bigger brain! According to my theory, it is the process of production that causes enlargement, so you can only find the artefact when the brain has expanded!
dhw: "Accompanying" or "with", not "following". We do not see improved artefacts following the appearance of bigger brains, we see them accompanying bigger brains. There is no way of knowing whether the original expansion preceded or followed the original concept. We only know that implementation causes changes to the brain. Of course subsequent concepts would follow the expansion until the next time implementation of a concept required increased capacity.
You are correct. New brain and new artifacts are all we find. Your concept: The habilis brain thinks of a new tool but cannot conceive of how to make it so it expands itself to have a brain that can adequately make the new tool. I find that totally illogical. An earlier brain cannot think about what it needs in future. It can't see the future which is why we naturally think if it as a smaller more primitive brain. Again a strained concept to have natural evolution, no God, or with lip service to theism, have God give them a mechanism to do it on their own, giving up His control of evolution. Total contortions.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: The exiting brain conceives of the new object and makes it. The old brain smaller brain has nothing to do with it. It can't conceive of the new idea.
dhw: […] Firstly, you are claiming that the brain conceives the new idea, which is the materialist view, though you claim to be a dualist.
DAVID: […] you know full well my theory about soul and brain interlock.
I have never understood how the soul can be the source of ideas although it is the brain that does the conceiving, as above. As I see it, the "interlock" would consist in the dualist's soul using the brain to gather information and to implement its ideas. It would be the soul that did the thinking and conceiving. (We needn't discuss the materialist's counterarguments here. I remain neutral on the subject)
dhw: […] why is it illogical to claim that in the past the brain may have changed (either through complexification or enlargement) in the course of implementing new ideas, when we know for a fact that this is true of the modern brain?
DAVID: And I'm pointing out the current brain is, yes, a reflection of past brain development, but please remember our brain has shrunk 125 cc in 30,000 years, so it has very different more advanced set of attributes, and cannot be specifically applied to past brains and how the past brains might have worked and changed. Please use all our knowledge. Don't just pick out part of what we know to further your argument.
You keep agreeing that shrinkage must have been due to the efficiency of complexification, which took over when the maximum capacity had been reached. There is absolutely no reason why the current known process should NOT be applied to the past: more advanced sets of attributes would apply to every expansion and every complexification resulting from the implementation of new ideas. Nobody “knows” why or how past brains expanded – the only knowledge we have comes from our observation of the modern brain, so what is the rest of the “knowledge” you are referring to?
DAVID: You don't answer why we see bigger brain and only then improved artifacts, which always follow the appearance of the bigger brain. (dhw's bold)
dhw: We find improved artefacts ACCOMPANYING the appearance of the bigger brain! According to my theory, it is the process of production that causes enlargement, so you can only find the artefact when the brain has expanded!
dhw: "Accompanying" or "with", not "following". We do not see improved artefacts following the appearance of bigger brains, we see them accompanying bigger brains. There is no way of knowing whether the original expansion preceded or followed the original concept. We only know that implementation causes changes to the brain. Of course subsequent concepts would follow the expansion until the next time implementation of a concept required increased capacity.
DAVID: You are correct. New brain and new artifacts are all we find.
Thank you for accepting this correction.
DAVID: Your concept: The habilis brain thinks of a new tool but cannot conceive of how to make it so it expands itself to have a brain that can adequately make the new tool.
No! Habilis thinks of a new tool (no matter whether you believe it is the soul or the brain that does the thinking), and the effort to design and make it CAUSES the brain to expand, just as the effort to read, memorize etc. CAUSES the modern brain to complexify or expand in particular areas.
DAVID: I find that totally illogical. An earlier brain cannot think about what it needs in future. It can't see the future which is why we naturally think if it as a smaller more primitive brain.
The earlier homo (I continue to be amazed that someone who calls himself a dualist attributes all thought to the brain) doesn’t think about what it needs in future! It thinks about how it can improve its responses to the needs of the present! We think of it as a smaller brain because it WAS a smaller brain, and we think of it as more primitive because the improvements only became visible once the brain had expanded!
DAVID: Again a strained concept to have natural evolution, no God, or with lip service to theism, have God give them a mechanism to do it on their own, giving up His control of evolution. Total contortions.
There is no contortion. If God exists, he would have created the mechanism. Why is it a contortion to hypothesize that God might have WANTED to give evolution free rein as opposed to his WANTING to control everything? It is simply an interpretation of his actions and wishes that differs from yours, which you seem to think is the objective truth about something that nobody can possibly know.
DAVID (under “cerebellar contributions"): the development of language has caused our cerebellum to assume new functions beyond the usual sensory-motor functions that were well understood.
Yes, an example of how new demands cause changes to the brain. The cerebellum would not have changed itself in anticipation of language development.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Sunday, March 01, 2020, 19:21 (1510 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: […] why is it illogical to claim that in the past the brain may have changed (either through complexification or enlargement) in the course of implementing new ideas, when we know for a fact that this is true of the modern brain?
DAVID: And I'm pointing out the current brain is, yes, a reflection of past brain development, but please remember our brain has shrunk 125 cc in 30,000 years, so it has very different more advanced set of attributes, and cannot be specifically applied to past brains and how the past brains might have worked and changed.
dhw: You keep agreeing that shrinkage must have been due to the efficiency of complexification, which took over when the maximum capacity had been reached. There is absolutely no reason why the current known process should NOT be applied to the past: more advanced sets of attributes would apply to every expansion and every complexification resulting from the implementation of new ideas. Nobody “knows” why or how past brains expanded – the only knowledge we have comes from our observation of the modern brain, so what is the rest of the “knowledge” you are referring to?
You are, as usual, ignoring the gaps in brain size, 150 cc each time with new artifacts.
dhw: We find improved artefacts ACCOMPANYING the appearance of the bigger brain! According to my theory, it is the process of production that causes enlargement, so you can only find the artefact when the brain has expanded!
Exactly, but your backwards interpretation is not mine: big newer brain appears and the artifacts demonstrate the new brains' new abilities. That is how all archaeological articles I read interpret them. In your weird approach I can image the artifacts came first and then the brain enlarged from its efforts. How do you timeline the separate events?
DAVID: Your concept: The habilis brain thinks of a new tool but cannot conceive of how to make it so it expands itself to have a brain that can adequately make the new tool.
dhw: No! Habilis thinks of a new tool (no matter whether you believe it is the soul or the brain that does the thinking), and the effort to design and make it CAUSES the brain to expand, just as the effort to read, memorize etc. CAUSES the modern brain to complexify or expand in particular areas.
Again, confusing our modern brain and its different capacities from the past brains. Our brain has shrunk 150 cc in 30,000 years as we learned many new concepts while enlarging small specific areas
DAVID: I find that totally illogical. An earlier brain cannot think about what it needs in future. It can't see the future which is why we naturally think if it as a smaller more primitive brain.dhw: The earlier homo doesn’t think about what it needs in future! It thinks about how it can improve its responses to the needs of the present! We think of it as a smaller brain because it WAS a smaller brain, and we think of it as more primitive because the improvements only became visible once the brain had expanded!
But it is limited to only what its soul can conceive of, using a less complex brain.
DAVID: Again a strained concept to have natural evolution, no God, or with lip service to theism, have God give them a mechanism to do it on their own, giving up His control of evolution. Total contortions.dhw: There is no contortion. If God exists, he would have created the mechanism. Why is it a contortion to hypothesize that God might have WANTED to give evolution free rein as opposed to his WANTING to control everything? It is simply an interpretation of his actions and wishes that differs from yours, which you seem to think is the objective truth about something that nobody can possibly know.
We each discuss our viewpoints about God from how we conceive of God. Adler has guided me as to how to do it properly.
DAVID (under “cerebellar contributions"): the development of language has caused our cerebellum to assume new functions beyond the usual sensory-motor functions that were well understood.dhw: Yes, an example of how new demands cause changes to the brain. The cerebellum would not have changed itself in anticipation of language development.
But as usual you forget. In anticipation of our newer developing functions, such as grammatical language our complex brain has been given excellent plasticity to make all the necessary adaptations and still shrink 150 cc in 30-35,000 years.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: Please use all our knowledge. Don't just pick out part of what we know to further your argument.
dhw: There is absolutely no reason why the current known process should NOT be applied to the past: more advanced sets of attributes would apply to every expansion and every complexification resulting from the implementation of new ideas. Nobody “knows” why or how past brains expanded – the only knowledge we have comes from our observation of the modern brain, so what is the rest of the “knowledge” you are referring to?
DAVID: You are, as usual, ignoring the gaps in brain size, 150 cc each time with new artifacts.
I am not ignoring the gaps, I am explaining them! Read the bold. Every expansion is your gap of xxx cc (last time it was 125 cc). Now please tell me what other “knowledge” you are referring to.
dhw: We find improved artefacts ACCOMPANYING the appearance of the bigger brain! According to my theory, it is the process of production that causes enlargement, so you can only find the artefact when the brain has expanded!
DAVID: […] In your weird approach I can image the artifacts came first and then the brain enlarged from its efforts. How do you timeline the separate events?
Of course the artefacts did not come first! My "approach" is that the concept came first, and the brain enlarged BECAUSE of the effort to design and implement the concept – just as the modern brain complexifies or enlarges certain sections BECAUSE OF the effort to read and write, memorize, or make music.(And since you keep raising the issue, the modern brain has shrunk because of the efficiency of complexification.)
dhw: The earlier homo doesn’t think about what it needs in future! It thinks about how it can improve its responses to the needs of the present! We think of it as a smaller brain because it WAS a smaller brain, and we think of it as more primitive because the improvements only became visible once the brain had expanded!
DAVID: But it is limited to only what its soul can conceive of, using a less complex brain.
Disregarding your materialist/dualist obfuscation, you might just as well say that nobody can think of anything he/she can't think of. I'm sure we'll all agree! The whole point of my theory is that somewhere along the line, some early homo(s) thought of something nobody else had thought of (it's also happened in modern times, just in case you hadn't noticed), and the concept leads to new activities which demand changes to the brain. In those early days this meant expansion. Nowadays the outcome is complexification.
DAVID: We each discuss our viewpoints about God from how we conceive of God. Adler has guided me as to how to do it properly.
I’m sorry, but nobody has the right to say their way of thinking about God is the proper way. Please stop hiding behind Adler.
DAVID (under “cerebellar contributions"): the development of language has caused our cerebellum to assume new functions beyond the usual sensory-motor functions that were well understood.
dhw: Yes, an example of how new demands cause changes to the brain. The cerebellum would not have changed itself in anticipation of language development.
DAVID: But as usual you forget. In anticipation of our newer developing functions, such as grammatical language our complex brain has been given excellent plasticity to make all the necessary adaptations and still shrink 150 cc in 30-35,000 years.
Stop harping on about shrinkage unless you have a different explanation from the one we have agreed on. Of course our brain has excellent plasticity. It would not have complexified or expanded if it didn’t. That is not the issue. The issue is your claim that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every change in advance of new concepts, as opposed to the only process we can actually observe, which is that the brain changes in its efforts to implement new concepts. But NB there would also have been new concepts after expansion...until once more the concept exceeded the capacity. When the brain reached its final capacity (ours), subsequent new concepts led to complexification, not expansion.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Monday, March 02, 2020, 22:17 (1509 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You are, as usual, ignoring the gaps in brain size, 150 cc each time with new artifacts.
dhw: I am not ignoring the gaps, I am explaining them! Read the bold. Every expansion is your gap of xxx cc. Now please tell me what other “knowledge” you are referring to.
Your past discussion has noted specifically areas enlarged in London cabbies and Italian illiterate women who learn to read. All true, but your interpretation is entirely wrong. What type of brain use caused the enlargement? That is the key. Were there new concepts developed which involves planning and design. Of course not. Their brains were learning from known information and the process was memorization of streets and for reading a complex of learning printed words and learning the meaning of some words not known before reading.
dhw: We find improved artefacts ACCOMPANYING the appearance of the bigger brain! According to my theory, it is the process of production that causes enlargement, so you can only find the artefact when the brain has expanded!DAVID: […] In your weird approach I can image the artifacts came first and then the brain enlarged from its efforts. How do you timeline the separate events?
dhw: Of course the artefacts did not come first! My "approach" is that the concept came first, and the brain enlarged BECAUSE of the effort to design and implement the concept – just as the modern brain complexifies or enlarges certain sections BECAUSE OF the effort to read and write, memorize, or make music.(And since you keep raising the issue, the modern brain has shrunk because of the efficiency of complexification.)
Your theory is totally debunked above if you are using the cabbies, etc.
dhw: The earlier homo doesn’t think about what it needs in future! It thinks about how it can improve its responses to the needs of the present! We think of it as a smaller brain because it WAS a smaller brain, and we think of it as more primitive because the improvements only became visible once the brain had expanded!DAVID: But it is limited to only what its soul can conceive of, using a less complex brain.
dhw: Disregarding your materialist/dualist obfuscation, you might just as well say that nobody can think of anything he/she can't think of. I'm sure we'll all agree!
Just my point. A new concept will bring new artifacts. Smart new ideas require a more complex brain for use by the soul/consciousness. But teh artifacts will appear after the new brain is used.
DAVID: We each discuss our viewpoints about God from how we conceive of God. Adler has guided me as to how to do it properly.
dhw: I’m sorry, but nobody has the right to say their way of thinking about God is the proper way. Please stop hiding behind Adler.
I don't hide. Adler has taught me how to think properly about God.
DAVID (under “cerebellar contributions"): the development of language has caused our cerebellum to assume new functions beyond the usual sensory-motor functions that were well understood.dhw: Yes, an example of how new demands cause changes to the brain. The cerebellum would not have changed itself in anticipation of language development.
DAVID: But as usual you forget. In anticipation of our newer developing functions, such as grammatical language our complex brain has been given excellent plasticity to make all the necessary adaptations and still shrink 150 cc in 30-35,000 years.
dhw: Stop harping on about shrinkage unless you have a different explanation from the one we have agreed on. Of course our brain has excellent plasticity. It would not have complexified or expanded if it didn’t. That is not the issue. The issue is your claim that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every change in advance of new concepts, as opposed to the only process we can actually observe, which is that the brain changes in its efforts to implement new concepts.
I've shown you the bold is not true. Just to help you the only true sort-of evidence we have about enlargement is Einstein's autopsy. The area thought to relate to his theorizing was much thicker. Problem:was he born with it or did he develop it from thinking/conceptualizing? We don't know. Brilliant folks are generally born that way? No real evidence.
Introducing the brain: newborn brain well organized
by David Turell , Monday, March 02, 2020, 23:52 (1509 days ago) @ David Turell
fMRI's of very young babies shnw how organized these regions of the baby brains are a s early s six days:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-earliest-newborns-visual-cortex-reveals.html
"Within hours of birth, a baby's gaze is drawn to faces. Now, brain scans of newborns reveal the neurobiology underlying this behavior, showing that as young as six days old a baby's brain appears hardwired for the specialized tasks of seeing faces and seeing places.
***
"'We've shown that a baby's brain is more adult-like than many people might assume," adds Frederik Kamps, who led the study as a Ph.D. candidate at Emory. "Much of the scaffolding for the human visual cortex is already in place, along with the patterns of brain activity, although the patterns are not as strong compared to those of adults."
***
"For decades, scientists have known that the adult visual cortex contains two regions that work in concert to process faces and another two regions that work together to process places. More recent work shows that the visual cortex of young children is differentiated into these face and place networks. And in a 2017 paper, Dilks and colleagues found that this neural differentiation is in place in babies as young as four months.
"For the current PNAS paper, the average age of the newborn participants was 27 days. "We needed to get closer to the date of birth in order to better understand if we are born with this differentiation in our brains or if it's molded by experience," Dilks says.
***
"The results showed the two regions of the visual cortex associated with face processing fired in sync in the infants, as did the two networks associated with places. The infant patterns were similar to those of the adult participants, although not quite as strong. "That finding suggest that there is room for these networks to keep getting fine-tuned as infants mature into adulthood," Kamps says.
"'We can see that the face networks and the place networks of the brain are hooked up and talking to each other within days of birth," Dilks says. "They are essentially awaiting the relevant information.'"
Comment: This sort of planned design to immediately handle visual information as it appears strongly suggests it was designed this way to facilitate development.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: You are, as usual, ignoring the gaps in brain size, 150 cc each time with new artifacts.
dhw: I am not ignoring the gaps, I am explaining them! Read the bold. Every expansion is your gap of xxx cc. Now please tell me what other “knowledge” you are referring to.
DAVID: Your past discussion has noted specifically areas enlarged in London cabbies and Italian illiterate women who learn to read. All true, but your interpretation is entirely wrong. What type of brain use caused the enlargement? That is the key. Were there new concepts developed which involves planning and design. Of course not. Their brains were learning from known information and the process was memorization of streets and for reading a complex of learning printed words and learning the meaning of some words not known before reading.
And later: Your theory is totally debunked above if you are using the cabbies, etc.
Firstly, your attempt to “debunk” my theory does not tell us what other “knowledge“ you were referring to. Please identify it. Secondly, learning to read is not a matter of learning words but of learning a process (implementing a concept) that was new to the women themselves, and it proves that the brain responds to the demands made on it. Your post is merely distinguishing between different categories of new concept. I see no reason to suppose that although the current brain is known to change in response to new demands, the old brain would have had to be changed before new demands could be made on it. But we’d need to monitor an inventor’s brain from concept to implementation in order to satisfy you. Change in response to new demands would apply whether the ideas came from the brain itself (materialism) or from a “soul” (dualism) – an issue which becomes more and more confusing since you keep insisting that it is the brain that provides the ideas. (See below for more obfuscation.)
dhw: The earlier homo doesn’t think about what it needs in future! It thinks about how it can improve its responses to the needs of the present! We think of it as a smaller brain because it WAS a smaller brain, and we think of it as more primitive because the improvements only became visible once the brain had expanded!
DAVID: But it is limited to only what its soul can conceive of, using a less complex brain.
dhw: Disregarding your materialist/dualist obfuscation, you might just as well say that nobody can think of anything he/she can't think of. I'm sure we'll all agree!
DAVID: Just my point. A new concept will bring new artifacts. Smart new ideas require a more complex brain for use by the soul/consciousness. But teh artifacts will appear after the new brain is used.
Of course the new concept will bring new artefacts, and in my theory, yes indeed the new concept requires a more complex brain for its implementation, with either the thinking soul using the implementing brain (dualism), or the thinking brain using itself (materialism). And so the artefacts appear when the brain has finished expanding to the size required for the implementation of the concept. We are both repeating our theories, and this adds nothing to the discussion.
DAVID: We each discuss our viewpoints about God from how we conceive of God. Adler has guided me as to how to do it properly.
dhw: I’m sorry, but nobody has the right to say their way of thinking about God is the proper way. Please stop hiding behind Adler.
DAVID: I don't hide. Adler has taught me how to think properly about God.
Nobody has the right to say that their way or anybody else’s way is the proper way.
dhw: The cerebellum would not have changed itself in anticipation of language development.
DAVID: But as usual you forget. In anticipation of our newer developing functions, such as grammatical language our complex brain has been given excellent plasticity to make all the necessary adaptations and still shrink 150 cc in 30-35,000 years.
dhw: Stop harping on about shrinkage unless you have a different explanation from the one we have agreed on. Of course our brain has excellent plasticity. It would not have complexified or expanded if it didn’t. That is not the issue. The issue is your claim that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every change in advance of new concepts, as opposed to the only process we can actually observe, which is that the brain changes in its efforts to implement new concepts.[/b]
DAVID: I've shown you the bold is not true.
Of course you haven’t. Reading was a new concept for the illiterate women.
DAVID: Just to help you the only true sort-of evidence we have about enlargement is Einstein's autopsy. The area thought to relate to his theorizing was much thicker. Problem:was he born with it or did he develop it from thinking/conceptualizing? We don't know. Brilliant folks are generally born that way? No real evidence.
Thank you for your honesty in helping me. We do not know the source of thought (dualism versus materialism), but Einstein’s brain certainly does not “debunk” my theory. It fits in perfectly with what we actually know about the brain from the examples given: it makes changes according to how it is used.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 03, 2020, 19:05 (1508 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Your past discussion has noted specifically areas enlarged in London cabbies and Italian illiterate women who learn to read. All true, but your interpretation is entirely wrong. What type of brain use caused the enlargement? That is the key. Were there new concepts developed which involves planning and design. Of course not. Their brains were learning from known information and the process was memorization of streets and for reading a complex of learning printed words and learning the meaning of some words not known before reading.
And later: Your theory is totally debunked above if you are using the cabbies, etc.dhw: Firstly, your attempt to “debunk” my theory does not tell us what other “knowledge“ you were referring to. Please identify it. Secondly, learning to read is not a matter of learning words but of learning a process (implementing a concept) that was new to the women themselves, and it proves that the brain responds to the demands made on it.
Learning a concept of reading is not the same as originally creating a concept of reading, which is the difference in our thoughts about our argument about how the brain enlarges.
dhw: Your post is merely distinguishing between different categories of new concept.
Your categories are blatantly wrong. Creating a new concept is NOT the same as learning an existing concept. You can't twist out if it. Creating a new concept involves much new analysis and finally a design.
dhw: The cerebellum would not have changed itself in anticipation of language development.DAVID: But as usual you forget. In anticipation of our newer developing functions, such as grammatical language our complex brain has been given excellent plasticity to make all the necessary adaptations and still shrink 150 cc in 30-35,000 years.
dhw: Stop harping on about shrinkage unless you have a different explanation from the one we have agreed on. Of course our brain has excellent plasticity. It would not have complexified or expanded if it didn’t. That is not the issue. The issue is your claim that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every change in advance of new concepts, as opposed to the only process we can actually observe, which is that the brain changes in its efforts to implement new concepts.[/b]
DAVID: I've shown you the bold is not true.
dhw: Of course you haven’t. Reading was a new concept for the illiterate women.
Wrong!! The women did not invent the concept of reading. They simply learned it. In considering new brain size we are discussing the invention of new concepts. It is invention that is the issue and being able to analyze how to satisfy a new need and design it. We all know that. Rethink your position. It is currently untenable.
DAVID: Just to help you the only true sort-of evidence we have about enlargement is Einstein's autopsy. The area thought to relate to his theorizing was much thicker. Problem:was he born with it or did he develop it from thinking/conceptualizing? We don't know. Brilliant folks are generally born that way? No real evidence.dhw: Thank you for your honesty in helping me. We do not know the source of thought (dualism versus materialism), but Einstein’s brain certainly does not “debunk” my theory. It fits in perfectly with what we actually know about the brain from the examples given: it makes changes according to how it is used.
I've debunked your theory. It is the nuance of developing a new concept or simply learning one. You cannot avoid the nuance that shows us the difference as it applies to our discussion. As you know I've always favored an enlarged brain with the capability of new concept/design ability as the prime way. I've puzzled over why we see it so differently. I've finally recognized our vast difference. Sorry it took so long.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: Your past discussion has noted specifically areas enlarged in London cabbies and Italian illiterate women who learn to read. All true, but your interpretation is entirely wrong. What type of brain use caused the enlargement? That is the key. Were there new concepts developed which involves planning and design. Of course not. Their brains were learning from known information and the process was memorization of streets and for reading a complex of learning printed words and learning the meaning of some words not known before reading.
And later: Your theory is totally debunked above if you are using the cabbies, etc.
dhw: Firstly, your attempt to “debunk” my theory does not tell us what other “knowledge“ you were referring to. Please identify it. Secondly, learning to read is not a matter of learning words but of learning a process (implementing a concept) that was new to the women themselves, and it proves that the brain responds to the demands made on it.
DAVID: Learning a concept of reading is not the same as originally creating a concept of reading, which is the difference in our thoughts about our argument about how the brain enlarges.
Of course it’s not the same, but that is not the difference between us! Our starting point is that nobody knows how or why the brain expanded. Your theory is that God preprogrammed or dabbled each expansion, and only then were our ancestors able to come up with new concepts. (We’ll ignore the dualism versus materialism debate.) I propose that it was the act of implementing new concepts that CAUSED the expansion. That is the difference between us, and my point is that the ONLY definite knowledge we have is of the modern brain, in which new activities complexify or enlarge part of the brain: e.g. the illiterate women’s brains do not change in advance of their learning to read (something new for them) but because of it. From this known fact I have extrapolated the theory that the same process would have caused earlier expansions. You don’t believe that the smaller brain can come up with new concepts, but you admit that we don’t know whether Einstein’s new concepts arose from an existing thicker brain area, or his thinking was the cause of the thickening. I opt for the latter, on the grounds that we know for a fact that activity changes the brain. (This would be true regardless of materialism versus dualism.) The problem is exactly the same: was the inventor of the new concept – say, the spear – born with the bigger brain, or was the bigger brain developed by his/her thinking (designing and implementing). Answer: we don’t know. Once again: The only concrete evidence we have is that new activities change the modern brain through complexification and/or localized enlargement. We have no evidence that the expansion preceded the concept that led to its design and implementation (although of course new concepts would have continued to arise once the new brain was in place - until once more expansion became necessary.)
dhw: Your post is merely distinguishing between different categories of new concept.
DAVID: Your categories are blatantly wrong. Creating a new concept is NOT the same as learning an existing concept. You can't twist out if it. Creating a new concept involves much new analysis and finally a design.
Agreed (apart from “blatantly wrong”!). In my theory, new analysis and design (invention) and theorizing (Einstein) are activities that cause changes to the brain, just as learning to implement the existing concept of reading, or acquiring additional knowledge (taxi-drivers) or skills (musicians) change the brain. But only the last three examples have been proven to be true, and it is from these that I have extrapolated my theory. You wrote: “Please use all our knowledge. Don't just pick out part of what we know to further your argument.” Now please tell us what further knowledge you have to support your own theory and to “debunk” mine.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 04, 2020, 20:39 (1507 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Firstly, your attempt to “debunk” my theory does not tell us what other “knowledge“ you were referring to. Please identify it. Secondly, learning to read is not a matter of learning words but of learning a process (implementing a concept) that was new to the women themselves, and it proves that the brain responds to the demands made on it.
DAVID: Learning a concept of reading is not the same as originally creating a concept of reading, which is the difference in our thoughts about our argument about how the brain enlarges.
dhw: Of course it’s not the same, but that is not the difference between us! Our starting point is that nobody knows how or why the brain expanded. Your theory is that God preprogrammed or dabbled each expansion, and only then were our ancestors able to come up with new concepts. (We’ll ignore the dualism versus materialism debate.) I propose that it was the act of implementing new concepts that CAUSED the expansion. That is the difference between us, and my point is that the ONLY definite knowledge we have is of the modern brain, in which new activities complexify or enlarge part of the brain:
We are arguing the same point in at least two threads, I have the same problem is each thread. Nebulous implementation causes the brain to enlarge. Tell me your idea as to how that makes a brain enlarge 200 cc in each gap in the fossils we deal with
dhw: the illiterate women’s brains do not change in advance of their learning to read (something new for them) but because of it. From this known fact I have extrapolated the theory that the same process would have caused earlier expansions. You don’t believe that the smaller brain can come up with new concepts, but you admit that we don’t know whether Einstein’s new concepts arose from an existing thicker brain area, or his thinking was the cause of the thickening. I opt for the latter, on the grounds that we know for a fact that activity changes the brain. (This would be true regardless of materialism versus dualism.) The problem is exactly the same: was the inventor of the new concept – say, the spear – born with the bigger brain, or was the bigger brain developed by his/her thinking (designing and implementing). Answer: we don’t know. Once again: The only concrete evidence we have is that new activities change the modern brain through complexification and/or localized enlargement. We have no evidence that the expansion preceded the concept that led to its design and implementation (although of course new concepts would have continued to arise once the new brain was in place - until once more expansion became necessary.)
The factual evidence we have is a 200 cc jump in brain size comes with newly complex artifacts. You contort this into an old brain jumps in size from the strain of trying to think and imagine a new invention. Einstein is of no help as you admit. Geniuses are born that way, not created by their thinking enlarging their brain. As far as I am concerned you have a barren concept for brain enlargement. I think God enlarges/complexifies the brain for the soul to use. All your examples are the brain learning to use/ memorize a concept they are taught, nothing more.
dhw: Your post is merely distinguishing between different categories of new concept.DAVID: Your categories are blatantly wrong. Creating a new concept is NOT the same as learning an existing concept. You can't twist out if it. Creating a new concept involves much new analysis and finally a design.
dhw: Agreed (apart from “blatantly wrong”!). In my theory, new analysis and design (invention) and theorizing (Einstein) are activities that cause changes to the brain, just as learning to implement the existing concept of reading, or acquiring additional knowledge (taxi-drivers) or skills (musicians) change the brain. But only the last three examples have been proven to be true, and it is from these that I have extrapolated my theory. You wrote: “Please use all our knowledge. Don't just pick out part of what we know to further your argument.” Now please tell us what further knowledge you have to support your own theory and to “debunk” mine.
Same lame examples of the brain learning a new task, no concepts invented which is the real issue about fossil brain gaps and artifacts found. Your so-called concept of brain enlargement is a dead end using tiny areas of enlargement as an excuse for the consideration. Small areas of the brain enlarge from use in learning a new ability, the only enlargement we can actually track. Tiny compared to 200 cc. jumps. The brain went from 400 cc (chimp) to over 1,400+ cc 35,000 years ago and then lost 150 cc. It is not just size but also complexity and plasticity. Earlier brains had some plasticity, if we assume evolution builds on past attributes.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
Taken over from “how emotions relate”:
dhw: […] I agree that if there is a soul it uses the brain as a tool, and I keep reiterating that the two uses are to gather more and more information, and to give material implementation to its concepts. (David’s bold) What else does the brain provide? You, however, keep saying that it is the brain that does the conceiving, e.g. “an earlier brain cannot conceive what a more advanced brain can conceive.” THAT is materialism. (dhw’s bold]
DAVID: You insist upon my shorthand being confusing. Once again the soul/consciousness uses the existing brain as a tool for creating immaterial thoughts and concepts. The degree of possible complex thinking depends on how complex the brain is constructed and allows the level of complexity of conceptual thought.
There is nothing shorthand about the statement that brains do the conceiving. I have agreed that the soul – if it exists – uses the brain in two ways (providing information and implementing concepts), and I asked you what else the brain provides. You have not answered.
DAVID: The bolded above is a woolly phrase that tells us nothing. I don't understand how you apply that to a thinking brain at any level of complexity. I'll use an example: habilis realizes it is safer to attack a prey from a safe distance etc. (dhw’s bold)
Once again you the dualist have the brain doing the thinking, which is fine if you are a materialist. You now use my own example of the spear and describe the process which I suggest led to pre-sapiens enlargement, and then you tell us that sapiens, in the form of the American Indian, did the same thing without brain expansion. Sapiens is the species whose brain capacity has reached maximum! He would have implemented his concept through complexification (and maybe segmental enlargement), just like the illiterate women and the rest. (To forestall your usual complaint, the efficiency of complexification is the cause of shrinkage.)
DAVID: So using the big word 'implementation' proves what???
It doesn’t “prove” anything. Nobody has yet proved any theory to explain expansion. You described the “big word” yourself: “habilis realizes it is safer to attack a prey from a safe distance: using a staff, throwing a staff, or adding a sharp stone point. He then uses his hands to fashion it.” First he has the concept, and then he implements it – meaning he creates a concrete reality out of his concept. But if the spear is the oldest artefact associated with habilis, then it was pre-habilis who first had the idea, and the design and making were the activities that led to the larger habilis brain.
DAVID: We know each fossil gap in brain size is followed by new artifacts. Those 200 cc gaps tell us a better brain did the new work, nothing more.
You agreed that the new brain size is not “followed” but is accompanied by new artefacts Our disagreement is not over the “better brain” but over the process that led to it: you say God preprogrammed or dabbled it, and I propose that the process of implementing the new concept (designing and making) led to it.
DAVID: Nebulous implementation causes the brain to enlarge. Tell me your idea as to how that makes a brain enlarge 200 cc in each gap in the fossils we deal with.
In the same way as all the modern examples of complexification and/or enlargement. I can’t explain the biochemical details, if that’s what you mean. Please tell us the biochemical details of how your God enlarged the brain. If you can, then that would be the same way as the brain cells would have organized the enlargement in response to new demands..
DAVID: The factual evidence we have is a 200 cc jump in brain size comes with newly complex artifacts. You contort this into an old brain jumps in size from the strain of trying to think and imagine a new invention.
In my theory the jump is accompanied by the artefacts, and the “old brain” jumps in size from the “strain” of trying to design and manufacture something that its species has never conceived of or manufactured in the past. What is the contortion?
DAVID: Einstein is of no help as you admit. Geniuses are born that way, not created by their thinking enlarging their brain.
I did not admit any such thing. You have done a complete volte-face. Two days ago you wrote: “Problem: was he born with it or did he develop it from thinking/conceptualizing? We don't know. Brilliant folks are generally born that way? No real evidence.” Now all of a sudden you think you know.
DAVID: I think God enlarges/complexifies the brain for the soul to use. All your examples are the brain learning to use/ memorize a concept they are taught, nothing more.
These are known facts from which I have extrapolated the theory that in the days when the brain was smaller, new activities would also result in brain change. You repeatedly ignore my request for known facts to support your own theory. Clearly you have none, so why should you assume that modern processes of brain change were not the same in former times?
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Thursday, March 05, 2020, 15:31 (1506 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You insist upon my shorthand being confusing. Once again the soul/consciousness uses the existing brain as a tool for creating immaterial thoughts and concepts. The degree of possible complex thinking depends on how complex the brain is constructed and allows the level of complexity of conceptual thought.
dhw: There is nothing shorthand about the statement that brains do the conceiving. I have agreed that the soul – if it exists – uses the brain in two ways (providing information and implementing concepts), and I asked you what else the brain provides. You have not answered.
No need. you have covered it.
DAVID: The bolded above is a woolly phrase that tells us nothing. I don't understand how you apply that to a thinking brain at any level of complexity. I'll use an example: habilis realizes it is safer to attack a prey from a safe distance etc. (dhw’s bold)dhw: Once again you the dualist have the brain doing the thinking, which is fine if you are a materialist.
Stop twisting. My way the brain is used is fully described above. Try to remember it.
DAVID: So using the big word 'implementation' proves what???
dhw: It doesn’t “prove” anything. Nobody has yet proved any theory to explain expansion. You described the “big word” yourself: “habilis realizes it is safer to attack a prey from a safe distance: using a staff, throwing a staff, or adding a sharp stone point. He then uses his hands to fashion it.” First he has the concept, and then he implements it – meaning he creates a concrete reality out of his concept. But if the spear is the oldest artefact associated with habilis, then it was pre-habilis who first had the idea, and the design and making were the activities that led to the larger habilis brain.
This is the woolliest yet. You haven't, but I have, searched Archaeological research papers. All they say is habilis (our current example) is what habilis does. Artifacts identify their capabilities of creation.
DAVID: We know each fossil gap in brain size is followed by new artifacts. Those 200 cc gaps tell us a better brain did the new work, nothing more.dhw: You agreed that the new brain size is not “followed” but is accompanied by new artefacts Our disagreement is not over the “better brain” but over the process that led to it: you say God preprogrammed or dabbled it, and I propose that the process of implementing the new concept (designing and making) led to it.
I do not accept your view. What artifacts accompany the fossil brain is what that brain produced from its thoughts.
DAVID: Nebulous implementation causes the brain to enlarge. Tell me your idea as to how that makes a brain enlarge 200 cc in each gap in the fossils we deal with.dhw: In the same way as all the modern examples of complexification and/or enlargement. I can’t explain the biochemical details, if that’s what you mean. Please tell us the biochemical details of how your God enlarged the brain. If you can, then that would be the same way as the brain cells would have organized the enlargement in response to new demands
You say above the new areas of enlargement are small segments!
DAVID: The factual evidence we have is a 200 cc jump in brain size comes with newly complex artifacts. You contort this into an old brain jumps in size from the strain of trying to think and imagine a new invention.dhw: In my theory the jump is accompanied by the artefacts, and the “old brain” jumps in size from the “strain” of trying to design and manufacture something that its species has never conceived of or manufactured in the past. What is the contortion?
It is a contorted stretch from the facts.
DAVID: Einstein is of no help as you admit. Geniuses are born that way, not created by their thinking enlarging their brain.dhw: I did not admit any such thing. You have done a complete volte-face. Two days ago you wrote: “Problem: was he born with it or did he develop it from thinking/conceptualizing? We don't know. Brilliant folks are generally born that way? No real evidence.” Now all of a sudden you think you know.
I've expressed this thought. The source of genius is is presumed to be born with that person, but I admit, no proof.
DAVID: I think God enlarges/complexifies the brain for the soul to use. All your examples are the brain learning to use/ memorize a concept they are taught, nothing more.dhw: These are known facts from which I have extrapolated the theory that in the days when the brain was smaller, new activities would also result in brain change. You repeatedly ignore my request for known facts to support your own theory. Clearly you have none, so why should you assume that modern processes of brain change were not the same in former times?
You are struggling using a learning process to enlarge brains by 200 cc. when the changes are of tiny size. Your theory has no basis.
Introducing the brain: half a brain; new erectus paper
by David Turell , Thursday, March 05, 2020, 21:40 (1506 days ago) @ David Turell
Shows how archaeologists think about brains and the accompanying artifacts:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2236527-homo-erectus-used-two-different-kinds-of-s...
"The discovery of skull fragments alongside different types of stone tools in Ethiopia sheds new light on the lifestyle of the ancient hominin Homo erectus. It dispels the idea that each hominin species used just one type of tool technology and indicates that H. erectus was more behaviourally flexible than we thought.
"Sileshi Semaw at the National Centre for Research on Human Evolution in Spain and his colleagues identified two H. erectus skulls at a site in Gona, Ethiopia. One was 1.26 million years old and the other dated back at least 1.5 million years. Unusually, the skulls were found directly alongside various stone tools.
“'This is good evidence that these hominins were the creators of those artefacts,” says Michael Rogers at Southern Connecticut State University, who was part of team that made the discovery. “That means you can get a better handle on what kind of tools they were really using.” (my bold)
"H. erectus evolved around 2 million years ago in Africa and was one of the first species in our genus, Homo. Compared with earlier hominins, members of this species had relatively large brains and were adept tool-makers. They invented the so-called Acheulian tools, such as teardrop-shaped hand axes, which superseded the older and simpler Oldowan tools.
"Hand axes are a multipurpose tool, a kind of Stone Age Swiss army knife. It was thought that once these sophisticated implements had been invented, H. erectus stopped using the more primitive Oldowan tools, which are sharp-edged stone flakes. [made first by H habilis]
"The discoveries at Gona dispel this notion, showing that both types of tool were used at the same time. “They were using both technologies as they saw fit,” says Semaw."
***
Comment: This article shows the mind-set of Archaeologists: the fossils that are found with the artifacts created the artifacts, but newer species still used older species artifacts, which obviously were carried over by the newer species. Erectus knew what habilis created and used. I see no support for your evolution of brain size theory.
Introducing the brain: half a brain; new erectus paper
by David Turell , Friday, March 06, 2020, 02:14 (1506 days ago) @ David Turell
Same find. Another article with a view:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontology/skulls-and-skills-varied-in-archaic-homo-erect...
The finds, published in Science Advances include two Homo erectus skulls at sites 6 kilometres apart, dating to 1.26 and 1.5-1.6 million years ago.
At both sites, archaeologists uncovered stone tools and artefacts close by, and in some cases encrusted with the same sediments the skulls were found in.
The surprise was that the stone tools weren’t just of a single type. Simple Oldowan artefacts as well as more sophisticated Acheulian hand axes were found.
That challenges the traditional view that different stone tools were made by different species, according to palaeoanthropologist Michael Rogers from Southern Connecticut State University, US, who specialises in stone tool analysis.
Oldowan tools – also known as Mode 1 tools – are made by smashing two rocks together to form a sharp flake.
“It’s the most basic kind of percussive technology you can imagine,” says Rogers, and has traditionally been associated with ‘handy man’ Homo habilis, a predecessor of Homo erectus.
Acheulian tools (Mode 2), on the other hand, are made by repeatedly chipping away at a rock to shape it into a hand axe, says Rogers.
The two Gona sites suggest that Homo erectus made both tool types concurrently and for several hundreds of thousands of years.
“The evidence suggests that we only have one species and yet we do have a diversity of stone tools, so that we can attribute that diversity to one species – Homo erectus,” says Rogers.
Archaeologist Mark Moore from the University of New England in Armidale, Australia, isn’t sure the distinction is so clear cut. The split between Acheulian and Oldowan is a “false dichotomy,” he says. A better approach, he suggests, would be to consider these tools as “two parts of the same technological continuum.”
Regardless of how they are classified, the mix of artifacts does indicate a flexibility in the technologies that Homo erectus employed while it was alive.
Comment: Archaeologists and paleontologists both equate tools and fossils to showing what the fossils created. Habilis did not tell Erectus what to do.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: There is nothing shorthand about the statement that brains do the conceiving. I have agreed that the soul – if it exists – uses the brain in two ways (providing information and implementing concepts), and I asked you what else the brain provides. You have not answered.
DAVID: No need. you have covered it.
We agree. So why do you keep talking of what “a more advanced brain can conceive” and “a thinking brain”? You claim to be a dualist, but these expressions are materialist. (No problem in itself. My objection is to your inconsistency.)
DAVID: The bolded above [dhw: “to give material implementation to its concepts”] is a woolly phrase that tells us nothing. I don't understand how you apply that to a thinking brain at any level of complexity. I'll use an example: habilis realizes it is safer to attack a prey from a safe distance etc. (dhw’s bold)
dhw: Once again you the dualist have the brain doing the thinking, which is fine if you are a materialist.
DAVID: Stop twisting. My way the brain is used is fully described above. Try to remember it.
You have just agreed that the brain is used only for gathering information and implementing concepts (which for some reason you find difficult to understand)! There is no twisting. If you say the brain does the conceiving and the thinking, you are advocating materialism! Stop wriggling.
DAVID: You haven't, but I have, searched Archaeological research papers. All they say is habilis (our current example) is what habilis does. Artifacts identify their capabilities of creation.
Of course they do! But what your papers cannot tell you is why the pre-habilis brain expanded to habilis size, and that is what my proposal tries to explain. Do your papers say God must have stepped in with a biochemical dabble? However, I’d better repeat that once the jump has been made, habilis will of course go on producing new artefacts until his “new” brain can no longer cope, and then it will again expand…all the way through to sapiens, whose brain cannot expand any further, and then complexification takes over. […]
DAVID: I do not accept your view. What artifacts accompany the fossil brain is what that brain produced from its thoughts.
Again you, the self-proclaimed dualist, have the materialist brain producing the thoughts, but it makes no difference to the theory: we agree that the thoughts came first (whatever their source) and then the brain produced the artefact. In my theory the design and production of the artefact caused the brain to expand, and in yours God dabbled with the brain of pre-habilis and expanded it before the materialist brain produced the thoughts. There is no way anyone can prove which theory is correct. All we have is the bigger brain and the artefact.
DAVID: Nebulous implementation causes the brain to enlarge. Tell me your idea as to how that makes a brain enlarge 200 cc in each gap in the fossils we deal with.
dhw: In the same way as all the modern examples of complexification and/or enlargement.
DAVID: You say above the new areas of enlargement are small segments!
Yes, because the sapiens brain cannot enlarge any more (hence the irrelevance of your American Indians, which I see you have dropped) – and I have extrapolated my theory from the known fact that the modern brain responds to new requirements by complexifying or enlarging. There is no reason to assume that smaller past brains did not function in the same way, so yet again I ask you to give us the additional known facts that support your own theory.
QUOTES re “new erectus”: (David’s bolds) “'This is good evidence that these hominins were the creators of those artefacts,” […].
“That challenges the traditional view that different stone tools were made by different species…”
“The split between Acheulian and Oldowan is a “false dichotomy,” he [archaeologist Mark Moore] says. “A better approach…would be to consider these tools as “two parts of the same technological continuum.”
The latter seems very reasonable to me.
DAVID: This article shows the mind-set of Archaeologists: the fossils that are found with the artifacts created the artifacts, but newer species still used older species artifacts, which obviously were carried over by the newer species. Erectus knew what habilis created and used. I see no support for your evolution of brain size theory.
And:
DAVID: Archaeologists and paleontologists both equate tools and fossils to showing what the fossils created. Habilis did not tell Erectus what to do.”
Why are you surprised that thinking beings use the knowledge and inventions of their predecessors? Then of course they went on to create their own implements. But this has nothing to do with the causes of brain expansion! What’s your argument? Erectus used habilis’s tools, and this proves that God expanded erectus’s brain before he used the tools and invented his own? The archaeologists are dealing with a totally different subject!
DAVID: Einstein is of no help as you admit. Geniuses are born that way, not created by their thinking enlarging their brain.
You have agreed that this statement is a complete reversal of your earlier statement that we don’t know this, and there is no evidence for it. I suggest you drop it.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Friday, March 06, 2020, 17:34 (1505 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Friday, March 06, 2020, 18:15
dhw: We agree. So why do you keep talking of what “a more advanced brain can conceive” and “a thinking brain”? You claim to be a dualist, but these expressions are materialist. (No problem in itself. My objection is to your inconsistency.)
It is not my inconsistency. You forget my fixed view which I view as assumed in discussions we have. Review my comment today (Friday, March 06, 2020, 17:21)
DAVID: I do not accept your view. What artifacts accompany the fossil brain is what that brain produced from its thoughts.dhw: In my theory the design and production of the artefact caused the brain to expand, and in yours God dabbled with the brain of pre-habilis and expanded it before the materialist brain produced the thoughts. There is no way anyone can prove which theory is correct. All we have is the bigger brain and the artefact.
DAVID: Nebulous implementation causes the brain to enlarge. Tell me your idea as to how that makes a brain enlarge 200 cc in each gap in the fossils we deal with.
dhw: In the same way as all the modern examples of complexification and/or enlargement.
DAVID: You say above the new areas of enlargement are small segments!
dhw: Yes, because the sapiens brain cannot enlarge any more (hence the irrelevance of your American Indians, which I see you have dropped) – and I have extrapolated my theory from the known fact that the modern brain responds to new requirements by complexifying or enlarging. There is no reason to assume that smaller past brains did not function in the same way, so yet again I ask you to give us the additional known facts that support your own theory.
Your bolded statements are not fact. Our brain has shrunk 150 cc since 35,00 years ago, and most likely is an endpoint in evolution and most probably won't enlarge again, not "cannot". That shrinkage was caused by complexification and plasticity. The second bold implies the new uses of brain made giant enlargements, not the tiny ones we know about. As for ancient brains, yes they operated in similar ways, perhaps less complex ways, but this means any new uses made tiny enlargements in those brains just like our brain does. How our brain works is inherited from the past with new modifications, simple evolution. Nothing is consistent in your illogical theory. Tiny enlargements cannot be extrapolated to 200 cc gaps! The gaps are totally unexplained. I have God to point to. You use natural changes that somehow appear. You see the need for design, but won't accept a designing mind. So we differ.
The archaeologists simply say the artifacts tell us what the fossils invented, nothing more.
QUOTES re “new erectus”: (David’s bolds) “'This is good evidence that these hominins were the creators of those artefacts,” […].“That challenges the traditional view that different stone tools were made by different species…”
“The split between Acheulian and Oldowan is a “false dichotomy,” he [archaeologist Mark Moore] says. “A better approach…would be to consider these tools as “two parts of the same technological continuum.”
dhw: The latter seems very reasonable to me.
DAVID: This article shows the mind-set of Archaeologists: the fossils that are found with the artifacts created the artifacts, but newer species still used older species artifacts, which obviously were carried over by the newer species. Erectus knew what habilis created and used. I see no support for your evolution of brain size theory.
And:
DAVID: Archaeologists and paleontologists both equate tools and fossils to showing what the fossils created. Habilis did not tell Erectus what to do.”dhw: Why are you surprised that thinking beings use the knowledge and inventions of their predecessors? Then of course they went on to create their own implements. But this has nothing to do with the causes of brain expansion! What’s your argument? Erectus used habilis’s tools, and this proves that God expanded erectus’s brain before he used the tools and invented his own? The archaeologists are dealing with a totally different subject!
No, God enlarged the brain to the Erectus stage and erectus of course invented his own new artifacts. Of course the artifacts discussion has a direct relation to brain enlargement. Your theory is falling apart with this new set of papers showing how archaeologists in interpret their physical findings. Of course they are not discussing brain enlargements causes, but we must use their findings to think logically. I find your theory as weaker and weaker.
Introducing the brain: role of transporters in neurons
by David Turell , Friday, March 06, 2020, 20:41 (1505 days ago) @ David Turell
A recent discovery as how they work:
https://phys.org/news/2020-03-neuroscientists-important-protein-brain.html
"After five years of experimentation, researchers from the University of Copenhagen have succeeded in crystallising and mapping a novel conformation of LeuT, a bacterial protein that belongs to the same family of proteins as the brain's so-called neurotransmitter transporters.
"These transporters are special proteins that sit in the cell membrane. As a kind of vacuum cleaner, they reuptake some of the neurotransmitters that nerve cells release when sending a signal to one another. (my bold)
***
"'Transporters are extremely important for regulating the signalling between neurons in the brain and thus the balance of how the whole system works. You cannot do without them," says Kamil Gotfryd, first author
***
"Evolutionary, transporters derive from the most primitive bacteria, which have developed them to absorb nutrients, such as amino acids, from the environment in order to survive.
Since then, specialised transporters have developed to perform a variety of functions. For example, to transport neurotransmitters into neurons in the human brain. Still, the basic principle is the same, namely that the transporter functions by alternately opening and closing to the interior and exterior of a cell, respectively.
"When a transporter is open outwardly, it may capture transmitter substances or amino acids. Thereafter, the protein uses sodium ions to change its structure so that it will close outwardly and instead open to the interior of the cell where the transported substance is released and absorbed.
"In recent years, X-ray crystallography has enabled researchers to map three stages of the transporter mechanism: Outwardly open, outwardly occluded and inwardly open.
"In order for the cycle to be complete, researchers have long concluded that there must also be an inwardly occluded stage of the protein. However, since this structure is unstable, it has long been difficult to freeze it and thus be able to map it.
"But now, after many trials, researchers at the University of Copenhagen have succeeded in retaining a transporter for the transmitter leucine—a LeuT—in precisely that stage."
Comment: an obviously necessary clean-up control since the neurons must produce new transmitters to deliver new messages constantly. Old trash transmitters have got to be constantly cleaned out. Has to be designed. Cannot be worked out by chance attempts.
Introducing the brain: human cerebellum different
by David Turell , Saturday, March 07, 2020, 01:32 (1505 days ago) @ David Turell
Even from monkeys:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780444639561000035?dgcid=raven_sd_r...
"In this chapter, we compare current understanding of the anatomy and functional compartmentation of the human cerebellum with detailed knowledge in nonhuman species. The anatomy of the cerebellum is highly conserved across mammals and comparison of functional data suggests that similar principles of organization also hold true for somatotopy. In particular, there is a dual representation of the limbs in the cerebellar cortex in rat, ferret, cat, monkey, and human. In animals, a key organizing principle of the cerebellum is its division into a series of longitudinally oriented olivocorticonuclear modules that are narrow in the mediolateral axis but extend across multiple cerebellar lobules in the rostrocaudal plane. This contrasts with existing understanding of the human cerebellum that suggests that functional compartmentation is organized mainly at the level of different lobes and lobules. However, advances in spatial resolution of imaging techniques mean we are now able to start to examine whether a longitudinal modular organization is also present within the human cerebellum. This has implications for the diagnosis and future treatment of clinical disorders that involve the cerebellum, since it is possible that variations in symptomatology may relate to this finer grain localization."
Comment: Research shows how much more special our brain has become with its evoluton
Introducing the brain: human cerebellum different
by David Turell , Friday, March 13, 2020, 20:35 (1498 days ago) @ David Turell
More information:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364661317300347?dgcid=raven_sd_...
"Multidisciplinary evidence indicates a role for the cerebellum in various aspects of cognition.
"Due to its uniform cytoarchitecture and extensive reciprocal connections with frontal, parietal, and temporal associative cortices, theorists have sought to identify cerebellar computations that are universal across sensorimotor and associative processes. Two key concepts are prediction and error-based learning.
"Recent work has revealed physiological diversity across structurally similar cerebellar modules. The computational constraints that arise from this diversity may be important for understanding cerebellar processing in different functional domains.
Knowledge has substantially evolved on cerebellar involvement in language and social cognition, providing representative domains to evaluate functional hypotheses of the ‘cognitive’ cerebellum and to consider how disturbances of cerebellar function may contribute to developmental and neuropsychiatric disorders.
"Over the past 30 years, cumulative evidence has indicated that cerebellar function extends beyond sensorimotor control. This view has emerged from studies of neuroanatomy, neuroimaging, neuropsychology, and brain stimulation, with the results implicating the cerebellum in domains as diverse as attention, language, executive function, and social cognition. Although the literature provides sophisticated models of how the cerebellum helps refine movements, it remains unclear how the core mechanisms of these models can be applied when considering a broader conceptualization of cerebellar function. In light of recent multidisciplinary findings, we examine how two key concepts that have been suggested as general computational principles of cerebellar function- prediction and error-based learning- might be relevant in the operation of cognitive cerebro-cerebellar loops.
Comment: Our cerebellum does not add to volume enlargement but is much more intimately related to our cortex than in apes. So it is not just a size difference but a design difference.
Introducing the brain: neurons change to form memories
by David Turell , Saturday, March 14, 2020, 01:29 (1498 days ago) @ David Turell
It shuttles genetic code within the neuron by altering synapses and transporting mRNA
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-brain-cells-infrastructure-memories.html
"Now scientists at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona have found that a type of kinesin called KIF3A/B can transport mRNAs, using another protein called adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) as an adaptor that binds both the kinesin and the mRNA-cargo. The proteins transport at least two types of mRNA which code for tubulin and actin, two types of proteins that neurons use to build their cellular skeleton. This is essential to shape the cell so that it can form new connections with other neurons.
"The findings are of interest because mRNAs play a key role in the storage and formation of memories. Previous studies show that mRNAs coding for the protein beta-actin continuously travel along synapses, the junction between two neurons. When synapses repeatedly receive a signal, the mRNA is used to make beta-actin proteins, which are important for reinforcing synapses and strengthening the attachment between two neurons. Repeatedly stimulating a synapse continuously reinforces the junction, which is thought to be how memories form.
"'Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramon y Cajal first proposed that our brains store memories by strengthening neuronal synapses, changing shape so that brain cells would firmly grasp one another and conduct signals more efficiently," says Sebastian Maurer, researcher at the Centre for Genomic Regulation and lead author of the study. "More than a century later we are describing one essential mechanism likely underlying his theories, showing just how ahead of his time he was."
***
"The researchers found that mRNAs and their adaptor APC switch on the kinesin's ignition, activating the protein. Transported mRNAs were found to have a special localization signal that control the efficiency by which different mRNAs are loaded onto the kinesin. Even slight alterations to this signal affected the mRNA's journey to its target destination, showing the sophisticated mechanisms brain cells develop to control the logistics of thousands of different messages. When not carrying cargo, the kinesins shifted to energy saving mode to save fuel until their next job."
Comment: Once again a very refined system of molecular changes to manage the system of memory formation. Which raises the next issue: when you try to remember a given pint, how does the brain go about finding it? Nothing about our brain is all that simple, when digging into the biochemistry of thought and memory. Our brain is obviously a miraculous outcome of evolution. Evolution was not unguided but designed.
Introducing the enlarging brain: human cerebellum different
by David Turell , Friday, May 22, 2020, 20:56 (1428 days ago) @ David Turell
Our cerebellum ties into the cerebral cortex to facilitate speech production and understanding:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028393218301052?dgcid=raven_sd_...
"Cerebellar lesions influence language processing.
•
Brain imaging and non-invasive cerebellar stimulation accumulated complimentary evidence.
•
"The cerebellum supports verbal short-term/working memory.
•
"The cerebellum also has a role in linguistic/semantic predictions and word generation.
•
"The cerebellum might be involved in short-term prediction and coordination of language-related information."
Abstract
"Lesion studies emphasize the role of the human cerebellum in a variety of cognitive processes. To date, most evidence comes from studies investigating language-related functions, such as verbal short-term/working memory, word generation, or linguistic/semantic predictions. This review summarizes brain imaging, non-invasive cerebellar stimulation and lesion studies in this field. Converging evidence suggests a cerebellar role in error processing and memory encoding although findings are partly contradictory. Future research should focus on common principles of cerebellar processing across different forms of cognitive performance to assess basic principles of cerebellar function."
Comment: the human brain contains the ability for the cerebellum to help with language. This is a special addition not present in apes. This further supports my approach to brain enlargement, that it has to be specially designed for the new processes of which it is capable. Hard thought is not capable of this result, which requiers special design.
Introducing the enlarging brain: human cerebellum different
by David Turell , Friday, June 12, 2020, 22:10 (1407 days ago) @ David Turell
Our cerebellum plays a major role in socializing:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030698771930204X?dgcid=raven_sd_...
Abstract
"The capacity to understand another person’s emotions, intentions, beliefs and personality traits, based on observed or communicated behaviors, is termed social cognition. During the last decade, social neuroscience has made great progress in understanding the neural correlates of social cognition. However, because the cerebellum is traditionally viewed as only involved in motor processing, the contribution of this major part of the brain in social processing has been largely ignored and its specific role in social cognition remains unclear. Nevertheless, recent meta-analyses have made its crucial contribution to social cognition evident. This raises the question: What is the exact function of the cerebellum in social cognition? We hypothesize that the cerebellum builds internal action models of our social inter-actions to predict how other people’s actions will be executed, what our most likely responses are to these actions, so that we can automatize our interactions and instantly detect disruptions in these action sequences. This mechanism likely allows to better anticipate action sequences during social interactions in an automatic and intuitive way and to fine-tune these anticipations, making it easier to understand behaviors and to detect violations. This hypothesis has major implications in neurological disorders affecting the cerebellum such as autism, with detrimental effects on social functionality, especially on more complex and abstract social cognitive processes. "
See also a previous entry on mouse and macaque differences in cerebellar function:
Introducing the brain: cerebellum differs from mouse - David Turell, 2019-10-19, 20:52
Comment: For dhw this raises a question. The enlargement to the sapiens' size involved primarily the cerebral prefrontal and frontal cortex to enlarge. One wonders which erectus neuron cell committee handled the cerebellar changes. The cerebellar changes appear to show planning or human socializing. Did the erectus brain cells know that was coming and how would they know to arrange for changes in the cerebellum?
Introducing the enlarging brain: human cerebellum different
QUOTE: “We hypothesize that the cerebellum builds internal action models of our social inter-actions to predict how other people’s actions will be executed, what our most likely responses are to these actions, so that we can automatize our interactions and instantly detect disruptions in these action sequences. This mechanism likely allows to better anticipate action sequences during social interactions in an automatic and intuitive way and to fine-tune these anticipations, making it easier to understand behaviors and to detect violations.”
I find the hypothesis very difficult to follow. It seems to be saying that the fortune-telling cerebellum automatically predicts other people’s behaviour as well as our own, but then “we” detect disruptions and something or the other fine-tunes the predictions….so that something or the other understands it all. I’m afraid I don’t. "Allows to better...." is an extraordinary construction clearly designed to avoid telling us what does the "bettering".
DAVID: For dhw this raises a question. The enlargement to the sapiens' size involved primarily the cerebral prefrontal and frontal cortex to enlarge. One wonders which erectus neuron cell committee handled the cerebellar changes. The cerebellar changes appear to show planning or human socializing. Did the erectus brain cells know that was coming and how would they know to arrange for changes in the cerebellum?
My first question is what the hypothesis is trying to prove. Secondly, erectus was a social being, so exactly what changes do you think took place between his cerebellum and ours? If changes did take place, they would have been handled by the cell community of the cerebellum, in response to changes in human socializing. I don't know what plans you envisage, unless you think all behaviour is predestined and your God planted programmes 3.8 billion years ago to tell everybody what to do if so and so did such and such. And I have no idea what this has to do with brain expansion. All such hypotheses (the article does not deal in facts) raise the question of how material cells produce immaterial thoughts.
Introducing the enlarging brain: human cerebellum different
by David Turell , Saturday, June 13, 2020, 20:13 (1406 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: “We hypothesize that the cerebellum builds internal action models of our social inter-actions to predict how other people’s actions will be executed, what our most likely responses are to these actions, so that we can automatize our interactions and instantly detect disruptions in these action sequences. This mechanism likely allows to better anticipate action sequences during social interactions in an automatic and intuitive way and to fine-tune these anticipations, making it easier to understand behaviors and to detect violations.”
dhw: I find the hypothesis very difficult to follow. It seems to be saying that the fortune-telling cerebellum automatically predicts other people’s behaviour as well as our own, but then “we” detect disruptions and something or the other fine-tunes the predictions….so that something or the other understands it all. I’m afraid I don’t. "Allows to better...." is an extraordinary construction clearly designed to avoid telling us what does the "bettering".
Unfortunately I have access only to the abstract, with a huge payment to see the article itself. Since it is peer reviewed the hypothesis was not rejected as you try to do. I read it as suggesting we can anticipate another person's reactions in general as we all do today.
DAVID: For dhw this raises a question. The enlargement to the sapiens' size involved primarily the cerebral prefrontal and frontal cortex to enlarge. One wonders which erectus neuron cell committee handled the cerebellar changes. The cerebellar changes appear to show planning for human socializing. Did the erectus brain cells know that was coming and how would they know to arrange for changes in the cerebellum?dhw: My first question is what the hypothesis is trying to prove. Secondly, erectus was a social being, so exactly what changes do you think took place between his cerebellum and ours? If changes did take place, they would have been handled by the cell community of the cerebellum, in response to changes in human socializing. I don't know what plans you envisage, unless you think all behaviour is predestined and your God planted programmes 3.8 billion years ago to tell everybody what to do if so and so did such and such. And I have no idea what this has to do with brain expansion. All such hypotheses (the article does not deal in facts) raise the question of how material cells produce immaterial thoughts.
Since we cannot see erectus brain material, nor any other previous fossil brains, all we can discuss is how sapiens developed from our ancestor ape. The size of cerebellums did not change much, but did reorganize to a degree according to the monkey/macaque article. We cannot know how much complexification on its own occurs in cerebella. This research in cerebellar functions is all new and very incomplete. But it is starting to show how much change was involved in finally producing the sapiens advanced brain , and not just extra cortex. dhw and I will always continue to disagree about God's role.
Introducing the enlarging brain: human cerebellum different
DAVID: For dhw this raises a question. The enlargement to the sapiens' size involved primarily the cerebral prefrontal and frontal cortex to enlarge. One wonders which erectus neuron cell committee handled the cerebellar changes. The cerebellar changes appear to show planning for human socializing. Did the erectus brain cells know that was coming and how would they know to arrange for changes in the cerebellum?
dhw: My first question is what the hypothesis is trying to prove. Secondly, erectus was a social being, so exactly what changes do you think took place between his cerebellum and ours? If changes did take place, they would have been handled by the cell community of the cerebellum, in response to changes in human socializing. I don't know what plans you envisage, unless you think all behaviour is predestined and your God planted programmes 3.8 billion years ago to tell everybody what to do if so and so did such and such. And I have no idea what this has to do with brain expansion. All such hypotheses (the article does not deal in facts) raise the question of how material cells produce immaterial thoughts.
DAVID: Since we cannot see erectus brain material, nor any other previous fossil brains, all we can discuss is how sapiens developed from our ancestor ape.
So why did you ask me about changes to the erectus cerebellum?
DAVID: The size of cerebellums did not change much, but did reorganize to a degree according to the monkey/macaque article. We cannot know how much complexification on its own occurs in cerebella. This research in cerebellar functions is all new and very incomplete. But it is starting to show how much change was involved in finally producing the sapiens advanced brain , and not just extra cortex. dhw and I will always continue to disagree about God's role.
We know that our brains differ considerably from those of our ancestor apes. I didn’t understand the article, and I don’t understand why you think it supports your theory against mine.
Introducing the enlarging brain: human cerebellum different
by David Turell , Sunday, June 14, 2020, 18:46 (1405 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: For dhw this raises a question. The enlargement to the sapiens' size involved primarily the cerebral prefrontal and frontal cortex to enlarge. One wonders which erectus neuron cell committee handled the cerebellar changes. The cerebellar changes appear to show planning for human socializing. Did the erectus brain cells know that was coming and how would they know to arrange for changes in the cerebellum?
dhw: My first question is what the hypothesis is trying to prove. Secondly, erectus was a social being, so exactly what changes do you think took place between his cerebellum and ours? If changes did take place, they would have been handled by the cell community of the cerebellum, in response to changes in human socializing. I don't know what plans you envisage, unless you think all behaviour is predestined and your God planted programmes 3.8 billion years ago to tell everybody what to do if so and so did such and such. And I have no idea what this has to do with brain expansion. All such hypotheses (the article does not deal in facts) raise the question of how material cells produce immaterial thoughts.
DAVID: Since we cannot see erectus brain material, nor any other previous fossil brains, all we can discuss is how sapiens developed from our ancestor ape.
So why did you ask me about changes to the erectus cerebellum?
DAVID: The size of cerebellums did not change much, but did reorganize to a degree according to the monkey/macaque article. We cannot know how much complexification on its own occurs in cerebella. This research in cerebellar functions is all new and very incomplete. But it is starting to show how much change was involved in finally producing the sapiens advanced brain , and not just extra cortex. dhw and I will always continue to disagree about God's role.
dhw: We know that our brains differ considerably from those of our ancestor apes. I didn’t understand the article, and I don’t understand why you think it supports your theory against mine.
We will always disagree as to how the advanced human brain was designed. Your method involves design without any knowledge of future needs/requirements, a blind advance. The more changes that are demonstrated the more it would seem foresight design is required. As for the article's reasoning for its hypothesis, it is too expensive to rent just for this discussion.
Introducing the enlarging brain: human cerebellum different
by David Turell , Sunday, June 14, 2020, 23:36 (1405 days ago) @ David Turell
I have tried to clarify why our cerebellum is different according to recent research:
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-hidden-region-of-the-human-brain-was-revealed-while-maki...
"A previously unknown brain structure was identified while scientists carefully imaged parts of the human brain for an upcoming atlas on brain anatomy.
"Neuroscientist George Paxinos and his team at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) have named their discovery the the endorestiform nucleus. This landmark study suggests that the way our brains plan our movements takes into account not only the muscles we think we might need to flex, but also whether we believe the outcome of this movement will be rewarding. As we currently understand it, the cerebellum receives two basic types of information: what we plan to do when we make a movement, and the actual result of that movement (as seen by our eyes and felt by our skin/muscles). For example, let’s say we try to hold up two fingers on our right hand, but instead we extend all five. In that case, the cerebellum would detect a significant difference in our motor plan and our motor outcome. This discrepancy would be impossible to avoid in the future without the cerebellum, which is believed to correct such motor errors by sending highly-specific “teaching” signals to the other areas of the brain’s motor system8, 9. But if we believe a movement will result in a positive, rewarding experience, and then it turns out that it actually doesn’t, isn’t this also a form of error? Wagner and Kim’s work suggests that our brains might very well perceive it this way. More importantly, though, they have shown that this “motivation error” is processed, at least in part, in the same way that a motor error is: using the powerful circuits within the cerebellum. - because it is located within (endo) the inferior cerebellar peduncle (also called the restiform body). It's found at the base of the brain, near where the brain meets the spinal cord.
"This area is involved in receiving sensory and motor information from our bodies to refine our posture, balance and movements.
**"
"The location of this elusive brain bit leads Paxinos to suspect it may be involved in fine motor control - something also backed up by the fact that this structure has yet to be identified in other animals, including marmosets or rhesus monkeys.
"I cannot imagine a chimpanzee playing the guitar as dexterously as us, even if they liked to make music," Paxinos pointed out. (my bold)
"Humans have brains at least twice as big as chimpanzees (1,300 grams vs 600 grams, or 2.9 lbs vs 1.3 lbs), and a larger percentage of our brain neuronal pathways that signal for movement make direct contact with motor neurons - 20 percent compared to 5 percent in other primates.
So, the endorestiform nucleus may be another unique feature in our nervous system, although it's too soon to tell just yet. Paxinos is set to do some work in chimpanzees soon.
Additional related functions:
https://scasource.net/2018/10/26/accidental-discovery-reveals-possible-link-between-cer...
"Recently, though, there have been some hints that there is more to this part of the brain than we might have thought: brain imaging studies of patients suffering from bipolar disorder, for instance, have sometimes shown abnormalities in the cerebellum. Cerebellar abnormalities have been implicated in a variety of other diseases, as well, including autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, and multiple sclerosis. Now, thanks to the hard work of scientists at Stanford University7 – as well as a bit of luck – we know that the cerebellum is not only involved in how we move, but why.
"This landmark study suggests that the way our brains plan our movements takes into account not only the muscles we think we might need to flex, but also whether we believe the outcome of this movement will be rewarding. As we currently understand it, the cerebellum receives two basic types of information: what we plan to do when we make a movement, and the actual result of that movement (as seen by our eyes and felt by our skin/muscles). For example, let’s say we try to hold up two fingers on our right hand, but instead we extend all five. In that case, the cerebellum would detect a significant difference in our motor plan and our motor outcome. This discrepancy would be impossible to avoid in the future without the cerebellum, which is believed to correct such motor errors by sending highly-specific “teaching” signals to the other areas of the brain’s motor system. But if we believe a movement will result in a positive, rewarding experience, and then it turns out that it actually doesn’t, isn’t this also a form of error? Wagner and Kim’s work suggests that our brains might very well perceive it this way. More importantly, though, they have shown that this “motivation error” is processed, at least in part, in the same way that a motor error is: using the powerful circuits within the cerebellum."
Comment: Our larger cerebellum is more involved with our larger cerebrum than in animal brains. Note the bold. The endorestiform nucleus means we can do a whole lot more with our fingers than apes can. Looks certainly like the sapiens brain made for future functions, anticipated by a designer, but no cell committees would hav e thought of them.
Introducing the enlarging brain: human cerebellum different
by David Turell , Sunday, June 14, 2020, 23:51 (1405 days ago) @ David Turell
The large relationship to cognitive quality control:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181025142018.htm
"Their findings, published Oct. 25 in Neuron, suggest that the cerebellum has a hand in every aspect of higher brain functions -- not just movement, but attention, thinking, planning and decision-making.
"'The biggest surprise to me was the discovery that 80 percent of the cerebellum is devoted to the smart stuff," said senior author Nico Dosenbach, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of neurology, of occupational therapy and of pediatrics. "Everyone thought the cerebellum was about movement. If your cerebellum is damaged, you can't move smoothly -- your hand jerks around when you try to reach for something. Our research strongly suggests that just as the cerebellum serves as a quality check on movement, it also checks your thoughts as well -- smoothing them out, correcting them, perfecting things."
***
"Using the cortex's networks as a template, Marek could identify the networks in the cerebellum. Notably, the sensory networks are missing -- vision, hearing and touch -- and only 20 percent of the cerebellum is devoted to movement, roughly the same amount as in the cerebral cortex. The remaining 80 percent is occupied by networks involved in higher-order cognition: the attention network; the default network, which has to do with daydreaming, recalling memories and just idly thinking; and two networks that oversee executive functions such as decision-making and planning.
"'The executive function networks are way overrepresented in the cerebellum," Marek said. "Our whole understanding of the cerebellum needs to shift away from it being involved in motor control to it being more involved in general control of higher-level cognition."
The researchers measured the timing of brain activity and found that the cerebellum was consistently the last step in neurologic circuits. Signals were received through sensory systems and processed in intermediate networks in the cerebral cortex before being sent to the cerebellum. There, the researchers surmise, the signals undergo final quality checks before the output is sent back to the cerebral cortex for implementation.
***
"Marek also performed individualized network analyses on the 10 people in the data set. He found that while brain functions are arranged in roughly the same pattern in everyone's cerebellum, there is enough individual variation to distinguish brain scans performed on any two participants. The researchers are now investigating whether such individual differences in cerebellar networks correlate with intelligence, behavior, personality traits such as adaptability, or psychiatric conditions."
Comment: These are surprising new findings showing how advanced our brain is compared to apes. All great evidence of the thoughtful design planning for our complex future activities.
Introducing the enlarging brain: human cerebellum different
Three posts combined:
dhw: We know that our brains differ considerably from those of our ancestor apes. I didn’t understand the article, and I don’t understand why you think it supports your theory against mine.
DAVID: We will always disagree as to how the advanced human brain was designed. Your method involves design without any knowledge of future needs/requirements, a blind advance. The more changes that are demonstrated the more it would seem foresight design is required.
My method rejects the idea of changes being made in anticipation of new conditions. There is no crystal-ball-gazing. I propose that all the changes are made IN RESPONSE to new conditions.
QUOTE: "I cannot imagine a chimpanzee playing the guitar as dexterously as us, even if they liked to make music," Paxinos pointed out." (David’s bold)
I don’t suppose any of us can. I don’t know of anyone who claims that chimps’ brains and abilities are the same as ours. Why did you bold it?
QUOTE: "This landmark study suggests that the way our brains plan our movements takes into account not only the muscles we think we might need to flex, but also whether we believe the outcome of this movement will be rewarding. As we currently understand it, the cerebellum receives two basic types of information: what we plan to do when we make a movement, and the actual result of that movement (as seen by our eyes and felt by our skin/muscles)".
DAVID: Our larger cerebellum is more involved with our larger cerebrum than in animal brains. Note the bold. The endorestiform nucleus means we can do a whole lot more with our fingers than apes can. Looks certainly like the sapiens brain made for future functions, anticipated by a designer, but no cell committees would have thought of them.
So God dabbled with the chimp brain because he knew that humans would want to play the guitar! May I suggest that just as the brains of illiterate women, taxi-drivers and musicians complexify in response to their special activities, our brains enable us to do more with our fingers, because our dualist souls or our materialist thinking parts of the brain thought up a new concept, the implementation of which required changes to the brain (complexification). All changes were in sequence from the initial concept to the mastery of the instrument. No need for your God to dabble with the brain and say to the patient: “Now you can invent, make and learn to play the guitar.” Earlier brains would also have responded to new requirements by restructuring themselves (through complexification and expansion).
Your second article vastly expands the function of the cerebellum:
"'The executive function networks are way overrepresented in the cerebellum," Marek said. "Our whole understanding of the cerebellum needs to shift away from it being involved in motor control to it being more involved in general control of higher-level cognition."
“The researchers are now investigating whether such individual differences in cerebellar networks correlate with intelligence, behavior, personality traits such as adaptability, or psychiatric conditions."
DAVID: These are surprising new findings showing how advanced our brain is compared to apes. All great evidence of the thoughtful design planning for our complex future activities.
Once more: I don’t think any of us need to be told that our brain is more advanced than that of the apes. These surprising new findings make me more unwilling than ever to attribute individual functions to individual parts of the brain. All the cell communities must cooperate to produce our activities. What is far more interesting than the fact that we are more advanced than the apes is the extent to which our material brains are responsible for our cognition, intelligence, behaviour etc. In other words, the clash between materialism and dualism.
Introducing the brain: dopamine everywhere
by David Turell , Monday, June 15, 2020, 17:35 (1404 days ago) @ dhw
The entire brain is bathed in it:
https://bigthink.com/mind-brain/dopamine
"Dopamine plays many roles in the brain, most notably related to movement, motivation, and reinforcement of behavior. However, until now it has been difficult to study precisely how a flood of dopamine affects neural activity throughout the brain. Using their new technique, the MIT team found that dopamine appears to exert significant effects in two regions of the brain's cortex, including the motor cortex.
***
"The MIT team found that in addition to the motor cortex, the remote brain area most affected by dopamine is the insular cortex. This region is critical for many cognitive functions related to perception of the body's internal states, including physical and emotional states.
***
"Like other neurotransmitters, dopamine helps neurons to communicate with each other over short distances. Dopamine holds particular interest for neuroscientists because of its role in motivation, addiction, and several neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinson's disease. Most of the brain's dopamine is produced in the midbrain by neurons that connect to the striatum, where the dopamine is released.
***
"'When dopamine was released, there was a longer duration of activity, suggesting a longer response to the reward," Jasanoff says. "That may have something to do with how dopamine promotes learning, which is one of its key functions."
"After analyzing dopamine release in the striatum, the researchers set out to determine this dopamine might affect more distant locations in the brain. To do that, they performed traditional fMRI imaging on the brain while also mapping dopamine release in the striatum. "By combining these techniques we could probe these phenomena in a way that hasn't been done before," Jasanoff says.
"The regions that showed the biggest surges in activity in response to dopamine were the motor cortex and the insular cortex. If confirmed in additional studies, the findings could help researchers understand the effects of dopamine in the human brain, including its roles in addiction and learning."
Comment: Dopamine like hormones markedly affect brain function, and we still do not know how much and how the effect varies in different parts of the brain. Before dhw explodes that this is pure materialism, it is. The brain is material and has certain compartmentalized functions, but its use by the soul/human is at an entirely different immaterial level when the output of thought is observed. It is at that level not understood.
Introducing the enlarging brain: human cerebellum different
by David Turell , Monday, June 15, 2020, 18:02 (1404 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: We know that our brains differ considerably from those of our ancestor apes. I didn’t understand the article, and I don’t understand why you think it supports your theory against mine.
DAVID: We will always disagree as to how the advanced human brain was designed. Your method involves design without any knowledge of future needs/requirements, a blind advance. The more changes that are demonstrated the more it would seem foresight design is required.
dhw: My method rejects the idea of changes being made in anticipation of new conditions. There is no crystal-ball-gazing. I propose that all the changes are made IN RESPONSE to new conditions.
QUOTE: "I cannot imagine a chimpanzee playing the guitar as dexterously as us, even if they liked to make music," Paxinos pointed out." (David’s bold)
dhw: I don’t suppose any of us can. I don’t know of anyone who claims that chimps’ brains and abilities are the same as ours. Why did you bold it?
Bolded Poppycock! What condition caused an adapted brain to appear that allows violin/guitar playing?
QUOTE: "This landmark study suggests that the way our brains plan our movements takes into account not only the muscles we think we might need to flex, but also whether we believe the outcome of this movement will be rewarding. As we currently understand it, the cerebellum receives two basic types of information: what we plan to do when we make a movement, and the actual result of that movement (as seen by our eyes and felt by our skin/muscles)".
DAVID: Our larger cerebellum is more involved with our larger cerebrum than in animal brains. Note the bold. The endorestiform nucleus means we can do a whole lot more with our fingers than apes can. Looks certainly like the sapiens brain made for future functions, anticipated by a designer, but no cell committees would have thought of them.
dhw: So God dabbled with the chimp brain because he knew that humans would want to play the guitar! May I suggest that just as the brains of illiterate women, taxi-drivers and musicians complexify in response to their special activities, our brains enable us to do more with our fingers, because our dualist souls or our materialist thinking parts of the brain thought up a new concept, the implementation of which required changes to the brain (complexification). All changes were in sequence from the initial concept to the mastery of the instrument. No need for your God to dabble with the brain and say to the patient: “Now you can invent, make and learn to play the guitar.” Earlier brains would also have responded to new requirements by restructuring themselves (through complexification and expansion).
Same verbiage, same response: Explain why our soul/brain was given so many new abilities apes don't have and it contained those abilities 315,000 years ago, that we had to learn over lots of time to think of and finally use for our enjoyment, not survival!
dhw: Your second article vastly expands the function of the cerebellum:"'The executive function networks are way overrepresented in the cerebellum," Marek said. "Our whole understanding of the cerebellum needs to shift away from it being involved in motor control to it being more involved in general control of higher-level cognition."
“The researchers are now investigating whether such individual differences in cerebellar networks correlate with intelligence, behavior, personality traits such as adaptability, or psychiatric conditions."DAVID: These are surprising new findings showing how advanced our brain is compared to apes. All great evidence of the thoughtful design planning for our complex future activities.
dhw: Once more: I don’t think any of us need to be told that our brain is more advanced than that of the apes. These surprising new findings make me more unwilling than ever to attribute individual functions to individual parts of the brain. All the cell communities must cooperate to produce our activities. What is far more interesting than the fact that we are more advanced than the apes is the extent to which our material brains are responsible for our cognition, intelligence, behaviour etc. In other words, the clash between materialism and dualism.
Same old problem for you. Our material brain has advanced abilities for the soul to learn to use to our advancement and enjoyment and not at all adaptations for survival.
Introducing the enlarging brain: human cerebellum different
dhw: My method rejects the idea of changes being made in anticipation of new conditions. There is no crystal-ball-gazing. I propose that all the changes are made IN RESPONSE to new conditions.
QUOTE: "I cannot imagine a chimpanzee playing the guitar as dexterously as us, even if they liked to make music," Paxinos pointed out." (David’s bold)
dhw: I don’t suppose any of us can. I don’t know of anyone who claims that chimps’ brains and abilities are the same as ours. Why did you bold it?
DAVID: Bolded Poppycock! What condition caused an adapted brain to appear that allows violin/guitar playing? […] Explain why our soul/brain was given so many new abilities apes don't have and it contained those abilities 315,000 years ago, that we had to learn over lots of time to think of and finally use for our enjoyment, not survival!
And later: Our material brain has advanced abilities for the soul to learn to use to our advancement and enjoyment and not at all adaptations for survival.
Where have I mentioned survival? Did I ever say that the illiterate women, the taxi-drivers and the musicians (including violinists) had to learn for the sake of their survival? Once more you are putting up a straw man of your own. You are right, though, to reprimand me on the use of "conditions". I should have written "requirements" to cover all contexts.
Here yet again is my proposal: once the sapiens brain had expanded to its natural limit, there was a period of comparative stasis (as with all our ancestors). The brain was not given new abilities! Even in your theory, do you think God said to sapiens: “Here’s a new brain. Now you can play the violin, but you won’t think of doing it for another 315,000 years.” The evolution of human society is the history of new ideas, whether there is a soul or not. And every new idea makes new demands on the brain, which complexifies during the process of implementation! Just as the concept of the spear would have demanded changes to the pre-sapiens brain for its implementation, so too did the sapiens’ concept of the violin. Sapiens wants to make music for his enjoyment, and he conceives of a new way to make new sounds. The implementation of the concept requires changes to the brain (= complexification). Pre-sapiens’ brain did not enlarge to sapiens size in anticipation of inventing and playing the violin, and sapiens’ brain did not complexify in anticipation of the concept! The brain changes IN RESPONSE to new requirements, not in anticipation of them.
dhw: Once more: I don’t think any of us need to be told that our brain is more advanced than that of the apes. These surprising new findings make me more unwilling than ever to attribute individual functions to individual parts of the brain. All the cell communities must cooperate to produce our activities. What is far more interesting than the fact that we are more advanced than the apes is the extent to which our material brains are responsible for our cognition, intelligence, behaviour etc. In other words, the clash between materialism and dualism.
QUOTE under “Dopamine”: MIT team found that in addition to the motor cortex, the remote brain area most affected by dopamine is the insular cortex. This region is critical for many cognitive functions related to perception of the body's internal states, including physical and emotional states.
DAVID: Dopamine like hormones markedly affect brain function, and we still do not know how much and how the effect varies in different parts of the brain. Before dhw explodes that this is pure materialism, it is. The brain is material and has certain compartmentalized functions, but its use by the soul/human is at an entirely different immaterial level when the output of thought is observed. It is at that level not understood.
You start out with the assumption that there is a soul. For a neutral, the question arises as to why the thoughts and feelings of an immaterial soul should be directly affected by material substances.
The “brain” and “evolution” threads are overlapping more and more, but I don’t have time now to combine them. My apologies.
Introducing the enlarging brain: human cerebellum different
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 16, 2020, 19:44 (1403 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Where have I mentioned survival? Did I ever say that the illiterate women, the taxi-drivers and the musicians (including violinists) had to learn for the sake of their survival? Once more you are putting up a straw man of your own. You are right, though, to reprimand me on the use of "conditions". I should have written "requirements" to cover all contexts.
Here yet again is my proposal: once the sapiens brain had expanded to its natural limit, there was a period of comparative stasis (as with all our ancestors). The brain was not given new abilities! Even in your theory, do you think God said to sapiens: “Here’s a new brain. Now you can play the violin, but you won’t think of doing it for another 315,000 years.” The evolution of human society is the history of new ideas, whether there is a soul or not. And every new idea makes new demands on the brain, which complexifies during the process of implementation! Just as the concept of the spear would have demanded changes to the pre-sapiens brain for its implementation, so too did the sapiens’ concept of the violin. Sapiens wants to make music for his enjoyment, and he conceives of a new way to make new sounds. The implementation of the concept requires changes to the brain (= complexification). Pre-sapiens’ brain did not enlarge to sapiens size in anticipation of inventing and playing the violin, and sapiens’ brain did not complexify in anticipation of the concept! The brain changes IN RESPONSE to new requirements, not in anticipation of them.
In looking at the two paragraphs above, survival is not to be mentioned, yet there are, I
assume implied, serious requirements for human life that must be faced. You can't have it both ways. A giant jump in brain cortex and prefrontal cortex volume (about 300+ cc from erectus to us) implies a need for a very strong response, to use your words. You want it naturally to happen and I feel only a designer could create such a large change. Of course sapiens had no idea their original 315,000-year-old brain with its giant cortical areas would invent violin playing eventually. The design context of the newly arranged parallel groups of neurons of this new brain allowed that to be developed when used successively by generations of humans/souls. As I say, learning to use it. This is not higgedley-piggedley advance. It has every appearance of being a carefully thought out design. I'll stick with God, the designer.
QUOTE under “Dopamine”: MIT team found that in addition to the motor cortex, the remote brain area most affected by dopamine is the insular cortex. This region is critical for many cognitive functions related to perception of the body's internal states, including physical and emotional states.DAVID: Dopamine like hormones markedly affect brain function, and we still do not know how much and how the effect varies in different parts of the brain. Before dhw explodes that this is pure materialism, it is. The brain is material and has certain compartmentalized functions, but its use by the soul/human is at an entirely different immaterial level when the output of thought is observed. It is at that level not understood.
dhw: You start out with the assumption that there is a soul. For a neutral, the question arises as to why the thoughts and feelings of an immaterial soul should be directly affected by material substances.
You've again raised the 'hard problem' of where dos consciousness come from. There is no current answer, and that is a strong argument for God the designer.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: We agree. So why do you keep talking of what “a more advanced brain can conceive” and “a thinking brain”? You claim to be a dualist, but these expressions are materialist. (No problem in itself. My objection is to your inconsistency.)
DAVID: It is not my inconsistency. You forget my fixed view which I view as assumed in discussions we have. Review my comment today (Friday, March 06, 2020, 17:21)
Your “fixed view” is the one I have defined (the soul uses the brain for information and implementation) and which I keep reminding you of, because you persistently forget it and tell us that the brain does the thinking and conceiving!
DAVID: You say above the new areas of enlargement are small segments!
dhw: Yes, because the sapiens brain cannot enlarge any more (hence the irrelevance of your American Indians, which I see you have dropped) – and I have extrapolated my theory from the known fact that the modern brain responds to new requirements by complexifying or enlarging. There is no reason to assume that smaller past brains did not function in the same way, so yet again I ask you to give us the additional known facts that support your own theory.
DAVID: Your bolded statements are not fact. Our brain has shrunk 150 cc since 35,00 years ago, and most likely is an endpoint in evolution and most probably won't enlarge again, not "cannot". That shrinkage was caused by complexification and plasticity.
You still refuse to give us the known facts that support your theory or "debunk" mine. My “cannot” referred to my proposal that any further expansion (disregarding the leeway left by shrinkage) would create havoc with our general anatomy.
DAVID: The second bold implies the new uses of brain made giant enlargements, not the tiny ones we know about.
No it doesn’t! I was explaining WHY there are only small segments, in reply to your comment (now bolded).
DAVID: As for ancient brains, yes they operated in similar ways, perhaps less complex ways, but this means any new uses made tiny enlargements in those brains just like our brain does.
Nobody knows why earlier brains expanded. From the known fact that the modern brain makes “tiny enlargements”, I have extrapolated the theory that in former times the brain was able to make large enlargements. Please tell us any known facts that make this impossible.
DAVID: How our brain works is inherited from the past with new modifications, simple evolution. Nothing is consistent in your illogical theory. Tiny enlargements cannot be extrapolated to 200 cc gaps! The gaps are totally unexplained. I have God to point to. You use natural changes that somehow appear. You see the need for design, but won't accept a designing mind. So we differ.
Again: what knowledge do you have to support your contention that the brain functioned differently in the past from the way it functions in the present (complexifying and enlarging)? I use “cellular intelligence” (possibly designed by God), not “somehow” to explain the gaps. I would say it is more logical to assume continuity than a complete break that requires your God to step in every time he wants to design a new form of homo as he dabbles his way towards the only homo he actually wants to design.
DAVID: This article shows the mind-set of Archaeologists: the fossils that are found with the artifacts created the artifacts, but newer species still used older species artifacts, which obviously were carried over by the newer species. Erectus knew what habilis created and used. I see no support for your evolution of brain size theory.
And:
DAVID: Archaeologists and paleontologists both equate tools and fossils to showing what the fossils created. Habilis did not tell Erectus what to do.”
dhw: Why are you surprised that thinking beings use the knowledge and inventions of their predecessors? Then of course they went on to create their own implements. But this has nothing to do with the causes of brain expansion! What’s your argument? Erectus used habilis’s tools, and this proves that God expanded erectus’s brain before he used the tools and invented his own? The archaeologists are dealing with a totally different subject!
DAVID: No, God enlarged the brain to the Erectus stage and erectus of course invented his own new artifacts. Of course the artifacts discussion has a direct relation to brain enlargement. Your theory is falling apart with this new set of papers showing how archaeologists in interpret their physical findings. Of course they are not discussing brain enlargements causes, but we must use their findings to think logically. I find your theory as weaker and weaker.
Apart from your extraordinary knowledge of what God did (first sentence), you have not provided a single argument against my proposal! Once more: What the archaeologists have found does not and cannot tell us whether the first artefacts were conceived before or after the expansion of the pre-erectus brain.(Only the first are relevant, because obviously later artefacts were conceived and created after expansion….until eventually that brain couldn’t cope any more, and new concepts required another expansion….on and on till we reach H. sapiens.) Bearing this in mind, please pinpoint anything in the article or in your own “knowledge” that makes my theory illogical or “weaker and weaker”.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Saturday, March 07, 2020, 22:43 (1504 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: As for ancient brains, yes they operated in similar ways, perhaps less complex ways, but this means any new uses made tiny enlargements in those brains just like our brain does.
dhw: Nobody knows why earlier brains expanded. From the known fact that the modern brain makes “tiny enlargements”, I have extrapolated the theory that in former times the brain was able to make large enlargements. Please tell us any known facts that make this impossible.
Nothing makes that daydream impossible. It is an extrapolation as you state, but that tiny known enlargement from learning is to learn something already known. What you add is the struggle to develop a new concept makes a brain jump 200 cc in size. The only enlargement we know relates to learning, nothing more. Your extrapolation is really mixing apples and bagels.
DAVID: How our brain works is inherited from the past with new modifications, simple evolution. Nothing is consistent in your illogical theory. Tiny enlargements cannot be extrapolated to 200 cc gaps! The gaps are totally unexplained. I have God to point to. You use natural changes that somehow appear. You see the need for design, but won't accept a designing mind. So we differ.dhw: Again: what knowledge do you have to support your contention that the brain functioned differently in the past from the way it functions in the present (complexifying and enlarging)? I use “cellular intelligence” (possibly designed by God), not “somehow” to explain the gaps. I would say it is more logical to assume continuity than a complete break that requires your God to step in every time he wants to design a new form of homo as he dabbles his way towards the only homo he actually wants to design.
If God is doing his job there is full continuity. God doesn't jump in and out discontinuously.. Your thinking about God continues to be inconsistent as each problem about God is presented.
DAVID: This article shows the mind-set of Archaeologists: the fossils that are found with the artifacts created the artifacts, but newer species still used older species artifacts, which obviously were carried over by the newer species. Erectus knew what habilis created and used. I see no support for your evolution of brain size theory.
And:
DAVID: Archaeologists and paleontologists both equate tools and fossils to showing what the fossils created. Habilis did not tell Erectus what to do.”dhw: Why are you surprised that thinking beings use the knowledge and inventions of their predecessors? Then of course they went on to create their own implements. But this has nothing to do with the causes of brain expansion! What’s your argument? Erectus used habilis’s tools, and this proves that God expanded erectus’s brain before he used the tools and invented his own? The archaeologists are dealing with a totally different subject!
DAVID: No, God enlarged the brain to the Erectus stage and erectus of course invented his own new artifacts. Of course the artifacts discussion has a direct relation to brain enlargement. Your theory is falling apart with this new set of papers showing how archaeologists in interpret their physical findings. Of course they are not discussing brain enlargements causes, but we must use their findings to think logically. I find your theory as weaker and weaker.
dhw: Apart from your extraordinary knowledge of what God did (first sentence), you have not provided a single argument against my proposal! Once more: What the archaeologists have found does not and cannot tell us whether the first artefacts were conceived before or after the expansion of the pre-erectus brain.(Only the first are relevant, because obviously later artefacts were conceived and created after expansion….until eventually that brain couldn’t cope any more, and new concepts required another expansion….on and on till we reach H. sapiens.) Bearing this in mind, please pinpoint anything in the article or in your own “knowledge” that makes my theory illogical or “weaker and weaker”.
All the articles I've read from Archaeology give the impression they think the larger brained fossil made the new artifacts they find with the fossils. They do not explain the jump in brain size. it is only your nebulous concept the habilis conjured up a new design tool or weapon and blew up the size of his brain so Erectus would appear and could finally make it. That is exactly how your theory translates, totally strange.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: As for ancient brains, yes they operated in similar ways, perhaps less complex ways, but this means any new uses made tiny enlargements in those brains just like our brain does.
dhw: Nobody knows why earlier brains expanded. From the known fact that the modern brain makes “tiny enlargements”, I have extrapolated the theory that in former times the brain was able to make large enlargements. Please tell us any known facts that make this impossible.
DAVID: Nothing makes that daydream impossible. It is an extrapolation as you state, but that tiny known enlargement from learning is to learn something already known. What you add is the struggle to develop a new concept makes a brain jump 200 cc in size. The only enlargement we know relates to learning, nothing more. Your extrapolation is really mixing apples and bagels.
Your reference to Einstein made it clear that we don’t know whether his original “thinking/conceptualizing” caused the thickening, or was the result of an inborn thickening. “No real evidence”, you wrote. All we know for a fact is that new activities RESULT in the brain complexifying or enlarging (on a small scale). If it can enlarge on a small scale now, it is not unreasonable to suppose that in earlier times, when the whole organism could adapt to carrying a larger brain, the same process would have taken place. You continue to ignore my plea for the extra knowledge you have that indicates the brain functioned differently in the past.
dhw: I use “cellular intelligence” (possibly designed by God), not “somehow” to explain the gaps. I would say it is more logical to assume continuity than a complete break that requires your God to step in every time he wants to design a new form of homo as he dabbles his way towards the only homo he actually wants to design.
DAVID: If God is doing his job there is full continuity. God doesn't jump in and out discontinuously. Your thinking about God continues to be inconsistent as each problem about God is presented.
You keep insisting that each expansion is a jump engineered by your God. A jump suggests discontinuity. And so if the earlier smaller brain did not expand into the later larger brain as a result of the smaller brain’s activities, you have discontinuity. Also exemplified by the theory of random mutations.
DAVID: I find your theory as weaker and weaker.
dhw: […] please pinpoint anything in the article or in your own “knowledge” that makes my theory illogical or “weaker and weaker”.
DAVID: All the articles I've read from Archaeology give the impression they think the larger brained fossil made the new artifacts they find with the fossils. They do not explain the jump in brain size.
Of course they don’t. And of course the larger brained fossil made the new artefacts. In my theory, the new artefact (we are talking about the first one – not those made subsequently) could ONLY be made if the brain expanded. But there is no way of knowing whether the CONCEPT preceded the expansion (my theory) or followed it (your theory). For clarity’s sake: in my theory, it is the implementation of the concept that causes the expansion – just as the modern brain changes in RESPONSE to new activities and not before them.
DAVID: it is only your nebulous concept the habilis conjured up a new design tool or weapon and blew up the size of his brain so Erectus would appear and could finally make it. That is exactly how your theory translates, totally strange.
There is nothing nebulous about it, except that this concrete example is offered only to illustrate the process – I am not saying the habilis brain thought of a spear and this led to the erectus brain. Nobody knows any of the details. But if we follow this example (originally mine, but you took it up), your description is ridiculous. He didn’t blow up the size of his brain so erectus could make the spear. It was the effort to make it that caused the habilis brain to expand to erectus size. Yet again: the modern brain changes itself through its efforts to meet new demands. I propose that the ancient brain did the same. I ask you for evidence that the ancient brain did not do the same, and you never answer.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Sunday, March 08, 2020, 18:11 (1503 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: As for ancient brains, yes they operated in similar ways, perhaps less complex ways, but this means any new uses made tiny enlargements in those brains just like our brain does.
dhw: Nobody knows why earlier brains expanded. From the known fact that the modern brain makes “tiny enlargements”, I have extrapolated the theory that in former times the brain was able to make large enlargements. Please tell us any known facts that make this impossible.
There are no known facts to support your dream theory. Imagination makes anything see m possible.
DAVID: Nothing makes that daydream impossible. It is an extrapolation as you state, but that tiny known enlargement from learning is to learn something already known. What you add is the struggle to develop a new concept makes a brain jump 200 cc in size. The only enlargement we know relates to learning, nothing more. Your extrapolation is really mixing apples and bagels.dhw: Your reference to Einstein made it clear that we don’t know whether his original “thinking/conceptualizing” caused the thickening, or was the result of an inborn thickening. “No real evidence”, you wrote. All we know for a fact is that new activities RESULT in the brain complexifying or enlarging (on a small scale). If it can enlarge on a small scale now, it is not unreasonable to suppose that in earlier times, when the whole organism could adapt to carrying a larger brain, the same process would have taken place. You continue to ignore my plea for the extra knowledge you have that indicates the brain functioned differently in the past.
All I can repeat is all archaeological articles equate the advance in artifact complexity with the new large brain size. No one uses your step
dhw: I use “cellular intelligence” (possibly designed by God), not “somehow” to explain the gaps. I would say it is more logical to assume continuity than a complete break that requires your God to step in every time he wants to design a new form of homo as he dabbles his way towards the only homo he actually wants to design.DAVID: If God is doing his job there is full continuity. God doesn't jump in and out discontinuously. Your thinking about God continues to be inconsistent as each problem about God is presented.
dhw: You keep insisting that each expansion is a jump engineered by your God. A jump suggests discontinuity. And so if the earlier smaller brain did not expand into the later larger brain as a result of the smaller brain’s activities, you have discontinuity. Also exemplified by the theory of random mutations.
A twist in meanings as usual. If God is continuously in charge there is no discontinuity in control. God does not come and go as your statement implies, as I stated above. Random mutations? I thought we had left that aspect of Darwin behind, b ut you can't ever seem to leave him.
DAVID: I find your theory as weaker and weaker.dhw: […] please pinpoint anything in the article or in your own “knowledge” that makes my theory illogical or “weaker and weaker”.
DAVID: All the articles I've read from Archaeology give the impression they think the larger brained fossil made the new artifacts they find with the fossils. They do not explain the jump in brain size.
dhw: Of course they don’t. And of course the larger brained fossil made the new artefacts. In my theory, the new artefact (we are talking about the first one – not those made subsequently) could ONLY be made if the brain expanded. But there is no way of knowing whether the CONCEPT preceded the expansion (my theory) or followed it (your theory). For clarity’s sake: in my theory, it is the implementation of the concept that causes the expansion – just as the modern brain changes in RESPONSE to new activities and not before them.
Fuzzy use of 'implementation" again. My interpretation of your theory below:
DAVID: it is only your nebulous concept the habilis conjured up a new design tool or weapon and blew up the size of his brain so Erectus would appear and could finally make it. That is exactly how your theory translates, totally strange.dhw: There is nothing nebulous about it, except that this concrete example is offered only to illustrate the process – I am not saying the habilis brain thought of a spear and this led to the erectus brain. Nobody knows any of the details. But if we follow this example (originally mine, but you took it up), your description is ridiculous. He didn’t blow up the size of his brain so erectus could make the spear. It was the effort to make it that caused the habilis brain to expand to erectus size. Yet again: the modern brain changes itself through its efforts to meet new demands. I propose that the ancient brain did the same. I ask you for evidence that the ancient brain did not do the same, and you never answer.
Tiny modern brain enlargements from learning new info as the whole brain shrinks 150 cc over the past 35,000 years offers nothing to support your daydream. Daydreams have no counter evidence. They are pure smoke. From the standpoint of understanding evolution, the current processes of our brain is based on real processes of past ancestral brains
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: As for ancient brains, yes they operated in similar ways, perhaps less complex ways, but this means any new uses made tiny enlargements in those brains just like our brain does.
dhw: Nobody knows why earlier brains expanded. From the known fact that the modern brain makes “tiny enlargements”, I have extrapolated the theory that in former times the brain was able to make large enlargements. Please tell us any known facts that make this impossible.
DAVID: There are no known facts to support your dream theory. Imagination makes anything see m possible.
Yet again, you ignore my request for known facts that make my theory impossible, let alone for known facts supporting your theory that God preprogrammed or dabbled each successive expansion.
dhw: If it can enlarge on a small scale now, it is not unreasonable to suppose that in earlier times, when the whole organism could adapt to carrying a larger brain, the same process would have taken place. You continue to ignore my plea for the extra knowledge you have that indicates the brain functioned differently in the past.
DAVID: All I can repeat is all archaeological articles equate the advance in artifact complexity with the new large brain size. No one uses your step.
You keep agreeing that none of these articles even attempt to solve the problem of brain expansion. Do any of them tell us that God expanded the brain before early homo thought of making a spear? In my theory, the new artefact is also equated with the new brain size since its making was what caused the expansion!
dhw: You keep insisting that each expansion is a jump engineered by your God. A jump suggests discontinuity. And so if the earlier smaller brain did not expand into the later larger brain as a result of the smaller brain’s activities, you have discontinuity. Also exemplified by the theory of random mutations.
DAVID: A twist in meanings as usual. If God is continuously in charge there is no discontinuity in control. God does not come and go as your statement implies, as I stated above.
If God dabbles, how can it be anything but a “come and go”?
DAVID: Random mutations? I thought we had left that aspect of Darwin behind, b ut you can't ever seem to leave him.
I do not accept the theory of random mutations! I merely pointed out that it entails a jump, just like your God dabbling. (In fact Darwin himself rejected the idea of Nature jumping!)
dhw: it is the implementation of the concept that causes the expansion – just as the modern brain changes in RESPONSE to new activities and not before them.
DAVID: Fuzzy use of 'implementation" again.
Do you really not know what the word means? When any abstract concept, idea, desire, plan is implemented, it is turned into reality. The idea/concept of a spear is turned into a real spear; the desire to read is turned into the actual ability to read; an abstract plan or strategy turns into real action. And surprise, surprise, we know that it is the realization of the concept, desire, strategy, plan that is known to change the brain.
dhw: Yet again: the modern brain changes itself through its efforts to meet new demands. I propose that the ancient brain did the same. I ask you for evidence that the ancient brain did not do the same, and you never answer.
DAVID: Tiny modern brain enlargements from learning new info as the whole brain shrinks 150 cc over the past 35,000 years offers nothing to support your daydream.
How many more times? We agree that shrinkage is due to the efficiency of complexification. It is the tiny modern enlargements which support the theory that the brain cell community can expand as a result of implementing ideas.
DAVID: Daydreams have no counter evidence. They are pure smoke. From the standpoint of understanding evolution, the current processes of our brain is based on real processes of past ancestral brains.
Precisely. And the current processes indicate that the brain changes AS A RESULT of implementing ideas, and not in anticipation of ideas. This is not a daydream. Some folk would suggest that an unknown all-powerful intellect preprogramming or dabbling everybody’s brain expansion at intervals is more of a daydream than the theory that modern brains work the same way as ancient brains would have done.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Monday, March 09, 2020, 20:26 (1502 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: There are no known facts to support your dream theory. Imagination makes anything see m possible.
dhw: Yet again, you ignore my request for known facts that make my theory impossible, let alone for known facts supporting your theory that God preprogrammed or dabbled each successive expansion.
Your theory is not impossible. Nothing is. But using the observation of slight enlargements for specific uses in a brain that actually shrinks 150 cc as its use is developed has all sorts of contraindicating factors at work. Your theory demands that the earlier brains enlarged from attempts at implementation of ideas that were being developed. Our current brain shrunk at a time when all sorts of concepts were developed and implemented. You idea is like a sieve. Nothing is consistent. What you are left with is the implication earlier brains were not like ours, even though it evolved from them and should resemble them.
dhw: If it can enlarge on a small scale now, it is not unreasonable to suppose that in earlier times, when the whole organism could adapt to carrying a larger brain, the same process would have taken place. You continue to ignore my plea for the extra knowledge you have that indicates the brain functioned differently in the past.[/i]
The obvious objections are above.
DAVID: A twist in meanings as usual. If God is continuously in charge there is no discontinuity in control. God does not come and go as your statement implies, as I stated above.dhw: If God dabbles, how can it be anything but a “come and go”?
How do you know God dabbles and leaves? You are straining.
DAVID: Fuzzy use of 'implementation" again.
dhw: Do you really not know what the word means? When any abstract concept, idea, desire, plan is implemented, it is turned into reality. The idea/concept of a spear is turned into a real spear; the desire to read is turned into the actual ability to read; an abstract plan or strategy turns into real action. And surprise, surprise, we know that it is the realization of the concept, desire, strategy, plan that is known to change the brain.
Of course it will change a tiny area with more use, and shrunk 150 cc with new total use.
DAVID: Daydreams have no counter evidence. They are pure smoke. From the standpoint of understanding evolution, the current processes of our brain is based on real processes of past ancestral brains.dhw: Precisely. And the current processes indicate that the brain changes AS A RESULT of implementing ideas, and not in anticipation of ideas. This is not a daydream. Some folk would suggest that an unknown all-powerful intellect preprogramming or dabbling everybody’s brain expansion at intervals is more of a daydream than the theory that modern brains work the same way as ancient brains would have done.
OK, dismiss God as usual, but you cannot defeat the FACT that our brain has shrunk 150 cc while being heavily used after arrival. You have nothing but daydreams to stand on!!!
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: Yet again, you ignore my request for known facts that make my theory impossible, let alone for known facts supporting your theory that God preprogrammed or dabbled each successive expansion.
DAVID: Your theory is not impossible. Nothing is. But using the observation of slight enlargements for specific uses in a brain that actually shrinks 150 cc as its use is developed has all sorts of contraindicating factors at work. Your theory demands that the earlier brains enlarged from attempts at implementation of ideas that were being developed. Our current brain shrunk at a time when all sorts of concepts were developed and implemented. You idea is like a sieve. Nothing is consistent. What you are left with is the implication earlier brains were not like ours, even though it evolved from them and should resemble them.
I can’t believe what I’m reading. For the umpteenth time: you have agreed over and over again that shrinkage has been caused by the efficiency of complexification. I have suggested that this had to take over from expansion, because further expansion would have been a threat to the whole human anatomy. Nevertheless, the modern brain does enlarge itself in small sections. It is therefore perfectly logical to suggest that in the past, when expansion was not a threat to the anatomy, it was caused in exactly the same way as modern expansion and/or complexification is caused: namely by the actions performed in the implementation of concepts, desires, plans etc.
And still you fail to come up with any known facts in support of your own theory, or in opposition to mine.
DAVID: If God is continuously in charge there is no discontinuity in control. God does not come and go as your statement implies, as I stated above.
dhw: If God dabbles, how can it be anything but a “come and go”?
DAVID: How do you know God dabbles and leaves? You are straining.
I don’t “know” anything, but it is YOUR theory that your God either dabbled or programmed every step of evolution, including each brain expansion. If you don’t think he dabbled, then we are left with a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for brain expansions, together with every other life form, econiche, act of speciation, lifestyle and natural wonder in the whole history of life. You call my theory a daydream. I’d say that’s not a bad description of your theory. The rest of your post returns to the shrinkage argument. If you have decided that after all you don’t accept the explanation you have already agreed on (it has shrunk because of the efficiency of complexification), please tell us your own explanation. Starting point: you believe your God kept enlarging the brain so that it could think up new ideas (although as a dualist you firmly believe that the soul and not the brain does the thinking). So if you think he preprogrammed shrinkage 3.8 billion years ago, or stepped in to dabble it, please explain why you think he did so.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 10, 2020, 17:50 (1501 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Yet again, you ignore my request for known facts that make my theory impossible, let alone for known facts supporting your theory that God preprogrammed or dabbled each successive expansion.
DAVID: Your theory is not impossible. Nothing is. But using the observation of slight enlargements for specific uses in a brain that actually shrinks 150 cc as its use is developed has all sorts of contraindicating factors at work. Your theory demands that the earlier brains enlarged from attempts at implementation of ideas that were being developed. Our current brain shrunk at a time when all sorts of concepts were developed and implemented. You idea is like a sieve. Nothing is consistent. What you are left with is the implication earlier brains were not like ours, even though it evolved from them and should resemble them.
dhw: I can’t believe what I’m reading. For the umpteenth time: you have agreed over and over again that shrinkage has been caused by the efficiency of complexification. I have suggested that this had to take over from expansion, because further expansion would have been a threat to the whole human anatomy. Nevertheless, the modern brain does enlarge itself in small sections. It is therefore perfectly logical to suggest that in the past, when expansion was not a threat to the anatomy, it was caused in exactly the same way as modern expansion and/or complexification is caused: namely by the actions performed in the implementation of concepts, desires, plans etc.
Again a total distortion to save a pet theory. The first assumption has to be that our brain has processes developed from past brains and uses them in more complex ways. Your theory that the brain stopped enlarging because of anatomic size considerations is simply a wild guess, lacking any evidence for the point. Remember our brain was 150 cc larger in the past causing no anatomic trouble. Our brain arrived about 315,000 years ago and really began its 'implementation' process (your concept as to how the brain is affected) most actively with language 50-70,000 years ago, and as more an more 'implementation' has occurred in the past 35.000 years it shrunk 150 cc. (about five ounces) That is the factual evidence we have to work with, and we both note tiny enlargements in heavily used regions. That is a logical change in our brain. In fossil brains the usage was never as intensive as today yet we know 200 cc jumps in volume occurred. Your strange theory does not hold water in any sense, and your paragraph above offers nothing to save it.
dhw: And still you fail to come up with any known facts in support of your own theory, or in opposition to mine.
Lots of factual logical analysis above.
DAVID: If God is continuously in charge there is no discontinuity in control. God does not come and go as your statement implies, as I stated above.dhw: If God dabbles, how can it be anything but a “come and go”?
DAVID: How do you know God dabbles and leaves? You are straining.
dhw: I don’t “know” anything, but it is YOUR theory that your God either dabbled or programmed every step of evolution, including each brain expansion. If you don’t think he dabbled, then we are left with a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for brain expansions, together with every other life form, econiche, act of speciation, lifestyle and natural wonder in the whole history of life. You call my theory a daydream. I’d say that’s not a bad description of your theory. The rest of your post returns to the shrinkage argument. If you have decided that after all you don’t accept the explanation you have already agreed on (it has shrunk because of the efficiency of complexification), please tell us your own explanation. Starting point: you believe your God kept enlarging the brain so that it could think up new ideas (although as a dualist you firmly believe that the soul and not the brain does the thinking). So if you think he preprogrammed shrinkage 3.8 billion years ago, or stepped in to dabble it, please explain why you think he did so.
Please remember I have no knowledge of God's reasons. Of course I agree with shrinkage from complexification. My argument and belief based on facts has never changed. Heavy usage shrinks modern brains. Light use in habilis and erectus saw brains make large jumps in size. The comparisons don't fit, unless God as an agency is at work. Then of course you can ignore all the facts and daydream as an illogical distortion of them.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: For the umpteenth time: you have agreed over and over again that shrinkage has been caused by the efficiency of complexification. I have suggested that this had to take over from expansion, because further expansion would have been a threat to the whole human anatomy. Nevertheless, the modern brain does enlarge itself in small sections. It is therefore perfectly logical to suggest that in the past, when expansion was not a threat to the anatomy, it was caused in exactly the same way as modern expansion and/or complexification is caused: namely by the actions performed in the implementation of concepts, desires, plans etc.
DAVID: Again a total distortion to save a pet theory. The first assumption has to be that our brain has processes developed from past brains and uses them in more complex ways.
Yes indeed, and since our modern brain follows processes of complexification and expansion (though now only on a minor scale) in response to – but not in anticipation of – new concepts, desires, plans etc., it is perfectly logical to assume that past brains did the same.
DAVID: Your theory that the brain stopped enlarging because of anatomic size considerations is simply a wild guess, lacking any evidence for the point.
If the brain had continued to expand, we would have had elephantine heads! Expansion had to stop somewhere! That is not a wild guess – it is a logical assumption. What is your explanation for the end of expansion and the takeover by complexification?
DAVID: Remember our brain was 150 cc larger in the past causing no anatomic trouble.
On and on you go about shrinkage. And yet later you say: “Of course I agree with shrinkage from complexification”. I have asked you repeatedly to give us your own theory about shrinkage, plus any additional facts that you have to back it, but you obviously haven’t got any. See later.
DAVID: Our brain arrived about 315,000 years ago and really began its 'implementation' process (your concept as to how the brain is affected) most actively with language 50-70,000 years ago, and as more an more 'implementation' has occurred in the past 35.000 years it shrunk 150 cc. (about five ounces) That is the factual evidence we have to work with, and we both note tiny enlargements in heavily used regions. That is a logical change in our brain.
Yes, both complexification and enlargement come from usage, not in anticipation of usage. The exact opposite of your theory that your God enlarged the brain before conceptualization and implementation. And it is not implementation that has shrunk the brain, but the fact that the efficiency of complexification has made a certain amount of the brain’s capacity superfluous. All perfectly logical.
DAVID: In fossil brains the usage was never as intensive as today yet we know 200 cc jumps in volume occurred. Your strange theory does not hold water in any sense, and your paragraph above offers nothing to save it.
Our brains are the accumulation of all past concepts and all past expansions plus our own new concepts. That is why I propose that the brain eventually had to stop expanding, as above, and complexification took over, and was so efficient etc. etc. ad nauseam.
dhw If you have decided that after all you don’t accept the explanation you have already agreed on (it has shrunk because of the efficiency of complexification), please tell us your own explanation. Starting point: you believe your God kept enlarging the brain so that it could think up new ideas (although as a dualist you firmly believe that the soul and not the brain does the thinking). So if you think he preprogrammed shrinkage 3.8 billion years ago, or stepped in to dabble it, please explain why you think he did so.
DAVID: Please remember I have no knowledge of God's reasons.
You believe your logical God did it, and you can’t think of a single reason why he would have done so.
DAVID: Of course I agree with shrinkage from complexification. My argument and belief based on facts has never changed. Heavy usage shrinks modern brains.
Heavy usage causes complexification and minor enlargement, and once more: complexification is so efficient etc. ad nauseam. If an organ or part of an organ is no longer required, it is not unnatural for it to disappear. You could hardly have a more logical explanation. But you think your God made our brains larger than necessary and preprogrammed or dabbled shrinkage, and you have no idea why.
DAVID: Light use in habilis and erectus saw brains make large jumps in size. The comparisons don't fit, unless God as an agency is at work. Then of course you can ignore all the facts and daydream as an illogical distortion of them.
Please note that in my theory it was a new "heavy use" that caused the brain to expand - just as it does today, though on a lesser scale. Now please tell me what facts I have ignored or distorted, what additional facts you have to support your theory of divine preprogrammming or dabbling in advance of the need for expansion, and please do make an effort to understand why your God might have preprogrammed or dabbled shrinkage as well. You keep saying he thinks logically, but how do you know that if you can't understand his logic?
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 11, 2020, 14:28 (1501 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Again a total distortion to save a pet theory. The first assumption has to be that our brain has processes developed from past brains and uses them in more complex ways.
dhw: Yes indeed, and since our modern brain follows processes of complexification and expansion (though now only on a minor scale) in response to – but not in anticipation of – new concepts, desires, plans etc., it is perfectly logical to assume that past brains did the same.
Except for your 'in anticipation', we agree.
DAVID: Your theory that the brain stopped enlarging because of anatomic size considerations is simply a wild guess, lacking any evidence for the point.dhw: If the brain had continued to expand, we would have had elephantine heads! Expansion had to stop somewhere! That is not a wild guess – it is a logical assumption. What is your explanation for the end of expansion and the takeover by complexification?
I gave you the conversion of cc to ounces. The biggest enlargements were less than seven ounces. 'Elephantine' is pure silliness. We got to this final point in small steps. It isd all we need and it shrank from increased uses.
DAVID: Our brain arrived about 315,000 years ago and really began its 'implementation' process (your concept as to how the brain is affected) most actively with language 50-70,000 years ago, and as more an more 'implementation' has occurred in the past 35.000 years it shrunk 150 cc. (about five ounces) That is the factual evidence we have to work with, and we both note tiny enlargements in heavily used regions. That is a logical change in our brain.dhw: Yes, both complexification and enlargement come from usage, not in anticipation of usage. The exact opposite of your theory that your God enlarged the brain before conceptualization and implementation. And it is not implementation that has shrunk the brain, but the fact that the efficiency of complexification has made a certain amount of the brain’s capacity superfluous. All perfectly logical. (my bold)
The bold is so obviously backward in its misuse of the facts. Sapiens arrived with a barely used brain and then employed your implementation process with in the end shrinking.
DAVID: In fossil brains the usage was never as intensive as today yet we know 200 cc jumps in volume occurred. Your strange theory does not hold water in any sense, and your paragraph above offers nothing to save it.dhw: Our brains are the accumulation of all past concepts and all past expansions plus our own new concepts. That is why I propose that the brain eventually had to stop expanding, as above, and complexification took over, and was so efficient etc. etc. ad nauseam.
And I say this last brain was given the capacities to not need any further expansion.
DAVID: Please remember I have no knowledge of God's reasons.dhw: You believe your logical God did it, and you can’t think of a single reason why he would have done so.
Pounding same dead horse. I don't look for His reasons. No need.
DAVID: Of course I agree with shrinkage from complexification. My argument and belief based on facts has never changed. Heavy usage shrinks modern brains.dhw: Heavy usage causes complexification and minor enlargement, and once more: complexification is so efficient etc. ad nauseam. If an organ or part of an organ is no longer required, it is not unnatural for it to disappear. You could hardly have a more logical explanation. But you think your God made our brains larger than necessary and preprogrammed or dabbled shrinkage, and you have no idea why.
Nor do you.
DAVID: Light use in habilis and erectus saw brains make large jumps in size. The comparisons don't fit, unless God as an agency is at work. Then of course you can ignore all the facts and daydream as an illogical distortion of them.dhw: Please note that in my theory it was a new "heavy use" that caused the brain to expand - just as it does today, though on a lesser scale.
Silliness again. Our overall brain shrank. Don't try to hide a major point.
dhw: Now please tell me what facts I have ignored or distorted, what additional facts you have to support your theory of divine preprogrammming or dabbling in advance of the need for expansion, and please do make an effort to understand why your God might have preprogrammed or dabbled shrinkage as well. You keep saying he thinks logically, but how do you know that if you can't understand his logic?
All we have is fossils, with differing brain sizes, and artifacts that advance as size increases. Archaeologists simply observe this and assume the larger size allowed the advances. I don't know why God allowed a bigger brain before it shrunk. Do you? But those are the facts we have, and you can't understand His logic either. Your obvious point is if God did something illogical, He doesn't exist. My logic about the bigger size at first: it contained early regions that helped in complexification and then left when the job was over. I will not apply that as God's actual thoughts.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: The first assumption has to be that our brain has processes developed from past brains and uses them in more complex ways.
dhw: Yes indeed, and since our modern brain follows processes of complexification and expansion (though now only on a minor scale) in response to – but not in anticipation of – new concepts, desires, plans etc., it is perfectly logical to assume that past brains did the same.
DAVID: Except for your 'in anticipation', we agree.
That is the nub of our disagreement, in the context of both brain and evolution in general. You insist that your God preprogrammed or dabbled all the major adaptations and innovations before they were required. I propose that they came about in response to new conditions.
DAVID: Your theory that the brain stopped enlarging because of anatomic size considerations is simply a wild guess, lacking any evidence for the point.
dhw: If the brain had continued to expand, we would have had elephantine heads! Expansion had to stop somewhere! That is not a wild guess – it is a logical assumption. What is your explanation for the end of expansion and the takeover by complexification?
DAVID: I gave you the conversion of cc to ounces. The biggest enlargements were less than seven ounces. 'Elephantine' is pure silliness. We got to this final point in small steps. It is all we need and it shrank from increased uses.
If expansion had gone on indefinitely, we would have finished up with elephantine brains, no matter how many ounces or ccs each expansion was! One moment you’re telling us how big each expansion was, and the next you’re telling us these were small steps. It makes no difference, and it also makes no sense to say that it shrank from increased uses when we know that in the case of taxi-drivers and musicians, some sections expand through increased usage. It shrank over all because complexification took over from expansion (you pooh-pooh the logical reason I have proposed, but can offer none of your own), and complexification was so efficient that some of the capacity was no longer needed. (dhw's bold)
dhw: Yes, both complexification and enlargement come from usage, not in anticipation of usage.
DAVID: The bold is so obviously backward in its misuse of the facts. Sapiens arrived with a barely used brain and then employed your implementation process with in the end shrinking.
You have totally missed the point of our whole discussion, which concerns the reason for each expansion. That is why I keep emphasizing that it is the first artefact that would have been the cause. Once the new brain is in place, it continues to produce new things until the next “big idea” requires further capacity. Each new capacity is “barely used” initially, and then it is used until it proves inadequate. Sapiens’ capacity would have arrived in the same way, but when new concepts had to be implemented, it complexified instead of expanding etc., as above.
DAVID: And I say this last brain was given the capacities to not need any further expansion.
“Was given” or “has” makes no difference to the process – it stopped expanding and complexification took over. You have no idea why your God would have made it bigger than necessary - “Pounding same dead horse. I don't look for His reasons. No need.” – whereas I have provided a logical explanation for the whole sequence.
dhw: But you think your God made our brains larger than necessary and preprogrammed or dabbled shrinkage, and you have no idea why.
DAVID: Nor do you.
No, I can’t see any logic behind your theory, which is why I see no reason to believe it. I offer a perfectly logical alternative.
dhw: Please note that in my theory it was a new "heavy use" that caused the brain to expand - just as it does today, though on a lesser scale.
DAVID: Silliness again. Our overall brain shrank. Don't try to hide a major point.
I don’t know how often you want me to repeat the explanation. Please reread the bold above. Plus the paragraph beginning "You have totally missed the point..." which you continue to do.
DAVID: All we have is fossils, with differing brain sizes, and artifacts that advance as size increases. Archaeologists simply observe this and assume the larger size allowed the advances. [dhw: Please for the second time reread the paragraph beginning "You have totally missed the point..."] I don't know why God allowed a bigger brain before it shrunk. Do you? But those are the facts we have, and you can't understand His logic either. Your obvious point is if God did something illogical, He doesn't exist.
This is the silliest argument yet! I do not accept your theory that your God preprogrammed or dabbled each expansion before it was needed, plus the shrinkage which you can’t explain! It is your illogicality that I don’t understand, not God’s! If God exists, I have proposed that he provided the mechanisms that performed all these actions as intelligent cell communities responded to changing conditions. And my “point” here is that I do not for one second believe that God would do anything illogical. That is why your whole theory falls apart, and I offer you various theistic alternatives in which your God’s actions are totally logical.
See “David’s theory…” for the last part of your post.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Friday, March 13, 2020, 00:10 (1499 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: That is the nub of our disagreement, in the context of both brain and evolution in general. You insist that your God preprogrammed or dabbled all the major adaptations and innovations before they were required. I propose that they came about in response to new conditions.
Of course we will always differ. From my standpoint chance never played any role. God created life and ran the entire process of evolution. The complexity disallows any chance for natural events
DAVID: I gave you the conversion of cc to ounces. The biggest enlargements were less than seven ounces. 'Elephantine' is pure silliness. We got to this final point in small steps. It is all we need and it shrank from increased uses.dhw: If expansion had gone on indefinitely, we would have finished up with elephantine brains, no matter how many ounces or ccs each expansion was!
No logic at all. Nothing elephantine needed. Erectus to sapiens is 200 cc. with huge difference in mentation. Another 100 cc would have added slight bulk and how much more mental ability might be very large. But our current brain is obviously quite sufficient to handle all issues. it needs no enlargement. Another wild conclusion from you to confuse the issue.
DAVID: The bold is so obviously backward in its misuse of the facts. Sapiens arrived with a barely used brain and then employed your implementation process with in the end shrinking.
dhw: You have totally missed the point of our whole discussion, which concerns the reason for each expansion. That is why I keep emphasizing that it is the first artefact that would have been the cause. Once the new brain is in place, it continues to produce new things until the next “big idea” requires further capacity. Each new capacity is “barely used” initially, and then it is used until it proves inadequate. Sapiens’ capacity would have arrived in the same way, but when new concepts had to be implemented, it complexified instead of expanding etc., as above.
So false an approach. My thought above stands. It is conceiving of concepts that requires the larger brain to be present, not actually making the conceived product. Onc e in mind taht is simple hand work.
DAVID: And I say this last brain was given the capacities to not need any further expansion.dhw: “Was given” or “has” makes no difference to the process – it stopped expanding and complexification took over. You have no idea why your God would have made it bigger than necessary - “Pounding same dead horse. I don't look for His reasons. No need.” – whereas I have provided a logical explanation for the whole sequence.
Only your illogical naturalism instead of God approach. But I forget, you sometimes throw in a little faux theism in that weird idea of a God, without much purpose, who lets organisms do their own thing.
dhw: Please note that in my theory it was a new "heavy use" that caused the brain to expand - just as it does today, though on a lesser scale.DAVID: Silliness again. Our overall brain shrank. Don't try to hide a major point.
dhw: I don’t know how often you want me to repeat the explanation. Please reread the bold above. Plus the paragraph beginning "You have totally missed the point..." which you continue to do.
I miss no point except your brain enlargement theory is a complex mess that does not follow any known facts that can make your case.
DAVID: All we have is fossils, with differing brain sizes, and artifacts that advance as size increases. Archaeologists simply observe this and assume the larger size allowed the advances. I don't know why God allowed a bigger brain before it shrunk. Do you? But those are the facts we have, and you can't understand His logic either. Your obvious point is if God did something illogical, He doesn't exist.dhw: This is the silliest argument yet! I do not accept your theory that your God preprogrammed or dabbled each expansion before it was needed, plus the shrinkage which you can’t explain! It is your illogicality.
You are the illogical one who takes tiny enlargements in a beautifully functioning brain and blow it up into a theory as to why hominin and homo brains enlarged. All fluff. Nothing factual actually supporting the magical pipe dream .
dhw: IF God exists, I have proposed that he provided the mechanisms that performed all these actions as intelligent cell communities responded to changing conditions.
Again, a non purposeful God. Not mine
dhw: And my “point” here is that I do not for one second believe that God would do anything illogical.
Well we agree here.
dhw: That is why your whole theory falls apart, and I offer you various theistic alternatives in which your God’s actions are totally logical.
According to your humanized theory of God. The main point is that when you finally think about God, He is nothing like my God.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: That is the nub of our disagreement, in the context of both brain and evolution in general. You insist that your God preprogrammed or dabbled all the major adaptations and innovations before they were required. I propose that they came about in response to new conditions.
DAVID: Of course we will always differ. From my standpoint chance never played any role. God created life and ran the entire process of evolution. The complexity disallows any chance for natural events.
How can you possibly equate intelligent responses to new conditions with chance? Your answer is a complete non sequitur.
dhw: If expansion had gone on indefinitely, we would have finished up with elephantine brains, no matter how many ounces or ccs each expansion was!
DAVID: No logic at all. Nothing elephantine needed. Erectus to sapiens is 200 cc. with huge difference in mentation. Another 100 cc would have added slight bulk and how much more mental ability might be very large. But our current brain is obviously quite sufficient to handle all issues. it needs no enlargement. Another wild conclusion from you to confuse the issue.
And later: DAVID: You are the illogical one who takes tiny enlargements in a beautifully functioning brain and blow it up into a theory as to why hominin and homo brains enlarged. All fluff. Nothing factual actually supporting the magical pipe dream.
We are trying to explain why the pre-sapiens brain expanded, but the sapiens brain stopped expanding and has actually shrunk. Of course the modern brain is sufficient, because complexification took over from enlargement and proved so efficient that the brain has actually shrunk. Please explain why it is illogical to suggest that if the brain enlarges on a small scale now, it might have enlarged on a large scale in earlier times. According to you, God preprogrammed or dabbled the whole process, each expansion taking place before it was needed. So please explain without any fluffiness why you think he stopped the expansion and engineered increased complexification (plus mini-enlargements) to take over, and why he then presumably decided that the brain was too big and needed shrinking. And what facts do you have to support your own “magical pipe dream”?
DAVID: Sapiens arrived with a barely used brain and then employed your implementation process with in the end shrinking.
dhw: You have totally missed the point of our whole discussion, which concerns the reason for each expansion. That is why I keep emphasizing that it is the first artefact that would have been the cause. Once the new brain is in place, it continues to produce new things until the next “big idea” requires further capacity. Each new capacity is “barely used” initially, and then it is used until it proves inadequate. Sapiens’ capacity would have arrived in the same way, but when new concepts had to be implemented, it complexified instead of expanding etc., as above.
DAVID: So false an approach. My thought above stands. It is conceiving of concepts that requires the larger brain to be present, not actually making the conceived product. Onc e in mind taht is simple hand work.
But according to you the brain has to be enlarged BEFORE it can conceive the concepts (though as a dualist you claim that the soul does the conceiving and only uses the brain for information and implementation). And you continue to ignore the only fact we actually know, which is that the modern brain shows us complexifications and enlargements as RESPONSES to new ideas, plans, desires, requirements, no matter how simple or complex the tasks may be. You yourself admit that we cannot “know” whether Einstein’s thicker brain sections were the cause or the result of his innovative thinking. See also your dualist’s dilemma in the parenthesis at the start of this paragraph.
dhw: You have no idea why your God would have made it bigger than necessary - “Pounding same dead horse. I don't look for His reasons. No need.” – whereas I have provided a logical explanation for the whole sequence.
DAVID: Only your illogical naturalism instead of God approach. But I forget, you sometimes throw in a little faux theism in that weird idea of a God, without much purpose, who lets organisms do their own thing.
It is none of the above! You refuse to look for reasons whenever I question the logic of your theories, and you try to divert attention by trivializing or distorting alternative explanations. My naturalism and “do their own thing” is not instead of God but allows for him to be the creator of the mechanisms, is not faux theism, is not “without much purpose”, and is no weirder than the God of your theory of evolution, who can think like us and is logical like us, except that he doesn’t think like us and we can’t understand his logic.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Friday, March 13, 2020, 19:32 (1498 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Of course we will always differ. From my standpoint chance never played any role. God created life and ran the entire process of evolution. The complexity disallows any chance for natural events.
dhw: How can you possibly equate intelligent responses to new conditions with chance? Your answer is a complete non sequitur.
As with Davies, how did the intelligent responses appear? Not by chance
dhw: We are trying to explain why the pre-sapiens brain expanded, but the sapiens brain stopped expanding and has actually shrunk. Of course the modern brain is sufficient, because complexification took over from enlargement and proved so efficient that the brain has actually shrunk. Please explain why it is illogical to suggest that if the brain enlarges on a small scale now, it might have enlarged on a large scale in earlier times. According to you, God preprogrammed or dabbled the whole process, each expansion taking place before it was needed. So please explain without any fluffiness why you think he stopped the expansion and engineered increased complexification (plus mini-enlargements) to take over, and why he then presumably decided that the brain was too big and needed shrinking.
You are simply describing facts that I know God produced.
dhw: And what facts do you have to support your own “magical pipe dream”?
All my research that convinced me God exists. You've read the books.
DAVID: Sapiens arrived with a barely used brain and then employed your implementation process with in the end shrinking.dhw: You have totally missed the point of our whole discussion, which concerns the reason for each expansion. That is why I keep emphasizing that it is the first artefact that would have been the cause. Once the new brain is in place, it continues to produce new things until the next “big idea” requires further capacity. Each new capacity is “barely used” initially, and then it is used until it proves inadequate. Sapiens’ capacity would have arrived in the same way, but when new concepts had to be implemented, it complexified instead of expanding etc., as above.
DAVID: So false an approach. My thought above stands. It is conceiving of concepts that requires the larger brain to be present, not actually making the conceived product. Once in mind that is simple hand work.
dhw: But according to you the brain has to be enlarged BEFORE it can conceive the concepts (though as a dualist you claim that the soul does the conceiving and only uses the brain for information and implementation). And you continue to ignore the only fact we actually know, which is that the modern brain shows us complexifications and enlargements as RESPONSES to new ideas, plans, desires, requirements, no matter how simple or complex the tasks may be. You yourself admit that we cannot “know” whether Einstein’s thicker brain sections were the cause or the result of his innovative thinking. See also your dualist’s dilemma in the parenthesis at the start of this paragraph.
No dilemma. It all follows my dualist theory in the soul having to use a more complex brain to generate more complex concepts.
dhw: You have no idea why your God would have made it bigger than necessary - “Pounding same dead horse. I don't look for His reasons. No need.” – whereas I have provided a logical explanation for the whole sequence.
We don't know why the brain started out bigger. All we can presume is it was a requirement of the development of the more complex smaller brain later on. Just follow what happened. we cannot know God's reasons. Remember.
DAVID: Only your illogical naturalism instead of God approach. But I forget, you sometimes throw in a little faux theism in that weird idea of a God, without much purpose, who lets organisms do their own thing.dhw: It is none of the above! You refuse to look for reasons whenever I question the logic of your theories, and you try to divert attention by trivializing or distorting alternative explanations. My naturalism and “do their own thing” is not instead of God but allows for him to be the creator of the mechanisms, is not faux theism, is not “without much purpose”, and is no weirder than the God of your theory of evolution, who can think like us and is logical like us, except that he doesn’t think like us and we can’t understand his logic.
Your usual distortions of my statements. I don't try to understand His reasons behind His creations. You don't understand my concept of God, and of course everything about God is illogical to you because my God is not humanized and yours is, which leads to your constant confusion.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: We are trying to explain why the pre-sapiens brain expanded, but the sapiens brain stopped expanding and has actually shrunk. Of course the modern brain is sufficient, because complexification took over from enlargement and proved so efficient that the brain has actually shrunk. Please explain why it is illogical to suggest that if the brain enlarges on a small scale now, it might have enlarged on a large scale in earlier times. According to you, God preprogrammed or dabbled the whole process, each expansion taking place before it was needed. So please explain without any fluffiness why you think he stopped the expansion and engineered increased complexification (plus mini-enlargements) to take over, and why he then presumably decided that the brain was too big and needed shrinking.
DAVID: You are simply describing facts that I know God produced.
You don’t “know” any such thing, and I have asked you to explain your interpretation of the facts, as bolded.
DAVID: Sapiens arrived with a barely used brain and then employed your implementation process with in the end shrinking.
dhw: You have totally missed the point of our whole discussion, which concerns the reason for each expansion. That is why I keep emphasizing that it is the first artefact that would have been the cause. Once the new brain is in place, it continues to produce new things until the next “big idea” requires further capacity. Each new capacity is “barely used” initially, and then it is used until it proves inadequate. Sapiens’ capacity would have arrived in the same way, but when new concepts had to be implemented, it complexified instead of expanding etc., as above.
This is a vital part of the process I am proposing. As you constantly point out, “sapiens arrived with a barely used brain”. Our subject is what caused the arrival of the new large brain, and what caused its later shrinkage. I've offered you a detailed explanation, but all you can say is “So false an approach”. Please tell me which step in this process you consider to be false.
dhw: […] You yourself admit that we cannot “know” whether Einstein’s thicker brain sections were the cause or the result of his innovative thinking. See also your dualist’s dilemma in the parenthesis at the start of this paragraph.
DAVID: No dilemma. It all follows my dualist theory in the soul having to use a more complex brain to generate more complex concepts.
You have agreed that according to your dualism, the soul uses the brain to gather information and to implement (make real) its concepts. According to dualism the brain does not conceive concepts, and yet over and over again you keep saying that it does.Do you want me to go through the list of quotes again?
dhw: You have no idea why your God would have made it bigger than necessary - “Pounding same dead horse. I don't look for His reasons. No need.” – whereas I have provided a logical explanation for the whole sequence.
DAVID: We don't know why the brain started out bigger.
That is precisely what I have repeatedly tried to explain. See above and below.
DAVID: All we can presume is it was a requirement of the development of the more complex smaller brain later on. Just follow what happened. we cannot know God's reasons. Remember.
The fact that we cannot “know” God’s reasons does not mean that God acted in the way you tell us he did! We can at least make intelligent, logical guesses to explain the facts. For instance, yet again: the sapiens brain reached its maximum size for the practicalities of human anatomy, complexification took over, and (as you keep agreeing and then trying to disagree), complexification proved so efficient that the brain shrank. I find this rather more reasonable than “God did it and we don’t/can’t know why”.
Under “Neurons change to form memories”:
QUOTE: Even slight alterations to this signal affected the mRNA's journey to its target destination, showing the sophisticated mechanisms brain cells develop to control the logistics of thousands of different messages.
Once again the process is one in which the cells RESPOND to events. They do not make alterations in advance of them.
DAVID: Once again a very refined system of molecular changes to manage the system of memory formation. Which raises the next issue: when you try to remember a given pint, how does the brain go about finding it? Nothing about our brain is all that simple, when digging into the biochemistry of thought and memory. Our brain is obviously a miraculous outcome of evolution. Evolution was not unguided but designed.
Yes indeed, it is a miracle. And your comment emphasizes your materialistic view of it, since you have the brain and not the soul searching for the “pint” (I love this misprint! Hic!). This ties in with my earlier attempts to reconcile dualism and materialism under a Theory of Intelligence, beginning on 26 April 2018.
I have shifted the rest of your post to the thread concerning your theory of evolution
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Saturday, March 14, 2020, 21:16 (1497 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: We are trying to explain why the pre-sapiens brain expanded, but the sapiens brain stopped expanding and has actually shrunk. Of course the modern brain is sufficient, because complexification took over from enlargement and proved so efficient that the brain has actually shrunk. Please explain why it is illogical to suggest that if the brain enlarges on a small scale now, it might have enlarged on a large scale in earlier times.
Your idea is pure theory based on what I view as a 'category' idea: any brain enlargement of any size definitely implies any sized enlargement is possible. Of course it is, just as anything you declare possible is possible out of thin air. Categorically tiny enlargements are only that, and offer no proof 200 cc enlargements come from the same causes.
dhw: [/b] According to you, God preprogrammed or dabbled the whole process, each expansion taking place before it was needed. So please explain without any fluffiness why you think he stopped the expansion and engineered increased complexification (plus mini-enlargements) to take over, and why he then presumably decided that the brain was too big and needed shrinking.[/i]
You have forgotten my rule. You love to dig into God's reasons. I don't. My guess is the bigger brain contained a complexification mechanism, which as complexity was accomplished the mechanism disappeared. Logical, yes. Correct, only God knows?
DAVID: Sapiens arrived with a barely used brain and then employed your implementation process with in the end shrinking.dhw: This is a vital part of the process I am proposing. As you constantly point out, “sapiens arrived with a barely used brain”. Our subject is what caused the arrival of the new large brain, and what caused its later shrinkage. I've offered you a detailed explanation, but all you can say is “So false an approach”. Please tell me which step in this process you consider to be false.
God made the enlarged brain. Complexification shrunk it. What is your problem?
dhw: You have no idea why your God would have made it bigger than necessary - “Pounding same dead horse. I don't look for His reasons. No need.” – whereas I have provided a logical explanation for the whole sequence.
DAVID: We don't know why the brain started out bigger.
dhw: That is precisely what I have repeatedly tried to explain.
Explaining without God in charge makes your job difficult. I've given a logical guess as to why larger at first above. Again, only god knows if it is correct.
DAVID: All we can presume is it was a requirement of the development of the more complex smaller brain later on. Just follow what happened. we cannot know God's reasons. Remember.dhw: The fact that we cannot “know” God’s reasons does not mean that God acted in the way you tell us he did! We can at least make intelligent, logical guesses to explain the facts. For instance, yet again: the sapiens brain reached its maximum size for the practicalities of human anatomy, complexification took over, and (as you keep agreeing and then trying to disagree), complexification proved so efficient that the brain shrank. I find this rather more reasonable than “God did it and we don’t/can’t know why”.
Of course reasonable, but is your guess correct? Only God knows. Try accepting what God did without hunting for His reasons. My logical guess is above. But why bother?
Under “Neurons change to form memories”:
QUOTE: Even slight alterations to this signal affected the mRNA's journey to its target destination, showing the sophisticated mechanisms brain cells develop to control the logistics of thousands of different messages.dhw: Once again the process is one in which the cells RESPOND to events. They do not make alterations in advance of them.
Of course they do. they follow instructions for alterations .
DAVID: Once again a very refined system of molecular changes to manage the system of memory formation. Which raises the next issue: when you try to remember a given pint, how does the brain go about finding it? Nothing about our brain is all that simple, when digging into the biochemistry of thought and memory. Our brain is obviously a miraculous outcome of evolution. Evolution was not unguided but designed.dhw: Yes indeed, it is a miracle. And your comment emphasizes your materialistic view of it, since you have the brain and not the soul searching for the “pint” (I love this misprint! Hic!). This ties in with my earlier attempts to reconcile dualism and materialism under a Theory of Intelligence, beginning on 26 April 2018.
You know full well my theory: the soul uses more complex mechanisms in the brain for more complex conceptualization thought
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: Please explain why it is illogical to suggest that if the brain enlarges on a small scale now, it might have enlarged on a large scale in earlier times.
DAVID: Your idea is pure theory based on what I view as a 'category' idea: any brain enlargement of any size definitely implies any sized enlargement is possible. Of course it is, just as anything you declare possible is possible out of thin air. Categorically tiny enlargements are only that, and offer no proof 200 cc enlargements come from the same causes.
Back you go to “proof”. Yes, it is a theory, and nobody has ever produced a theory that has been proven, because otherwise we would not even be discussing the cause of enlargement. It is not illogical to speculate that a known current process might have operated on a larger scale in the past. Can you give me proof that your God popped in to enlarge brains 200 cc at a time?
dhw: According to you, God preprogrammed or dabbled the whole process, each expansion taking place before it was needed. So please explain without any fluffiness why you think he stopped the expansion and engineered increased complexification (plus mini-enlargements) to take over, and why he then presumably decided that the brain was too big and needed shrinking.
DAVID: You have forgotten my rule. You love to dig into God's reasons. I don't. My guess is the bigger brain contained a complexification mechanism, which as complexity was accomplished the mechanism disappeared. Logical, yes. Correct, only God knows?
How can I possibly forget your rule, which is that you refuse to answer any awkward question that throws doubt on your personal interpretation of your God’s motives and actions? Your guess makes no sense. How can the mechanism for complexity have disappeared if the brain continues to complexify? Similarly one might ask how can the mechanism for expansion have disappeared if parts of the brain still expand?
DAVID: We don't know why the brain started out bigger.
dhw: That is precisely what I have repeatedly tried to explain.
DAVID: Explaining without God in charge makes your job difficult. I've given a logical guess as to why larger at first above. Again, only god knows if it is correct.
What do you mean by “in charge”? I’ll keep my theist hat on for the purpose of this discussion. My job of explaining my proposal with God but without his being "in charge of" every single life form, natural wonder, brain expansion etc. is perfectly simple: your God created the mechanism whereby cells/cell communities, including those of the brain, have the autonomous ability to change their structure (e.g. to enlarge it) in order to cope with or exploit new conditions and requirements.
DAVID (responding to my explanation of expansion and shrinkage): Of course reasonable, but is your guess correct? Only God knows. Try accepting what God did without hunting for His reasons. My logical guess is above. But why bother?
You mean that I should try accepting your interpretation of what God did. Why should I, if it is NOT reasonable? As for "Why bother?" see the thread devoted to your theory of evolution.
dhw: your comment emphasizes your materialistic view of it, since you have the brain and not the soul searching for the “pint” (I love this misprint! Hic!). This ties in with my earlier attempts to reconcile dualism and materialism under a Theory of Intelligence, beginning on 26 April 2018.
DAVID: You know full well my theory: the soul uses more complex mechanisms in the brain for more complex conceptualization thought.
That was my explanation of the theory you ought to be espousing as a dualist. The soul uses the (more) complex mechanisms of the brain to gather information and it uses the (more) complex mechanisms of the brain to implement those concepts. Whereas over and over again, you have the brain doing the conceiving. Do you really want me to produce a list of quotes?
(For some reason your post was repeated, all in italics. I’ve taken the liberty of deleting the repetition.)
Introducing the brain: brain growth by pattern
by David Turell , Sunday, March 15, 2020, 15:22 (1496 days ago) @ dhw
The neurons are organized in a pattern that allows new oerganization:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200312101048.htm
"Life is rife with patterns. It's common for living things to create a repeating series of similar features as they grow: think of feathers that vary slightly in length on a bird's wing or shorter and longer petals on a rose.
"It turns out the brain is no different. By employing advanced microscopy and mathematical modeling, Stanford researchers have discovered a pattern that governs the growth of brain cells or neurons. Similar rules could guide the development of other cells within the body,
"Their study, published in Nature Physics, builds on the fact that the brain contains many different types of neurons and that it takes several types working in concert to perform any tasks. The researchers wanted to uncover the invisible growth patterns that enable the right kinds of neurons to arrange themselves into the right positions to build a brain.
***
"What they found was that each neuron is surrounded by roughly a dozen neighbors similar to itself, but that interspersed among them are other kinds of neurons. This unique arrangement means that no single neuron sits flush against its twin, while still allowing different types of complementary neurons to be close enough to work together to complete tasks.
"The researchers found that this pattern repeats over and over across the entire flatworm brain to form a continuous neural network. Study co-authors Jian Qin, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, and postdoctoral scholar Xian Kong developed a computational model to show that this complex network of functional neighborhoods stems from the tendency of neurons to pack together as closely as possible without being too close to other neurons of the same type.
Comment: Simple. Patterns require design. Life is filled with patterns. There is a designer. See the next comment about patterns.
Introducing the brain: brain growth by pattern
"Their study, published in Nature Physics, builds on the fact that the brain contains many different types of neurons and that it takes several types working in concert to perform any tasks. "
DAVID: Simple. Patterns require design. Life is filled with patterns. There is a designer. See the next comment about patterns.
Another example of the body being a community of cell communities which cooperate with one another.
DAVID: (under rats’ whiskers) It looks as if God is a mathematician, especially as life follows precise patterns which we find when studied.
If he exists, I would expect him to be a mathematician, a scientist, an inventor, an artist, a designer, a philosopher, a critic, a judge….You see, just like you, I think he probably has thought patterns, emotions and attributes similar to ours.
Introducing the brain: brain growth by pattern
by David Turell , Monday, March 16, 2020, 15:22 (1495 days ago) @ dhw
"Their study, published in Nature Physics, builds on the fact that the brain contains many different types of neurons and that it takes several types working in concert to perform any tasks. "
DAVID: Simple. Patterns require design. Life is filled with patterns. There is a designer. See the next comment about patterns.
Another example of the body being a community of cell communities which cooperate with one another.
DAVID: (under rats’ whiskers) It looks as if God is a mathematician, especially as life follows precise patterns which we find when studied.
dhw: If he exists, I would expect him to be a mathematician, a scientist, an inventor, an artist, a designer, a philosopher, a critic, a judge….You see, just like you, I think he probably has thought patterns, emotions and attributes similar to ours.
I fully agree with you about logical thought patterns, but His reasoning and His purposes may not be what you think when you theorize about Him. For example time may be of no issue to Him, while you wonder about why He delayed human appearance. I don't. As for emotions and attributes they may be totally different.
Introducing the brain: brain growth by pattern
DAVID: It looks as if God is a mathematician, especially as life follows precise patterns which we find when studied.
dhw: If he exists, I would expect him to be a mathematician, a scientist, an inventor, an artist, a designer, a philosopher, a critic, a judge….You see, just like you, I think he probably has thought patterns, emotions and attributes similar to ours.
DAVID: I fully agree with you about logical thought patterns, but His reasoning and His purposes may not be what you think when you theorize about Him.
Of course most of my various logical alternative theistic explanations of evolution must be wrong! I have simply been pointing out to you that “His reasoning and His purposes may not be what you think when you theorize about Him”, and I have given you logical reasons why your one and only theory defies any logical thought pattern you and I can think of.
DAVID: For example time may be of no issue to Him, while you wonder about why He delayed human appearance. I don't. As for emotions and attributes they may be totally different.
No, I don’t wonder about why he “delayed human appearance”. It is you who insist that he did, because you insist that humans were his one and only purpose right from the beginning. Maybe they weren’t. Or IF they were, maybe he is not an all-knowing God but a learning God. I simply offer different explanations for the course of evolutionary history. I do not claim, as you seem to do, that only one theory is correct.
Introducing the brain: brain growth by pattern
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 17, 2020, 20:05 (1494 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Tuesday, March 17, 2020, 20:36
DAVID: It looks as if God is a mathematician, especially as life follows precise patterns which we find when studied.
dhw: If he exists, I would expect him to be a mathematician, a scientist, an inventor, an artist, a designer, a philosopher, a critic, a judge….You see, just like you, I think he probably has thought patterns, emotions and attributes similar to ours.
DAVID: I fully agree with you about logical thought patterns, but His reasoning and His purposes may not be what you think when you theorize about Him.
dhw: Of course most of my various logical alternative theistic explanations of evolution must be wrong! I have simply been pointing out to you that “His reasoning and His purposes may not be what you think when you theorize about Him”, and I have given you logical reasons why your one and only theory defies any logical thought pattern you and I can think of.
My theories are simply based on the history of His creations. We arrived last. Your logical reasoning is always humanizes Him. We do not think about God in any similar way.
DAVID: For example time may be of no issue to Him, while you wonder about why He delayed human appearance. I don't. As for emotions and attributes they may be totally different.dhw: No, I don’t wonder about why he “delayed human appearance”. It is you who insist that he did, because you insist that humans were his one and only purpose right from the beginning. Maybe they weren’t. Or IF they were, maybe he is not an all-knowing God but a learning God. I simply offer different explanations for the course of evolutionary history. I do not claim, as you seem to do, that only one theory is correct.
Same weird complaint. My God is purposeful, knows exactly why He is doing it and when He wants it accomplished. Your version of God bumbles around as you humanize Him. We have debated about God for years but it is obvious we have never agreed on the same version of God that both of can agree upon. I've told you your version of God is nothing like mine for a number of years. It falls on deaf ears and you simply argue with me from your version of God. of course we never meet in the middle. Is it possible we can agree to a similar version of God? I'm not sure it is possible. Want to try?
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Sunday, March 15, 2020, 19:50 (1496 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You have forgotten my rule. You love to dig into God's reasons. I don't. My guess is the bigger brain contained a complexification mechanism, which as complexity was accomplished the mechanism disappeared. Logical, yes. Correct, only God knows?
dhw: How can I possibly forget your rule, which is that you refuse to answer any awkward question that throws doubt on your personal interpretation of your God’s motives and actions? Your guess makes no sense. How can the mechanism for complexity have disappeared if the brain continues to complexify? Similarly one might ask how can the mechanism for expansion have disappeared if parts of the brain still expand?
Good point about complexification. We have to account for the shrinkage so I made the possible assumption too bold. What can be thought is the complexification mechanism complexified itself and is still present in a much smaller form. That seems logical. As for the bolded snipe above you constantly want to guess at God's reasons. I don't doubt my thinking because I do not guess at what I cannot know. I'm sorry I refuse to answer your 'awkward questions' but they are so out in left field that require answers that are just guesses. I'm not avoiding you. I am confronting you with an entirely different approach than yours. I simply accept God's creations, as evidence of his purposes. As for expansion of the brain, obviously a very limited form of it exists in this brain , and proves nothing more about ancient brains. In our brain we are dealing with a very specialized result which is built on the past, reflects it but is not the past.
dhw: your comment emphasizes your materialistic view of it, since you have the brain and not the soul searching for the “pint” (I love this misprint! Hic!). This ties in with my earlier attempts to reconcile dualism and materialism under a Theory of Intelligence, beginning on 26 April 2018.DAVID: You know full well my theory: the soul uses more complex mechanisms in the brain for more complex conceptualization thought.
dhw: That was my explanation of the theory you ought to be espousing as a dualist. The soul uses the (more) complex mechanisms of the brain to gather information and it uses the (more) complex mechanisms of the brain to implement those concepts. Whereas over and over again, you have the brain doing the conceiving. Do you really want me to produce a list of quotes?
My quotes about the brain is a shorthand so I don't rewrite my entire theory each time it comes up. You understand it so quit sniping every time I use it. Lets by considerate of each other. I've politely given you reasons for God's motives. All guesses. I've given up producing those answers as they prove nothing.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: […]You have forgotten my rule. You love to dig into God's reasons. I don't. My guess is the bigger brain contained a complexification mechanism, which as complexity was accomplished the mechanism disappeared. Logical, yes. Correct, only God knows?
dhw: How can I possibly forget your rule, which is that you refuse to answer any awkward question that throws doubt on your personal interpretation of your God’s motives and actions? Your guess makes no sense. How can the mechanism for complexity have disappeared if the brain continues to complexify? Similarly one might ask how can the mechanism for expansion have disappeared if parts of the brain still expand?
DAVID: Good point about complexification. We have to account for the shrinkage so I made the possible assumption too bold. What can be thought is the complexification mechanism complexified itself and is still present in a much smaller form. That seems logical. As for the bolded snipe above you constantly want to guess at God's reasons. I don't doubt my thinking because I do not guess at what I cannot know.
You do so all the time, from the existence of God to all the assumptions that underlie your illogical theory of evolution.
DAVID: I'm sorry I refuse to answer your 'awkward questions' but they are so out in left field that require answers that are just guesses. I'm not avoiding you. I am confronting you with an entirely different approach than yours. I simply accept God's creations, as evidence of his purposes.
With my theist’s hat on, so do I. And I offer alternative interpretations of the evidence, which you accept as being logical but to which you can only raise one objection: humanization. See below.
DAVID: As for expansion of the brain, obviously a very limited form of it exists in this brain , and proves nothing more about ancient brains. In our brain we are dealing with a very specialized result which is built on the past, reflects it but is not the past.
As always, nobody has “proof” of any theory. I don’t think anyone would disagree that the present is not the past. But if the present brain is built on the past brain, there is no reason to assume that its process of changing itself in response to new actions was reversed in the past by changing itself in anticipation of new actions.
dhw: The soul uses the (more) complex mechanisms of the brain to gather information and it uses the (more) complex mechanisms of the brain to implement those concepts. Whereas over and over again, you have the brain doing the conceiving. Do you really want me to produce a list of quotes?
DAVID: My quotes about the brain is a shorthand so I don't rewrite my entire theory each time it comes up. You understand it so quit sniping every time I use it. Lets be considerate of each other.
No, I don’t understand it. The expansion of the brain as the cause of new concepts is crucial to your theory! That is why you make such statements as “an earlier brain cannot conceive what a more advanced brain can conceive and create”; “The existing brain conceives of the new object and makes it. The older smaller brain has nothing to do with it. It can’t conceive of the new idea”; “The second bold does not answer my point that an earlier brain cannot conceive of an idea it is not capable of conceiving;” “Our thinking brain; “the more thoughtful brain has shrunk” etc. I keep reminding you that the dualist’s thinking soul uses the brain for information and implementation. If we take our spear example, the homo has a current problem: how to avoid having to wrestle with a bison. You say that only when God expands his brain can his soul come up with the answer. What new information has the brain provided the soul with? Homo, bison and distance are exactly the same as they were before the expansion. So why, if souls do the thinking and the information they are processing is already present, do you believe dualists’ souls are incapable of having new ideas about existing information until they’ve got bigger brains?
DAVID (under David’s theory of evolution): That necessarily means each enlargement of a brain pan by 200 cc was God's doing. You try to talk around that point by offering naturalistic possibilities, no God involved.
dhw: Of course that’s what your fixed theory means. I’m not talking round it, I’m questioning it! And I see no reason why your God should not have designed the mechanisms for the “naturalistic possibilities”, so please don’t pretend that my various alternatives do not “involve” God.
DAVID: Always a humanized God.
Irrelevant to your false statement “No God involved”.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Monday, March 16, 2020, 18:48 (1495 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Good point about complexification. We have to account for the shrinkage so I made the possible assumption too bold. What can be thought is the complexification mechanism complexified itself and is still present in a much smaller form. That seems logical. As for the bolded snipe above you constantly want to guess at God's reasons. I don't doubt my thinking because I do not guess at what I cannot know.
dhw: You do so all the time, from the existence of God to all the assumptions that underlie your illogical theory of evolution.
I don't guess about God. I've concluded He exists.
DAVID: As for expansion of the brain, obviously a very limited form of it exists in this brain , and proves nothing more about ancient brains. In our brain we are dealing with a very specialized result which is built on the past, reflects it but is not the past.
dhw: As always, nobody has “proof” of any theory. I don’t think anyone would disagree that the present is not the past. But if the present brain is built on the past brain, there is no reason to assume that its process of changing itself in response to new actions was reversed in the past by changing itself in anticipation of new actions.
That can be your assumption, but it is not at all the same as our brain confining some new activity to a small enlarged area.
dhw: The soul uses the (more) complex mechanisms of the brain to gather information and it uses the (more) complex mechanisms of the brain to implement those concepts. Whereas over and over again, you have the brain doing the conceiving. Do you really want me to produce a list of quotes?DAVID: My quotes about the brain is a shorthand so I don't rewrite my entire theory each time it comes up. You understand it so quit sniping every time I use it. Lets be considerate of each other.
No, I don’t understand it. The expansion of the brain as the cause of new concepts is crucial to your theory! That is why you make such statements as “an earlier brain cannot conceive what a more advanced brain can conceive and create”; “The existing brain conceives of the new object and makes it. The older smaller brain has nothing to do with it. It can’t conceive of the new idea”; “The second bold does not answer my point that an earlier brain cannot conceive of an idea it is not capable of conceiving;” “Our thinking brain; “the more thoughtful brain has shrunk” etc. I keep reminding you that the dualist’s thinking soul uses the brain for information and implementation.
I know the soul's role in my way of looking at dualism. I think you do understand it, as shown in your reminder. To repeat: for the soul to develop advanced concepts it must use a brain of advanced complexity. The problem is the innate ability for an existing underlying brain to accommodate the development of new concepts. Your 'information and implementation' requires understanding that implementation has two parts: developing the abstract concept and then actually making the new idea as a product. It requires abstract thought. Abstract thought is not required to simply receive information. but coordinating the new information into a new concept requires abstract thinking. Our brain at 315,000 years ago was larger than now, and we had to learn how to use more fully. More advanced language is thought to be only 50-70,000 years old. The brain shrank 150 cc in the past 35,000 years. I conclude our newer larger brain contained the mechanisms to allow all of this and the smaller size means our learn ing to use our brain accomplished all of what was required in ringing the brain to its current state. As a result evidence of complex civilization is less than 12,000 years old.
I'll stick with what archaeologists present: Brains of a given size produce the artifacts found with them and are solely responsible for their appearance. No relation to past brains. And remember the resident soul is using the current brain .
Introducing the brain: stimulating neurons uses EPO
by David Turell , Monday, March 16, 2020, 20:59 (1495 days ago) @ David Turell
Erythropoietin is a protein that drives red cell production and stimulates neurons:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200313115659.htm
"Erythropoietin, or Epo for short, is a notorious doping agent. It promotes the formation of red blood cells, leading thereby to enhanced physical performance -- at least, that is what we have believed until now. However, as a growth factor, it also protects and regenerates nerve cells in the brain.
***
"'Administering Epo improves regeneration after a stroke (termed 'neuroprotection' or 'neurogeneration'), reducing damage in the brain. Patients with mental health disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder or multiple sclerosis who have been treated with Epo have shown a significant improvement in cognitive performance," says Hannelore Ehrenreich
***
"The results of her research indicate that in adult mice, there is a 20 percent increase in the formation of nerve cells in the pyramidal layer of the hippocampus -- a brain region crucial for learning and memory -- after the growth factor is administered. "The nerve cells also form better networks with other nerve cells, and do this more quickly, making them more efficient at exchanging signals," says Ehrenreich.
***
"In a series of targeted experiments, they were able to prove that when learning complex motor tasks, nerve cells require more oxygen than is normally available to them. The resulting minor oxygen deficiency (relative hypoxia) triggers the signal for increased Epo production in the nerve cells. "This is a self-reinforcing process: Cognitive exertion leads to minor hypoxia, which we term 'functional hypoxia', which in turn stimulates the production of Epo and its receptors in the corresponding active nerve cells. Epo subsequently increases the activity of these nerve cells, induces the formation of new nerve cells from neighbouring precursor cells, and increases their complex interconnection, leading to a measurable improvement in cognitive performance in humans and mice," explained Ehrenreich."
Comment: the improvement in neuron function by EPO shows how the brain is capable of rallying its own neurons in to more active states by using anoxia as a trigger. Brain use of daily energy supply is an enormous 20% so this mechanism is an obvious add on to EPO's existing functions. Not by chance. A clear example of design.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: […] if the present brain is built on the past brain, there is no reason to assume that its process of changing itself in response to new actions was reversed in the past by changing itself in anticipation of new actions.
DAVID: That can be your assumption, but it is not at all the same as our brain confining some new activity to a small enlarged area.
It is a theory, not an assumption, but you are dismissing it because you assume that the modern brain functions differently from the past brain. The similarity lies in the fact that in both cases there is expansion. We know that in the present, expansion is a response to requirements.
DAVID: My quotes about the brain is a shorthand so I don't rewrite my entire theory each time it comes up. You understand it so quit sniping every time I use it. Lets be considerate of each other.
dhw: No, I don’t understand it. The expansion of the brain as the cause of new concepts is crucial to your theory! That is why you make such statements as “an earlier brain cannot conceive what a more advanced brain can conceive and create”; “The existing brain conceives of the new object and makes it. The older smaller brain has nothing to do with it. It can’t conceive of the new idea” […] etc. I keep reminding you that the dualist’s thinking soul uses the brain for information and implementation.
DAVID: I know the soul's role in my way of looking at dualism. I think you do understand it, as shown in your reminder. To repeat: for the soul to develop advanced concepts it must use a brain of advanced complexity.
This is far too general. Our problem is what caused all the expansions. I suggest that once the dualist’s brain has expanded, the dualist’s soul will continue to use it until the next point at which existing capacity is insufficient. Sapiens’ brain reaches capacity, and so the soul continues to use it for new concepts, but instead of overall expansion, there is now advanced complexification, minor expansion, and shrinkage caused by the efficiency of complexification.
DAVID: The problem is the innate ability for an existing underlying brain to accommodate the development of new concepts.
Precisely. And in the past, the existing underlying brain could not accommodate the development (i.e. the actual design and implementation of the new concept, not the conception itself) and therefore had to expand. You’ve got it!
DAVID: Your 'information and implementation' requires understanding that implementation has two parts: developing the abstract concept and then actually making the new idea as a product. It requires abstract thought. Abstract thought is not required to simply receive information. but coordinating the new information into a new concept requires abstract thinking.
There is no new information initially! The old brain (materialist) or soul (dualist) forms the new concept based on existing information. My proposal is that the effort to develop (design) and actually make the new product is what causes the brain to expand. Of course abstract thinking is required, both in the original conception and in the design. Abstract thought involves processing information and producing concepts. That will apply to both the old brain and the new brain. Stick to the subject: what caused the old brain to expand into the new one?
DAVID: Our brain at 315,000 years ago was larger than now, and we had to learn how to use more fully. More advanced language is thought to be only 50-70,000 years old. The brain shrank 150 cc in the past 35,000 years. I conclude our newer larger brain contained the mechanisms to allow all of this [dhw: of course it did!] and the smaller size means our learn ing to use our brain accomplished all of what was required in ringing the brain to its current state. [dhw: we have agreed that the smaller size is due to the efficiency of complexification.] As a result evidence of complex civilization is less than 12,000 years old.
I have no idea what all this is meant to prove. Your theory is that your God expanded human brains in small steps and only after expansion could the pre-sapiens come up with new concepts. My counter proposal is that since sapiens brains only change themselves in response to new concepts, requirements, desires, activities etc., earlier changes, and specifically, expansions would also have followed the same pattern. Concept etc. first, changes second.
DAVID: I'll stick with what archaeologists present: Brains of a given size produce the artifacts found with them and are solely responsible for their appearance. No relation to past brains. And remember the resident soul is using the current brain.
Already covered earlier. The FIRST artefacts would have been the product(s) resulting from whatever concept(s) CAUSED the pre-sapiens brain to expand to sapiens size. There is no way anyone can possibly prove or disprove this, because an artefact can only exist once the brain has finished expanding through the effort to design and make it.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 17, 2020, 21:15 (1494 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: […] if the present brain is built on the past brain, there is no reason to assume that its process of changing itself in response to new actions was reversed in the past by changing itself in anticipation of new actions.
DAVID: That can be your assumption, but it is not at all the same as our brain confining some new activity to a small enlarged area.
dhw: It is a theory, not an assumption, but you are dismissing it because you assume that the modern brain functions differently from the past brain. The similarity lies in the fact that in both cases there is expansion. We know that in the present, expansion is a response to requirements.
My only point is our brain is a major advance over other brains, and may operate differently because it is so advanced. We do not know how Habilis and Erectus expanded, but we do know about a 150 cc shrink age of our brain as how to fully use it was learned from 315,000 years ago.
DAVID: I know the soul's role in my way of looking at dualism. I think you do understand it, as shown in your reminder. To repeat: for the soul to develop advanced concepts it must use a brain of advanced complexity.
dhw: This is far too general. Our problem is what caused all the expansions. I suggest that once the dualist’s brain has expanded, the dualist’s soul will continue to use it until the next point at which existing capacity is insufficient. Sapiens’ brain reaches capacity, and so the soul continues to use it for new concepts, but instead of overall expansion, there is now advanced complexification, minor expansion, and shrinkage caused by the efficiency of complexification.
Good summary, especially the point about the shrinkage, despite the constant development of new concepts. There is no indication it requires any new enlargement. it appears to be totally adequate for the demands
DAVID: The problem is the innate ability for an existing underlying brain to accommodate the development of new concepts.dhw: Precisely. And in the past, the existing underlying brain could not accommodate the development (i.e. the actual design and implementation of the new concept, not the conception itself) and therefore had to expand. You’ve got it!
Precisely the opposite approach to mine.
DAVID: Your 'information and implementation' requires understanding that implementation has two parts: developing the abstract concept and then actually making the new idea as a product. It requires abstract thought. Abstract thought is not required to simply receive information. but coordinating the new information into a new concept requires abstract thinking.dhw: There is no new information initially! The old brain (materialist) or soul (dualist) forms the new concept based on existing information. My proposal is that the effort to develop (design) and actually make the new product is what causes the brain to expand.
Your theory is: The effort to find a new concept doesn't need a new complex brain expansion, but building the new artifact does it! Backward, inside out illogical thought. Abstract envisioning of a new artifact and how to build it is the key step. Actually constructing it is the easy part. I know. I've designed and built things (sheds and barns). I've designed two homes; also two medical clinics, two dialysis units, two business offices and two x-ray departments as part of my work at my clinic, all accepted by the other doctors and the architects as having excellent traffic flow. The later construction was the easy part as blue-collar folks followed the instructions.
DAVID: I'll stick with what archaeologists present: Brains of a given size produce the artifacts found with them and are solely responsible for their appearance. No relation to past brains. And remember the resident soul is using the current brain.
dhw: Already covered earlier. The FIRST artefacts would have been the product(s) resulting from whatever concept(s) CAUSED the pre-sapiens brain to expand to sapiens size. There is no way anyone can possibly prove or disprove this, because an artefact can only exist once the brain has finished expanding through the effort to design and make it.
The bold is still your reversal theory of the series of events archaeologists appear to believe.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: […] if the present brain is built on the past brain, there is no reason to assume that its process of changing itself in response to new actions was reversed in the past by changing itself in anticipation of new actions.
DAVID: That can be your assumption, but it is not at all the same as our brain confining some new activity to a small enlarged area.
dhw: It is a theory, not an assumption, but you are dismissing it because you assume that the modern brain functions differently from the past brain. The similarity lies in the fact that in both cases there is expansion. We know that in the present, expansion is a response to requirements.
DAVID: My only point is our brain is a major advance over other brains, and may operate differently because it is so advanced. We do not know how Habilis and Erectus expanded, but we do know about a 150 cc shrink age of our brain as how to fully use it was learned from 315,000 years ago.
Nobody would deny that our brain is an advance, and yes it may operate differently. But there is no reason to assume that it does. Your final comment is irrelevant since it is the cause of pre-sapiens expansion that we are discussing!
Dhw (ignoring materialism for the sake of argument): I suggest that once the dualist’s brain has expanded, the dualist’s soul will continue to use it until the next point at which existing capacity is insufficient. Sapiens’ brain reaches capacity, and so the soul continues to use it for new concepts, but instead of overall expansion, there is now advanced complexification, minor expansion, and shrinkage caused by the efficiency of complexification.
DAVID: Good summary, especially the point about the shrinkage, despite the constant development of new concepts. There is no indication it requires any new enlargement. it appears to be totally adequate for the demands.
Of course sapiens’ brain doesn’t require new enlargement! Complexification has taken over from enlargement (except in small sections). We are discussing the CAUSE of enlargement (though I suggested earlier that in sapiens complexification took over in order to avoid the anatomical complications expansion might have caused).
DAVID: The problem is the innate ability for an existing underlying brain to accommodate the development of new concepts.
dhw: Precisely. And in the past, the existing underlying brain could not accommodate the development (i.e. the actual design and implementation of the new concept, not the conception itself) and therefore had to expand. You’ve got it!
DAVID: Precisely the opposite approach to mine.
Then why did you pinpoint the problem of the existing brain accommodating the development of new concepts. Your argument till now has always been that you don’t believe the existing brain (though as a dualist you should have said soul) could conceive the new concepts. It is my argument that it can’t develop them.
DAVID: Your theory is: The effort to find a new concept doesn't need a new complex brain expansion, but building the new artifact does it!
Not just building it, but working out the detailed design of something that has never been thought of before! What you called “abstract thinking”. In our modern examples (illiterates, taxi drivers, musicians, possibly Einstein) it is the mental effort that causes minor expansion. With our spear example it would be the mental effort plus instructions to the brain to get the body to give physical form to the concept (implementation).
DAVID: Backward, inside out illogical thought. Abstract envisioning of a new artifact and how to build it is the key step. Actually constructing it is the easy part. I know. I've designed and built things (sheds and barns). I've designed two homes; also two medical clinics, two dialysis units, two business offices and two x-ray departments as part of my work at my clinic, all accepted by the other doctors and the architects as having excellent traffic flow. The later construction was the easy part as blue-collar folks followed the instructions.
I have nothing but admiration for your extraordinary range of talents, but in designing and building, you were using existing information that would not have been available to the very first inventor of dialysis units and x-rays and even such things as doors and windows.
dhw: The FIRST artefacts would have been the product(s) resulting from whatever concept(s) CAUSED the pre-sapiens brain to expand to sapiens size. There is no way anyone can possibly prove or disprove this, because an artefact can only exist once the brain has finished expanding through the effort to design and make it.
DAVID: The bold is still your reversal theory of the series of events archaeologists appear to believe.
I’ve no idea what they believe. How many of them have specified that God expanded the pre-sapiens brain, and only then was it possible for the soul to conceive of a spear?
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 18, 2020, 18:52 (1493 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Your theory is: The effort to find a new concept doesn't need a new complex brain expansion, but building the new artifact does it!
dhw: Not just building it, but working out the detailed design of something that has never been thought of before! What you called “abstract thinking”. In our modern examples (illiterates, taxi drivers, musicians, possibly Einstein) it is the mental effort that causes minor expansion. With our spear example it would be the mental effort plus instructions to the brain to get the body to give physical form to the concept (implementation).
DAVID: Backward, inside out illogical thought. Abstract envisioning of a new artifact and how to build it is the key step. Actually constructing it is the easy part. I know. I've designed and built things (sheds and barns). I've designed two homes; also two medical clinics, two dialysis units, two business offices and two x-ray departments as part of my work at my clinic, all accepted by the other doctors and the architects as having excellent traffic flow. The later construction was the easy part as blue-collar folks followed the instructions.
dhw: I have nothing but admiration for your extraordinary range of talents, but in designing and building, you were using existing information that would not have been available to the very first inventor of dialysis units and x-rays and even such things as doors and windows.
Totally beside the point. At all stages of hominin, homo development, the new species used the inventions of the past in going forward with developments from what was presently known. The recent Erectus article shows that. ( Thursday, March 05, 2020, 21:40 ) By the way, as a resident in medicine at Western Reserve I worked with the inventor of the bathtub dialysis unit, and I literally made the dialysis solution in the tub mixing it with a broom handle!! No worry!! The blood came through separated. Compact units were developed 5-15 years later, based on his work and that of many others.
dhw: The FIRST artefacts would have been the product(s) resulting from whatever concept(s) CAUSED the pre-sapiens brain to expand to sapiens size. There is no way anyone can possibly prove or disprove this, because an artefact can only exist once the brain has finished expanding through the effort to design and make it.
Or, my opposite view, only the newly enlarged brain could develop the new concept/concepts and produce the artifact products.
DAVID: The bold is still your reversal theory of the series of events archaeologists appear to believe.dhw: I’ve no idea what they believe. How many of them have specified that God expanded the pre-sapiens brain, and only then was it possible for the soul to conceive of a spear?
My thoughts about their beliefs comes from how they produce and present their studies. God is never an issue.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: At all stages of hominin, homo development, the new species used the inventions of the past in going forward with developments from what was presently known.
Yes indeed. And so you have each new brain containing the past concepts which caused its expansion, but then in turn having to expand in order to develop (i.e. design and implement) its own new concepts.
dhw: The FIRST artefacts would have been the product(s) resulting from whatever concept(s) CAUSED the pre-sapiens brain to expand to sapiens size. There is no way anyone can possibly prove or disprove this, because an artefact can only exist once the brain has finished expanding through the effort to design and make it.
DAVID: Or, my opposite view, only the newly enlarged brain could develop the new concept/concepts and produce the artifact products.
I notice you again use the word “develop”. Good. You develop something which exists, and that means the concept existed before the enlargement. However, you, as a dualist, actually believe your God enlarged the brain before the soul was able to conceive the concept. But since the dualist’s soul only uses the brain to gather information and to make the concept real, this leaves you with the problem of explaining what new information the soul would gather before conceiving the concept. For example, existing information: me hungry – need to kill bison – close up might mean bison kill me...hum...New concept: Maybe me throw something sharp. What new information has required the expansion of the brain, since in your theory it is the soul that does the thinking?
DAVID: The bold is still your reversal theory of the series of events archaeologists appear to believe.
dhw: I’ve no idea what they believe. How many of them have specified that God expanded the pre-sapiens brain, and only then was it possible for the soul to conceive of a spear?
DAVID: My thoughts about their beliefs comes from how they produce and present their studies. God is never an issue.
Then what is their explanation for the brain’s expansion? If that is not an issue either, what theory do they appear to believe which reverses mine?
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Thursday, March 19, 2020, 19:04 (1492 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Or, my opposite view, only the newly enlarged brain could develop the new concept/concepts and produce the artifact products.
dhw: I notice you again use the word “develop”. Good. You develop something which exists, and that means the concept existed before the enlargement.
Weird. Where did the concept exist before its appearance in thought? Develop means discover the new concept from thought in a brain that has the capability of allowing the soul to think of it.
dhw: However, you, as a dualist, actually believe your God enlarged the brain before the soul was able to conceive the concept. But since the dualist’s soul only uses the brain to gather information and to make the concept real, this leaves you with the problem of explaining what new information the soul would gather before conceiving the concept.
Again weird discontinuous theorizing. the soul just doesn't just use the brain to gather information . The soul actually thinks up new concepts from recognized need and the information taken in by the brain under the soul's instruction.
dhw: For example, existing information: me hungry – need to kill bison – close up might mean bison kill me...hum...New concept: Maybe me throw something sharp. What new information has required the expansion of the brain, since in your theory it is the soul that does the thinking?
The new brain supplies all sorts of new information under the soul's direction.
DAVID: The bold is still your reversal theory of the series of events archaeologists appear to believe.dhw: I’ve no idea what they believe. How many of them have specified that God expanded the pre-sapiens brain, and only then was it possible for the soul to conceive of a spear?
DAVID: My thoughts about their beliefs comes from how they produce and present their studies. God is never an issue.
dhw: Then what is their explanation for the brain’s expansion? If that is not an issue either, what theory do they appear to believe which reverses mine?
Silly. They present artifacts as the result of the latest brain enlargement, nothing more. No past brains discussed.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: Or, my opposite view, only the newly enlarged brain could develop the new concept/concepts and produce the artifact products.
dhw: I notice you again use the word “develop”. Good. You develop something which exists, and that means the concept existed before the enlargement.
DAVID: Weird. Where did the concept exist before its appearance in thought? Develop means discover the new concept from thought in a brain that has the capability of allowing the soul to think of it.
It didn’t exist before its appearance in thought! The soul has used the brain to gather the information on which it bases the concept. Enlargement is only required in order to develop the concept which, in the case of artefacts, means providing more and more details of design and translating design into material reality.
DAVID: ….the soul just doesn't just use the brain to gather information. The soul actually thinks up new concepts from recognized need and the information taken in by the brain under the soul's instruction.
Yes, the soul thinks up new concepts from recognized, EXISTING needs, and it uses the EXISTING information taken in by the brain! It also goes on to use the brain in order to implement the concept. You are saying the same as me and pretending it’s different!
dhw: For example, existing information: me hungry – need to kill bison – close up might mean bison kill me...hum...New concept: Maybe me throw something sharp. What new information has required the expansion of the brain, since in your theory it is the soul that does the thinking?
DAVID: The new brain supplies all sorts of new information under the soul's direction.
Why don’t you answer my question? I have given you the information on which the concept is based. What new information is needed, and requires brain expansion, before the concept of “throwing something sharp” is conceived?
DAVID: The bold is still your reversal theory of the series of events archaeologists appear to believe.[…]
dhw: Then what is their explanation for the brain’s expansion? If that is not an issue either, what theory do they appear to believe which reverses mine?
DAVID: Silly. They present artifacts as the result of the latest brain enlargement, nothing more. No past brains discussed.
Nothing silly about it. My theory also presents the first artefacts as the result of brain enlargement, because the concept could not have been given material reality before the brain had enlarged itself. How does this represent a reversal of what archaeologists appear to believe?
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Friday, March 20, 2020, 19:55 (1491 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Weird. Where did the concept exist before its appearance in thought? Develop means discover the new concept from thought in a brain that has the capability of allowing the soul to think of it.
dhw: It didn’t exist before its appearance in thought! The soul has used the brain to gather the information on which it bases the concept. Enlargement is only required in order to develop the concept which, in the case of artefacts, means providing more and more details of design and translating design into material reality.
Have you ever built anything? My experience, which is all I go by, the initial design requires deep thought and study. Once the concept is an actual prepared design, the production is easy. All blue-collar work. You are entirely backwards.
DAVID: ….the soul just doesn't just use the brain to gather information. The soul actually thinks up new concepts from recognized need and the information taken in by the brain under the soul's instruction.dhw: Yes, the soul thinks up new concepts from recognized, EXISTING needs, and it uses the EXISTING information taken in by the brain! It also goes on to use the brain in order to implement the concept. You are saying the same as me and pretending it’s different!
Your problem is your concept of implementation. Construction is easy once you know what to do. American Indians had a bow and arrow, but no wheel. They could only produce what they could conceive of. They designed beautiful stone arrow heads as old Erectus did. I've seen many of them out West.
dhw: For example, existing information: me hungry – need to kill bison – close up might mean bison kill me...hum...New concept: Maybe me throw something sharp. What new information has required the expansion of the brain, since in your theory it is the soul that does the thinking?DAVID: The new brain supplies all sorts of new information under the soul's direction.
dhw: Why don’t you answer my question? I have given you the information on which the concept is based. What new information is needed, and requires brain expansion, before the concept of “throwing something sharp” is conceived?
I've told you what I have designed. With my expanded brain. My view is you have a backward concept of new designs.
DAVID: The bold is still your reversal theory of the series of events archaeologists appear to believe.[…]dhw: Then what is their explanation for the brain’s expansion? If that is not an issue either, what theory do they appear to believe which reverses mine?
DAVID: Silly. They present artifacts as the result of the latest brain enlargement, nothing more. No past brains discussed.
dhw: Nothing silly about it. My theory also presents the first artefacts as the result of brain enlargement, because the concept could not have been given material reality before the brain had enlarged itself. How does this represent a reversal of what archaeologists appear to believe?
It doesn't. You want the effort to make a conceived artifact as the way to enlarge the brain. That has never been my experience. Design first, difficult. Producing easy.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: It [the concept] didn’t exist before its appearance in thought! The soul has used the brain to gather the information on which it bases the concept. Enlargement is only required in order to develop the concept which, in the case of artefacts, means providing more and more details of design and translating design into material reality.
DAVID: Have you ever built anything? My experience, which is all I go by, the initial design requires deep thought and study. Once the concept is an actual prepared design, the production is easy. All blue-collar work. You are entirely backwards.
I have just said that development - as opposed to conception - of the concept means providing more and more details of design, and now you are telling me that design requires deep thought and study. Yes, that is why I am suggesting that the brain expanded! And maybe in the past it also expanded through having to cope with the material production of something that had never existed before. The modern brain complexifies (but expands in sections) AS A RESULT of thought and study.
DAVID: ...the soul just doesn't just use the brain to gather information. The soul actually thinks up new concepts from recognized need and the information taken in by the brain under the soul's instruction.
dhw: Yes, the soul thinks up new concepts from recognized, EXISTING needs, and it uses the EXISTING information taken in by the brain! It also goes on to use the brain in order to implement the concept. You are saying the same as me and pretending it’s different!
DAVID: Your problem is your concept of implementation. Construction is easy once you know what to do. American Indians had a bow and arrow, but no wheel. They could only produce what they could conceive of. They designed beautiful stone arrow heads as old Erectus did. I've seen many of them out West.
Your problem is your refusal to read what I write. Of course nobody can produce anything they cannot conceive of! But the concept arises from existing information, and it is the development or implementation that requires changes to the brain. I have illustrated this below, and can only assume that you refuse to answer my question because you cannot think of an answer:
dhw: For example, existing information: me hungry – need to kill bison – close up might mean bison kill me...hum...New concept: Maybe me throw something sharp. What new information has required the expansion of the brain, since in your theory it is the soul that does the thinking?
DAVID: The new brain supplies all sorts of new information under the soul's direction.
dhw: Why don’t you answer my question? I have given you the information on which the concept is based. What new information is needed, and requires brain expansion, before the concept of “throwing something sharp” is conceived?
DAVID: I've told you what I have designed. With my expanded brain. My view is you have a backward concept of new designs.
Yes, your modern brain finished expanding thousands of years ago. Now please answer my question: What new information do you think required the expansion of the pre-sapiens brain before the soul could come up with the concept of “maybe me throw something sharp”?
DAVID: You want the effort to make a conceived artifact as the way to enlarge the brain. That has never been my experience. Design first, difficult. Producing easy.
You have forgotten that the concept comes first. I say it is conceived by the existing brain (materialist) or soul (dualist) using existing information. You refuse to say why the brain has to expand before the brain/soul can conceive the concept. Design and production constitute the implementation of the concept.
Under "Earliest known civilization"
DAVID: Homo Sapiens appeared 315,000 years ago. A very slow mental development until the recent exponential growth. While the brain shrunk by 150 cc in the past 35,000 years as the brain/soul developed millions of new concepts. Concepts do not grow brains. Concepts are developed through the use of more complex brains.
Thank you for this fascinating article. What a pity you decided to use it for such a comment. Yet again: the controversy is what CAUSED EACH BRAIN EXPANSION. And yet again you refuse to distinguish between the conception and the development. My proposal is indeed that concepts do not grow brains. The concept arises in the existing brain. It is the implementation (design and manufacture of the artefact) that caused the pre-sapiens brain to expand. However, the sapiens brain marked the end of expansion, and so of course the brain/soul (materialist/dualist) conceived and developed all the new concepts, and it has shrunk because of the efficiency of complexification. There were long periods of stasis in between all the phases of brain expansion, and so the question is not why the mental development was slow, but why there was a sudden explosion of new concepts. Nothing to do with what caused all the expansions.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Saturday, March 21, 2020, 21:41 (1490 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Have you ever built anything? My experience, which is all I go by, the initial design requires deep thought and study. Once the concept is an actual prepared design, the production is easy. All blue-collar work. You are entirely backwards.
dhw: I have just said that development - as opposed to conception - of the concept means providing more and more details of design, and now you are telling me that design requires deep thought and study. Yes, that is why I am suggesting that the brain expanded! And maybe in the past it also expanded through having to cope with the material production of something that had never existed before. The modern brain complexifies (but expands in sections) AS A RESULT of thought and study.
All we know and can rely upon is our brain has small enlargements with special uses, and shrunk 150 cc with heavy use. I keep repeating, your bold is the easy part, in my actual experience..
DAVID: The new brain supplies all sorts of new information under the soul's direction.dhw: Why don’t you answer my question? I have given you the information on which the concept is based. What new information is needed, and requires brain expansion, before the concept of “throwing something sharp” is conceived?
The current brain at any stage of evolution always sees the information available. Conceiving of a new concept requires abstract thought in the design process. Killing at a distance requires throwing a stone tipped stick. That is always the hard work. Making it is easy but it requires a second invention, chipping the proper stones to get the best shape. All of these concepts developed over different times and were always used by latter stages of hominins. I have told you what I have designed. With my expanded brain. My view is you have a backward concept of new designs.[/i]
Yes, your modern brain finished expanding thousands of years ago. Now please answer my question: What new information do you think required the expansion of the pre-sapiens brain before the soul could come up with the concept of “maybe me throw something sharp”?DAVID: You want the effort to make a conceived artifact as the way to enlarge the brain. That has never been my experience. Design first, difficult. Producing easy.
dhw: You have forgotten that the concept comes first. I say it is conceived by the existing brain (materialist) or soul (dualist) using existing information. You refuse to say why the brain has to expand before the brain/soul can conceive the concept.
What???!! God expands the brain to allow the new complex abstract thought to appear through use by the soul.
Under "Earliest known civilization"DAVID: Homo Sapiens appeared 315,000 years ago. A very slow mental development until the recent exponential growth. While the brain shrunk by 150 cc in the past 35,000 years as the brain/soul developed millions of new concepts. Concepts do not grow brains. Concepts are developed through the use of more complex brains.
dhw: Thank you for this fascinating article. What a pity you decided to use it for such a comment. Yet again: the controversy is what CAUSED EACH BRAIN EXPANSION. And yet again you refuse to distinguish between the conception and the development. My proposal is indeed that concepts do not grow brains. The concept arises in the existing brain. It is the implementation (design and manufacture of the artefact) that caused the pre-sapiens brain to expand. However, the sapiens brain marked the end of expansion, and so of course the brain/soul (materialist/dualist) conceived and developed all the new concepts, and it has shrunk because of the efficiency of complexification. There were long periods of stasis in between all the phases of brain expansion, and so the question is not why the mental development was slow, but why there was a sudden explosion of new concepts. Nothing to do with what caused all the expansions.
Based on my own experience with our brain, I am sure your idea is exactly backwards. You theory would only work if previous brains worked for the soul and an entirely different way than it does now. Concept difficult, production easy.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: Have you ever built anything? My experience, which is all I go by, the initial design requires deep thought and study. Once the concept is an actual prepared design, the production is easy. All blue-collar work. You are entirely backwards.
dhw: I have just said that development - as opposed to conception - of the concept means providing more and more details of design, and now you are telling me that design requires deep thought and study. Yes, that is why I am suggesting that the brain expanded! And maybe in the past it also expanded through having to cope with the material production of something that had never existed before. The modern brain complexifies (but expands in sections) AS A RESULT of thought and study.(David’s bold)
DAVID: All we know and can rely upon is our brain has small enlargements with special uses, and shrunk 150 cc with heavy use. I keep repeating, your bold is the easy part, in my actual experience.
Why have you bolded production and ignored my reference to design? Yes, we know that the modern brain has small enlargements, and there is no reason to assume that ancient brains did not also enlarge with special uses. And for the hundredth time, I suggest that once the brain stopped expanding, complexification took over and was so efficient that it resulted in shrinkage. What is your explanation?
DAVID: The new brain supplies all sorts of new information under the soul's direction.
dhw: Why don’t you answer my question? I have given you the information on which the concept is based. What new information is needed, and requires brain expansion, before the concept of “throwing something sharp” is conceived?
DAVID: The current brain at any stage of evolution always sees the information available. Conceiving of a new concept requires abstract thought in the design process.
Precisely. The new concept arises out of the information available. Then the implementation of the concept through design and manufacture makes new demands on the brain, which in former times resulted in expansion.
DAVID: Killing at a distance requires throwing a stone tipped stick. That is always the hard work. Making it is easy but it requires a second invention, chipping the proper stones to get the best shape. All of these concepts developed over different times and were always used by latter stages of hominins. I have told you what I have designed. With my expanded brain. My view is you have a backward concept of new designs.
I know that is your view, and you still haven’t answered my question. The concept that arises out of need to avoid close contact with prey: “Maybe me throw something sharp.” What new information has the brain provided? From then on, the old brain has to form new connections in order to design and manufacture the artefact – hence expansion.
DAVID: You want the effort to make a conceived artifact as the way to enlarge the brain. That has never been my experience. Design first, difficult. Producing easy.
dhw: You have forgotten that the concept comes first. I say it is conceived by the existing brain (materialist) or soul (dualist) using existing information. You refuse to say why the brain has to expand before the brain/soul can conceive the concept.
DAVID: What???!! God expands the brain to allow the new complex abstract thought to appear through use by the soul.
Which new complex abstract thought – the concept, or the design of the concept? Once more: in your dualistic world, the soul uses the brain to gather information and to implement its concepts. The concept in our example is to kill prey by throwing a sharp artefact from a distance. This is an abstract thought arising solely from the information that already exists. Once the dualist’s soul has conceived the concept, it uses the brain to design and manufacture the artefact. Why do you insist that your God had to expand the brain before the hunter could extrapolate his concept from existing information?
DAVID: Based on my own experience with our brain, I am sure your idea is exactly backwards. You theory would only work if previous brains worked for the soul and an entirely different way than it does now. Concept difficult, production easy.
Why do you continue to ignore the development from concept to design? And why do you insist that the complexification and limited expansion of the modern brain (which has finished expanding for whatever reason, though I suggest anatomical practicality) constitutes an entirely different way of working compared to limited complexification and greater expansion at a time when brains were considerably smaller than they are now and therefore did not have the capacity to design and manufacture certain new concepts?
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Sunday, March 22, 2020, 18:06 (1489 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I have just said that development - as opposed to conception - of the concept means providing more and more details of design, and now you are telling me that design requires deep thought and study. Yes, that is why I am suggesting that the brain expanded! And maybe in the past it also expanded through having to cope with the material production of something that had never existed before. The modern brain complexifies (but expands in sections) AS A RESULT of thought and study.(David’s bold)
DAVID: All we know and can rely upon is our brain has small enlargements with special uses, and shrunk 150 cc with heavy use. I keep repeating, your bold is the easy part, in my actual experience.
dhw: Why have you bolded production and ignored my reference to design?
Because, to repeat, I have the actual experience that once a design (concept) is created production is the easy part.
dhw: I suggest that once the brain stopped expanding, complexification took over and was so efficient that it resulted in shrinkage. What is your explanation?]
Of course, the same.
DAVID: The current brain at any stage of evolution always sees the information available. Conceiving of a new concept requires abstract thought in the design process.
dhw: Precisely. The new concept arises out of the information available. Then the implementation of the concept through design and manufacture makes new demands on the brain, which in former times resulted in expansion.
Why do you think implementation is so difficult?
DAVID: You want the effort to make a conceived artifact as the way to enlarge the brain. That has never been my experience. Design first, difficult. Producing easy.dhw: You have forgotten that the concept comes first. I say it is conceived by the existing brain (materialist) or soul (dualist) using existing information. You refuse to say why the brain has to expand before the brain/soul can conceive the concept.
DAVID: What???!! God expands the brain to allow the new complex abstract thought to appear through use by the soul.
dhw: Which new complex abstract thought – the concept, or the design of the concept? Once more: in your dualistic world, the soul uses the brain to gather information and to implement its concepts. The concept in our example is to kill prey by throwing a sharp artefact from a distance. This is an abstract thought arising solely from the information that already exists. Once the dualist’s soul has conceived the concept, it uses the brain to design and manufacture the artefact. Why do you insist that your God had to expand the brain before the hunter could extrapolate his concept from existing information?
Because every enlarged brained fossil species has new artifacts found with it. Logically, they thought of it and created it .
DAVID: Based on my own experience with our brain, I am sure your idea is exactly backwards. You theory would only work if previous brains worked for the soul and an entirely different way than it does now. Concept difficult, production easy.dhw: Why do you continue to ignore the development from concept to design?
I've not ignored it. I've explained what I have designed. I'm sure you have understood my concept that design is the tough part and producing the product much easier.
dhw: And why do you insist that the complexification and limited expansion of the modern brain (which has finished expanding for whatever reason, though I suggest anatomical practicality) constitutes an entirely different way of working compared to limited complexification and greater expansion at a time when brains were considerably smaller than they are now and therefore did not have the capacity to design and manufacture certain new concepts?
We can only study how our brain works. We are all stuck with the fact that larger brained fossil designed and made the new artifact, as above. You theory reverses the simple logicical conclusion.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: Why have you bolded production and ignored my reference to design?
DAVID: Because, to repeat, I have the actual experience that once a design (concept) is created production is the easy part.
You continue to ignore the distinction between concept and design. I can do no more than repeat what I wrote yesterday in bold:
"Which new complex abstract thought – the concept, or the design of the concept? Once more: in your dualistic world, the soul uses the brain to gather information and to implement its concepts. The concept in our example is to kill prey by throwing a sharp artefact from a distance. This is an abstract thought arising solely from the information that already exists. Once the dualist’s soul has conceived the concept, it uses the brain to design and manufacture the artefact.
DAVID: The current brain at any stage of evolution always sees the information available. Conceiving of a new concept requires abstract thought in the design process.
dhw: Precisely. The new concept arises out of the information available. Then the implementation of the concept through design and manufacture makes new demands on the brain, which in former times resulted in expansion.
DAVID: Why do you think implementation is so difficult?
You keep saying that design is the difficult bit, and then you totally ignore my repeated definition of implementation as design and manufacture!
dhw Why do you insist that your God had to expand the brain before the hunter could extrapolate his concept from existing information?
DAVID: Because every enlarged brained fossil species has new artifacts found with it. Logically, they thought of it and created it.
And I keep emphasizing that it is the first artefacts which will have demanded the expansion of the brain, and only when the brain had expanded could the artefact have become real. All subsequent artefacts would have been conceived, designed and manufactured using the same sized sized brain, until the next time a concept demanded greater capacity.
dhw: And why do you insist that the complexification and limited expansion of the modern brain (which has finished expanding for whatever reason, though I suggest anatomical practicality) constitutes an entirely different way of working compared to limited complexification and greater expansion at a time when brains were considerably smaller than they are now and therefore did not have the capacity to design and manufacture certain new concepts?
DAVID: We can only study how our brain works. We are all stuck with the fact that larger brained fossil designed and made the new artifact, as above. You theory reverses the simple logical conclusion.
Yes, our only evidence is the way the modern brain works: and it complexifies or partially expands as a result of new tasks, not in anticipation of them. Why should this have been different in the past? And yet again you have ignored the concept and jumped straight to the design, which is why I keep asking what new information was required before my homo thought to himself: “Maybe me throw something sharp.” Please stop evading the question.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Monday, March 23, 2020, 19:52 (1488 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: You continue to ignore the distinction between concept and design. I can do no more than repeat what I wrote yesterday in bold:
"Which new complex abstract thought – the concept, or the design of the concept? Once more: in your dualistic world, the soul uses the brain to gather information and to implement its concepts. The concept in our example is to kill prey by throwing a sharp artefact from a distance. This is an abstract thought arising solely from the information that already exists. Once the dualist’s soul has conceived the concept, it uses the brain to design and manufacture the artefact.
We both agree design first and then implement after. Design is immaterial concept taken from knowledge of what is needed. Once the concept of the design is understood, the implementation is blue-collar work, not difficult
DAVID: The current brain at any stage of evolution always sees the information available. Conceiving of a new concept requires abstract thought in the design process.dhw: Precisely. The new concept arises out of the information available. Then the implementation of the concept through design and manufacture makes new demands on the brain, which in former times resulted in expansion.
DAVID: Why do you think implementation is so difficult?
dhw: You keep saying that design is the difficult bit, and then you totally ignore my repeated definition of implementation as design and manufacture!
Based on my own experiences, as described, implementation is easy.
dhw Why do you insist that your God had to expand the brain before the hunter could extrapolate his concept from existing information?DAVID: Because every enlarged brained fossil species has new artifacts found with it. Logically, they thought of it and created it.
dhw: And I keep emphasizing that it is the first artefacts which will have demanded the expansion of the brain, and only when the brain had expanded could the artefact have become real. All subsequent artefacts would have been conceived, designed and manufactured using the same sized sized brain, until the next time a concept demanded greater capacity.
And it is logical to assume the newly existing fossils made the newly existing artifacts and as shown previously still use the old artifacts from previous forms. Larger brain always needed first.
DAVID: We can only study how our brain works. We are all stuck with the fact that larger brained fossil designed and made the new artifacts, as above. You theory reverses the simple logical conclusion.dhw: Yes, our only evidence is the way the modern brain works: and it complexifies or partially expands as a result of new tasks, not in anticipation of them. Why should this have been different in the past? And yet again you have ignored the concept and jumped straight to the design, which is why I keep asking what new information was required before my homo thought to himself: “Maybe me throw something sharp.” Please stop evading the question.
I have evaded nothing. See above. The early homo must realize, as Chimps do now that throwing stones works to damage at a distance. Throwing a wooden staff will do the same, but a napped sharp stone on the end of the staff will do the most damage. Early homos had sharped stones for scraping hides before the spear. The concept requires abstract thought to combine the two. The rest, the implementation is not difficult once the design idea is present. The bow and arrow is a bit more difficult, because trial and error will make them realize a feathered arrow tail is needed for accuracy. With the full concept of arrow finally conceived, the rest is easy to make. Design is always conceptual and immaterial. Making the design is manual work.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: You continue to ignore the distinction between concept and design. I can do no more than repeat what I wrote yesterday in bold:
"Which new complex abstract thought – the concept, or the design of the concept? Once more: in your dualistic world, the soul uses the brain to gather information and to implement its concepts. The concept in our example is to kill prey by throwing a sharp artefact from a distance. This is an abstract thought arising solely from the information that already exists. Once the dualist’s soul has conceived the concept, it uses the brain to design and manufacture the artefact.
DAVID: We both agree design first and then implement after. Design is immaterial concept taken from knowledge of what is needed. Once the concept of the design is understood, the implementation is blue-collar work, not difficult.
We do not agree because you keep refusing to acknowledge that there is a development from the initial concept to the design and material production of the artefact: from “me throw something sharp” to “me design and make artefact no one ever designed or made before.”
dhw: And I keep emphasizing that it is the first artefacts which will have demanded the expansion of the brain, and only when the brain had expanded could the artefact have become real. All subsequent artefacts would have been conceived, designed and manufactured using the same sized sized brain, until the next time a concept demanded greater capacity.
DAVID: And it is logical to assume the newly existing fossils made the newly existing artifacts and as shown previously still use the old artifacts from previous forms. Larger brain always needed first.
It is impossible to know whether the larger brain preceded the design and making of the first artefact or was caused by it – the result would be the same: simultaneous appearance of larger brain and first artefact.
dhw: I keep asking what new information was required before my homo thought to himself: “Maybe me throw something sharp.” Please stop evading the question.
DAVID: I have evaded nothing. See above. The early homo must realize, as Chimps do now that throwing stones works to damage at a distance. Throwing a wooden staff will do the same, but a napped sharp stone on the end of the staff will do the most damage. Early homos had sharped stones for scraping hides before the spear. The concept requires abstract thought to combine the two. The rest, the implementation is not difficult once the design idea is present. The bow and arrow is a bit more difficult, because trial and error will make them realize a feathered arrow tail is needed for accuracy. With the full concept of arrow finally conceived, the rest is easy to make. Design is always conceptual and immaterial. Making the design is manual work.
Over and over and over again, you refuse to acknowledge the development from concept to design. Of course they are both conceptual and immaterial, but the whole point of my theory is that the original idea – in your new example: “maybe throw spear better with bendy branch and something hold bendy branch before unbend…” – arises in the pre-expanded brain out of existing information (existing spear, existing desire to "throw" further than at present), and then has to be developed through design and production. New and intense mental effort is required to turn the initial concept into material reality through design and manual work. We know from all our studies of the brain that mental effort CAUSES changes to the brain. (The examples are meant only to illustrate the process, not to pinpoint the exact cause of each and every expansion.)
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 24, 2020, 18:27 (1487 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: We both agree design first and then implement after. Design is immaterial concept taken from knowledge of what is needed. Once the concept of the design is understood, the implementation is blue-collar work, not difficult.
dhw: We do not agree because you keep refusing to acknowledge that there is a development from the initial concept to the design and material production of the artefact: from “me throw something sharp” to “me design and make artefact no one ever designed or made before.”
Not in my personal experience. The initial step is the conceptual recognition of the need for new artifact and the immaterial development of the concept of the necessary design. All requires a degree of mental complexity. Once the design is recognized the rest is hand work to produce. In Edison's case some degree of trial and error also was employed
dhw: It is impossible to know whether the larger brain preceded the design and making of the first artefact or was caused by it – the result would be the same: simultaneous appearance of larger brain and first artifact.
What is logical is the bigger brained produced the newer more complex artifact as archaeologists present their studies.
dhw: I keep asking what new information was required before my homo thought to himself: “Maybe me throw something sharp.” Please stop evading the question.DAVID: I have evaded nothing. See above. The early homo must realize, as Chimps do now that throwing stones works to damage at a distance. Throwing a wooden staff will do the same, but a napped sharp stone on the end of the staff will do the most damage. Early homos had sharped stones for scraping hides before the spear. The concept requires abstract thought to combine the two. The rest, the implementation is not difficult once the design idea is present. The bow and arrow is a bit more difficult, because trial and error will make them realize a feathered arrow tail is needed for accuracy. With the full concept of arrow finally conceived, the rest is easy to make. Design is always conceptual and immaterial. Making the design is manual work.
dhw: Over and over and over again, you refuse to acknowledge the development from concept to design. Of course they are both conceptual and immaterial, but the whole point of my theory is that the original idea – in your new example: “maybe throw spear better with bendy branch and something hold bendy branch before unbend…” – arises in the pre-expanded brain out of existing information (existing spear, existing desire to "throw" further than at present), and then has to be developed through design and production. New and intense mental effort is required to turn the initial concept into material reality through design and manual work. We know from all our studies of the brain that mental effort CAUSES changes to the brain. (The examples are meant only to illustrate the process, not to pinpoint the exact cause of each and every expansion.)
As is obvious I totally disagree with your theory. I believe your bolded sentence I created all occurs in the larger brain. What made the brain larger was God at each stage of 200 cc bigger..
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: We do not agree because you keep refusing to acknowledge that there is a development from the initial concept to the design and material production of the artefact: from “me throw something sharp” to “me design and make artefact no one ever designed or made before.”
DAVID: Not in my personal experience. The initial step is the conceptual recognition of the need for new artifact and the immaterial development of the concept of the necessary design. All requires a degree of mental complexity. Once the design is recognized the rest is hand work to produce. In Edison's case some degree of trial and error also was employed.
So when in this process do you think your God stepped in to enlarge the brain? According to me, it is small-brained homo who recognizes the need and thinks to himself “Maybe me throw something sharp”. THAT is the initial concept. THEN come design and “hand work” which together require and create a greater capacity. You have your God stepping in before the small-brained homo even recognizes the need for a new artefact. I find your view doubly surprising in the light of your dualism, in which it is the soul and not the brain that creates concepts. You agree that the soul uses the brain to gather information and to turn abstract concepts into real artefacts by design and “hand work”. And so I keep asking you what new information the enlarged brain could have provided to spark off the initial concept of “Maybe me throw something sharp”. Your answers so far have simply avoided the question.
dhw: It is impossible to know whether the larger brain preceded the design and making of the first artefact or was caused by it – the result would be the same: simultaneous appearance of larger brain and first artifact.
DAVID: What is logical is the bigger brained produced the newer more complex artifact as archaeologists present their studies.
You have agreed that archaeologists do not speculate on what caused the expansion of the brain, and in any case all except the very first artefacts would indeed have been conceived and produced by the larger brain (materialism). Your comment simply ignores my own in relation to the first artefacts: there is no way of knowing, so please don’t pretend that one explanation is more logical than the other.
Dhw: […] New and intense mental effort is required to turn the initial concept into material reality through design and manual work. We know from all our studies of the brain that mental effort CAUSES changes to the brain. (The examples are meant only to illustrate the process, not to pinpoint the exact cause of each and every expansion.)[/i]
DAVID: As is obvious I totally disagree with your theory. I believe your bolded sentence I created all occurs in the larger brain. What made the brain larger was God at each stage of 200 cc bigger.
I know you disagree with it, and I know you think God expanded the brain before the homo was able to realize that he needed a better weapon. You also believe that there is a soul that does all the thinking and uses the brain to gather information, but this realization was based only on information already available to the smaller-brained ancestor, so how could the larger brain have given the soul a new idea if it did not provide any new information? You also claim that the new and intense mental effort does not occur until the brain has already expanded, but the only process we actually know of is that the brain changes as a result of mental effort (illiterate women, taxi drivers) and also physical effort (musicians), not in advance of it. You have even illustrated this today under “examples of plasticity”:
QUOTE: “Professional violinists practice these movements for hours each day. "This has a consequence on the physical arrangement of the connections in their brains, because movements of the fingers are controlled by a specific brain area. In professional violinists, the area expands….” (dhw's bold)
Why should we believe that the process was reversed in earlier homos, i.e. expansion first, then new concepts and new tasks?
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 25, 2020, 18:40 (1486 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Not in my personal experience. The initial step is the conceptual recognition of the need for new artifact and the immaterial development of the concept of the necessary design. All requires a degree of mental complexity. Once the design is recognized the rest is hand work to produce. In Edison's case some degree of trial and error also was employed.
dhw: You have your God stepping in before the small-brained homo even recognizes the need for a new artefact. I find your view doubly surprising in the light of your dualism, in which it is the soul and not the brain that creates concepts.
Sorry I forgot I must always mention the soul uses the new complex brain. God enlarges the brain every time as He runs evolution.
dhw: You agree that the soul uses the brain to gather information and to turn abstract concepts into real artefacts by design and “hand work”. And so I keep asking you what new information the enlarged brain could have provided to spark off the initial concept of “Maybe me throw something sharp”. Your answers so far have simply avoided the question.
I've avoided nothing, but it seems your mind does not recognize my answers. The God-enlarged more complex brain does all the job, showing the soul all the current necessary info and allows the soul to conjure up the new design, how to construct it and instructs the hands and eyes to do the fairly simple construction work.
dhw: It is impossible to know whether the larger brain preceded the design and making of the first artefact or was caused by it – the result would be the same: simultaneous appearance of larger brain and first artifact.DAVID: What is logical is the bigger brained produced the newer more complex artifact as archaeologists present their studies.
dhw: You have agreed that archaeologists do not speculate on what caused the expansion of the brain, and in any case all except the very first artefacts would indeed have been conceived and produced by the larger brain (materialism). Your comment simply ignores my own in relation to the first artefacts: there is no way of knowing, so please don’t pretend that one explanation is more logical than the other.
That they don't speculate is no reason to ignore they way they present their findings.
DAVID: As is obvious I totally disagree with your theory. I believe your bolded sentence I created all occurs in the larger brain. What made the brain larger was God at each stage of 200 cc bigger.
dhw: I know you disagree with it, and I know you think God expanded the brain before the homo was able to realize that he needed a better weapon. You also believe that there is a soul that does all the thinking and uses the brain to gather information, but this realization was based only on information already available to the smaller-brained ancestor, so how could the larger brain have given the soul a new idea if it did not provide any new information?
As above, of course the bigger brain knew the past as in the erectus study and provided the soul with the complexity to create advanced artifacts: (Thursday, March 05, 2020, 21:40)
dhw: You also claim that the new and intense mental effort does not occur until the brain has already expanded, but the only process we actually know of is that the brain changes as a result of mental effort (illiterate women, taxi drivers) and also physical effort (musicians), not in advance of it. You have even illustrated this today under “examples of plasticity”:
QUOTE: “Professional violinists practice these movements for hours each day. "This has a consequence on the physical arrangement of the connections in their brains, because movements of the fingers are controlled by a specific brain area. In professional violinists, the area expands….” (dhw's bold)Why should we believe that the process was reversed in earlier homos, i.e. expansion first, then new concepts and new tasks?
Since you and I accept common descent, my logical assumption is that the early hominin/homo brains brains did expand tiny areas as the current brain does. What you constantly seem to forget is that the H. sapiens brain arrived 315,000 years ago, filled with past knowledge and then gradually developed our current knowledge and uses, language 50-70,000 years ago recruiting cerebellar connections in the process. That does not fit your theories which are counter to my belief God did in all in advance. You won't use God. I do
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: You agree that the soul uses the brain to gather information and to turn abstract concepts into real artefacts by design and “hand work”. And so I keep asking you what new information the enlarged brain could have provided to spark off the initial concept of “Maybe me throw something sharp”.
DAVID: …it seems your mind does not recognize my answers. The God-enlarged more complex brain does all the job, showing the soul all the current necessary info and allows the soul to conjure up the new design, how to construct it and instructs the hands and eyes to do the fairly simple construction work.
Yet again you try to gloss over the fact that there are THREE stages, of which the first – which you always try to omit - is a concept that arises solely out of EXISTING information: hunter, bison, danger from close-quarter killing. Out of this comes the new idea – kill by throwing something sharp. From then on, in your dualistic version, the soul and brain will work together as you describe, designing and constructing, and in my theory it is THIS combined effort which causes the brain to expand. In your theory the brain had ALREADY expanded before that initial concept was conceived. So what role did the brain play in the soul’s conceiving the new concept, which arose solely out of EXISTING information? None. Therefore no need for expansion until the concept exists and presents the soul and brain with new tasks.
DAVID: What is logical is the bigger brained produced the newer more complex artifact as archaeologists present their studies.
dhw: You have agreed that archaeologists do not speculate on what caused the expansion of the brain, and in any case all except the very first artefacts would indeed have been conceived and produced by the larger brain (materialism). Your comment simply ignores my own in relation to the first artefacts: there is no way of knowing, so please don’t pretend that one explanation is more logical than the other.
DAVID: That they don't speculate is no reason to ignore the way they present their findings.
They present their findings without any reference to the reason for expansion.
Dhw: …how could the larger brain have given the soul a new idea if it did not provide any new information?
DAVID: As above, of course the bigger brain knew the past as in the erectus study and provided the soul with the complexity to create advanced artifacts: (Thursday, March 05, 2020, 21:40)
The question is why the smaller brain expanded! Each smaller brain would have known the past and would have continued to create more advanced artefacts until its capacity was once more exceeded by another new concept. Then it would have needed to expand again.
QUOTE: “Professional violinists practice these movements for hours each day. "This has a consequence on the physical arrangement of the connections in their brains, because movements of the fingers are controlled by a specific brain area. In professional violinists, the area expands….” (dhw's bold)
dhw: Why should we believe that the process was reversed in earlier homos, i.e. expansion first, then new concepts and new tasks?
DAVID: Since you and I accept common descent, my logical assumption is that the early hominin/homo brains brains did expand tiny areas as the current brain does.
Our brains still expand in tiny areas as a result of mental and physical activities. It is therefore logical to suppose that in the past, when there was room for overall expansion, the same process took place.
DAVID: What you constantly seem to forget is that the H. sapiens brain arrived 315,000 years ago, filled with past knowledge and then gradually developed our current knowledge and uses, language 50-70,000 years ago recruiting cerebellar connections in the process.
You don’t need to go through the history of civilization AFTER the pre-sapiens brain had expanded! The question is why the brain expanded in the first place.
DAVID: That does not fit your theories which are counter to my belief God did in all in advance. You won't use God. I do.
If God exists, I can “use” him in far more logical ways than preprogramming/dabbling bigger brains, whales’ flippers and transverse arches before they are needed. Your next quote shows you have missed the point of our discussion:
DAVID: The studies always equate the artifacts with the current folks:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/archaeology/new-clues-to-new-guinea-s-past?utm_source=Cosmos...
QUOTE: "Artefacts uncovered in the highlands of what is now Papua New Guinea (PNG) reveal a shift in human behaviour between 5050 and 4200 years ago in response to the widespread emergence of agriculture, ushering in a regional era similar to the Neolithic in Eurasia."
DAVID: humans use what they are taught and what they teach themselves to do.
The article describes developments after the brain had expanded to current sapiens size! Of course they use what they are taught and what they teach themselves and of course the artefacts appear after the expansion of the brain. You have simply forgotten what we are discussing: WHAT CAUSED BRAINS TO EXPAND? And I keep repeating that it is the first artefacts produced by the new species that will have caused the expansion. All later artefacts will have been made when the brain had already expanded.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Thursday, March 26, 2020, 22:27 (1485 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: …it seems your mind does not recognize my answers. The God-enlarged more complex brain does all the job, showing the soul all the current necessary info and allows the soul to conjure up the new design, how to construct it and instructs the hands and eyes to do the fairly simple construction work.
dhw: Yet again you try to gloss over the fact that there are THREE stages, of which the first – which you always try to omit - is a concept that arises solely out of EXISTING information: hunter, bison, danger from close-quarter killing. Out of this comes the new idea – kill by throwing something sharp. From then on, in your dualistic version, the soul and brain will work together as you describe, designing and constructing, and in my theory it is THIS combined effort which causes the brain to expand. In your theory the brain had ALREADY expanded before that initial concept was conceived. So what role did the brain play in the soul’s conceiving the new concept, which arose solely out of EXISTING information? None. Therefore no need for expansion until the concept exists and presents the soul and brain with new tasks.
Totally twisted interpretation: of course the existing brain/soul know the exiting information, but the new concept is an immaterial new idea of how to kill with staff and stone tip. It has to be conceived immaterially and made manually. I don't know where three stages come from or how multiplying the number of stages forces a brain to enlarged.
Dhw: …how could the larger brain have given the soul a new idea if it did not provide any new information?DAVID: As above, of course the bigger brain knew the past as in the erectus study and provided the soul with the complexity to create advanced artifacts: (Thursday, March 05, 2020, 21:40)
dhw: The question is why the smaller brain expanded! Each smaller brain would have known the past and would have continued to create more advanced artefacts until its capacity was once more exceeded by another new concept. Then it would have needed to expand again.
We don't know that your 'needy' brain can expand itself!
dhw: Our brains still expand in tiny areas as a result of mental and physical activities. It is therefore logical to suppose that in the past, when there was room for overall expansion, the same process took place.
DAVID: What you constantly seem to forget is that the H. sapiens brain arrived 315,000 years ago, filled with past knowledge and then gradually developed our current knowledge and uses, language 50-70,000 years ago recruiting cerebellar connections in the process.
dhw: You don’t need to go through the history of civilization AFTER the pre-sapiens brain had expanded! The question is why the brain expanded in the first place.
We each have our pet answers
DAVID: That does not fit your theories which are counter to my belief God did in all in advance. You won't use God. I do.dhw: If God exists, I can “use” him in far more logical ways than preprogramming/dabbling bigger brains, whales’ flippers and transverse arches before they are needed. Your next quote shows you have missed the point of our discussion:
I know our point of discussion. What makes bigger brains. I'm arguing at your non-god natural level, but my 'always' choice is God enlarged them.
DAVID: The studies always equate the artifacts with the current folks:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/archaeology/new-clues-to-new-guinea-s-past?utm_source=Cosmos...QUOTE: "Artefacts uncovered in the highlands of what is now Papua New Guinea (PNG) reveal a shift in human behaviour between 5050 and 4200 years ago in response to the widespread emergence of agriculture, ushering in a regional era similar to the Neolithic in Eurasia."
DAVID: humans use what they are taught and what they teach themselves to do.
dhw: The article describes developments after the brain had expanded to current sapiens size! Of course they use what they are taught and what they teach themselves and of course the artefacts appear after the expansion of the brain. You have simply forgotten what we are discussing: WHAT CAUSED BRAINS TO EXPAND? And I keep repeating that it is the first artefacts produced by the new species that will have caused the expansion. All later artefacts will have been made when the brain had already expanded.
And I think your multiple stages of discovery and thought, discovery and thought cannot force a whole brain to expand naturally.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: …it seems your mind does not recognize my answers. The God-enlarged more complex brain does all the job, showing the soul all the current necessary info and allows the soul to conjure up the new design, how to construct it and instructs the hands and eyes to do the fairly simple construction work.
dhw: Yet again you try to gloss over the fact that there are THREE stages, of which the first – which you always try to omit - is a concept that arises solely out of EXISTING information: hunter, bison, danger from close-quarter killing. Out of this comes the new idea – kill by throwing something sharp. From then on, in your dualistic version, the soul and brain will work together as you describe, designing and constructing, and in my theory it is THIS combined effort which causes the brain to expand. In your theory the brain had ALREADY expanded before that initial concept was conceived. So what role did the brain play in the soul’s conceiving the new concept, which arose solely out of EXISTING information? None. Therefore no need for expansion until the concept exists and presents the soul and brain with new tasks.
DAVID: Totally twisted interpretation: of course the existing brain/soul know the exiting information, but the new concept is an immaterial new idea of how to kill with staff and stone tip. It has to be conceived immaterially and made manually. I don't know where three stages come from or how multiplying the number of stages forces a brain to enlarged.
I don’t know how else I can explain it, but I’ll try using illiteracy as an analogy, though this only has two stages as it does not require material production. X is illiterate and has the abstract idea that he wants to learn to read. Y is a hunter and has the abstract idea that hunting would be less dangerous if he could kill the bison from a distance by throwing something. They both want to do something they have never done before. That is the first stage, and at this stage there is no change to the brain. What changes X’s brain is the effort to read. Case proven. In my theory, what changes Y’s brain is the effort to design and make the means of killing from a distance. In both cases, the brain only changes AS A RESULT of the effort to fulfil the desire. According to your theory, the brain must change BEFORE it can have the initial desire to implement a concept. NB This is an analogy. Nobody knows why the brain expanded, but we know that the modern brain changes (complexifies or expands in certain areas) because of the effort to perform new tasks. It is therefore perfectly logical to propose that past brains worked in the same way.
dhw: Each smaller brain would have known the past and would have continued to create more advanced artefacts until its capacity was once more exceeded by another new concept. Then it would have needed to expand again.
DAVID: We don't know that your 'needy' brain can expand itself!
But we do know that the ‘needy’ brain can complexify itself and can expand in restricted areas. Or do you think your God is constantly fiddling with all our brains? If there was room in the past for it to expand as a whole, it is not unreasonable to propose that that is what it did.
DAVID: That does not fit your theories which are counter to my belief God did in all in advance. You won't use God. I do.
dhw: If God exists, I can “use” him in far more logical ways than preprogramming/dabbling bigger brains, whales’ flippers and transverse arches before they are needed. Your next quote shows you have missed the point of our discussion:
DAVID: I know our point of discussion. What makes bigger brains. I'm arguing at your non-god natural level, but my 'always' choice is God enlarged them.
You are not even arguing at my level, because you simply want to ignore the evidence provided by the modern brain, which changes "naturally". And please remember that my level does not exclude God. It simply excludes your fixed belief that your God could not have set up a mechanism to enable evolution to go on “naturally” without his preprogramming or dabbling every single development throughout its whole history.
DAVID: The studies always equate the artifacts with the current folks:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/archaeology/new-clues-to-new-guinea-s-past?utm_source=Cosmos...
dhw: The article describes developments after the brain had expanded to current sapiens size! Of course [...] the artefacts appear after the expansion of the brain. You have simply forgotten what we are discussing: WHAT CAUSED BRAINS TO EXPAND? And I keep repeating that it is the first artefacts produced by the new species that will have caused the expansion. All later artefacts will have been made when the brain had already expanded.
DAVID: And I think your multiple stages of discovery and thought, discovery and thought cannot force a whole brain to expand naturally.
And for the last time today: Modern brains naturally complexify and/or expand in restricted areas as a result of performing certain tasks. There is no reason to suppose that ancient brains did not do the same.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Friday, March 27, 2020, 18:48 (1484 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Friday, March 27, 2020, 18:53
DAVID: Totally twisted interpretation: of course the existing brain/soul know the exiting information, but the new concept is an immaterial new idea of how to kill with staff and stone tip. It has to be conceived immaterially and made manually. I don't know where three stages come from or how multiplying the number of stages forces a brain to enlarged.
dhw: I don’t know how else I can explain it, but I’ll try using illiteracy as an analogy, though this only has two stages as it does not require material production. X is illiterate and has the abstract idea that he wants to learn to read. Y is a hunter and has the abstract idea that hunting would be less dangerous if he could kill the bison from a distance by throwing something. They both want to do something they have never done before. That is the first stage, and at this stage there is no change to the brain. What changes X’s brain is the effort to read. Case proven. In my theory, what changes Y’s brain is the effort to design and make the means of killing from a distance. In both cases, the brain only changes AS A RESULT of the effort to fulfil the desire. According to your theory, the brain must change BEFORE it can have the initial desire to implement a concept. NB This is an analogy. Nobody knows why the brain expanded, but we know that the modern brain changes (complexifies or expands in certain areas) because of the effort to perform new tasks. It is therefore perfectly logical to propose that past brains worked in the same way.
dhw: Each smaller brain would have known the past and would have continued to create more advanced artefacts until its capacity was once more exceeded by another new concept. Then it would have needed to expand again.
As below all you imply is a recognized need for a new concept forces the brain to expand:
DAVID: We don't know that your 'needy' brain can expand itself!dhw: But we do know that the ‘needy’ brain can complexify itself and can expand in restricted areas. Or do you think your God is constantly fiddling with all our brains? If there was room in the past for it to expand as a whole, it is not unreasonable to propose that that is what it did.
We have a current need for a real string theory like theory that works and to understand quantum theory. The greatest advance was Einstein over a century ago, with a tiny part of the brain enlarged one centimeter thicker. Proves giant jump in size unnecessary.
DAVID: I know our point of discussion. What makes bigger brains. I'm arguing at your non-god natural level, but my 'always' choice is God enlarged them.dhw: You are not even arguing at my level, because you simply want to ignore the evidence provided by the modern brain, which changes "naturally". And please remember that my level does not exclude God. It simply excludes your fixed belief that your God could not have set up a mechanism to enable evolution to go on “naturally” without his preprogramming or dabbling every single development throughout its whole history.
I don't avoid modern evidence as in Einstein above. My God, as I think of Him is much too purposeful to do that. he runs the show completely. You humanized God is God-lite as usual. God has given all forms epigenetics for minor modifications of existing species, but no evidence of anything more.
DAVID: The studies always equate the artifacts with the current folks:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/archaeology/new-clues-to-new-guinea-s-past?utm_source=Cosmos...dhw: The article describes developments after the brain had expanded to current sapiens size! Of course [...] the artefacts appear after the expansion of the brain. You have simply forgotten what we are discussing: WHAT CAUSED BRAINS TO EXPAND? And I keep repeating that it is the first artefacts produced by the new species that will have caused the expansion. All later artefacts will have been made when the brain had already expanded.
DAVID: And I think your multiple stages of discovery and thought, discovery and thought cannot force a whole brain to expand naturally.
dhw: And for the last time today: Modern brains naturally complexify and/or expand in restricted areas as a result of performing certain tasks. There is no reason to suppose that ancient brains did not do the same.
Exactly. I view ancient brains as enlarging small areas with plasticity as our brain does now. Giant leaps are God's doing.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: Each smaller brain would have known the past and would have continued to create more advanced artefacts until its capacity was once more exceeded by another new concept. Then it would have needed to expand again.
DAVID: As below all you imply is a recognized need for a new concept forces the brain to expand.
No! It is the EFFORT to implement the concept that forces the brain to expand! Just as in the modern brain it is the EFFORT to read, to memorize routes, to play an instrument, to develop complex ideas that forces the brain to complexify and/or expand in certain areas.
DAVID: We have a current need for a real string theory like theory that works and to understand quantum theory. The greatest advance was Einstein over a century ago, with a tiny part of the brain enlarged one centimeter thicker. Proves giant jump in size unnecessary.
Once more: It is not the need for a theory but the EFFORT to develop theories that changes the brain. Of course Einstein’s sapiens brain didn’t do a giant jump! Major expansion had long since finished. But a brain one sixth the size of the sapiens brain would not have had enough capacity to design and construct our artefacts or to develop our theories or to perform our new tasks. You simply keep ignoring the fact that the modern brain changes through performing a task – it does not change in anticipation. There is no reason to suppose that the ancient brain did not change for the same reason.
dhw: And please remember that my level does not exclude God. It simply excludes your fixed belief that your God could not have set up a mechanism to enable evolution to go on “naturally” without his preprogramming or dabbling every single development throughout its whole history.
DAVID: My God, as I think of Him is much too purposeful to do that. he runs the show completely. You humanized God is God-lite as usual. God has given all forms epigenetics for minor modifications of existing species, but no evidence of anything more.
And:
I view ancient brains as enlarging small areas with plasticity as our brain does now. Giant leaps are God's doing.
Perhaps the key words in your comment are “as I think of him”. Perhaps for a moment you could stop thinking of him and of the purpose and method you impose on him, and simply think of the subject under discussion. Please explain to me why you think it is not possible for the ancient brain to have functioned in the same way as the modern brain: namely, by changing itself AS A RESULT OF THE EFFORT TO PERFORM NEW TASKS. I’m not asking you to believe it. Just tell me why you don’t think it’s possible.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Saturday, March 28, 2020, 14:42 (1484 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Each smaller brain would have known the past and would have continued to create more advanced artefacts until its capacity was once more exceeded by another new concept. Then it would have needed to expand again.
DAVID: As below all you imply is a recognized need for a new concept forces the brain to expand.
dhw: No! It is the EFFORT to implement the concept that forces the brain to expand! Just as in the modern brain it is the EFFORT to read, to memorize routes, to play an instrument, to develop complex ideas that forces the brain to complexify and/or expand in certain areas.
I think of this as totally backward. A concept is an immaterial thought of a new tool, and it can only appear if the brain/soul complex are advanced enough to imagine it. The actual production of the tool is hand eye work based on knowledge of materials available to use: napping stone into sharp point and attaching to shaft
DAVID: We have a current need for a real string theory like theory that works and to understand quantum theory. The greatest advance was Einstein over a century ago, with a tiny part of the brain enlarged one centimeter thicker. Proves giant jump in size unnecessary.dhw: Once more: It is not the need for a theory but the EFFORT to develop theories that changes the brain. Of course Einstein’s sapiens brain didn’t do a giant jump! Major expansion had long since finished. But a brain one sixth the size of the sapiens brain would not have had enough capacity to design and construct our artefacts or to develop our theories or to perform our new tasks. You simply keep ignoring the fact that the modern brain changes through performing a task – it does not change in anticipation. There is no reason to suppose that the ancient brain did not change for the same reason.
A correction first: early Lucy brain one-quarter size. I'll stick with archaeological fact that advanced artifacts are only found with advanced brain size. As above, there can be no effort to find a new immaterial concept if the brain is not complex enough to begin with to think of it.
dhw: And please remember that my level does not exclude God. It simply excludes your fixed belief that your God could not have set up a mechanism to enable evolution to go on “naturally” without his preprogramming or dabbling every single development throughout its whole history.DAVID: My God, as I think of Him is much too purposeful to do that. he runs the show completely. You humanized God is God-lite as usual. God has given all forms epigenetics for minor modifications of existing species, but no evidence of anything more.
And:
I view ancient brains as enlarging small areas with plasticity as our brain does now. Giant leaps are God's doing.dhw: Perhaps the key words in your comment are “as I think of him”. Perhaps for a moment you could stop thinking of him and of the purpose and method you impose on him, and simply think of the subject under discussion. Please explain to me why you think it is not possible for the ancient brain to have functioned in the same way as the modern brain: namely, by changing itself AS A RESULT OF THE EFFORT TO PERFORM NEW TASKS. I’m not asking you to believe it. Just tell me why you don’t think it’s possible.
For me it doesn't fit the facts we have as I discuss above. I cannot believe forced thinking can expand a brain 200 cc. An existing early stage brain can only think at a level that existing complexity allows. Remember, this discussion is at your non-god level, looking at a possible natural reason for expansion. I prefer God for the expansion.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: As below all you imply is a recognized need for a new concept forces the brain to expand.
dhw: No! It is the EFFORT to implement the concept that forces the brain to expand! Just as in the modern brain it is the EFFORT to read, to memorize routes, to play an instrument, to develop complex ideas that forces the brain to complexify and/or expand in certain areas.
DAVID: I think of this as totally backward. A concept is an immaterial thought of a new tool, and it can only appear if the brain/soul complex are advanced enough to imagine it. The actual production of the tool is hand eye work based on knowledge of materials available to use: napping stone into sharp point and attaching to shaft.
In the case of the spear, the initial immaterial concept is to remove the necessity of close quarter hunting by inventing a weapon to kill from a distance. That initial idea springs from existing information. The brain does not need any additional capacity. But from that moment onwards, the brain (materialist) or soul (dualist) must make the effort to translate the idea into reality, and that requires design (new thoughts) and manual labour. It is new thoughts (e.g. illiterates, Einstein) and labour (musicians) which force changes to the modern brain. The only difference is that the earlier brain was capable of overall expansion in order to implement its initial concept, whereas the modern brain has stopped expanding and complexifies instead (with minor expansions). Your theory would only work if we knew that the brain complexified or expanded before it could have the original concept and the new thoughts arising from the concept. This is contrary to all the known facts, and is doubly illogical if you believe in a soul which does all the thinking and only uses the brain to gather information and to give solid form to the immaterial concept.
DAVID: A correction first: early Lucy brain one-quarter size. (dhw: Thank you. Maybe there were smaller brains before Lucy!) I'll stick with archaeological fact that advanced artifacts are only found with advanced brain size.
Once again you ignore the argument that it is the FIRST artefact that will have caused the expansion, after which the same brain will produce new ones until once more its capacity is not sufficient. And there is absolutely no way in which archaeologists can know whether the brain had already expanded before the production of the FIRST artefact, or as a result of its production.
DAVID: As above, there can be no effort to find a new immaterial concept if the brain is not complex enough to begin with to think of it.
And as usual you the dualist fall into your own trap of attributing the thought to the complex brain instead of to the soul. See above for the functions of the soul and the brain in dualism, and see below for the same problem. (Materialists will opt for the brain as thinker and implementer.)
dhw: Please explain to me why you think it is not possible for the ancient brain to have functioned in the same way as the modern brain: namely, by changing itself AS A RESULT OF THE EFFORT TO PERFORM NEW TASKS. I’m not asking you to believe it. Just tell me why you don’t think it’s possible.
DAVID: For me it doesn't fit the facts we have as I discuss above. I cannot believe forced thinking can expand a brain 200 cc.
I don’t like to delve too deep into precise figures. Fossils are so rare that it hits the headlines whenever we find one. What figure could you believe? It’s perfectly possible that for each expanded brain we have found, there are others that preceded it with smaller dimensions. The fossil record does not provide a continuous record of expansions!
DAVID: An existing early stage brain can only think at a level that existing complexity allows.
Back into the trap, and you complain when I pull you up on this, but it suits your argument to say – as you keep doing - that the brain does the thinking (and it may well do so, as materialists will tell you). Your argument falls apart if it is the soul that does the thinking, because the soul uses the brain only to gather information and to implement concepts. The soul did not need extra brain complexity when our homo had his bright idea, because that was based solely on existing information. The soul would only need the brain to IMPLEMENT its concept (= design and make it).
DAVID: Remember, this discussion is at your non-god level, looking at a possible natural reason for expansion. I prefer God for the expansion.
What is wrong with the proposal that God organized Nature so that it would work naturally?
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Sunday, March 29, 2020, 23:04 (1482 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I think of this as totally backward. A concept is an immaterial thought of a new tool, and it can only appear if the brain/soul complex are advanced enough to imagine it. The actual production of the tool is hand eye work based on knowledge of materials available to use: napping stone into sharp point and attaching to shaft.
dhw: In the case of the spear, the initial immaterial concept is to remove the necessity of close quarter hunting by inventing a weapon to kill from a distance. That initial idea springs from existing information. The brain does not need any additional capacity. But from that moment onwards, the brain (materialist) or soul (dualist) must make the effort to translate the idea into reality, and that requires design (new thoughts) and manual labour. It is new thoughts (e.g. illiterates, Einstein) and labour (musicians) which force changes to the modern brain. The only difference is that the earlier brain was capable of overall expansion in order to implement its initial concept, whereas the modern brain has stopped expanding and complexifies instead (with minor expansions). Your theory would only work if we knew that the brain complexified or expanded before it could have the original concept and the new thoughts arising from the concept. This is contrary to all the known facts, and is doubly illogical if you believe in a soul which does all the thinking and only uses the brain to gather information and to give solid form to the immaterial concept.
My logic is based upon archaeological studies and reports that better improved artifacts always are found in places where the fossils have the bigger brains. Those are the only facts we have. You talk all around it as you want. I have my logical theory. Yours is wishful thinking. See below:
dhw: And as usual you the dualist fall into your own trap of attributing the thought to the complex brain instead of to the soul. See above for the functions of the soul and the brain in dualism, and see below for the same problem. (Materialists will opt for the brain as thinker and implementer.)dhw: I don’t like to delve too deep into precise figures. Fossils are so rare that it hits the headlines whenever we find one. What figure could you believe? It’s perfectly possible that for each expanded brain we have found, there are others that preceded it with smaller dimensions. The fossil record does not provide a continuous record of expansions!
Let'd stick to what is found and accepted as size jumps.
DAVID: An existing early stage brain can only think at a level that existing complexity allows.dhw: Back into the trap, and you complain when I pull you up on this, but it suits your argument to say – as you keep doing - that the brain does the thinking (and it may well do so, as materialists will tell you). Your argument falls apart if it is the soul that does the thinking, because the soul uses the brain only to gather information and to implement concepts. The soul did not need extra brain complexity when our homo had his bright idea,because that was based solely on existing information. The soul would only need the brain to IMPLEMENT its concept (= design and make it).
Weird, as usual. You can't stand my shorthand about brain/soul complex. Why bug me when you fully understand my views/concept about brain and soul? Unless you like to bug. The bold is your fanciful invention to grow brains. The new design concept is an immaterial thought of invention. It uses existing knowledge of what materials are available and then applies that to the issue of how to attack at a distance. We know that Erectus knew what Habilis had created and used those tools. We know, as above, increased brain size and advance in artifacts are correlated, always being found together. That is the way archaeologists view it, and they are not at our level of wondering about jumps in brain size and its cause. The facts do not support you in any way, but you have the perfect right to invent whatever makes you think it is a valid theory
DAVID: Remember, this discussion is at your non-god level, looking at a possible natural reason for expansion. I prefer God for the expansion.dhw: What is wrong with the proposal that God organized Nature so that it would work naturally?
My God is in total control. That proposal reduces His control as I view him.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: Your theory would only work if we knew that the brain complexified or expanded before it could have the original concept and the new thoughts arising from the concept. This is contrary to all the known facts, and is doubly illogical if you believe in a soul which does all the thinking and only uses the brain to gather information and to give solid form to the immaterial concept.[/b]
DAVID: My logic is based upon archaeological studies and reports that better improved artifacts always are found in places where the fossils have the bigger brains.
Of course they are! But archaeological studies don’t explain why the brains got bigger in the first place! And so you continue to ignore the fact that there is no way anyone can possibly know if the FIRST artefact in the history of each larger brained species was conceived before or after the expansion. It could only exist after the brain had expanded sufficiently to produce it.
dhw: I don’t like to delve too deep into precise figures. […] The fossil record does not provide a continuous record of expansions!
DAVID: Let's stick to what is found and accepted as size jumps.
You didn’t believe the brain could jump 200 cc. I asked you what figure you could believe. May I also ask you if you think the fossil record is complete? It’s also worth noting that even in the human brain there are variations in volume. One website says the average is 1300 cc – 1500 cc (oh, a gap of 200 cc!) but there is a range from about 1000 cc to 1800 cc. So perhaps you can understand why I wouldn’t like to be as precise as you about a 200 cc jump from one homo to another.
DAVID: An existing early stage brain can only think at a level that existing complexity allows.
dhw: Back into the trap, and you complain when I pull you up on this, but it suits your argument to say – as you keep doing - that the brain does the thinking (and it may well do so, as materialists will tell you). Your argument falls apart if it is the soul that does the thinking, because the soul uses the brain only to gather information and to implement concepts. The soul did not need extra brain complexity when our homo had his bright idea,because that was based solely on existing information. The soul would only need the brain to IMPLEMENT its concept (= design and make it).
DAVID: Weird, as usual. You can't stand my shorthand about brain/soul complex. Why bug me when you fully understand my views/concept about brain and soul?
Because you keep forgetting what I keep reminding you of. If the soul does the thinking and the brain’s function is to gather information and to implement the ideas of the soul, then it is illogical to argue that the soul could not come up with new ideas based on existing information! And so you keep arguing that the brain has to expand because it can only think at a level existing complexity allows. No, in your dualist world, the soul thinks, and we know from modern science that thought - whether engendered by a soul or by the brain itself - changes the brain. (This is not the place to discuss the case for materialism, but we have discussed that elsewhere.)
DAVID: The bold is your fanciful invention to grow brains. The new design concept is an immaterial thought of invention. It uses existing knowledge of what materials are available and then applies that to the issue of how to attack at a distance.
How does that contradict my bold? The immaterial thought of the weapon used existing information. The brain did not need to expand in order for the homo to have the new idea.
DAVID: We know that Erectus knew what Habilis had created and used those tools. We know, as above, increased brain size and advance in artifacts are correlated, always being found together. That is the way archaeologists view it, and they are not at our level of wondering about jumps in brain size and its cause.
And you continue to echo what I keep saying, except that you conveniently forget the argument concerning the FIRST artefacts.
DAVID: The facts do not support you in any way, but you have the perfect right to invent whatever makes you think it is a valid theory.
The fact that modern brains change AS A RESULT of conscious efforts to perform new tasks supports my theory that older brains changed AS A RESULT of conscious efforts to perform new tasks. Now please tell me what facts support your belief that your God preprogrammed or dabbled jumps of 200 cc before pre-sapiens could come up with any new ideas.
DAVID: Remember, this discussion is at your non-god level, looking at a possible natural reason for expansion. I prefer God for the expansion.
dhw: What is wrong with the proposal that God organized Nature so that it would work naturally?
DAVID: My God is in total control. That proposal reduces His control as I view him.
So all that’s wrong with my proposal is that it's different from yours. Not much of an argument, is it?
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Monday, March 30, 2020, 18:38 (1481 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: My logic is based upon archaeological studies and reports that better improved artifacts always are found in places where the fossils have the bigger brains.
dhw: Of course they are! But archaeological studies don’t explain why the brains got bigger in the first place! And so you continue to ignore the fact that there is no way anyone can possibly know if the FIRST artefact in the history of each larger brained species was conceived before or after the expansion. It could only exist after the brain had expanded sufficiently to produce it.
Backwards: The smaller earlier brain can produce the concept, but not the production! What you are proposing is conceptualization is easy and production difficult. Read Berlinski here.
dhw: I don’t like to delve too deep into precise figures. […] The fossil record does not provide a continuous record of expansions!DAVID: Let's stick to what is found and accepted as size jumps.
dhw: May I also ask you if you think the fossil record is complete? It’s also worth noting that even in the human brain there are variations in volume. One website says the average is 1300 cc – 1500 cc (oh, a gap of 200 cc!) but there is a range from about 1000 cc to 1800 cc. So perhaps you can understand why I wouldn’t like to be as precise as you about a 200 cc jump from one homo to another.
I give the average finding of jump in size, all big.
DAVID: We know that Erectus knew what Habilis had created and used those tools. We know, as above, increased brain size and advance in artifacts are correlated, always being found together. That is the way archaeologists view it, and they are not at our level of wondering about jumps in brain size and its cause.
dhw: And you continue to echo what I keep saying, except that you conveniently forget the argument concerning the FIRST artefacts.
I don't forget, I reject completely.
DAVID: The facts do not support you in any way, but you have the perfect right to invent whatever makes you think it is a valid theory.dhw: The fact that modern brains change AS A RESULT of conscious efforts to perform new tasks supports my theory that older brains changed AS A RESULT of conscious efforts to perform new tasks. Now please tell me what facts support your belief that your God preprogrammed or dabbled jumps of 200 cc before pre-sapiens could come up with any new ideas.
See above. the idea is in total reverse of the facts we have. Conceptualization of new ideas/designs is difficult, production much easier. Why aren't there more Einsteins to explain what we currently cannot?
DAVID: Remember, this discussion is at your non-god level, looking at a possible natural reason for expansion. I prefer God for the expansion.dhw: What is wrong with the proposal that God organized Nature so that it would work naturally?
DAVID: My God is in total control. That proposal reduces His control as I view him.
dhw: So all that’s wrong with my proposal is that it's different from yours. Not much of an argument, is it?
See above. There are lots of your ideas that are backwards. Answer my points at the natural level.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: My logic is based upon archaeological studies and reports that better improved artifacts always are found in places where the fossils have the bigger brains.
dhw: Of course they are! But archaeological studies don’t explain why the brains got bigger in the first place! And so you continue to ignore the fact that there is no way anyone can possibly know if the FIRST artefact in the history of each larger brained species was conceived before or after the expansion. It could only exist after the brain had expanded sufficiently to produce it.
DAVID: Backwards: The smaller earlier brain can produce the concept, but not the production!
What you are proposing is conceptualization is easy and production difficult.
If by that you mean that having a new idea does not require a larger brain, but designing and producing the implement does, then yes. It is the effort to implement the original concept that causes the brain to change, as we see in the modern brain, which complexifies or enlarges separate sections when performing new tasks. Are you still trying to blot out the original new idea based on existing information, and skipping straight to design?
dhw: I don’t like to delve too deep into precise figures. […] The fossil record does not provide a continuous record of expansions!
DAVID: Let's stick to what is found and accepted as size jumps.
dhw: May I also ask you if you think the fossil record is complete? It’s also worth noting that even in the human brain there are variations in volume. One website says the average is 1300 cc – 1500 cc (oh, a gap of 200 cc!) but there is a range from about 1000 cc to 1800 cc. So perhaps you can understand why I wouldn’t like to be as precise as you about a 200 cc jump from one homo to another.
DAVID:I give the average finding of jump in size, all big.
The average means some are smaller and some are bigger.
DAVID: We know that Erectus knew what Habilis had created and used those tools. We know, as above, increased brain size and advance in artifacts are correlated, always being found together. That is the way archaeologists view it, and they are not at our level of wondering about jumps in brain size and its cause.
dhw: And you continue to echo what I keep saying, except that you conveniently forget the argument concerning the FIRST artefacts.
DAVID: I don't forget, I reject completely.
How can you possibly reject the argument that nobody can know whether the first artefacts were produced by an already enlarged brain, or their design and production were the cause of the brain’s enlargement?
DAVID: the idea is in total reverse of the facts we have. Conceptualization of new ideas/designs is difficult, production much easier.
And yet again, you choose to blot out the point made at the start of this post! The smaller brain produces the original concept. The design and making of the product require a bigger brain. The only facts we have are that the modern brain complexifies and enlarges sections of itself in order to perform new tasks. What facts does my theory reverse?
DAVID: Remember, this discussion is at your non-god level, looking at a possible natural reason for expansion. I prefer God for the expansion.
dhw: What is wrong with the proposal that God organized Nature so that it would work naturally?
DAVID: My God is in total control. That proposal reduces His control as I view him.
dhw: So all that’s wrong with my proposal is that it's different from yours. Not much of an argument, is it?
DAVID: See above. There are lots of your ideas that are backwards. Answer my points at the natural level.
The natural level is that the smaller brain has an idea and the effort to implement (design and produce) the original concept requires greater capacity – hence enlargement. What facts do you have to prove that this is backwards?
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 31, 2020, 21:34 (1480 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: My logic is based upon archaeological studies and reports that better improved artifacts always are found in places where the fossils have the bigger brains.
dhw: Of course they are! But archaeological studies don’t explain why the brains got bigger in the first place! And so you continue to ignore the fact that there is no way anyone can possibly know if the FIRST artefact in the history of each larger brained species was conceived before or after the expansion. It could only exist after the brain had expanded sufficiently to produce it.[/i]
DAVID: Backwards: The smaller earlier brain can produce the concept, but not the production!
Wrong interpretation. I was quoting you and your backwards idea.
dhw: What you are proposing is conceptualization is easy and production difficult.[/i]
Exactly what you have been proposing!!! Not me time after time!
dhw: If by that you mean that having a new idea does not require a larger brain, but designing and producing the implement does, then yes.
Always just the opposite. Conceptualizing a new dsign is didffic ult, production easy
dhw: I don’t like to delve too deep into precise figures. […] The fossil record does not provide a continuous record of expansions!
DAVID: Let's stick to what is found and accepted as size jumps.
dhw: May I also ask you if you think the fossil record is complete? It’s also worth noting that even in the human brain there are variations in volume. One website says the average is 1300 cc – 1500 cc (oh, a gap of 200 cc!) but there is a range from about 1000 cc to 1800 cc. So perhaps you can understand why I wouldn’t like to be as precise as you about a 200 cc jump from one homo to another.
DAVID:I give the average finding of jump in size, all big.
The average means some are smaller and some are bigger.
dhw: How can you possibly reject the argument that nobody can know whether the first artefacts were produced by an already enlarged brain, or their design and production were the cause of the brain’s enlargement?
Against all I have read and reported to you.
DAVID: the idea is in total reverse of the facts we have. Conceptualization of new ideas/designs is difficult, production much easier.dhw: And yet again, you choose to blot out the point made at the start of this post! The smaller brain produces the original concept. The design and making of the product require a bigger brain.
The original concept is difficult, coming up with a design for a needed product. Production is the simple part combining known materials: in the example, wooden shaft, stone napped sharp tip and attaching.
DAVID: Remember, this discussion is at your non-god level, looking at a possible natural reason for expansion. I prefer God for the expansion.
dhw: What is wrong with the proposal that God organized Nature so that it would work naturally?
DAVID: My God is in total control. That proposal reduces His control as I view him.
dhw: So all that’s wrong with my proposal is that it's different from yours. Not much of an argument, is it?
DAVID: See above. There are lots of your ideas that are backwards. Answer my points at the natural level.
dhw: The natural level is that the smaller brain has an idea and the effort to implement (design and produce) the original concept requires greater capacity – hence enlargement. What facts do you have to prove that this is backwards?
I can only use the way my brain works and common sense, while you keep distorting the findings that bigger brained fossils have better artifacts with them, and must have conceived of them and made them, which is exactly how archaeologists present findings. Outside this natural arguing, I still say God makes all new species and enlarged all brains +/- 200 cc at a jump.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
DAVID: My logic is based upon archaeological studies and reports that better improved artifacts always are found in places where the fossils have the bigger brains.
dhw: Of course they are! But archaeological studies don’t explain why the brains got bigger in the first place! And so you continue to ignore the fact that there is no way anyone can possibly know if the FIRST artefact in the history of each larger brained species was conceived before or after the expansion. It could only exist after the brain had expanded sufficiently to produce it.
DAVID: Backwards: The smaller earlier brain can produce the concept, but not the production!
DAVID: Wrong interpretation. I was quoting you and your backwards idea.
I know. I haven’t “interpreted” that!
dhw: What you are proposing is conceptualization is easy and production difficult.[/i] (This is NOT dhw!)
It was you who wrote this, not me, and I don’t know what you are complaining about. I suspected your phrasing, and so my interpretation of the two comments combined was as follows:
dhw: If by that you mean that having a new idea does not require a larger brain, but designing and producing the implement does, then yes.
DAVID: Always just the opposite. Conceptualizing a new dsign is didffic ult, production easy.
And:
DAVID: The original concept is difficult, coming up with a design for a needed product. Production is the simple part combining known materials: in the example, wooden shaft, stone napped sharp tip and attaching.
You continue to ignore the prime point in my theory: the NEW IDEA DOES NOT REQUIRE A LARGER BRAIN because it arises out of information already known. It is the design and production that require expansion. Whether production is easier than design is irrelevant. Only when the initial concept has been formed (kill bison from a distance) is the brain called into action to begin implementation (= design and production), and it is these tasks that require expansion.
dhw: I don’t like to delve too deep into precise figures. […] The fossil record does not provide a continuous record of expansions![…]
DAVID:I give the average finding of jump in size, all big.
dhw:The average means some are smaller and some are bigger.
Not answered.
dhw: How can you possibly reject the argument that nobody can know whether the first artefacts were produced by an already enlarged brain, or their design and production were the cause of the brain’s enlargement?
DAVID: Against all I have read and reported to you.
You have reported that archaeologists don’t deal with possible reasons for expansion, and you simply refuse to answer my question, so I’ll bold it and ask you again to answer it.
dhw: The natural level is that the smaller brain has an idea and the effort to implement (design and produce) the original concept requires greater capacity – hence enlargement. What facts do you have to prove that this is backwards?
DAVID: I can only use the way my brain works and common sense, while you keep distorting the findings that bigger brained fossils have better artifacts with them, and must have conceived of them and made them, which is exactly how archaeologists present findings.
Yes, bigger brained fossils have better artefacts with them. And you continue to ignore the question I asked above. Yet again: I propose that designing and producing the FIRST of these artefacts will have been the cause of the bigger brain. Then the bigger brain goes on to conceive, design and produce more artefacts until the next major innovative concept requires further expansion in order to design and produce it. Now please answer the question bolded above.
DAVID: Outside this natural arguing, I still say God makes all new species and enlarged all brains +/- 200 cc at a jump.
And I still ask why you think your God could not simply have created the mechanism enabling the natural progression I have described.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Wednesday, April 01, 2020, 20:06 (1479 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: You continue to ignore the prime point in my theory: the NEW IDEA DOES NOT REQUIRE A LARGER BRAIN because it arises out of information already known. It is the design and production that require expansion. Whether production is easier than design is irrelevant. Only when the initial concept has been formed (kill bison from a distance) is the brain called into action to begin implementation (= design and production), and it is these tasks that require expansion.
I do not ignore your weird concept. I totally do not accept it as a logical theory. New design is an immaterial thought experiment requiring advanced complexity in the brain/soul. Making the tool/artifact is the easy part.
dhw: I don’t like to delve too deep into precise figures. […] The fossil record does not provide a continuous record of expansions![…]DAVID:I give the average finding of jump in size, all big.
dhw:The average means some are smaller and some are bigger.
dhw: Not answered.
All the averages are large: 150-200 cc
dhw: How can you possibly reject the argument that nobody can know whether the first artefacts were produced by an already enlarged brain, or their design and production were the cause of the brain’s enlargement?DAVID: Against all I have read and reported to you.
dhw: You have reported that archaeologists don’t deal with possible reasons for expansion, and you simply refuse to answer my question, so I’ll bold it and ask you again to answer it.
Once again they assume what new artifacts are found with the larger brained fossils were made by those fossils. Have you seen the opposite?
dhw: The natural level is that the smaller brain has an idea and the effort to implement (design and produce) the original concept requires greater capacity – hence enlargement. What facts do you have to prove that this is backwards?DAVID: I can only use the way my brain works and common sense, while you keep distorting the findings that bigger brained fossils have better artifacts with them, and must have conceived of them and made them, which is exactly how archaeologists present findings.
dhw: Yes, bigger brained fossils have better artefacts with them. And you continue to ignore the question I asked above. Yet again: I propose that designing and producing the FIRST of these artefacts will have been the cause of the bigger brain. Then the bigger brain goes on to conceive, design and produce more artefacts until the next major innovative concept requires further expansion in order to design and produce it. Now please answer the question bolded above.
DAVID: Outside this natural arguing, I still say God makes all new species and enlarged all brains +/- 200 cc at a jump.
dhw: And I still ask why you think your God could not simply have created the mechanism enabling the natural progression I have described.
You describe a different God than the God I have my faith in.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
dhw: You continue to ignore the prime point in my theory: the NEW IDEA DOES NOT REQUIRE A LARGER BRAIN because it arises out of information already known. It is the design and production that require expansion.
DAVID: I do not ignore your weird concept. I totally do not accept it as a logical theory. New design is an immaterial thought experiment requiring advanced complexity in the brain/soul. Making the tool/artifact is the easy part.
You persist in jumping straight to new design, when I keep reminding you that the initial concept is what sparks the need for new design, and the initial concept arises from EXISTING information: homo wants to kill bison – too dangerous from close-up – NEW IDEA: kill from a distance by throwing something. From that moment onwards, the brain is required to think new thoughts (design) and perform new activities (making and practising throwing new weapon). What you consider to be difficult or easy is irrelevant. The logical progression is from new idea (smaller brain) to implementation of new idea (greater brain capacity required).
dhw: How can you possibly reject the argument that nobody can know whether the first artefacts were produced by an already enlarged brain, or their design and production were the cause of the brain’s enlargement?
DAVID: Against all I have read and reported to you.
dhw: You have reported that archaeologists don’t deal with possible reasons for expansion, and you simply refuse to answer my question, so I’ll bold it and ask you again to answer it.
DAVID: Once again they assume what new artifacts are found with the larger brained fossils were made by those fossils. Have you seen the opposite?
You simply refuse to answer my question. Of course the artefacts were made by the larger brained fossils! The question is what caused the brain to enlarge. Theoretical answer: designing and making a new artefact as conceived by the smaller brain which did not have the capacity to design and make said artefact. Said artefact cannot appear until brain has finished expanding. Once the brain is enlarged, it will continue to conceive, design and make new artefacts until another big idea requires another expansion. Question: how can you possibly know whether designing and making the FIRST artefact was the CAUSE of the expansion or was performed by an already expanded brain? I’ll give you the answer: you can’t know. If you think you can, please tell us how.
dhw: The natural level is that the smaller brain has an idea and the effort to implement (design and produce) the original concept requires greater capacity – hence enlargement. What facts do you have to prove that this is backwards?
DAVID: Outside this natural arguing, I still say God makes all new species and enlarged all brains +/- 200 cc at a jump.
dhw: And I still ask why you think your God could not simply have created the mechanism enabling the natural progression I have described.
And I still ask you what facts you have to prove that my version is “backwards”.
DAVID: You describe a different God than the God I have my faith in.
I describe a different theory than the theory you have faith in. Mine is extrapolated from known facts (the way the modern brain functions) and you apparently have no facts at all to support your own.
Introducing the brain: half a brain is just fine
by David Turell , Thursday, April 02, 2020, 23:29 (1478 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Thursday, April 02, 2020, 23:35
dhw: How can you possibly reject the argument that nobody can know whether the first artefacts were produced by an already enlarged brain, or their design and production were the cause of the brain’s enlargement?
DAVID: Against all I have read and reported to you.
dhw: You have reported that archaeologists don’t deal with possible reasons for expansion, and you simply refuse to answer my question, so I’ll bold it and ask you again to answer it.
DAVID: Once again they assume what new artifacts are found with the larger brained fossils were made by those fossils. Have you seen the opposite?
dhw: You simply refuse to answer my question. Of course the artefacts were made by the larger brained fossils! The question is what caused the brain to enlarge. Theoretical answer: designing and making a new artefact as conceived by the smaller brain which did not have the capacity to design and make said artefact. Said artefact cannot appear until brain has finished expanding.
I will repeat, and it is an answer to your strange theory. The earlier tinier brain does not have the abstract thinking capacity to envision a new better artifact for the future. New designs must combine what is known with a new abstract idea/design. Abstract thought is the tough part. Producing it is mechanical labor with some trial and error involved. Thomas Edison was a prime example of this. Please look at the following extremely long article, second half of which will give you different brain sizes at different evolutionary stages and how artifacts are considered.
https://paleontology.fandom.com/wiki/Human_evolution
In this article please note the time it took for sapiens to learn how to use their newly enlarged brain. This alone totally refute your 'natural enlargement' theory. We are a species that arrived living/acting just like erectus. The real arrival of our current abstract conceptualization is all in the past eight thousand years since agriculture started
dhw: Once the brain is enlarged, it will continue to conceive, design and make new artefacts until another big idea requires another expansion. Question: how can you possibly know whether designing and making the FIRST artefact was the CAUSE of the expansion or was performed by an already expanded brain? I’ll give you the answer: you can’t know. If you think you can, please tell us how.
It doesn't fit any interpretations/discussions I read at the natural development level of presentation. I absolutely reject the idea that an earlier brain can think itself into a larger size, which is exactly what your theory gives us. It is wishful thinking to get around the question of speciation among early homos, hoping it gets around God doing it. Your anticipated answer to keep you on the fence: God let the do it themselves is your way of staying agnostic. For us theists, it is God-lite, a poor excuse of a purposeful God who know full well what He is doing, as He made the universe, the perfect Earth and life quite efficiently all by iHmself.
This is a discussion between a theist and an agnostic. On that basis I feel God speciates.
dhw: The natural level is that the smaller brain has an idea and the effort to implement (design and produce) the original concept requires greater capacity – hence enlargement. What facts do you have to prove that this is backwards?DAVID: Outside this natural arguing, I still say God makes all new species and enlarged all brains +/- 200 cc at a jump.
dhw: And I still ask why you think your God could not simply have created the mechanism enabling the natural progression I have described.
And I still ask you what facts you have to prove that my version is “backwards”.DAVID: You describe a different God than the God I have my faith in.
dhw: I describe a different theory than the theory you have faith in. Mine is extrapolated from known facts (the way the modern brain functions) and you apparently have no facts at all to support your own.
Your theory ignores all the considerations I give you, all factual. The bold seems to indicate I don't know how to think about the facts I have presented.
Introducing the brain: archaeologists and artifacts
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 25, 2020, 22:30 (1486 days ago) @ David Turell
The studies always equate the artifacts with the current folks:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/archaeology/new-clues-to-new-guinea-s-past?utm_source=Cosmos...
"Artefacts uncovered in the highlands of what is now Papua New Guinea (PNG) reveal a shift in human behaviour between 5050 and 4200 years ago in response to the widespread emergence of agriculture, ushering in a regional era similar to the Neolithic in Eurasia.
"While scientists have known that wetland agriculture originated in the highlands between 8000 and 4000 years ago, until now there has been little evidence for corresponding social changes like those that occurred in other parts of the world.
"The new artefacts were excavated at the recently discovered Waim archaeological site in the Jimi Valley.
***
"They found very finely carved pestles used for the grinding of food, stone axes and adzes, as well as carved figurines.
"One large fragment of carved stone depicting the brow ridge of a human or animal face dated at 5050 years old is the earliest evidence of a carved expression of body form in Oceania.
"After examining them under the microscope, co-author Judith Field identified microfossils – or evidence of plant residue – on the pestles demonstrating they had been used to process some of the wetland crops native to New Guinea.
“'It was very exciting for us to find these microfossils on the pestles,” Field says. “It is probably one of the most direct links that you can draw to the influence of agriculture upon human behaviour at this time.”
"Shaw says the dig also was interesting for what the unearthed relics reveal about the antiquity of some of the technology still being used today in New Guinea. A grooved volcanic stone was found with ochre on it, suggesting that 5000 years ago humans were already using it to paint, stain and decorate."
Comments: humans use what they are taught and what they teach themselves to do.
Introducing the brain: examples of plasticity
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 24, 2020, 23:16 (1487 days ago) @ dhw
Research shows all animal brains show plasticity. This article describes some more of ours:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-brain-reshapes-our-malleable-senses-to-fit-the-world...
"One way to think of this is as nature’s way to prevent cortical idleness. If an area of cortex is no longer receiving inputs from its natural place, it would be wasteful for that area of cortex to be forever inactive. Instead, after a while, its function is given over to undamaged inputs. In the more general case, you can easily imagine this mechanism as a way of dealing with small strokes. (Neuropathologists tell us that we all incur these small losses of brain tissue during the course of our lives.) Imagine that you have a tiny cortical stroke, affecting only a very small blood vessel, and that the region of brain it feeds dies. It would be wasteful of precious cortical resources for areas of the brain that used to receive input from the region that is now damaged by the stroke to be forever silent.
"Instead, the brain makes the best of a bad situation by giving those brain areas over to their neighbor.
***
"The senses adapt to various types of neural damage, which are pretty crude events on the big scale of neural life. But there are also subtler reorganizations that occur naturally and happen to all of us.
"One of the striking indications of brain plasticity came from scanning the brain activity of people who had been blind from birth. When blind volunteers used their fingers to read Braille while in the scanner, the brain areas usually occupied by processing visual input — again, the primary visual cortex — were activated. Somehow, the processing of tactile information had taken over the unused visual center.
"Another dramatic example came from a study of violinists. To play the violin, you make large, relatively crude motions with one arm as the bow sweeps up and down across the strings. With the other hand you make a series of very subtle movements, depressing the strings at varying, tightly defined locations up and down the violin’s fingerboard — very quickly if you are a good violinist, astonishingly quickly if you’re a star. This is a remarkable task for the speed and precision it requires. Professional violinists practice these movements for hours each day.
"This has a consequence on the physical arrangement of the connections in their brains, because movements of the fingers are controlled by a specific brain area. In professional violinists, the area expands, even pushing aside functions from neighboring brain tissue. But this occurs only for the hand that fingers the strings. The same regions on the other side of the brain, which control the other hand, have no expansion because the required movements of that hand are relatively crude.
***
"The neuroscientist Donald Hebb predicted that vision is to a major extent learned. Complex perceptions are formed through experience, by association, because objects in the world occur in clusters of individual features. He believed that this had to happen early in life, before the brain became unable to form the necessary new assemblies. His basic idea was right: Much of vision does depend on visual experience. But his conclusion that this had to happen at a young age seems to be only partly true.
"The evidence comes from experiments in which individuals blind from birth were later given sight...n a brilliant combination of humanitarianism and science, Sinha organized a program to search for these children and transport them to New Delhi, where surgeons in a modern hospital replaced their lenses with clear synthetic ones — the same cataract operation carried out for many aging individuals.
***
"Yet their vision seems never to have become perfect. Their visual acuity remained below normal, even after months of training. One patient commented that he could read headlines in the newspaper but not the finest print. Some had trouble with specific visual tasks, such as separating two forms that overlap each other.
So it seems that much vision can be restored, but that the plasticity of the visual system is not limitless. Further evidence of this comes from the behavior of the cortical regions in primates’ inferior temporal lobe termed “face patches” because they respond only to faces as a visual stimulus.
Comment: It is best to learn vision from birth. The plasticity examples are fascinating, but the article is really about how vision is learned from birth.
Introducing the brain: cerebellar contributions explored
by David Turell , Monday, February 24, 2020, 00:13 (1517 days ago) @ dhw
The cerebellum is packed with small neurons and contains 3/4 of all brain neurons. It is known to contribute neuro-sensory controls to muscle activity and coordination . New findings still have not covered all its functions in relation to cognitive activity:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304394018304671?dgcid=raven_sd_...
"Cerebrocerebellar connections confer functional topography on cerebellar organization.
"Sensorimotor processing is represented principally in the cerebellar anterior lobe.
"Anterior lobe damage causes the motor syndrome of gait ataxia and limb dysmetria.
"Cognition and emotion are subserved by the cerebellar posterior lobe.
"Posterior lobe lesions cause the cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome (CCAS).
"The CCAS scale can identify and rate degree of impairment in clinical contexts.
"The cerebellar role in behavioral neurology / neuropsychiatry continues to evolve.
"What the cerebellum does to sensorimotor and vestibular control, it also does to cognition, emotion, and autonomic function. This hypothesis is based on the theories of dysmetria of thought and the universal cerebellar transform, which hold that the cerebellum maintains behavior around a homeostatic baseline, automatically, without conscious awareness, informed by implicit learning, and performed according to context.
***
"The sensorimotor cerebellum is represented in the anterior lobe with a second representation in lobule VIII, and lesions of these areas lead to the cerebellar motor syndrome of ataxia, dysmetria, dysarthria and impaired oculomotor control. The cognitive / limbic cerebellum is in the cerebellar posterior lobe, with current evidence pointing to three separate topographic representations, the nature of which remain to be determined. Posterior lobe lesions result in the cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome (CCAS), the hallmark features of which include deficits in executive function, visual spatial processing, linguistic skills and regulation of affect."
Comment: Still only partially understood. And points to how special we are, with its cognitive activities.
Introducing the brain: cerebellar contributions explored
by David Turell , Monday, February 24, 2020, 00:28 (1517 days ago) @ David Turell
Another paper:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627313009963?dgcid=raven_sd_reco...
"Twenty-five years of discovery have converged to suggest that the majority of the human cerebellum is connected to cerebral association networks. The revelation that the cerebellum possesses prominent association zones has far-reaching implications for how we explore its function and also view mental disturbances that arise from network disruptions. The recognition of the cerebellum’s importance to cognition is also a remarkable story of scientific discovery. Initial insights arose from the unconventional thoughts of a unique interdisciplinary team (Henrietta Leiner, Alan Leiner, and Robert Dow) and an observation made serendipitously during an early neuroimaging study of human cognition. Modern anatomical techniques were necessary to give traction to the discovery while neuroimaging techniques able to broadly survey the brain were best suited to reveal a parsimonious map that connects the motor zones of the cerebellum to the newly discovered association zones.
***
"In considering the large size of the cerebellum in primates and humans, adaptive arguments have been put forward in the context of motor function leaning on the dexterous hands of primates and consequences of full bipedalism in humans or, in the context of cognitive function, the extraordinary mental abilities of apes and humans . These notions assume that there has been direct selection for an increase in the size of the cerebellum. An alternative is that the selection has been for an overall increase in brain size and the cerebellum comes along as a byproduct.
***
"As brain size increases from a mouse to a monkey to a human, the cerebellum’s size scales at a rate second only to that of the cerebral cortex. Moreover, recent neuronal counting studies using modern techniques demonstrate that there is a relatively fixed ratio between the numbers of neurons in the cerebellum and cerebrum across species."
Comment: The point is as we grew our big brain cerebrum the size of the cerebellum followed along in like fashion. The main point is that we are now finding it contributes to certain cognitive functions, the extent not fully understood as yet. Obviously our brain had to accommodate our dexterous hands and our bipedalism in concert with the developments.
Introducing the brain: cerebellar contributions explored
QUOTE: The cerebellum is packed with small neurons and contains 3/4 of all brain neurons. It is known to contribute neuro-sensory controls to muscle activity and coordination. New findings still have not covered all its functions in relation to cognitive activity:
[Followed by a long list of functions]
DAVID: Still only partially understood. And points to how special we are, with its cognitive activities.
Not much room here for the dualist’s concept of a soul which is responsible for the creation of all our ideas.
QUOTE: "In considering the large size of the cerebellum in primates and humans, adaptive arguments have been put forward in the context of motor function leaning on the dexterous hands of primates and consequences of full bipedalism in humans or, in the context of cognitive function, the extraordinary mental abilities of apes and humans.”
I’m surprised that you haven’t commented on the author’s bracketing of apes and humans as having extraordinary mental abilities, so let me do it for you. I’d say our mental abilities far outstrip those of our fellow primates. If these coincide with differences in the cerebellum (or the cerebrum as a whole), the implication would be that our mental abilities depend on the materials of the brain. So much for dualism.
DAVID: The point is as we grew our big brain cerebrum the size of the cerebellum followed along in like fashion. The main point is that we are now finding it contributes to certain cognitive functions, the extent not fully understood as yet. Obviously our brain had to accommodate our dexterous hands and our bipedalism in concert with the developments.
Personally, I am extremely wary of restricting individual cognitive functions to individual parts of the brain. I suspect that if materialists are right, it is the interplay between different sections of the brain that produce all the cognitive functions. Indeed, the story of the woman with “half a brain” suggests that the whole community of brain cells cooperates in producing these functions. A dualist would presumably propose that there is an immaterial “soul” which directs the different sections of the brain.
Introducing the brain: cerebellar contributions explored
by David Turell , Monday, February 24, 2020, 18:39 (1516 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: The cerebellum is packed with small neurons and contains 3/4 of all brain neurons. It is known to contribute neuro-sensory controls to muscle activity and coordination. New findings still have not covered all its functions in relation to cognitive activity:
[Followed by a long list of functions]DAVID: Still only partially understood. And points to how special we are, with its cognitive activities.
dhw: Not much room here for the dualist’s concept of a soul which is responsible for the creation of all our ideas.
Can't you remember, I have constantly stated my view is that the complexity of the brain allows the soul to deal with more complexity of concepts
QUOTE: "In considering the large size of the cerebellum in primates and humans, adaptive arguments have been put forward in the context of motor function leaning on the dexterous hands of primates and consequences of full bipedalism in humans or, in the context of cognitive function, the extraordinary mental abilities of apes and humans.”dhw: I’m surprised that you haven’t commented on the author’s bracketing of apes and humans as having extraordinary mental abilities, so let me do it for you. I’d say our mental abilities far outstrip those of our fellow primates. If these coincide with differences in the cerebellum (or the cerebrum as a whole), the implication would be that our mental abilities depend on the materials of the brain. So much for dualism.
Not if you accept my view above: soul produces only as much complexity of thought as the complexity of the brain it is using allows it to do.
DAVID: The point is as we grew our big brain cerebrum the size of the cerebellum followed along in like fashion. The main point is that we are now finding it contributes to certain cognitive functions, the extent not fully understood as yet. Obviously our brain had to accommodate our dexterous hands and our bipedalism in concert with the developments.dhw: Personally, I am extremely wary of restricting individual cognitive functions to individual parts of the brain. I suspect that if materialists are right, it is the interplay between different sections of the brain that produce all the cognitive functions. Indeed, the story of the woman with “half a brain” suggests that the whole community of brain cells cooperates in producing these functions. A dualist would presumably propose that there is an immaterial “soul” which directs the different sections of the brain.
The function of the entire brain is a coordination of all parts, as is now currently being revealed by research. Our cerebral and cerebellar functions are light years beyond the great apes, so our soul/consciousness has vast resources at it command.
Introducing the brain: cerebellar contributions explored
by David Turell , Saturday, February 29, 2020, 01:02 (1512 days ago) @ David Turell
There is much contribution to language functions:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780444639561000114?dgcid=raven_sd_r...
"During the past decades neuroanatomic, neuroimaging, and clinical studies have substantially changed the long-standing view of the role of the cerebellum as a sole coordinator of sensorimotor function. Currently, the cerebellum is considered to be crucially implicated in a variety of cognitive, affective, social, and behavioral processes as well.
***
"Neuroanatomic studies have provided a robust basis for the development of new insights in the modulatory role of the cerebellum in neurocognition, including nonmotor language processing by means of identifying a dense network of crossed reciprocal connections between the cerebellum and the supratentorial association areas. A topologic distinction has been established between the “motor” cerebellum, projecting to the cortical motor areas, and the “cognitive/affective” cerebellum, connected with the cortical and limbic association areas. Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated cerebellar involvement in several different language tasks, even after controlling for motor aspects. In addition, several clinical studies have identified a variety of nonmotor linguistic deficits after cerebellar disease in both children and adults, implying a prominent role for the cerebellum in linguistic processes. Functional neuroimaging has confirmed the functional impact of cerebellar lesions on remote, structurally intact cortical regions via crossed cerebellocerebral diaschisis. [ Diaschisis is broadly defined as a remote functional disruption in a region connectively related to a focal brain damage area]
"Overall, evidence from neuroanatomic, neuroimaging, and clinical studies shows a (strongly lateralized) involvement of the cerebellum in a broad spectrum of nonmotor language functions through a dense network of crossed and reciprocal cerebellocerebral connections. It is argued that the cerebellum is involved in language in a similar manner as it is involved in motor functions: through monitoring/coordinating cortical functions via timing and sequencing mechanisms."
Comment: the development of language has caused our cerebellum to assume new functions beyond the usual sensory-motor functions that were well understood. It can be presumed the ape cerebellum does not have these refinements of our brain with its extraordinary plasticity in handling new requirements. Another most unusual aspect of our unique characteristics
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
by David Turell , Sunday, March 01, 2020, 15:48 (1510 days ago) @ David Turell
Our very complex emotions may be part of our consciousness, but the brain and the emotions play both and forth with effects on each other:
http://wise.nautil.us/feature/525/how-emotions-connect-your-body-and-brain?utm_source=N...
"Emotions like happiness and despair are not baked into our brains, waiting to be triggered by experiences in the world. Sure, we have a range of feelings, stimulated by our senses. But those feelings cannot be categorized as emotions innate in everyone. What we call emotions, Barrett says, are concepts constructed by our individual neural systems, molded by our cultures and past experiences.
***
"The breadth of [her] book, though, illuminates what emotions tell us about the ways the body and brain work, an anatomy lesson of how we make our way through the world.
***
"Barrett writes, emotions reveal that our brains are like a black box in our bodies, being fed outside information by our senses, and figuring out how to best navigate the chaos. “An emotion is your brain’s creation of what your bodily sensations mean,” Barrett writes. “From sensory input and past experience, your brain constructs meaning and prescribes action. If you didn’t have concepts that represent your past experience, all your sensory inputs would just be noise. You wouldn’t know what the sensations are, what caused them, nor how to behave and deal with them. With concepts, your brain makes meaning of sensation, and sometimes that meaning is emotion.”
***
"Constructed emotion is the idea that emotions aren’t given. It’s not the case that there’s a ready-made circuit available in your brain and when it’s triggered, you get this cascade, this suite of characteristic patterned responses. Instead, your brain makes emotion, as it needs it, on the spot, using a set of all-purpose ingredients.
***
"...your brain is in a dark, silent box called your skull and it can’t get out and experience the world directly. It can only know the world through the sensory inputs that come through your sensory systems—your ears, your eyes, and so on. It only has effects. It only has wavelengths of light, or changes in air pressure, or concentrations of chemicals and it has to figure out what caused those in those wavelengths of light, or changes in concentration, or air pressure, and so on, so that it knows what to do next.
***
"In insects that are social, they primarily use chemicals to regulate each other. Termites, for example, are a social species, and they pretty much use olfaction and chemicals. Other mammals, like rats and rodents, use touch, and they also use hearing to regulate each other’s nervous systems. Primates, that are not human, also use vision. We use all of those sensory systems—and we also use words and concepts. (my bold)
***
"Sometimes, it predicts a conflict, or an obstacle, or a competition. In each of these cases when it’s making this prediction, it’s using knowledge that in our culture belongs to the concept of anger. As it prepares your body to meet the conflict, deal with the obstacle, compete in the competition, you have bodily changes that you experience as affect, and your brain is making sense of those sensations as anger, and it constructs anger for you.
***
"One thing we’ve learned is that an infant brain doesn’t look like an adult grown-up brain: It’s not wired in the same way. In fact, babies are born with brains that await instructions on how to wire themselves. (my bold)
"Even for your brain to just form normally—to develop the rest of the way normally—it expects certain inputs. This is also part of our suite of evolutionary adaptations. The brain is very malleable and it requires care in the form of social interactions with caregivers. It’s not enough just to feed a baby. You have to feed a baby while you are engaged in some kind of social interaction. You don’t just change a baby’s diapers; you have to cuddle it, you have to talk to it, you have to do all these things. And it matters, the words that you speak even to a 3-month-old. The words that you speak matter to the development of that infant’s brain."
Comment: this is a materialism view of a neuroscientist, but her thoughts contain many truths. The first is about lower animals and how their socializing works chemically and by other senses. The second bold, in order, shows how the blank-like infant is developed. My view is that our soul/consciousness develops from infant to adult as the instrument of our brain is developed from a very blank beginning. This brain is God's special gift at the end of evolution
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
QUOTES: "In insects that are social, they primarily use chemicals to regulate each other. Termites, for example, are a social species, and they pretty much use olfaction and chemicals. Other mammals, like rats and rodents, use touch, and they also use hearing to regulate each other’s nervous systems. Primates, that are not human, also use vision. We use all of those sensory systems—and we also use words and concepts. (DAVID’s bold)
"One thing we’ve learned is that an infant brain doesn’t look like an adult grown-up brain: It’s not wired in the same way. In fact, babies are born with brains that await instructions on how to wire themselves. (DAVID’s bold)
DAVID: this is a materialism view of a neuroscientist, but her thoughts contain many truths. The first is about lower animals and how their socializing works chemically and by other senses.
I don’t know why you’ve bolded it. All organisms, including ourselves, use chemicals and other senses in order to communicate. Since the author is a materialist, she obviously believes that the source of intelligence is material. That applies both to humans and to the so-called “lower animals”, so what is your point?
DAVID: The second bold, in order, shows how the blank-like infant is developed. My view is that our soul/consciousness develops from infant to adult as the instrument of our brain is developed from a very blank beginning. This brain is God's special gift at the end of evolution.
First of all, you have previously agreed that it is NOT blank at the beginning. That would give every baby precisely the same character right from the start! There are inborn characteristics, which a materialist would attribute to the genetic makeup. Secondly, consciousness developing as the brain develops is just about as materialist as you can get. Why bother to shove in the word soul?
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
by David Turell , Monday, March 02, 2020, 13:37 (1510 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTES: "In insects that are social, they primarily use chemicals to regulate each other. Termites, for example, are a social species, and they pretty much use olfaction and chemicals. Other mammals, like rats and rodents, use touch, and they also use hearing to regulate each other’s nervous systems. Primates, that are not human, also use vision. We use all of those sensory systems—and we also use words and concepts. (DAVID’s bold)
"One thing we’ve learned is that an infant brain doesn’t look like an adult grown-up brain: It’s not wired in the same way. In fact, babies are born with brains that await instructions on how to wire themselves. (DAVID’s bold)
DAVID: this is a materialism view of a neuroscientist, but her thoughts contain many truths. The first is about lower animals and how their socializing works chemically and by other senses.
dhw: I don’t know why you’ve bolded it. All organisms, including ourselves, use chemicals and other senses in order to communicate. Since the author is a materialist, she obviously believes that the source of intelligence is material. That applies both to humans and to the so-called “lower animals”, so what is your point?
Just to point out how this comment implies all the automaticity that is in play.
DAVID: The second bold, in order, shows how the blank-like infant is developed. My view is that our soul/consciousness develops from infant to adult as the instrument of our brain is developed from a very blank beginning. This brain is God's special gift at the end of evolution.dhw: First of all, you have previously agreed that it is NOT blank at the beginning. That would give every baby precisely the same character right from the start! There are inborn characteristics, which a materialist would attribute to the genetic makeup. Secondly, consciousness developing as the brain develops is just about as materialist as you can get. Why bother to shove in the word soul?
Of course there are inborn characteristics. It is the byplay that forms the adult brain through the brain's plasticity, but the brain itself is very blank in the beginning. Did you understand the presented concept, or just like to argue?
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
QUOTES: "In insects that are social, they primarily use chemicals to regulate each other. Termites, for example, are a social species, and they pretty much use olfaction and chemicals. Other mammals, like rats and rodents, use touch, and they also use hearing to regulate each other’s nervous systems. Primates, that are not human, also use vision. We use all of those sensory systems—and we also use words and concepts." (DAVID’s bold)
"One thing we’ve learned is that an infant brain doesn’t look like an adult grown-up brain: It’s not wired in the same way. In fact, babies are born with brains that await instructions on how to wire themselves." (DAVID’s bold)
DAVID: this is a materialism view of a neuroscientist, but her thoughts contain many truths. The first is about lower animals and how their socializing works chemically and by other senses.
dhw: I don’t know why you’ve bolded it. All organisms, including ourselves, use chemicals and other senses in order to communicate. Since the author is a materialist, she obviously believes that the source of intelligence is material. That applies both to humans and to the so-called “lower animals”, so what is your point?
DAVID: Just to point out how this comment implies all the automaticity that is in play.
Yes, of course, the senses and the means of communication used by “lower animals” are as automatic as our own. And some of us would argue that these are used and/or directed by intelligence – nowhere near as acute as our own, but nevertheless autonomous and not automatic.
DAVID: The second bold, in order, shows how the blank-like infant is developed. My view is that our soul/consciousness develops from infant to adult as the instrument of our brain is developed from a very blank beginning. This brain is God's special gift at the end of evolution.
dhw: First of all, you have previously agreed that it is NOT blank at the beginning. That would give every baby precisely the same character right from the start! There are inborn characteristics, which a materialist would attribute to the genetic makeup. Secondly, consciousness developing as the brain develops is just about as materialist as you can get. Why bother to shove in the word soul?
DAVID: Of course there are inborn characteristics. It is the byplay that forms the adult brain through the brain's plasticity, but the brain itself is very blank in the beginning. Did you understand the presented concept, or just like to argue?
I understood the presented, materialist concept, but I disagreed with your description of the infant. If it has inborn characteristics, it is not “blank-like”, and its brain is not “very blank in the beginning”. I also find the author’s statement that an infant’s brain “doesn’t look like an adult brain” a bit silly. How much of the baby looks like the adult? And the fact that the brain will continually rewire itself throughout life does not mean it does not already have some wiring when the baby is born after its first nine months of formation (and some say experience) in the womb. (See below.) I note that you have not commented on the fact that “consciousness develops as the brain develops” yet again underlines your materialist beliefs although you claim to be a dualist, even if you add the word “soul”. This would only work if you meant that the soul develops as the brain provides it with more and more information.
DAVID: fMRI's of very young babies shnw how organized these regions of the baby brains are as early s six days:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-earliest-newborns-visual-cortex-reveals.html
QUOTE: "Within hours of birth, a baby's gaze is drawn to faces. Now, brain scans of newborns reveal the neurobiology underlying this behavior, showing that as young as six days old a baby's brain appears hardwired for the specialized tasks of seeing faces and seeing places
QUOTE: "'We've shown that a baby's brain is more adult-like than many people might assume," adds Frederik Kamps, who led the study as a Ph.D. candidate at Emory. "Much of the scaffolding for the human visual cortex is already in place, along with the patterns of brain activity, although the patterns are not as strong compared to those of adults."
Thank you as always for your honesty in presenting evidence which directly contradicts your claim that the infant is “blank-like” and the brain develops from a “very blank beginning”.
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 03, 2020, 17:26 (1508 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The second bold, in order, shows how the blank-like infant is developed. My view is that our soul/consciousness develops from infant to adult as the instrument of our brain is developed from a very blank beginning. This brain is God's special gift at the end of evolution.
dhw: First of all, you have previously agreed that it is NOT blank at the beginning. That would give every baby precisely the same character right from the start! There are inborn characteristics, which a materialist would attribute to the genetic makeup. Secondly, consciousness developing as the brain develops is just about as materialist as you can get. Why bother to shove in the word soul?
DAVID: Of course there are inborn characteristics. It is the byplay that forms the adult brain through the brain's plasticity, but the brain itself is very blank in the beginning. Did you understand the presented concept, or just like to argue?
dhw: I understood the presented, materialist concept, but I disagreed with your description of the infant. If it has inborn characteristics, it is not “blank-like”, and its brain is not “very blank in the beginning”. I also find the author’s statement that an infant’s brain “doesn’t look like an adult brain” a bit silly. How much of the baby looks like the adult? And the fact that the brain will continually rewire itself throughout life does not mean it does not already have some wiring when the baby is born after its first nine months of formation (and some say experience) in the womb.
To be clear your concept of not blank is not true. I'm referring to the timing of developments.The baby brain arrives with the proper areas and connections, but the characteristics it brings along, that you note, are in the DNA of the neurons and when experiences occur the brain will then respond and form itself with those influences actively in participation, so the future results reflects its inheritence.
dhw: I note that you have not commented on the fact that “consciousness develops as the brain develops” yet again underlines your materialist beliefs although you claim to be a dualist, even if you add the word “soul”. This would only work if you meant that the soul develops as the brain provides it with more and more information. The soul can do m ore cand m ore wsikth con cepts as teh brain provides more complexity. The soul uses the brain.
DAVID: fMRI's of very young babies shnw how organized these regions of the baby brains are as early s six days:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-earliest-newborns-visual-cortex-reveals.htmlQUOTE: "Within hours of birth, a baby's gaze is drawn to faces. Now, brain scans of newborns reveal the neurobiology underlying this behavior, showing that as young as six days old a baby's brain appears hardwired for the specialized tasks of seeing faces and seeing places
QUOTE: "'We've shown that a baby's brain is more adult-like than many people might assume," adds Frederik Kamps, who led the study as a Ph.D. candidate at Emory. "Much of the scaffolding for the human visual cortex is already in place, along with the patterns of brain activity, although the patterns are not as strong compared to those of adults."
dhw: Thank you as always for your honesty in presenting evidence which directly contradicts your claim that the infant is “blank-like” and the brain develops from a “very blank beginning”.
My difference in approach concerns the timing of events as above.
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 03, 2020, 18:33 (1508 days ago) @ David Turell
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate (Introduction)
by David Turell @, Tuesday, March 03, 2020, 17:26 (0 minutes ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The second bold, in order, shows how the blank-like infant is developed. My view is that our soul/consciousness develops from infant to adult as the instrument of our brain is developed from a very blank beginning. This brain is God's special gift at the end of evolution.
dhw: First of all, you have previously agreed that it is NOT blank at the beginning. That would give every baby precisely the same character right from the start! There are inborn characteristics, which a materialist would attribute to the genetic makeup. Secondly, consciousness developing as the brain develops is just about as materialist as you can get. Why bother to shove in the word soul?
DAVID: Of course there are inborn characteristics. It is the byplay that forms the adult brain through the brain's plasticity, but the brain itself is very blank in the beginning. Did you understand the presented concept, or just like to argue?
dhw: I understood the presented, materialist concept, but I disagreed with your description of the infant. If it has inborn characteristics, it is not “blank-like”, and its brain is not “very blank in the beginning”. I also find the author’s statement that an infant’s brain “doesn’t look like an adult brain” a bit silly. How much of the baby looks like the adult? And the fact that the brain will continually rewire itself throughout life does not mean it does not already have some wiring when the baby is born after its first nine months of formation (and some say experience) in the womb.
To be clear your concept of not blank is not true. I'm referring to the timing of developments.The baby brain arrives with the proper areas and connections, but the characteristics it brings along, that you note, are in the DNA of the neurons and when experiences occur the brain will then respond and form itself with those influences actively in participation, so the future results reflects its inheritence.
dhw: I note that you have not commented on the fact that “consciousness develops as the brain develops” yet again underlines your materialist beliefs although you claim to be a dualist, even if you add the word “soul”. This would only work if you meant that the soul develops as the brain provides it with more and more information. The soul can do more and more with concepts as t he brain provides more complexity. The soul uses the brain tt way as a tool.
DAVID: fMRI's of very young babies shnw how organized these regions of the baby brains are as early s six days:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-earliest-newborns-visual-cortex-reveals.html
QUOTE: "Within hours of birth, a baby's gaze is drawn to faces. Now, brain scans of newborns reveal the neurobiology underlying this behavior, showing that as young as six days old a baby's brain appears hardwired for the specialized tasks of seeing faces and seeing places
QUOTE: "'We've shown that a baby's brain is more adult-like than many people might assume," adds Frederik Kamps, who led the study as a Ph.D. candidate at Emory. "Much of the scaffolding for the human visual cortex is already in place, along with the patterns of brain activity, although the patterns are not as strong compared to those of adults."
dhw: Thank you as always for your honesty in presenting evidence which directly contradicts your claim that the infant is “blank-like” and the brain develops from a “very blank beginning”.
My difference in approach concerns the timing of events as above.
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 03, 2020, 18:36 (1508 days ago) @ David Turell
Please ignore this post as it was poorly edited before it was posted. A proper post precedes
DAVID: The second bold, in order, shows how the blank-like infant is developed. My view is that our soul/consciousness develops from infant to adult as the instrument of our brain is developed from a very blank beginning. This brain is God's special gift at the end of evolution.
dhw: First of all, you have previously agreed that it is NOT blank at the beginning. That would give every baby precisely the same character right from the start! There are inborn characteristics, which a materialist would attribute to the genetic makeup. Secondly, consciousness developing as the brain develops is just about as materialist as you can get. Why bother to shove in the word soul?
DAVID: Of course there are inborn characteristics. It is the byplay that forms the adult brain through the brain's plasticity, but the brain itself is very blank in the beginning. Did you understand the presented concept, or just like to argue?
dhw: I understood the presented, materialist concept, but I disagreed with your description of the infant. If it has inborn characteristics, it is not “blank-like”, and its brain is not “very blank in the beginning”. I also find the author’s statement that an infant’s brain “doesn’t look like an adult brain” a bit silly. How much of the baby looks like the adult? And the fact that the brain will continually rewire itself throughout life does not mean it does not already have some wiring when the baby is born after its first nine months of formation (and some say experience) in the womb.
To be clear your concept of not blank is not true. I'm referring to the timing of developments.The baby brain arrives with the proper areas and connections, but the characteristics it brings along, that you note, are in the DNA of the neurons and when experiences occur the brain will then respond and form itself with those influences actively in participation, so the future results reflects its inheritence.dhw: I note that you have not commented on the fact that “consciousness develops as the brain develops” yet again underlines your materialist beliefs although you claim to be a dualist, even if you add the word “soul”. This would only work if you meant that the soul develops as the brain provides it with more and more information. The soul can do m ore cand m ore wsikth con cepts as teh brain provides more complexity. The soul uses the brain.
DAVID: fMRI's of very young babies shnw how organized these regions of the baby brains are as early s six days:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-earliest-newborns-visual-cortex-reveals.htmlQUOTE: "Within hours of birth, a baby's gaze is drawn to faces. Now, brain scans of newborns reveal the neurobiology underlying this behavior, showing that as young as six days old a baby's brain appears hardwired for the specialized tasks of seeing faces and seeing places
QUOTE: "'We've shown that a baby's brain is more adult-like than many people might assume," adds Frederik Kamps, who led the study as a Ph.D. candidate at Emory. "Much of the scaffolding for the human visual cortex is already in place, along with the patterns of brain activity, although the patterns are not as strong compared to those of adults."
dhw: Thank you as always for your honesty in presenting evidence which directly contradicts your claim that the infant is “blank-like” and the brain develops from a “very blank beginning”.
My difference in approach concerns the timing of events as above.
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
dhw: I understood the presented, materialist concept, but I disagreed with your description of the infant. If it has inborn characteristics, it is not “blank-like”, and its brain is not “very blank in the beginning”. I also find the author’s statement that an infant’s brain “doesn’t look like an adult brain” a bit silly. How much of the baby looks like the adult? And the fact that the brain will continually rewire itself throughout life does not mean it does not already have some wiring when the baby is born after its first nine months of formation (and some say experience) in the womb.
DAVID: To be clear your concept of not blank is not true. I'm referring to the timing of developments.The baby brain arrives with the proper areas and connections, but the characteristics it brings along, that you note, are in the DNA of the neurons and when experiences occur the brain will then respond and form itself with those influences actively in participation, so the future results reflects its inheritence.
“To be clear”, I find your concept of “blank” incomprehensible. I understand by “blank” that there is nothing – whatever it is, is empty. If the baby arrives with a brain containing proper areas and connections and individual characteristics, it is not blank or empty. Future experiences will of course go on developing and changing whatever connections and characteristics it started out with.
dhw: I note that you have not commented on the fact that “consciousness develops as the brain develops” yet again underlines your materialist beliefs although you claim to be a dualist, even if you add the word “soul”. This would only work if you meant that the soul develops as the brain provides it with more and more information.
DAVID: The soul can do more and more with concepts as the brain provides more complexity. The soul uses the brain tt way as a tool.
This all got horribly garbled – hence your three attempts to post it! (“tt way” is still garbled.) The explanation is also pretty garbled. What do you mean by “the brain provides more complexity”? I agree that if there is a soul it uses the brain as a tool, and I keep reiterating that the two uses are to gather more and more information, and to give material implementation to its concepts. What else does the brain provide? You, however, keep saying that it is the brain that does the conceiving, e.g. “an earlier brain cannot conceive what a more advanced brain can conceive.” THAT is materialism.
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 04, 2020, 19:48 (1507 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I understood the presented, materialist concept, but I disagreed with your description of the infant. If it has inborn characteristics, it is not “blank-like”, and its brain is not “very blank in the beginning”. I also find the author’s statement that an infant’s brain “doesn’t look like an adult brain” a bit silly. How much of the baby looks like the adult? And the fact that the brain will continually rewire itself throughout life does not mean it does not already have some wiring when the baby is born after its first nine months of formation (and some say experience) in the womb.
DAVID: To be clear your concept of not blank is not true. I'm referring to the timing of developments.The baby brain arrives with the proper areas and connections, but the characteristics it brings along, that you note, are in the DNA of the neurons and when experiences occur the brain will then respond and form itself with those influences actively in participation, so the future results reflects its inheritence.
dhw: “To be clear”, I find your concept of “blank” incomprehensible. I understand by “blank” that there is nothing – whatever it is, is empty. If the baby arrives with a brain containing proper areas and connections and individual characteristics, it is not blank or empty. Future experiences will of course go on developing and changing whatever connections and characteristics it started out with.
Not that complex for you to understand. Yes the brain is prepared to receive info, but until it receives the experiences, it is blank. Think of a blank paper before you type some words. Simple.
dhw: I note that you have not commented on the fact that “consciousness develops as the brain develops” yet again underlines your materialist beliefs although you claim to be a dualist, even if you add the word “soul”. This would only work if you meant that the soul develops as the brain provides it with more and more information.
DAVID: The soul can do more and more with concepts as the brain provides more complexity. The soul uses the brain that way as a tool.[/i]
dhw: The explanation is also pretty garbled. What do you mean by “the brain provides more complexity”? I agree that if there is a soul it uses the brain as a tool, and I keep reiterating that the two uses are to gather more and more information, and to give material implementation to its concepts. What else does the brain provide? You, however, keep saying that it is the brain that does the conceiving, e.g. “an earlier brain cannot conceive what a more advanced brain can conceive.” THAT is materialism.
You insist upon my shorthand being confusing. Once again the soul/consciousness uses the existing brain as a tool for creating immaterial thoughts and concepts. The degree of possible complex thinking depends on how complex the brain is constructed and allows the level of complexity of conceptual thought. The bolded above is a woolly phrase that tells us nothing. I don't understand how you apply that to a thinking brain at any level of com plexity. I'll use an example: habilis realizes it is safer to attack a prey from a safe distance: using a staff, throwing a staff, or adding a sharp stone point. He then uses his hands to fashion it. The stone age American Indian has spears and bows and arrows. They had to imagine the weapon and figure out how to make it by hand. I see reason why that should force brain enlargement. It certainly didn't do that with the H. sapiens Indian brains. So using the big word 'implementation' proves what???
We know each fossil gap in brain size is followed by new artifacts. Those 200 cc gaps tell us a better brain did the new work, nothing more
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
dhw: I understood the presented, materialist concept, but I disagreed with your description of the infant. If it has inborn characteristics, it is not “blank-like”, and its brain is not “very blank in the beginning”. I also find the author’s statement that an infant’s brain “doesn’t look like an adult brain” a bit silly. How much of the baby looks like the adult? And the fact that the brain will continually rewire itself throughout life does not mean it does not already have some wiring when the baby is born after its first nine months of formation (and some say experience) in the womb.
DAVID: To be clear your concept of not blank is not true. I'm referring to the timing of developments.The baby brain arrives with the proper areas and connections, but the characteristics it brings along, that you note, are in the DNA of the neurons and when experiences occur the brain will then respond and form itself with those influences actively in participation, so the future results reflects its inheritence.
dhw: “To be clear”, I find your concept of “blank” incomprehensible. I understand by “blank” that there is nothing – whatever it is, is empty. If the baby arrives with a brain containing proper areas and connections and individual characteristics, it is not blank or empty. Future experiences will of course go on developing and changing whatever connections and characteristics it started out with.
DAVID: Not that complex for you to understand. Yes the brain is prepared to receive info, but until it receives the experiences, it is blank. Think of a blank paper before you type some words. Simple.
I understand the meaning of blank, and am pointing out that if, as you have agreed, the brain already contains proper areas and connections and individual characteristics, it is not blank. Simple.
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
by David Turell , Thursday, March 05, 2020, 15:09 (1506 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I understood the presented, materialist concept, but I disagreed with your description of the infant. If it has inborn characteristics, it is not “blank-like”, and its brain is not “very blank in the beginning”. I also find the author’s statement that an infant’s brain “doesn’t look like an adult brain” a bit silly. How much of the baby looks like the adult? And the fact that the brain will continually rewire itself throughout life does not mean it does not already have some wiring when the baby is born after its first nine months of formation (and some say experience) in the womb.
DAVID: To be clear your concept of not blank is not true. I'm referring to the timing of developments.The baby brain arrives with the proper areas and connections, but the characteristics it brings along, that you note, are in the DNA of the neurons and when experiences occur the brain will then respond and form itself with those influences actively in participation, so the future results reflects its inheritence.
dhw: “To be clear”, I find your concept of “blank” incomprehensible. I understand by “blank” that there is nothing – whatever it is, is empty. If the baby arrives with a brain containing proper areas and connections and individual characteristics, it is not blank or empty. Future experiences will of course go on developing and changing whatever connections and characteristics it started out with.
DAVID: Not that complex for you to understand. Yes the brain is prepared to receive info, but until it receives the experiences, it is blank. Think of a blank paper before you type some words. Simple.
dhw: I understand the meaning of blank, and am pointing out that if, as you have agreed, the brain already contains proper areas and connections and individual characteristics, it is not blank. Simple.
A major nuance of difference in interpretation. Until it receives the first important information to shape it s personality it is blank. Its mechanism lying in wait is not the issue as it relates to my statement. The fact that the mechanism might have slight differences due to differing inheritance is beside the point. It still starts blank.
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
dhw: “To be clear”, I find your concept of “blank” incomprehensible. I understand by “blank” that there is nothing – whatever it is, is empty. If the baby arrives with a brain containing proper areas and connections and individual characteristics, it is not blank or empty. Future experiences will of course go on developing and changing whatever connections and characteristics it started out with.
DAVID: Not that complex for you to understand. Yes the brain is prepared to receive info, but until it receives the experiences, it is blank. Think of a blank paper before you type some words. Simple.
dhw: I understand the meaning of blank, and am pointing out that if, as you have agreed, the brain already contains proper areas and connections and individual characteristics, it is not blank. Simple.
DAVID: A major nuance of difference in interpretation. Until it receives the first important information to shape it s personality it is blank. Its mechanism lying in wait is not the issue as it relates to my statement. The fact that the mechanism might have slight differences due to differing inheritance is beside the point. It still starts blank.
It is not a nuance, it is a direct opposite. Here is our first exchange on the subject:
dhw: There are inborn characteristics, which a materialist would attribute to the genetic makeup.
DAVID: Of course there are inborn characteristics. It is the byplay that forms the adult brain through the brain's plasticity, but the brain itself is very blank in the beginning.
Then you wrote: "The baby brain arrives with the proper areas and connections, but the characteristics it brings along, that you note, are in the DNA of the neurons”.
Either the baby has inborn characteristics or it doesn’t. You agree that it does, so how can a brain containing inborn characteristics be a blank? I have defined “blank” above, so maybe you’d better define it too, as clearly we are not speaking the same language.
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
by David Turell , Friday, March 06, 2020, 17:21 (1505 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: “To be clear”, I find your concept of “blank” incomprehensible. I understand by “blank” that there is nothing – whatever it is, is empty. If the baby arrives with a brain containing proper areas and connections and individual characteristics, it is not blank or empty. Future experiences will of course go on developing and changing whatever connections and characteristics it started out with.
DAVID: Not that complex for you to understand. Yes the brain is prepared to receive info, but until it receives the experiences, it is blank. Think of a blank paper before you type some words. Simple.
dhw: I understand the meaning of blank, and am pointing out that if, as you have agreed, the brain already contains proper areas and connections and individual characteristics, it is not blank. Simple.
DAVID: A major nuance of difference in interpretation. Until it receives the first important information to shape it s personality it is blank. Its mechanism lying in wait is not the issue as it relates to my statement. The fact that the mechanism might have slight differences due to differing inheritance is beside the point. It still starts blank.
dhw: It is not a nuance, it is a direct opposite. Here is our first exchange on the subject:
dhw: There are inborn characteristics, which a materialist would attribute to the genetic makeup.
DAVID: Of course there are inborn characteristics. It is the byplay that forms the adult brain through the brain's plasticity, but the brain itself is very blank in the beginning.
Then you wrote: "The baby brain arrives with the proper areas and connections, but the characteristics it brings along, that you note, are in the DNA of the neurons”.dhw: Either the baby has inborn characteristics or it doesn’t. You agree that it does, so how can a brain containing inborn characteristics be a blank? I have defined “blank” above, so maybe you’d better define it too, as clearly we are not speaking the same language.
Let's use the comparison of a brain and a computer. When purchased it has certain abilities for use, but it contains no personal input information. It is blank to that point and it will change in what it contains when the info is added and then used. Intelligence levels appear to be variable at birth, so some brains start with advantage or disadvantage. IQ can be increased by teaching and training. My 'blank' is not about the brain as its inner construction attributes. The baby 'blank' state leaves the moment it starts to experience any input from the inside or the outside. Note this: most folks cannot remember before two years of age, because the proper memory elements haven't formed yet. Ability to open new blanks appear as the brain develops. I sharply remember two episodes two years and three months of age. It as if I suddenly appeared! We are discussing two different views of 'blank". I agree with you your baby brain started different than mine in how it was constructed. But that is not the blank I'm describing. Nuanced difference of how to view the brain. And to remind you, I am discussing my dualist view of a brain tool for my soul to use, something you keep forgetting, or pounce on if I don't remind you.
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
dhw: Either the baby has inborn characteristics or it doesn’t. You agree that it does, so how can a brain containing inborn characteristics be a blank? I have defined “blank” above, so maybe you’d better define it too, as clearly we are not speaking the same language.
DAVID: Let's use the comparison of a brain and a computer. When purchased it has certain abilities for use, but it contains no personal input information. It is blank to that point and it will change in what it contains when the info is added and then used.
Computers are all the same “at birth” until they are programmed. But each baby has its own individual characteristics right from the moment of birth, and probably even before birth, since experts agree that babies already respond to certain influences while still in the womb. Your comparison is pointless. The brain is not a computer.
DAVID: Intelligence levels appear to be variable at birth, so some brains start with advantage or disadvantage.
Already an indication that the brain is not a blank!
DAVID: IQ can be increased by teaching and training. My 'blank' is not about the brain as its inner construction attributes. The baby 'blank' state leaves the moment it starts to experience any input from the inside or the outside. Note this: most folks cannot remember before two years of age, because the proper memory elements haven't formed yet.
Nobody is saying the brain arrives fully formed! But its individual characteristics are not “construction attributes”; they are part of the personality. Now please give us your definition of the word “blank”.
DAVID: Ability to open new blanks appear as the brain develops. I sharply remember two episodes two years and three months of age. It as if I suddenly appeared! We are discussing two different views of 'blank". I agree with you your baby brain started different than mine in how it was constructed. But that is not the blank I'm describing. Nuanced difference of how to view the brain.
There is no nuance. You are simply refusing to define the word "blank", because you know as well as I do that the baby’s brain is not an empty vessel or a page with no writing on it. The fact that it develops does not mean it started out with nothing.
DAVID: And to remind you, I am discussing my dualist view of a brain tool for my soul to use, something you keep forgetting, or pounce on if I don't remind you.
On the contrary, I am the one who keeps reminding you that the dualist view is that the soul uses the brain to gather information and to implement its concepts. I pounce on the fact that you keep forgetting it, because you keep telling us that the brain does the conceiving and the thinking. And this has nothing to do with your argument that a brain with individual characteristics, including varying degrees of intelligence, is a blank!
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
by David Turell , Saturday, March 07, 2020, 20:40 (1504 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Let's use the comparison of a brain and a computer. When purchased it has certain abilities for use, but it contains no personal input information. It is blank to that point and it will change in what it contains when the info is added and then used.
dhw: Computers are all the same “at birth” until they are programmed. But each baby has its own individual characteristics right from the moment of birth, and probably even before birth, since experts agree that babies already respond to certain influences while still in the womb. Your comparison is pointless. The brain is not a computer.
I tried a comparison. The brain is not a computer, and I agree each baby brain contains some different underlying characteristics when born but there is no information intake until there is information intake to work with. That is my approach to the concept of 'blank brain'.
DAVID: Intelligence levels appear to be variable at birth, so some brains start with advantage or disadvantage.
dhw: Already an indication that the brain is not a blank!
I understand your view. Mine is slightly different, stated above.
DAVID: IQ can be increased by teaching and training. My 'blank' is not about the brain as its inner construction attributes. The baby 'blank' state leaves the moment it starts to experience any input from the inside or the outside. Note this: most folks cannot remember before two years of age, because the proper memory elements haven't formed yet.dhw: Nobody is saying the brain arrives fully formd! But its individual characteristics are not “construction attributes”; they are part of the personality. Now please give us your definition of the word “blank”.
Each of us starts using our brain at birth with different attributes but it starts at a blank and each of our brains handles the inflow of info differently.
DAVID: And to remind you, I am discussing my dualist view of a brain tool for my soul to use, something you keep forgetting, or pounce on if I don't remind you.
dhw: On the contrary, I am the one who keeps reminding you that the dualist view is that the soul uses the brain to gather information and to implement its concepts. I pounce on the fact that you keep forgetting it, because you keep telling us that the brain does the conceiving and the thinking. And this has nothing to do with your argument that a brain with individual characteristics, including varying degrees of intelligence, is a blank!
My blank is not your blank as above.
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
dhw: Computers are all the same “at birth” until they are programmed. But each baby has its own individual characteristics right from the moment of birth, and probably even before birth, since experts agree that babies already respond to certain influences while still in the womb. Your comparison is pointless. The brain is not a computer.
DAVID: I tried a comparison. The brain is not a computer, and I agree each baby brain contains some different underlying characteristics when born but there is no information intake until there is information intake to work with. That is my approach to the concept of 'blank brain'.
You might as well say babies are born blind and deaf until there are sights for them to see and sounds for them to hear. But even with your extremely limited approach, you ignore the fact that “information” is already passed to the baby in the womb.
See https://parenting.firstcry.com/articles/do-babies-cry-in-the-womb
So at what point would you say the baby’s brain has no “information intake”?
DAVID: Intelligence levels appear to be variable at birth, so some brains start with advantage or disadvantage.
dhw: Already an indication that the brain is not a blank!
DAVID: I understand your view. Mine is slightly different, stated above.
I’d say yours is totally different.
DAVID: IQ can be increased by teaching and training. My 'blank' is not about the brain as its inner construction attributes. The baby 'blank' state leaves the moment it starts to experience any input from the inside or the outside. Note this: most folks cannot remember before two years of age, because the proper memory elements haven't formed yet.
dhw: Nobody is saying the brain arrives fully formed! But its individual characteristics are not “construction attributes”; they are part of the personality. Now please give us your definition of the word “blank”.
DAVID: Each of us starts using our brain at birth with different attributes but it starts at a blank and each of our brains handles the inflow of info differently.
We start before birth, and if we all handle info differently, it could hardly be clearer that the brain is not an empty space. Why do you refuse to define the word “blank”?
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
by David Turell , Sunday, March 08, 2020, 17:49 (1503 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Computers are all the same “at birth” until they are programmed. But each baby has its own individual characteristics right from the moment of birth, and probably even before birth, since experts agree that babies already respond to certain influences while still in the womb. Your comparison is pointless. The brain is not a computer.
DAVID: I tried a comparison. The brain is not a computer, and I agree each baby brain contains some different underlying characteristics when born but there is no information intake until there is information intake to work with. That is my approach to the concept of 'blank brain'.
dhw: You might as well say babies are born blind and deaf until there are sights for them to see and sounds for them to hear. But even with your extremely limited approach, you ignore the fact that “information” is already passed to the baby in the womb.
See https://parenting.firstcry.com/articles/do-babies-cry-in-the-womb
So at what point would you say the baby’s brain has no “information intake”?
What you have described is sensory intake. Yes, the newborn has had that, but what is to come is informational intake at the level of ideas and concepts. The baby is absorbing the ability to use its senses at first. But it is still not intellectualizing to form its personality; reread this statement:
DAVID: IQ can be increased by teaching and training. My 'blank' is not about the brain as its inner construction attributes. The baby 'blank' state leaves the moment it starts to experience any input from the inside or the outside. Note this: most folks cannot remember before two years of age, because the proper memory elements haven't formed yet.
In order for the baby to form its personality it must have the memory apparatus in play to begin to collect information and opinions and think about it to make up its on conclusions.
dhw: Nobody is saying the brain arrives fully formed! But its individual characteristics are not “construction attributes”; they are part of the personality. Now please give us your definition of the word “blank”.DAVID: Each of us starts using our brain at birth with different attributes but it starts at a blank and each of our brains handles the inflow of info differently.
dhw: We start before birth, and if we all handle info differently, it could hardly be clearer that the brain is not an empty space. Why do you refuse to define the word “blank”?
I have. i'm talking about a blank personality at birth. Each new baby is a blank personality and that is the blank that has to be created over time. From my medical school education its basis is 40% inherited tendencies, 40% the experiences it encounters and 20% its own integrations.
We have been talking at cross purposes. My blank is not your blank. We both absolutely agree that each newborn brain is somewhat different. Sorry you didn't understand my blank. My fault for not explaining better to you.
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate
DAVID: I tried a comparison. The brain is not a computer, and I agree each baby brain contains some different underlying characteristics when born but there is no information intake until there is information intake to work with. That is my approach to the concept of 'blank brain'.
dhw: You might as well say babies are born blind and deaf until there are sights for them to see and sounds for them to hear. But even with your extremely limited approach, you ignore the fact that “information” is already passed to the baby in the womb.
See https://parenting.firstcry.com/articles/do-babies-cry-in-the-womb
So at what point would you say the baby’s brain has no “information intake”?
DAVID:What you have described is sensory intake.
What other tools do we have for “information intake”?
DAVID: Yes, the newborn has had that, but what is to come is informational intake at the level of ideas and concepts. The baby is absorbing the ability to use its senses at first. But it is still not intellectualizing to form its personality….
Ideas and concepts arise out of analysis of the information that has been taken in. Of course babies don’t consciously analyse what they perceive. Nor do they immediately start gabbling away in the language with which they will form and express ideas and concepts, but that does not mean part of their personality is not already present!
DAVID: …reread this statement:
DAVID: IQ can be increased by teaching and training. My 'blank' is not about the brain as its inner construction attributes. The baby 'blank' state leaves the moment it starts to experience any input from the inside or the outside. Note this: most folks cannot remember before two years of age, because the proper memory elements haven't formed yet.
In order for the baby to form its personality it must have the memory apparatus in play to begin to collect information and opinions and think about it to make up its on conclusions.
You are simply telling us that the baby’s personality is not fully formed at birth. That is blindingly obvious. But it does not mean the baby is not already born with elements of its own individual personality. There is no blank. Read your next statement!
dhw: We start before birth, and if we all handle info differently, it could hardly be clearer that the brain is not an empty space. Why do you refuse to define the word “blank”?
DAVID: I have. i'm talking about a blank personality at birth. Each new baby is a blank personality and that is the blank that has to be created over time. [dhw: don’t you mean it’s a blank that has to be filled over time?] From my medical school education its basis is 40% inherited tendencies, 40% the experiences it encounters and 20% its own integrations. (dhw’s bold)
Then your medical school training has told you that the baby is born with 40% of its personality. I don’t regard 40% as a blank.
DAVID: We have been talking at cross purposes. My blank is not your blank. We both absolutely agree that each newborn brain is somewhat different. Sorry you didn't understand my blank. My fault for not explaining better to you.
You have explained it very clearly, and what comes out of your explanation is that the baby is born with 40% of its personality. What you have not explained is how 40% of a personality can mean a blank.
Introducing the brain: multiple personalities
by David Turell , Monday, April 20, 2020, 19:02 (1460 days ago) @ dhw
We know about multiple personalities that are separate. A definite strange structure. This article introduces a slightly different form in which there are multiple people who really relate to each other in some measure:
https://aeon.co/ideas/what-we-can-learn-about-respect-and-identity-from-plurals?utm_sou...
"A plural is a human being who says things like: ‘I’m one of many people inside my head.’ Although they are quite rare (it’s impossible to say how rare), plurals are increasingly visible on social media and in the occasional popular media article. At present, there is a handbook online about how to respond to a co-worker’s ‘coming out’ (as the document puts it) as plural.
"You might think you’ve heard of plurals if you’ve heard of dissociative identity disorder (DID), because, like plurals, people with DID experience themselves as being psychologically multiple. But many plurals don’t meet the diagnostic criteria for DID. Often, this is because they don’t find their plurality per se to be distressing or impairing."
Comment: there is no point in copying out any more. The people exist. i believe both types of disorder has the same one underlying soul connected/working with a defective brain with a resultant strange output of personality.
Introducing the brain: realistic analysis re what we know
by David Turell , Tuesday, April 21, 2020, 20:41 (1459 days ago) @ David Turell
Really not very much based on a new book:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/idea-brain-book-explores-evolution-neuroscience
"Neuroscientists love a good metaphor. Through the years, plumbing, telegraph wires and computers have all been enlisted to help explain how the brain operates, neurobiologist and historian Matthew Cobb writes in The Idea of the Brain. And like any metaphor, those approximations all fall short.
"Cobb leads a fascinating tour of how concepts of the brain have morphed over time. His writing is clear, thoughtful and, when called for, funny. He describes experiments by neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, who zapped awake patients’ brains with electricity to provoke reactions. Zapping certain places consistently dredged up memories, which Cobb calls “oneiric experiences.” His footnote on the term: “Look it up. It’s exactly the right word.” I did, and it was. [dream-like]
***
"Cobb offers tastes of the latest research, and a heavy dose of realism. Memory studies have made progress, but “we are still far from understanding what is happening when we remember,” Cobb writes. Despite big efforts, “we still only dimly understand what is going on when we see.” Our understanding of how antidepressants work? “Virtually non-existent.”
"This real talk is refreshing, and Cobb uses it to great effect to argue that neuroscience is stymied. “There have been many similar moments in the past, when brain researchers became uncertain about how to proceed,” he writes. Scientists have amassed an impressive stockpile of brain facts, but a true understanding of how the brain works eludes us.
"Don’t expect a computer metaphor to help. Like a computer, the brain’s main job is to process information. But some experts argue that because brains are biological — they evolved within the vagaries of a body — they operate in ways that a machine doesn’t.
***
"He ends the book with a creative exercise in looking ahead to what the future might hold. The possibilities include the creation of conscious machines, or even having to accept that there is no brain theory to be found. Still, “our current ignorance should not be viewed as a sign of defeat,” Cobb writes, “but as a challenge.'”
Comment: A good bit of realism. Remember an fMRI only shows that an area is using more oxygen, not how the network of neurons really does its work.
Introducing the brain: negative memory controls
by David Turell , Wednesday, April 29, 2020, 22:36 (1451 days ago) @ David Turell
An example of how neuropeptides work:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-molecular-crucial-role-negative.html
"Neurobiologists at KU Leuven have discovered how the signalling molecule Neuromedin U plays a crucial role in our learning process. The protein allows the brain to recall negative memories and, as such, learn from the past. The findings of their study on roundworms have been published in the journal Nature Communications.
***
"The researchers studied the roundworm C. elegans and found that the protein Neuromedin U plays a key role in recalling negative memories. It acts as a signalling molecule allowing the neurons to communicate with each other.
***
"Inactivating the gene responsible for Neuromedin U changes the worms' behaviour, says doctoral student Jan Watteyne, lead author of the study. "We found that the protein plays a very specific role in the learning process: it ensures that the worm is able to learn from past experiences. If the worm encounters a salty environment without food, it will avoid the salt on future occasions. However, if we temporarily block Neuromedin U, the worm forgets this first experience and will be drawn to the salt again. This means that the protein doesn't help to make the association, but it does help to recall it."
"'It's clear that the signalling molecule Neuromedin U plays a crucial role in learning and memory, and more specifically the retrieval of negative memories. This leads us to suspect that other similar molecules, so-called neuropeptides, also perform these specific functions."
"'Our findings in worms are a good starting point for further research into the cognitive functions of other animals. We know that Neuromedin U is also found in many other organisms and in the human brain," says Professor Liliane Schoofs. "A good knowledge of these basic mechanisms is, therefore, crucial to better understand the complex processes in the human brain.'"
Comment: It seems all brains have the same basic properties, but vary greatly in thought capacity as the human brain shows. Communication by ion electric currents is basic to brain processes, but the neurons are also influenced by many different neuropeptides.
Introducing the brain: our brain is so different
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 12, 2020, 00:28 (1439 days ago) @ David Turell
It isn't just bigger. It is better:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352154616302327
"Highlights
•
"Human specialization in brain organization and function is apparent at several levels of organization.
•
"Although humans have comparably large brains, brain size alone does not fully explain the cognitive faculties of our species.
•
"Evolutionary changes may include addition of novel parietal areas that perform fine-grained visuospatial information processing.
•
"Reorganization of the human brain is also apparent at the level of microstructure, such as distribution and morphology of neurons and glial cells.
•
"Human brain evolution is characterized by increase in expression of genes involved in energy metabolism, synaptic function, and plasticity.
"Abstract
Although we share evolutionary history with other primates, examples of apparent cognitive and behavioral discontinuity between humans and other species abound. Neuroanatomical and molecular differences that distinguish the human brain are evident at several levels of organization. Changes in overall anatomy include an increase in absolute and relative brain size. In addition, there may be novel parietal lobe areas in humans that are involved in processing of evermore fine-grained visuospatial information. Modifications in microstructure, such as the distribution patterns and morphology of neurons and glial cells are also significant. Finally, changes in expression of both mRNA and proteins reflect increased energy consumption and plasticity. All together, these brain specializations, when coupled with cultural forces, shaped the evolution of human cognition." (my bold)
Comment: our current is very different in kind from previous brains
Introducing the brain: specialized gene drive
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 12, 2020, 00:41 (1439 days ago) @ David Turell
How it developed from specialized genes that miraculously appeared, but I doubt by chance:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/05/trio-genes-supercharged-human-brain-evolution#
"Three nearly identical genes could help explain how 0.5 liters of gray matter in early human ancestors became the 1.4-liter organ that has made our species so successful and distinctive. The newly identified genes could also help explain how brain development sometimes goes wrong, leading to neurological disorders.
"The genes, descendants of an ancient developmental gene that multiplied and changed in the course of evolution, add to a growing list of DNA implicated in human brain expansion. But they stand out because so much has been learned about how they work their magic, says James Noonan, an evolutionary genomicist at Yale University. Researchers have shown that this trio boosts the number of potential nerve cells in brain tissue, and one team even pinned down the protein interactions likely responsible. “These are new proteins that are potentially modifying a very important pathway in brain development in a very powerful way,” Noonan adds.
"Until now, the four genes were thought to be one, NOTCH2NL, itself a spinoff of the NOTCH gene family, which controls the timing of development in everything from fruit flies to whales. But two studies in the 31 May issue of Cell trace a series of genetic accidents in recent evolutionary history that have yielded four very closely related NOTCH2NL genes in humans.
***
"By comparing NOTCH2NL-related DNA in the genomes of humans and other primates, Haussler’s team reconstructed the genes’ evolutionary history. They concluded that during DNA replication perhaps 14 million years ago, part of an ancestral NOTCH2 gene was copied by mistake. The new “gene” was incomplete and nonfunctional, but about 11 million years later—shortly before human ancestors’ brains began to expand—an additional piece of NOTCH2 got inserted into this copy, making the gene functional. “This event marks the birth of the NOTCH2NL genes we now have in our brains,” says Frank Jacobs, a co–senior author on the paper and an evolutionary genomicist at the University of Amsterdam. (my bold)
"Subsequently, that active NOTCH2NL gene was duplicated twice more, yielding three active NOTCH2NL genes in a row at one end of human chromosome 1 and one inactive copy on the other end. Gene copies can be potent evolutionary forces because one copy continues its necessary job, leaving the others free to do something new.
***
"Vanderhaeghen and his colleagues describe molecular details of how NOTCH2NL works to boost neuron formation. They found that a NOTCH2NL protein blocks a key step in a signaling pathway that causes stem cells to differentiate and stop dividing. As a result, the cells persist and keep producing progeny, ultimately yielding a larger crop of neurons. “That’s really compelling biological data,” Noonan says. “In other studies of genes involved in human evolution, it’s been very difficult to draw a line from the genetic difference to the phenotype to a biochemical mechanism that’s responsible.'”
Comment: Note the bold. The gene reduplicated by 'mistake' or by God's actions. I really doubt that chance made us so lucky!
Introducing the brain: fast evolution explanation
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 12, 2020, 00:56 (1439 days ago) @ David Turell
Another view of how fast it happened:
https://www.allaboutscience.org/evolution-of-the-human-brain-faq.htm
"As with other complex biological features, scientists explain the evolution of the human brain through natural selection. However, the human brain presents some unique challenges that must be answered through slightly different methods. There are aspects of the brain of homo sapiens that do not fit Darwin's usual pattern. The time scale allowed for significant change is shorter. The mental capabilities of humans are far above other organisms. The unique nature of man puts our brain in a class by itself.
***
"Scientists have experienced problems when applying the normal methods of evolution to the human brain. Paleontologists and neurologists have noted that there is little to no notable difference between the brains of modern humans and so-called Neanderthals, other than a slight change in size. Given the supposedly significant differences in intelligence, social structure, and physical features, this seems strange. Those studying this field admit as much. The coordination required between the brain and the body is another. The development of the human brain is one of the biggest unsolved mysteries for evolution.
"The response used by scientists to explain the evolution of the human brain involves a "fast evolution" scheme. Researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute concluded that the human brain evolved very rapidly. Their research led them to believe that there was considerable "selection pressure" to evolve the brain into a larger, stronger unit. As human society became more sophisticated, the advantage of a larger brain became more pronounced. This caused the evolutionary process to accelerate, resulting in a quick progression to modern man.
"There are some unanswered aspects to these theories, however. As with most other evolutionary studies, there are plenty of reasons given for why a larger, stronger brain is useful, yet no actual biological or physical explanation for how it occurred. It is important to realize that modern science has never observed a beneficial, inheritable mutation that causes a permanent change in a species. Variations from a norm have survived a few generations, but then have swung back to the original form.
"The idea that the usefulness of the brain caused evolution to accelerate also seems improbable. If the advantage was very strong, it would seem more likely to see a very clear, steady, uninterrupted evolution. Just because a feature is useful should not make a mutation more likely. To assume that mutation occurred more frequently because the larger brain was "needed" implies intent and intelligence behind the process.
"Finally, aligning the development of the brain with the development of the body poses a massive problem for evolutionary scientists. Simply looking at a possible evolutionary event brings the dilemma to light. Imagine a mutation, or series of mutations, that improve the eyesight of an organism. For the brain to be able to process this information, it either must evolve after the eye, before the eye, or at the same time." (my bold)
Comment: Rather than coordinating with the eye or other sensory structures, my previous point is more important to consider, that the brain enlargement has to coordinate with bigger skull (bone) size and a necessary enlargement change in the female birth canal (pelvic bone) to accommodate the bigger baby skull (bone). Not by chance was Adler's point also.
Introducing the brain: compensations for large energy use
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 12, 2020, 01:04 (1439 days ago) @ David Turell
Twenty percent of our energy consumption is by the brain:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10629
Abstract
"The human brain stands out among mammals by being unusually large. The expensive-tissue hypothesis1 explains its evolution by proposing a trade-off between the size of the brain and that of the digestive tract, which is smaller than expected for a primate of our body size. Although this hypothesis is widely accepted, empirical support so far has been equivocal. Here we test it in a sample of 100 mammalian species, including 23 primates, by analysing brain size and organ mass data. We found that, controlling for fat-free body mass, brain size is not negatively correlated with the mass of the digestive tract or any other expensive organ, thus refuting the expensive-tissue hypothesis. Nonetheless, consistent with the existence of energy trade-offs with brain size, we find that the size of brains and adipose depots are negatively correlated in mammals, indicating that encephalization and fat storage are compensatory strategies to buffer against starvation. However, these two strategies can be combined if fat storage does not unduly hamper locomotor efficiency. We propose that human encephalization was made possible by a combination of stabilization of energy inputs and a redirection of energy from locomotion, growth and reproduction." (my bold)
Comment: Another required change to accommodate our very special brain, Not by chance.
Introducing the brain:new skills require developing patience
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 13, 2020, 19:12 (1437 days ago) @ David Turell
A study of 500,000 year old hand axes and their precise designs:
https://phys.org/news/2020-05-evolution-self-control.html
"Human self-control evolved in our early ancestors, becoming particularly evident around 500,000 years ago when they developed the skills to make sophisticated tools, a new study suggests.
"While early hominins such as Homo erectus could craft basic handaxes as early as 1.8 million years ago, our hominin ancestors began to create more elaborate and carefully designed versions of these tools sometime before 500,000 years ago.
"The authors of the study, from the University of York, say these advances in craftsmanship suggest individuals at this time possessed characteristics which demonstrate significant self-control, such as concentration and frustration tolerance.
***
"The axes are highly symmetrical suggesting careful workmanship and the forgoing of immediate needs for longer term aims.
"Senior author of the study, Dr. Penny Spikins, from the Department of Archaeology said: "More sophisticated tools like the Boxgrove handaxes start to appear around the same time as our hominin ancestors were developing much bigger brains. (my bold)
"'The axes demonstrate characteristics that can be related to self-control such as the investment of time and energy in something that does not produce an immediate reward, forward planning and a level of frustration tolerance for completing a painstaking task.
"'In the present day our capacity for self-control has become particularly important. Without the advanced levels of self-control we possess as a species, lockdown would be impossible. It takes self-control to put the needs of the community first rather than focus on our own immediate ends. Our study offers some clues as to where in human history this ability originated."
"The researchers also point to evidence that the production of highly symmetrical and elaborate axes would have required knowledge and skill accumulated over a life time.
In one study, it took people trying to replicate the axes discovered at Boxgrove 16 hours of practice to even produce a recognisable handaxe."
***
"These axes demonstrate social learning and effortful activity directed at honing skills. They also provide some of the earliest evidence of something being deliberately made in a sequence from a picture in someone's mind.
"Self-control is not unique to humans, but may have played an important role in our evolution. It's key to many of the traits which define modern humans such as pro-sociality, cooperation and caring for the vulnerable."
Comment: Note the bold once again associating the advances in technique with brain size. It is known that erectus brain size increased from the time they first appeared. This also fits my idea that the bigger brain allows for thought advances, that is, learning to use it as knowledge builds and is passed on.
Introducing the brain: roles of the cerebellum
by David Turell , Friday, May 15, 2020, 22:46 (1435 days ago) @ David Turell
Continuing research on the human cerebellum with fMRI:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811919309176
"Highlights
•
Explores effective connectivity between cerebellum and cerebrum in (non)social sequencing.
•
Closed-loop connectivity of bilateral posterior cerebellum with bilateral TPJ.
•
Unidirectional connectivity of bilateral TPJ to the dmPFC.
"Abstract
This analysis explores the effective connectivity of the cerebellum with the cerebral cortex during the generation of correct sequences of social and non-social events, using dynamic causal modelling (DCM). Our hypothesis is that during human evolution, the cerebellum’s function evolved from a mere coordinator of fluent sequences of motions and actions, to an interpreter of action sequences without overt movements that are important for social understanding. This requires efficient neural communication between the cerebellum and cerebral cortex. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, participants generated the correct chronological order of (non-)social events, including stories involving mechanical and social scripts, and true or false beliefs. Across all stories, a DCM analysis of these data revealed, as predicted, bidirectional (closed-loop) connections linking the bilateral posterior cerebellum with the bilateral temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) associated with behavior understanding, and this connectivity pattern was almost entirely significant. There was also a unidirectional connection from the right posterior cerebellum to the precuneus, but no direct connections with the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC). Moreover, all connections emanating from the bilateral posterior cerebellum were negative, indicative of some kind of error signal. Within the cerebral cortex, there were unidirectional connections from the bilateral TPJ to the dmPFC, as well as bidirectional connections between the precuneus and dmPFC, and between the bilateral TPJ. These results confirm that the effective connectivity between the posterior cerebellum and mentalizing areas in the cerebral cortex play a critical role in the understanding and construction of the correct order of social and non-social action sequences."
Comment: The cerebellum is used primarily to coordinate muscular activities, but in humans it has developed other activities.
Introducing the brain: designed for high efficiency
by David Turell , Thursday, June 04, 2020, 19:02 (1415 days ago) @ David Turell
It has parallel systems of neurons, not just linear connections as in computers:
http://nautil.us/issue/86/energy/why-is-the-human-brain-so-efficient-rp?mc_cid=1bf5efd4...
"The brain is complex; in humans it consists of about 100 billion neurons, making on the order of 100 trillion connections. It is often compared with another complex system that has enormous problem-solving power: the digital computer. Both the brain and the computer contain a large number of elementary units—neurons and transistors, respectively—that are wired into complex circuits to process information conveyed by electrical signals. At a global level, the architectures of the brain and the computer resemble each other, consisting of largely separate circuits for input, output, central processing, and memory.
***
"As of this writing, however, humans triumph over computers in numerous real-world tasks—ranging from identifying a bicycle or a particular pedestrian on a crowded city street to reaching for a cup of tea and moving it smoothly to one’s lips—let alone conceptualization and creativity.
***
"The calculations performed by the brain, however, are neither slow nor imprecise. For example, a professional tennis player can follow the trajectory of a tennis ball after it is served at a speed as high as 160 miles per hour, move to the optimal spot on the court, position his or her arm, and swing the racket to return the ball in the opponent’s court, all within a few hundred milliseconds... An important difference between the computer and the brain is the mode by which information is processed within each system. Computer tasks are performed largely in serial steps. This can be seen by the way engineers program computers by creating a sequential flow of instructions. For this sequential cascade of operations, high precision is necessary at each step, as errors accumulate and amplify in successive steps. The brain also uses serial steps for information processing. In the tennis return example, information flows from the eye to the brain and then to the spinal cord to control muscle contraction in the legs, trunk, arms, and wrist.
"But the brain also employs massively parallel processing, taking advantage of the large number of neurons and large number of connections each neuron makes. For instance, the moving tennis ball activates many cells in the retina called photoreceptors, whose job is to convert light into electrical signals. These signals are then transmitted to many different kinds of neurons in the retina in parallel. By the time signals originating in the photoreceptor cells have passed through two to three synaptic connections in the retina, information regarding the location, direction, and speed of the ball has been extracted by parallel neuronal circuits and is transmitted in parallel to the brain. Likewise, the motor cortex (part of the cerebral cortex that is responsible for volitional motor control) sends commands in parallel to control muscle contraction in the legs, the trunk, the arms, and the wrist, such that the body and the arms are simultaneously well positioned to receiving the incoming ball.
This massively parallel strategy is possible because each neuron collects inputs from and sends output to many other neurons—on the order of 1,000 on average for both input and output for a mammalian neuron. (By contrast, each transistor has only three nodes for input and output all together.) Information from a single neuron can be delivered to many parallel downstream pathways. At the same time, many neurons that process the same information can pool their inputs to the same downstream neuron. This latter property is particularly useful for enhancing the precision of information processing. For example, information represented by an individual neuron may be noisy (say, with a precision of 1 in 100). By taking the average of input from 100 neurons carrying the same information, the common downstream partner neuron can represent the information with much higher precision (about 1 in 1,000 in this case).
***
"Another salient property of the brain, which is clearly at play in the return of service example from tennis, is that the connection strengths between neurons can be modified in response to activity and experience—a process that is widely believed by neuroscientists to be the basis for learning and memory. Repetitive training enables the neuronal circuits to become better configured for the tasks being performed, resulting in greatly improved speed and precision."(Comment: note complexification is automatic)
Comment: So much for Libet's 'delay' problem, which obviously cannot exist in order to efficiently return a tennis serve. The article primarily is concerned with a computer's inability to think like a human brain. Design cannot be denied and the beginnings of this design started in earlier brains.
Introducing the brain: temporal cortex interprets objects
by David Turell , Friday, June 05, 2020, 19:37 (1414 days ago) @ David Turell
Specific areas carefully designed for specialized recognitions:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-mathematical-brain-visual.html
"The brain's inferotemporal (IT) cortex is a critical center for the recognition of objects. Different regions or "patches" within the IT cortex encode for the recognition of different things. In 2003, Tsao and her collaborators discovered that there are six face patches; there are also patches that encode for bodies, scenes, and colors. But these well-studied islands only make up some of IT cortex, and the functions of the brain cells located in between them have not been well understood.
***
"Working with nonhuman primates, Bao first stimulated a region of IT cortex that did not belong to any of the previously defined patches and measured how other parts of IT responded to stimulation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In doing so, he discovered a new network: three regions of the IT cortex that were driven by the stimulation. He called this network the "no man's land network," since it belonged to an uncharted region of IT cortex.
"To determine what kind of objects the new network responded to, Bao showed the primates images of thousands of different objects while he measured neurons' activity in the new network. He found that the neurons responded strongly to a group of objects that seemingly had nothing in common, except for one curious feature: they all contained thin "protrusions." That is, spiky objects such as spiders, helicopters, and chairs triggered the activity of the cells of the new network. Round, smooth objects like faces triggered almost no activity in this network.
***
"Astonishingly, he found a network of cortical regions that did respond only to stubby objects, as predicted by the model. This means the deep network had successfully predicted the existence of a previously unknown set of brain regions.
"Why was each quadrant represented by a network of multiple regions? Earlier, Tsao's lab had found that different face patches throughout IT cortex encode an increasingly abstract representation of faces. Bao found that the two networks he had discovered showed this same property: cells in more anterior regions of the brain responded to objects across different angles, while cells in more posterior regions responded to objects only at specific angles. This shows that the temporal lobe contains multiple copies of the map of object space, each more abstract than the preceding.
"Finally, the team was curious how complete the map was. They measured the brain activity from each of the four networks comprising the map as the primates viewed images of objects and then decoded the brain signals to determine what the primates had been looking at. The model was able to accurately reconstruct the images viewed by the primates.
"'We now know which features are important for object recognition," says Bao. "The similarity between the important features observed in both biological visual systems and deep networks suggests the two systems might share a similar computational mechanism for object recognition. Indeed, this is the first time, to my knowledge, that a deep network has made a prediction about a feature of the brain that was not known before and turned out to be true. I think we are very close to figuring out the how the primate brain solves the object recognition problem.'"
Comment: How did the brain learn to organize itself in this way, changing electrical signals into recognizable images? Not by chance.
Introducing the brain: specific appetite control
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 09, 2020, 00:23 (1411 days ago) @ David Turell
Found in glial cells on the ventricular membranes:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-appetite-cells-brain.html
"Tanycytes are glial cells, which communicate with neurons in the brain to inform it of what we have eaten. Researchers from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick have found when tanycytes are selectively stimulated appetite was increased.
"It has previously been discovered that tanycytes—cells found in part of the brain that controls energy levels—detect nutrients in food and tell the brain directly about the food we have eaten.
"Tanycytes do this by responding to amino acids found in foods, via the same receptors that sense the flavor of amino acids ("umami" taste), which are found in the taste buds of the tongue.
***
"Tanycytes are glial cells located in the center of the brain where they line one of the fluid filled spaces known as ventricles. They are able to senses or "taste" the nutrients in the cerebrospinal fluid within the ventricle. The amount of nutrients in this fluid varies depending how much has been eaten. A key question has been whether the tanycytes can relay this information about nutrients to the nearby neurons that regulate appetite and how much energy that is expended via activity or the generation of body heat.
"By getting tanycytes to selectively express a light sensitive ion channel, researchers were able to very activate them very specifically and show that this causes nearby neurons to become active. By looking at the identity of the activated neurons the researchers found that the tanycytes could turn on two different pathways involved in the control of feeding.
"One pathway is associated with an increased drive to feed, whereas the other pathway is associated a reduced drive to feed and greater energy expenditure. From this it would not be clear which of these two opposed pathways "wins".
"By studying how stimulation of tanycytes changes feeding behavior, the researchers showed that it resulted in a short-term increase in food intake: i.e. the drive to feed more overcame the opposing drive to feed less and expend more energy.
"Professor Nicholas Dale, from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick explains:
"'Tanycytes respond to nutrients that signal the effect of feeling full, so we'd expect that when tanycytes are stimulated you would eat less, but surprisingly we found that you actually eat more. We have established a link between tanycytes and food intake, but we still don't completely understand how they will contribute to the control of body weight in the longer term.'"
Comment: It is important for weight control and proper nutrition to have both appetite stimulation and repression counterbalancing controls. Observations such as this show how important it is to design the brain properly, reusing receptors from the tongue in the proper place. If the brain can enlarge all on its own, per dhw, would it be aware of tongue receptors to develop the system? It would have to have the ability to follow complex instructions it was given.
Introducing the brain: bilateral speech controls
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 10, 2020, 21:35 (1409 days ago) @ David Turell
New research on how the brain controls speech:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200610094042.htm
"'While the left side of the brain controls temporal aspects such as the transition between speech sounds, the right hemisphere is responsible for the control of the sound spectrum. When you say 'mother', for example, the left hemisphere primarily controls the dynamic transitions between "th" and the vowels, while the right hemisphere primarily controls the sounds themselves." His team, together with the phonetician Dr Susanne Fuchs, was able to demonstrate this division of labour in temporal and spectral control of speech for the first time in studies in which speakers were required to talk while their brain activities were recorded using functional magnetic resonance imaging.
"A possible explanation for this division of labour between the two sides of the brain is that the left hemisphere generally analyses fast processes such as the transition between speech sounds better than the right hemisphere. The right hemisphere could be better at controlling the slower processes required for analysing the sound spectrum. A previous study on hand motor function that was published in the scientific publication "elife" demonstrates that this is in fact the case. Kell and his team wanted to learn why the right hand was preferentially used for the control of fast actions and the left hand preferred for slow actions. For example, when cutting bread, the right hand is used to slice with the knife while the left hand holds the bread.
"In the experiment, scientists had right-handed test persons tap with both hands to the rhythm of a metronome. In one version they were supposed to tap with each beat, and in another only with every fourth beat. As it turned out, the right hand was more precise during the quick tapping sequence and the left hemisphere, which controls the right side of the body, exhibited increased activity. Conversely, tapping with the left hand corresponded better with the slower rhythm and resulted in the right hemisphere exhibiting increased activity.
"Taken together, the two studies create a convincing picture of how complex behaviour -- hand motor functions and speech -- are controlled by both cerebral hemispheres. The left side of the brain has a preference for the control of fast processes while the right side tends to control the slower processes in parallel."
Comment: As a left-handed person I don't know how this applies to me. I cut bread just teh opposite to the above example. I assume that antecedent brains had this same division of labor, but was it as defined before the full development of language we have in the sapiens brain after complexification occurred?
Introducing the brain: synaptic alterations
by David Turell , Thursday, June 11, 2020, 20:49 (1408 days ago) @ David Turell
They play a huge role in thought processing:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6496/eaay4631?utm_campaign=toc_sci-mag_2020-...
"The number of neurotransmitter receptors and their spatial organization on the postsynaptic site is a central determinant of synaptic efficacy. Sophisticated techniques to visualize and track the movement of single molecules have provided us with profound new insights into these dynamics. We now know that neurotransmitter receptors undergo movements on different scales. Groc and Choquet review our present understanding of the mechanisms that regulate glutamate receptor localization and clustering. Receptor movements are fundamental to basic synaptic function and participate in many forms of synaptic plasticity.
***
"As cell biologists established the major roles of receptor trafficking in cell function, neurophysiologists still largely viewed synapse function as based on unitary receptor properties and control of transmitter release. It has been only about 20 years since the two fields cross-fertilized and the regulation of receptor movements into and out of synapses emerged as a fundamental mechanism for synaptic plasticity.
"Largely based on the development of imaging approaches, including single-molecule tracking, receptors have been demonstrated to undergo a variety of movements, from long-range rapid motor-based intracellular transport, to short-range Brownian surface diffusion, and intercompartment exchange by membrane trafficking. For efficient synaptic transmission, receptors must accumulate in front of neurotransmitter release sites. This is accomplished through a set of interactions with intracellular scaffold proteins, transmembrane auxiliary subunits, or adhesion proteins and other extracellular elements. This duality of receptor movements and stabilization has led to the important concept that the number of functionally responsive receptors at synapses results from the interplay between reversible receptor stabilization and dynamic equilibrium between pools of receptors in the synaptic, extrasynaptic, and intracellular compartments. Coarse receptor distribution along dendrites is largely achieved by intracellular transport. Because exchange of receptors between surface and intracellular compartments seems to occur largely at extrasynaptic sites, reversible surface receptor diffusion trapping at synapses has emerged as a central mechanism to control their availability for synaptic activation. Receptor stabilization and movements are all profoundly regulated by short- and long-term neuronal activity patterns. Reciprocally, evidence has accumulated that receptor movements participate in many forms of synaptic plasticity.
***
"Neurotransmitter receptors undergo a variety of large- and small-scale movements.
Movements of large amplitude constantly reshuffle the receptor distribution (e.g., surface diffusion and intracellular transport). Movements at interfaces (e.g., between synaptic and extrasynaptic sites, between intracellular and surface compartments) are of small amplitude but have huge functional impacts. Each of these movements is highly regulated and finely tuned in physiological and pathological conditions."
"Abstract
Regulation of neurotransmitter receptor content at synapses is achieved through a dynamic equilibrium between biogenesis and degradation pathways, receptor stabilization at synaptic sites, and receptor trafficking in and out synapses. In the past 20 years, the movements of receptors to and from synapses have emerged as a series of highly regulated processes that mediate postsynaptic plasticity. Our understanding of the properties and roles of receptor movements has benefited from technological advances in receptor labeling and tracking capacities, as well as from new methods to interfere with their movements."
Comment: Extremely complex article. This synopsis carries the impression of how plastic synapses have to be for the advanced functions of our brain. It is not just the number of neurons and their intricate axonal webs, but also how the synapses handle the impulses arriving and leaving.
Introducing the brain: making GABA
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 17, 2020, 19:03 (1402 days ago) @ David Turell
The video in this article shows how living biochemistry works, and it is easy to see how mistakes might happen:
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-intricate-key-brain-molecule.html
"For researchers looking to understand and someday treat certain neuropsychological ailments, one place to start is a molecule known as GABA, which binds to receptor molecules in neurons and helps regulate neuron firing rates in the brain. Now, researchers have produced a detailed map of one such GABA receptor, revealing not just the receptor's structure but new details of how it moves from its inactive to active state,...
***
"GABA, short for gamma aminobutyric acid, is central to our brains' proper functioning. When released, it binds to neurons at one of two receptors, GABAA and GABAB, and slows their firing rates. Drugs that mimic GABA generally have a calming effect—the tranquilizer benzodiazepine, for example, works by binding to GABAA and activating the receptor.
"In the new study, Gati and colleagues focused their attention on GABAB, using cryo-electron microscopy to take detailed pictures of the molecule. The technique involves freezing a sample to better preserve it under the harsh conditions in an electron microscope, and its chief advantage is that it can catch molecules in a more natural state than other methods.
"In this case, the scientists hoped to map the structure of GABAB in both inactive and active, GABA-bound states. But when they reviewed data from their experiments, they found they had also caught more detail than they had anticipated. Those new findings include the existence and rough maps of two intermediate states that, Gati said, "we didn't even know existed."
"But perhaps, more important than the intermediate states themselves, was observing, for the first time, the active form of GABAB, said Vadim Cherezov, a structural biologist at the University of Southern California and the new paper's other senior author.
"To capture the active state, the team added two molecules into the mix with GABAB and took additional cryo-EM images. Adding those molecules—a GABA-like molecule and another, called a positive allosteric modulator or PAM, that fine-tunes GABAB function—stabilized GABAB receptor in its active state."
Comment: Be sure to see the video. Described as follows: "The activation transition for the GABAB receptor. GABAB comprises two distinct parts, GB1 and GB2. In the first step toward activation, researchers added an agonist, a GABA-like molecule that brings the pieces of GB1 and GB2 that sit outside the cell together. In the second step, the team added a molecule called a positive allosteric modulator, or PAM, which together with the agonist stabilized GABAB in its active form."
Obviously a very intricate design.
Introducing the brain: synesthesia a strange mistake
by David Turell , Thursday, June 18, 2020, 15:40 (1402 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Thursday, June 18, 2020, 15:45
The four percent who have it don't mind it:
http://nautil.us/issue/86/energy/the-power-of-crossed-brain-wires?mc_cid=480c64000b&...
"When I was about 6, my mind did something wondrous, although it felt perfectly natural at the time. When I encountered the name of any day of the week, I automatically associated it with a color or a pattern, always the same one, as if the word embodied the shade. Sunday was dark maroon, Wednesday a sunshiny golden yellow, and Friday a deep green. Saturday was interestingly different. That day evoked in my mind’s eye a pattern of shifting and overlapping circular forms in shades of silver and gray, like bubbles in a glass of sparkling water.
"Without knowing it, I was living the unusual mental state called synesthesia, aptly described by synesthesia researcher Julia Simner as a “condition in which ordinary activities trigger extraordinary experiences.” More exactly, it is a neurological event where excitation of one of the five senses arouses a simultaneous reaction in another sense or senses.
***
"In the 1980s new approaches made synesthesia amenable to more rigorous and objective study and research has blossomed, with about 1,000 new publications since 2000. One big step has been the acceptance of a consensus definition of synesthesia. Its key features are that a subject involuntarily experiences vivid responses to stimuli that combine two or more different sensory modalities, and that the responses are constant over time; for instance, a given word always induces the same color in a particular subject (the colors themselves are unique to each person). The psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen and colleagues introduced this last benchmark in 1987 as an objectively measurable standard of genuineness. True synesthetes give the same responses to the same stimuli when tested and retested over long time intervals. Childhood synesthesia generally continues into adulthood, though not always. I lost my automatic color associations by the time I was 12. Today I can only remember the colors.
"...new neuroimaging techniques have established synesthesia as a real neurological process. One widely used method is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brain. Unlike regular MRI, which shows the anatomy of the brain (or other internal organs), fMRI identifies which parts of the brain are active, nearly in real time. Since 2002, some fMRI investigations of grapheme-color synesthesia—the most widely studied kind—have shown that graphemes stimulate the V4 region of the brain. This area deals specifically with color within the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes what the eyes see (the auditory cortex and other specialized areas handle the remaining senses). This is consistent with a model where the regions of the brain that analyze graphemes and that deal with color are somehow hyper-connected to create a synesthetic event. But not all fMRI data show the same result, nor is it clear if it is the visual perception of a grapheme or its conceptual meaning that is the trigger.
"Remarkably, even with advanced methods, other basic questions have lingered since the 19th century. How prevalent is synesthesia in the general populace? Different studies had given values from over 20 percent to less than 1 percent, a disparity partly due to the use of self-reported data. To remedy this, in 2006 Simner, then at the University of Edinburgh, and her colleagues carried out a controlled approach. They interviewed nearly 1,700 subjects and tested them for consistency over time. The certified synesthetes constituted 4.4 percent of the group, 1 for every 23 people—rare, but not vanishingly so. The data also showed that the most common subvariant is the one I experienced: colored days of the week.
***
"Research supports these accounts. Self-reported synesthetes appear at a relatively high rate among artistic types, and one study using objective testing found 7 percent synesthetes among 99 art students compared to 2 percent in a control group.
***
"Mylopoulos and Ro considered how synesthesia can act as a test bed to choose among theories of consciousness, and examined prevalent candidates, none of which is as yet supported by much empirical evidence. “Higher order” theory assumes that conscious states are those that a person is aware of being in, which comes from another mental state operating at a higher level; but in “first-order” theory there is no need for a higher state because even a perceptual state such as viewing a flower is considered to be a conscious state. Significantly, these differences produce characteristic neural correlates operating in different parts of the brain for each theory. The authors conclude that the scope of synesthetic events spread over the brain and its functions can yield “initial clues as to the neural correlates of conscious perceptual experiences more generally,” and help guide researchers toward a valid theory of consciousness."
Comment: From the material side of the discussion we can only experience what the brain gives us as experience. This does not affect the ability to create immaterial concepts of ideation or glorious musical compositions. It is not really a mistake but a variation from the normal
Introducing the brain: language and invention
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 24, 2020, 18:08 (1395 days ago) @ David Turell
This theory says using language in thought leads to inventions:
https://psyche.co/ideas/our-greatest-invention-was-the-invention-of-invention-itself?ut...
"For more than 1.5 million years, archaic humans (earlier Homo species, such as Homo erectus) had been slowly diverging from the other great apes, developing a way of life marked by increased collaboration. They made simple stone tools, hunted together, might have cooked their food, and probably engaged in communal parenting.
"Still, their lifestyle remained largely static over vast periods of time, with few, if any, signs of artistic activity or technical innovation. Things started to change only in the past 300,000 years, with the emergence of our own species and our cousins the Neanderthals, and even then the pace of change didn’t quicken much until 40-60,000 years ago. (my bold)
"What caused our species to break out of the pattern set by archaic humans?...But from my perspective as someone who studies the human mind, one development stands out as of special importance. There is a mental ability we possess today that must have emerged at some point in our history, and whose emergence would have vastly enhanced our ancestors’ creative powers.
"The ability I mean is that of hypothetical thinking...This is the key to sustained innovation and creativity, and to the development of art, science and technology. Archaic humans, in all probability, didn’t possess it. The static nature of their lifestyle suggests that they lived in the present, their attention locked on to the world, and their behaviour driven by habit and environmental stimuli. In the course of their daily activities, they might accidentally hit on a better way of doing something, but they didn’t actively think up innovations for themselves.
***
"If Dor’s suggestion is right, then language would have paved the way for hypothetical thinking. Language enabled humans to learn about things they hadn’t experienced themselves... By combining linguistic elements in different ways, speakers could issue instructions for imagining an unlimited range of things – not only things their hearers hadn’t experienced but things no one had experienced... Gradually, they would have discovered that they could use this ability creatively, to tell stories, create myths, and deceive each other. And, crucially from our perspective, they would have discovered that they could use it to propose hypotheses.
***
"Dennett’s concern is with consciousness – the stream of thoughts, ideas and impressions running through our minds. It is tempting to think that producing consciousness is a central function of our brains, and perhaps of the brains of other animals too. Dennett suggests that this is not so. Our brains, are composed of multiple specialist systems, which operate non-consciously and in parallel. The conscious mind is a temporary level of organisation – a ‘virtual’ system – that we create for ourselves through certain learned habits of self-stimulation.
" Once they developed language, our ancestors would sometimes talk to themselves, at first by accident. And when they did, they would hear their own utterances and, often, react to them as they did to other people’s. When they asked themselves a question, they answered; when they admonished themselves, they worked harder; when they reminded themselves, they focused more, and so on – these reactions being generated spontaneously by non-conscious processes. Sometimes, one utterance would provoke another, and that another, and so on, generating a lengthy train of thought. This process of mental self-stimulation helped to coordinate the resources of different brain systems, and it proved useful, enhancing self-control and promoting sustained patterns of behaviour. Humans formed habits of private speech and gradually developed the ability to talk to themselves silently in inner speech. They also adopted other forms of mental self-stimulation, such as drawing pictures or visualising them. Elaborated and refined, the stream of self-generated speech and other imagery, and the associated mental reactions, came to form what we call the conscious mind.
***
"As they cultivated these habits, mentally stimulating themselves and paying careful attention to the results, humans did something else, too. They created the sense that there was a private world inside them, where their real self lived and thought, a world that sometimes seemed more real to them than the one around them. In a sense, they created their own conscious minds and selves.
"If Dor and Dennett are right, the key factors in setting humans on their unique path were the invention of a new way of communicating and the discovery of how to use it creatively, first socially and later in private. These activities are now central to human life, and our brains and vocal systems have probably become adapted in many ways to facilitate them, but they were initially cultural innovations. We might say that humans’ greatest invention was the invention of invention itself."
Comment: The author notes the stasis after arrival of our large-sized brain and the beginning of real use of concepts once usable language appeared. The large brain provided a space for complex spoken language and later writing and reading language.
Introducing the brain: language and invention
QUOTE: "The ability I mean is that of hypothetical thinking...This is the key to sustained innovation and creativity, and to the development of art, science and technology. Archaic humans, in all probability, didn’t possess it. The static nature of their lifestyle suggests that they lived in the present, their attention locked on to the world, and their behaviour driven by habit and environmental stimuli. In the course of their daily activities, they might accidentally hit on a better way of doing something, but they didn’t actively think up innovations for themselves.”
I find this last remark extraordinarily presumptuous. How do you “accidentally” design a tool or a weapon? But I would suggest that the ability to innovate was probably used only for purposes of survival, and even today this ability is largely used for the same purpose, extended to encompass improvements to our means of survival, and including ways of destroying our enemies. I do agree, however, that “hypothetical thinking” has enabled us to go far, far beyond the requirements of survival. To what extent language inspires thought and thought inspires language I do not know. But there is no doubt that we give names to our discoveries and inventions – the names do not precede them! See below.
DAVID: The author notes the stasis after arrival of our large-sized brain and the beginning of real use of concepts once usable language appeared. The large brain provided a space for complex spoken language and later writing and reading language.
Stasis here is just another way of saying that for a long time, nobody came up with any new ideas. As regards language, I’d be inclined to say that concepts give rise to language and in turn language gives rise to concepts in an on-going, interactive process.
Introducing the brain: language and invention
by David Turell , Thursday, June 25, 2020, 18:29 (1394 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: "The ability I mean is that of hypothetical thinking...This is the key to sustained innovation and creativity, and to the development of art, science and technology. Archaic humans, in all probability, didn’t possess it. The static nature of their lifestyle suggests that they lived in the present, their attention locked on to the world, and their behaviour driven by habit and environmental stimuli. In the course of their daily activities, they might accidentally hit on a better way of doing something, but they didn’t actively think up innovations for themselves.”
dhw: I find this last remark extraordinarily presumptuous. How do you “accidentally” design a tool or a weapon? But I would suggest that the ability to innovate was probably used only for purposes of survival, and even today this ability is largely used for the same purpose, extended to encompass improvements to our means of survival, and including ways of destroying our enemies. I do agree, however, that “hypothetical thinking” has enabled us to go far, far beyond the requirements of survival. To what extent language inspires thought and thought inspires language I do not know. But there is no doubt that we give names to our discoveries and inventions – the names do not precede them! See below.
Note the bold. I know I think in language. Previously, I think new words were sounded out, not in thought, except now in highly technical studies words are invented to fit what is being described. Onomatopoeia applies early on. I think early homos lived in the present, but, I agree, they certainly invented
DAVID: The author notes the stasis after arrival of our large-sized brain and the beginning of real use of concepts once usable language appeared. The large brain provided a space for complex spoken language and later writing and reading language.dhw: Stasis here is just another way of saying that for a long time, nobody came up with any new ideas. As regards language, I’d be inclined to say that concepts give rise to language and in turn language gives rise to concepts in an on-going, interactive process.
I agree with this bold in current times, not 70,000 years ago when language really started to develop.
Your 'stasis' is the stasis I recognize. Big brain but nothing new for quite while until the owners learned to use it.
Introducing the brain: language and invention
dhw: […] I would suggest that the ability to innovate was probably used only for purposes of survival, and even today this ability is largely used for the same purpose, extended to encompass improvements to our means of survival, and including ways of destroying our enemies. I do agree, however, that “hypothetical thinking” has enabled us to go far, far beyond the requirements of survival. To what extent language inspires thought and thought inspires language I do not know. But there is no doubt that we give names to our discoveries and inventions – the names do not precede them! See below.
DAVID: Note the bold. I know I think in language. Previously, I think new words were sounded out, not in thought, except now in highly technical studies words are invented to fit what is being described. Onomatopoeia applies early on. I think early homos lived in the present, but, I agree, they certainly invented.
Yes, we all think in language, but language is a vast collection of symbols for the “reality” it refers to. The word “happy” is not onomatopoeic (French heureux, German glücklich). Ignoring etymology, at some time or another, somebody somewhere thought up a sound to denote the feeling, so thought gave rise to language. But because language is not reality itself, someone might ask himself “what do I mean by happy?” and then language inspires thought.
dhw: Stasis here is just another way of saying that for a long time, nobody came up with any new ideas. As regards language, I’d be inclined to say that concepts give rise to language and in turn language gives rise to concepts in an on-going, interactive process.
DAVID: I agree with this bold in current times, not 70,000 years ago when language really started to develop.
I’m inclined to agree, though of course we have no idea to what extent our ancestors questioned the realities they were trying to symbolize with their language.
DAVID: Your 'stasis' is the stasis I recognize. Big brain but nothing new for quite while until the owners learned to use it.
I have never really understood what you mean by this. I haven't learned to “use my brain”. I learn as I expand my experiences, think about things, get ideas and ask questions, but I don’t “learn to use” my cortex or my cerebellum! The brain provides me with information and it responds to my requirements.
Introducing the brain: language and invention
by David Turell , Friday, June 26, 2020, 15:42 (1394 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: […] I would suggest that the ability to innovate was probably used only for purposes of survival, and even today this ability is largely used for the same purpose, extended to encompass improvements to our means of survival, and including ways of destroying our enemies. I do agree, however, that “hypothetical thinking” has enabled us to go far, far beyond the requirements of survival. To what extent language inspires thought and thought inspires language I do not know. But there is no doubt that we give names to our discoveries and inventions – the names do not precede them! See below.
DAVID: Note the bold. I know I think in language. Previously, I think new words were sounded out, not in thought, except now in highly technical studies words are invented to fit what is being described. Onomatopoeia applies early on. I think early homos lived in the present, but, I agree, they certainly invented.
dhw: Yes, we all think in language, but language is a vast collection of symbols for the “reality” it refers to. The word “happy” is not onomatopoeic (French heureux, German glücklich). Ignoring etymology, at some time or another, somebody somewhere thought up a sound to denote the feeling, so thought gave rise to language. But because language is not reality itself, someone might ask himself “what do I mean by happy?” and then language inspires thought.
dhw: Stasis here is just another way of saying that for a long time, nobody came up with any new ideas. As regards language, I’d be inclined to say that concepts give rise to language and in turn language gives rise to concepts in an on-going, interactive process.
DAVID: I agree with this bold in current times, not 70,000 years ago when language really started to develop.
dhw: I’m inclined to agree, though of course we have no idea to what extent our ancestors questioned the realities they were trying to symbolize with their language.
DAVID: Your 'stasis' is the stasis I recognize. Big brain but nothing new for quite while until the owners learned to use it.
dhw: I have never really understood what you mean by this. I haven't learned to “use my brain”. I learn as I expand my experiences, think about things, get ideas and ask questions, but I don’t “learn to use” my cortex or my cerebellum! The brain provides me with information and it responds to my requirements.
Stasis does not really apply to you or me. The input in childhood is continuous from everyone and everything that surrounds us. That did not exist in the time frame the author discussed before language really exited. The sapiens brain of 315,000 ya undoubtedly looked and could have acted much like ours, was larger by 200 cc, and yet not used in the way you describe for yourself or me. As we've noted much input by many thinking folks over centuries has created the context of our awareness. It impinges upon us the moment we appear, and is sopped up quickly and constantly by a sponge-like childhood brain.
My phrase 'learning to use it' implies the additive work done by successive humans over centuries and generations of us. They did the work. We receive the gift of that.
Introducing the brain: language and invention
dhw: Stasis here is just another way of saying that for a long time, nobody came up with any new ideas
DAVID: Your 'stasis' is the stasis I recognize. Big brain but nothing new for quite while until the owners learned to use it.
dhw: I have never really understood what you mean by this. I haven't learned to “use my brain”. I learn as I expand my experiences, think about things, get ideas and ask questions, but I don’t “learn to use” my cortex or my cerebellum! The brain provides me with information and it responds to my requirements.
DAVID: Stasis does not really apply to you or me. The input in childhood is continuous from everyone and everything that surrounds us. That did not exist in the time frame the author discussed before language really existed. The sapiens brain of 315,000 ya undoubtedly looked and could have acted much like ours, was larger by 200 cc, and yet not used in the way you describe for yourself or me. As we've noted much input by many thinking folks over centuries has created the context of our awareness. It impinges upon us the moment we appear, and is sopped up quickly and constantly by a sponge-like childhood brain.
The stasis we’ve been talking about is the period after expansion, when there were no major new ideas for many thousands of years. As far as individuals are concerned, every child has to learn something, and I’d have thought that applied even to our earliest ancestors as well as our fellow animals. Parents teach their young, who also learn from experience. In the latter context, adults too may continue to learn. The difference between all of them and us is the sheer range and quantity of what there is to learn.
DAVID: My phrase 'learning to use it' implies the additive work done by successive humans over centuries and generations of us. They did the work. We receive the gift of that.
For me that is not “learning to use the brain”. It is learning what previous generations have learned – and in sapiens’ case, it has accumulated into a vast library of knowledge.
Introducing the brain: language and invention
by David Turell , Saturday, June 27, 2020, 18:06 (1392 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Stasis here is just another way of saying that for a long time, nobody came up with any new ideas
DAVID: Your 'stasis' is the stasis I recognize. Big brain but nothing new for quite while until the owners learned to use it.
dhw: I have never really understood what you mean by this. I haven't learned to “use my brain”. I learn as I expand my experiences, think about things, get ideas and ask questions, but I don’t “learn to use” my cortex or my cerebellum! The brain provides me with information and it responds to my requirements.
DAVID: Stasis does not really apply to you or me. The input in childhood is continuous from everyone and everything that surrounds us. That did not exist in the time frame the author discussed before language really existed. The sapiens brain of 315,000 ya undoubtedly looked and could have acted much like ours, was larger by 200 cc, and yet not used in the way you describe for yourself or me. As we've noted much input by many thinking folks over centuries has created the context of our awareness. It impinges upon us the moment we appear, and is sopped up quickly and constantly by a sponge-like childhood brain.
dhw: The stasis we’ve been talking about is the period after expansion, when there were no major new ideas for many thousands of years. As far as individuals are concerned, every child has to learn something, and I’d have thought that applied even to our earliest ancestors as well as our fellow animals. Parents teach their young, who also learn from experience. In the latter context, adults too may continue to learn. The difference between all of them and us is the sheer range and quantity of what there is to learn.
Your discussion of stasis is the antithesis of your theory that brains grow because of the need for implementation of an idea held by the previous brain.
DAVID: My phrase 'learning to use it' implies the additive work done by successive humans over centuries and generations of us. They did the work. We receive the gift of that.dhw: For me that is not “learning to use the brain”. It is learning what previous generations have learned – and in sapiens’ case, it has accumulated into a vast library of knowledge.
What I have described is species learn to use what they are given, and it applies to body as well as brain. Consider gymnastics as a recently developed sport, and the newly seen extreme varieties of maneuvers.
Introducing the brain: language and invention
dhw: The stasis we’ve been talking about is the period after expansion, when there were no major new ideas for many thousands of years. As far as individuals are concerned, every child has to learn something, and I’d have thought that applied even to our earliest ancestors as well as our fellow animals. Parents teach their young, who also learn from experience. In the latter context, adults too may continue to learn. The difference between all of them and us is the sheer range and quantity of what there is to learn.
DAVID: Your discussion of stasis is the antithesis of your theory that brains grow because of the need for implementation of an idea held by the previous brain.
Small brain produces big new idea. Brain expands in order to implement big new idea. No more big new ideas for thousands of years. Brain does not expand for thousands of years. That is stasis. Where’s the antithesis?
DAVID: My phrase 'learning to use it' implies the additive work done by successive humans over centuries and generations of us. They did the work. We receive the gift of that.
dhw: For me that is not “learning to use the brain”. It is learning what previous generations have learned – and in sapiens’ case, it has accumulated into a vast library of knowledge.
DAVID: What I have described is species learn to use what they are given, and it applies to body as well as brain. Consider gymnastics as a recently developed sport, and the newly seen extreme varieties of maneuvers.
We consciously perform actions in order to use our bodies in specific ways. We can also consciously perform actions in order to train parts of the brain – e.g. memory exercises. However, when we come up with new ideas and concepts, we are not consciously trying to complexify (or expand) particular areas of our brain! We don’t even know what is going on in our brain! That is why I am flummoxed by the expression “learning to use the brain”, although in some weird way you seem to think your God expanded the sapiens brain so that we would hang around for thousands of years doing nothing with it until in some weird way we learned what we could do with it. When you come up with your theories of evolution and God in control but not in control, do you tell yourself: “Now I am learning to use my cortex and my cerebellum”?
Introducing the brain: language and invention
by David Turell , Sunday, June 28, 2020, 19:57 (1391 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: The stasis we’ve been talking about is the period after expansion, when there were no major new ideas for many thousands of years. As far as individuals are concerned, every child has to learn something, and I’d have thought that applied even to our earliest ancestors as well as our fellow animals. Parents teach their young, who also learn from experience. In the latter context, adults too may continue to learn. The difference between all of them and us is the sheer range and quantity of what there is to learn.
DAVID: Your discussion of stasis is the antithesis of your theory that brains grow because of the need for implementation of an idea held by the previous brain.
dhw: Small brain produces big new idea. Brain expands in order to implement big new idea. No more big new ideas for thousands of years. Brain does not expand for thousands of years. That is stasis. Where’s the antithesis?
But the problem with your idea is that brains do expand followed by long periods of stasis. Then the product of the new idea's product that you think causes the expansion shows up. Why the delay if the idea is what drives expansion?
DAVID: My phrase 'learning to use it' implies the additive work done by successive humans over centuries and generations of us. They did the work. We receive the gift of that.dhw: For me that is not “learning to use the brain”. It is learning what previous generations have learned – and in sapiens’ case, it has accumulated into a vast library of knowledge.
DAVID: What I have described is species learn to use what they are given, and it applies to body as well as brain. Consider gymnastics as a recently developed sport, and the newly seen extreme varieties of maneuvers.
dhw: We consciously perform actions in order to use our bodies in specific ways. We can also consciously perform actions in order to train parts of the brain – e.g. memory exercises. However, when we come up with new ideas and concepts, we are not consciously trying to complexify (or expand) particular areas of our brain! We don’t even know what is going on in our brain! That is why I am flummoxed by the expression “learning to use the brain”, although in some weird way you seem to think your God expanded the sapiens brain so that we would hang around for thousands of years doing nothing with it until in some weird way we learned what we could do with it. When you come up with your theories of evolution and God in control but not in control, do you tell yourself: “Now I am learning to use my cortex and my cerebellum”?
Silly comments. I'm well past the stasis for homo sapiens and so are you. 315,000 years ago in Morocco, they had a bigger brain, but did not know how to use it in full capacity as we do now and our forebears learned to do over time, and our teachers and parents and others taught you and I to do now. Unapproached, uncontacted, tribes in the Amazon still aren't using all of their brain capacity. I am analogically comparing the brain to learning piano playing, using an instrument, not a concept difficult to comprehend.
Introducing the brain: how odors are interpreted
by David Turell , Saturday, June 20, 2020, 19:59 (1399 days ago) @ dhw
If these clever mouse studies are correct, we are learning:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/scientists-built-artificial-smell-mouse-brain-nerve...
"Scientists have implanted an artificial odor directly in the brains of mice. It doesn’t mean that mental Smell-O-Vision technology is coming soon. But the results, published June 18 in Science, deliver clues to how the brain processes information.
***
"Like playing a short ditty on a piano, Rinberg and colleagues activated nerve cells in six spots (each of which might include between one and three glomeruli) in a certain order. This neural melody was designed to be a simplified version of how a real odor might play those nerve cells. (It’s not known what the artificial odor actually smells like to a mouse.)
"Mice learned to signal the presence of this artificial smell by licking one of two spouts. The synthetic odor didn’t objectively exist, but the mice behaved as though they smelled it anyway, the researchers found. After “smelling” the synthetic odor, mice reliably licked the correct spout. Other scrambled signals, also delivered by optogenetics, didn’t cause the same reaction.
"Together, the individual spots the researchers stimulated built the perception of the odor, just as a string of notes makes a melody. Because the smell was completely synthetic, though, researchers could mess with it. By slightly changing some of the signals generating the artificial odor, the researchers could test which qualities of the sequence were important, and which changes rendered the odor unrecognizable.
"The beginning of the smell sequence seemed to be key. When the researchers swapped the order of the first few spots’ activity, the mice had more trouble identifying the smell than they did when the spots toward the end of the sequence were changed. And delays near the beginning mattered more than delays toward the end. “If you modify the first few notes, you more easily ruin the song,” Rinberg says.
"This result supports an idea called the primacy effect, which holds that the neural signals that come first in a sequence carry more weight, says Tatyana Sharpee, a computational neuroscientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., who was not involved in the study.
"More generally, these results offer an example of how changes in neural activity can affect a perception, Sharpee says. “Ultimately, this hints at the fundamental properties of the neural code.”
"Sharpee suspects that similar properties might apply to other kinds of information processed by the brain, including vision and hearing signals, and perhaps even to more complex tasks such as memory. Such processes all rely on the same basic transformation, she says — “a general mathematical problem of coding inputs to outputs.” In this way, the brain takes incoming information about the world and stitches it into useful perceptions."
Comment: The olfactory bulb is neuron-rich with each neuron picking up a nuance of an odor chemical, and apparently sequence of signal defines the odor. A clever mechanism that seems logical. Of course, we still don't know how the brain comes up with its interpretation, but it obviously requires a fixed memory
Introducing the brain: how odors are interpreted
by David Turell , Thursday, July 02, 2020, 20:11 (1387 days ago) @ David Turell
A different approach using mouse brain again:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-reveals-brain-odors.html
"By delivering odors with carefully selected molecular structures and analyzing neural activity in awake mice, the team showed that neuronal representations of smell in the cortex reflect chemical similarities between odors, thus enabling scents to be placed into categories by the brain. Moreover, these representations can be rewired by sensory experiences.
"The findings suggest a neurobiological mechanism that may explain why individuals have common but highly personalized experiences with smell.
"'All of us share a common frame of reference with smells. You and I both think lemon and lime smell similar and agree that they smell different from pizza, but until now, we didn't know how the brain organizes that kind of information," said senior study author Sandeep Robert Datta.
***
"The experiments revealed that similarities in odor chemistry were mirrored by similarities in neural activity. Related odors produced correlated neuronal patterns in both the piriform cortex and olfactory bulb, as measured by overlaps in neuron activity. Weakly related odors, by contrast, produced weakly related activity patterns.
"In the cortex, related odors led to more strongly clustered patterns of neural activity compared with patterns in the olfactory bulb. This observation held true across individual mice. Cortical representations of odor relationships were so well-correlated that they could be used to predict the identity of a held-out odor in one mouse based on measurements made in a different mouse.
"Additional analyses identified a diverse array of chemical features, such as molecular weight and certain electrochemical properties, that were linked to patterns of neural activity. Information gleaned from these features was robust enough to predict cortical responses to an odor in one animal based on experiments with a separate set of odors in a different animal.
"The researchers also found that these neural representations were flexible. Mice were repeatedly given a mixture of two odors, and over time, the corresponding neural patterns of these odors in the cortex became more strongly correlated. This occurred even when the two odors had dissimilar chemical structures.
"The ability of the cortex to adapt was generated in part by networks of neurons that selectively reshape odor relationships. When the normal activity of these networks was blocked, the cortex encoded smells more like the olfactory bulb.
"'We presented two odors as if they're from the same source and observed that the brain can rearrange itself to reflect passive olfactory experiences," Datta said.
"Part of the reason why things like lemon and lime smell alike, he added, is likely because animals of the same species have similar genomes and therefore similarities in smell perception. But each individual has personalized perceptions as well.
"'The plasticity of the cortex may help explain why smell is on one hand invariant between individuals, and yet customizable depending on our unique experiences," Datta said.
"Together, the results of the study demonstrate for the first time how the brain encodes relationships between odors. In comparison to the relatively well-understood visual and auditory cortices, it is still unclear how the olfactory cortex converts information about odor chemistry into the perception of smell. (my bold)
***
"'We don't fully understand how chemistries translate to perception yet," Datta said. "There's no computer algorithm or machine that will take a chemical structure and tell us what that chemical will smell like."
"'To actually build that machine and to be able to someday create a controllable, virtual olfactory world for a person, we need to understand how the brain encodes information about smells," Datta said. "We hope our findings are a step down that path.'"
Comment: It is amazing how our senses work translating what is received by each organ type into electrical impulses that we interpret as color, noise of speech, odors, etc.
Introducing the brain: energy requirements
by David Turell , Saturday, July 04, 2020, 22:50 (1385 days ago) @ David Turell
The human brain uses 20% of all caloric expenditure by the body. The neurons are most demanding in this study:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-oxygen-brain.html
The brain has a high energy demand and reacts very sensitively to oxygen deficiency. LMU neurobiologists have now succeeded for the first time in directly correlating oxygen consumption with the activity of certain nerve cells.
"The brain requires a disproportionate amount of energy compared to its body mass. This energy is mainly generated by aerobic metabolic processes that consume considerable amounts of oxygen. Therefore, the oxygen concentrations in the brain are an important parameter that influences the function of nerve cells and glial cells. However, how much oxygen is consumed in the brain and how this is related to neuronal activity was so far largely unknown. LMU neurobiologists Hans Straka, Suzan Özugur, and Lars Kunz have now succeeded for the first time in directly measuring this in the intact brain and correlating it with nerve cell activity.
***
"'We have found that the brain is anoxic in a normal air-saturated environment, which means that no oxygen can be measured," says Straka. The complete oxygen was therefore immediately used by the cells to synthesize energy-rich substances. If more than twice the atmospheric oxygen concentration was available, the energy metabolism was saturated and oxygen was abundantly present in the brain.
"'We were also able to show that during normal operation only about 50 percent of the oxygen is used for nerve cell activity," says Straka. "So the other 50 percent are required for glial cells and for maintaining the basic metabolic rate of nerve cells. However, nerve cells with increased activity consume more oxygen.'"
Comment: It can be assumed each expansion of the brain was accompanied by a proportionate increase in caloric requirement. This means not only had there to be several simultaneous bony changes but also an adjustment in the division of caloric energy usage and an increase in calorie intake. I doubt this all could be naturally coordinated by chance evolution and had to be designed.
Introducing the brain: our connections differ from chimp
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 07, 2020, 22:49 (1382 days ago) @ David Turell
It is not just enlargement but a different organization of connections:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-human-brains-are-different-it-has-a-lot-...
"What makes the human brain special? That question is not easy to answer—and will occupy neuroscientists for generations to come. The organ is certainly bigger than expected for our body size. And it has its own specialized areas—one of which is devoted to processing language. ... brain scans have started to show that the particular way neurons connect to one another is also part of the story.
***
"Though human brains follow the mammalian connection game plan, they also show some striking innovations. In a head-to-head comparison of human connectomes with those of chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, published last year,...revealed 33 human-specific connections. These unique links were longer and more important to network efficiency than 255 connections that were shared in the two species. The distance-spanning connections also tied together high-level “associative” areas in the cortex that are involved in language, tool use and imitation.
***
"When van den Heuvel and his colleagues looked at language areas, a “connectivity fingerprint” popped out. Chimps have their own limited versions of Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, the regions responsible for human language production and comprehension, respectively. But in humans the connections between the two are stronger. And the connections from Broca’s area to other regions of the brain are actually weaker. It as though the two regions have dedicated their processing might to each other and set the stage for language."
Comment: It is not just size but different purposeful connections designed by God that make our brain so different
Introducing the brain: synapse complexity
by David Turell , Thursday, July 16, 2020, 21:37 (1373 days ago) @ David Turell
The synapse survey adds to our realization about how really complex the brain turns out to be:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6501/253?utm_campaign=toc_sci-mag_2020-07-16...
"Brains can be viewed as vast ensembles of highly diverse and dynamic synapses that shape and store information as it travels through the networks of neurons that generate and interconnect those synapses. There are more than 100 trillion synapses per human neocortex, and each synapse is itself a highly complex entity, comprising thousands of diverse and cooperative signal-transduction proteins. Growing knowledge of these very large and heterogeneous populations of synapses, or “synaptomes,” thus offers perhaps the most compelling glimpse to date of brains as machines deep and wide enough to support the richness and subtlety of the human mind. On page 270 of this issue, Cizeron et al. describe the use of a mouse model to begin the task of systematically mapping synaptomes brain-wide, from birth to old age.
***
"Perhaps the most promising avenue toward mapping functional synaptomes at scale would be to develop a “codebook” capable of predicting the difficult-to-measure function of an individual synapse from more readily accessible molecular and/or morphological measurements. The potential payoffs could be enormous, enhancing the much richer understanding of the brain's synaptic network architectures that are now beginning to emerge from electron microscopy connectomics and viral trans-synaptic tracing methods.
"Perhaps the most promising avenue toward mapping functional synaptomes at scale would be to develop a “codebook” capable of predicting the difficult-to-measure function of an individual synapse from more readily accessible molecular and/or morphological measurements. The potential payoffs could be enormous, enhancing the much richer understanding of the brain's synaptic network architectures that are now beginning to emerge from electron microscopy connectomics and viral trans-synaptic tracing methods."
Comment: This comes from review of a complex highly technical article on mouse synapses. I present it to introduce us to the high complexity of synapses themselves. The complexity of neuron networks is further complexified by the communication system of synapse's control over the intesividity of signals from the different neurons purposely modifying signal strength. Design required.
Introducing the brain: mammal connectivity
by David Turell , Monday, July 20, 2020, 19:17 (1369 days ago) @ David Turell
All mammals have the same connectivity:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-mri-scans-brains-mammals-humans.html
"Researchers at Tel Aviv University, led by Prof. Yaniv Assaf...conducted a first-of-its-kind study designed to investigate brain connectivity in 130 mammalian species. The intriguing results, contradicting widespread conjectures, revealed that brain connectivity levels are equal in all mammals, including humans.
"'We discovered that brain connectivity—namely the efficiency of information transfer through the neural network—does not depend on either the size or structure of any specific brain," says Prof. Assaf. "In other words, the brains of all mammals, from tiny mice through humans to large bulls and dolphins, exhibit equal connectivity, and information travels with the same efficiency within them. We also found that the brain preserves this balance via a special compensation mechanism: when connectivity between the hemispheres is high, connectivity within each hemisphere is relatively low, and vice versa."
***
"'A mammal's brain consists of two hemispheres connected to each other by a set of neural fibers (axons) that transfer information," Prof. Assaf explains. "For every brain we scanned, we measured four connectivity gages: connectivity in each hemisphere (intrahemispheric connections), connectivity between the two hemispheres (interhemispheric), and overall connectivity. We discovered that overall brain connectivity remains the same for all mammals, large or small, including humans. In other words, information travels from one location to another through the same number of synapses. It must be said, however, that different brains use different strategies to preserve this equal measure of overall connectivity: some exhibit strong interhemispheric connectivity and weaker connectivity within the hemispheres, while others display the opposite."
"Prof. Yovel describes another interesting discovery. "We found that variations in connectivity compensation characterize not only different species but also different individuals within the same species," he says. "In other words, the brains of some rats, bats, or humans exhibit higher interhemispheric connectivity at the expense of connectivity within the hemispheres, and the other way around—compared to others of the same species. It would be fascinating to hypothesize how different types of brain connectivity may affect various cognitive functions or human capabilities such as sports, music or math.
"'Our study revealed a universal law: Conservation of Brain Connectivity," Prof. Assaf concludes. "This law denotes that the efficiency of information transfer in the brain's neural network is equal in all mammals, including humans. We also discovered a compensation mechanism which balances the connectivity in every mammalian brain. This mechanism ensures that high connectivity in a specific area of the brain, possibly manifested through some special talent (e.g. sports or music) is always countered by relatively low connectivity in another part of the brain."
Comment: I assume our difference is in the number of operational neuron networks.
Introducing the brain: synapse population controls
by David Turell , Monday, July 20, 2020, 20:43 (1369 days ago) @ David Turell
Proteins found that protect synapses from removal:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200717133234.htm
"Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) have discovered a new class of proteins that protect synapses from being destroyed.
***
"'We are studying an immune system pathway in the brain that is responsible for eliminating excess synapses; this is called the complement system," said Gek-Ming Sia, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology in UT Health San Antonio's Long School of Medicine and senior author of the research.
"'Complement system proteins are deposited onto synapses," Dr. Sia explained. "They act as signals that invite immune cells called macrophages to come and eat excess synapses during development. We discovered proteins that inhibit this function and essentially act as 'don't eat me' signals to protect synapses from elimination."
"During development, synapses are overproduced. Humans have the most synapses at the ages of 12 to 16, and from then to about age 20, there is net synapse elimination that is a normal part of the brain's maturation. This process requires the complement system.
"In adults, synapse numbers are stable, as synapse elimination and formation balance out. But in certain neurological diseases, the brain somehow is injured and begins to overproduce complement proteins, which leads to excessive synapse loss.
"'This occurs most notably in Alzheimer's disease," Dr. Sia said.
***
"'We've known about the complement proteins, but there was no data to show that there were actually any complement inhibitors in the brain," Dr. Sia said. "We discovered for the first time that there are, that they affect complement activation in the brain, and that they protect synapses against complement activation."
***
"The researchers focused on a neuronal complement inhibitor called SRPX2. The studies are being conducted in mice that lack the SRPX2 gene, that demonstrate complement system overactivation and that exhibit excessive synapse loss."
Comment: As with feedback loops for controls, there are also counterbalancing systems for positive or negative actions. And as being discussed there are mistakes in rapidly moving molecular actions.
Introducing the brain: mammal connectivity
DAVID: All mammals have the same connectivity:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-mri-scans-brains-mammals-humans.html
QUOTES: "Researchers at Tel Aviv University, led by Prof. Yaniv Assaf...conducted a first-of-its-kind study designed to investigate brain connectivity in 130 mammalian species. The intriguing results, contradicting widespread conjectures, revealed that brain connectivity levels are equal in all mammals, including humans."
"We found that variations in connectivity compensation characterize not only different species but also different individuals within the same species," he says.
"'Our study revealed a universal law: Conservation of Brain Connectivity," Prof. Assaf concludes. "This law denotes that the efficiency of information transfer in the brain's neural network is equal in all mammals, including humans. We also discovered a compensation mechanism which balances the connectivity in every mammalian brain. This mechanism ensures that high connectivity in a specific area of the brain, possibly manifested through some special talent (e.g. sports or music) is always countered by relatively low connectivity in another part of the brain."
A remarkable discovery. It emphasizes individuality – which must apply to all our fellow animals and not just ourselves – but it also raises fundamental questions concerning the causes of individuality. How much is caused by differences in the brain, and how many of the differences in the brain are caused by external factors? And that’s without even considering the possibility of a soul!
Introducing the brain: mammal connectivity
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 21, 2020, 15:12 (1369 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: All mammals have the same connectivity:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-mri-scans-brains-mammals-humans.htmlQUOTES: "Researchers at Tel Aviv University, led by Prof. Yaniv Assaf...conducted a first-of-its-kind study designed to investigate brain connectivity in 130 mammalian species. The intriguing results, contradicting widespread conjectures, revealed that brain connectivity levels are equal in all mammals, including humans."
"We found that variations in connectivity compensation characterize not only different species but also different individuals within the same species," he says.
"'Our study revealed a universal law: Conservation of Brain Connectivity," Prof. Assaf concludes. "This law denotes that the efficiency of information transfer in the brain's neural network is equal in all mammals, including humans. We also discovered a compensation mechanism which balances the connectivity in every mammalian brain. This mechanism ensures that high connectivity in a specific area of the brain, possibly manifested through some special talent (e.g. sports or music) is always countered by relatively low connectivity in another part of the brain."
dhw: A remarkable discovery. It emphasizes individuality – which must apply to all our fellow animals and not just ourselves – but it also raises fundamental questions concerning the causes of individuality. How much is caused by differences in the brain, and how many of the differences in the brain are caused by external factors? And that’s without even considering the possibility of a soul!
Considering evolution, not a surprise. There is a degree of plasticity in all brains. We train dogs, horses, etc.
Introducing the brain: neuron protection in stroke damage
by David Turell , Thursday, August 06, 2020, 22:32 (1352 days ago) @ David Turell
The brain has mechanisms to protect neurons from stroke damage:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200806122828.htm
"Research has unlocked a key fundamental mechanism in the communication between brain cells when confronted with stroke. They report that DHA not only protected neuronal cells and promoted their survival, but also helped maintain their integrity and stability. The discovery provides potential new clinical targets and specific molecules for the treatment of ischemic stroke and other cardiovascular diseases.
***
"Brain cells talk to one another. This synchronized cell-to-cell crosstalk regulates neuroinflammation and the immune system, which are activated in the brain at the onset of stroke, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other diseases. The researchers found that in the model of stroke, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) affects the levels of two proteins crucial to communication between brain cells -- mesencephalic astrocyte-derived neurotrophic factor (MANF) and triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells-2 (TREM2). They discovered that treatment with DHA reduced the size of the damaged brain area, initiated repair mechanisms and greatly improved neurological and behavioral recovery. These findings provide a major conceptual advance of broad relevance for neuronal cell survival, brain function and, particularly, stroke and neurodegenerative diseases.
***
"These findings advance the understanding of how the complexity and resiliency of the human brain is sustained, mainly when confronted with adversities as in stroke. A key factor is how neurons communicate among themselves. These novel molecules participate in delivering messages to the overall synaptic organization to ensure the accurate flow of information through neuronal circuits.
"'We know how neurons make synaptic connections with other neurons; however, these connections have to be malleable in order to change to the appropriate strength through experience," explains Dr. Belayev.
"'It's like an orchestra," says Bazan. "You need a conductor, and this is the role that DHA plays. Such a large-scale complexity first requires violinists, or in this case, synapses, which are highly sensitive sites of stroke injury that become messengers to target vulnerable cells.'"
Comment: I'm sure stroke has been a brain problem since brains appeared. We know animals have strokes. The development for protection must have appeared early in evolution and I assume designed by God.
Introducing the brain: energy requirements
by David Turell , Tuesday, September 01, 2020, 17:58 (1326 days ago) @ David Turell
When the brain cannot get enough glucose for energy it uses lactate. This is standard throughout the body. Astrocytes are part of the mechanism:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-scientists-key-neuron-function-survival.html
"Scientists studying neuronal energy metabolism found evidence that the loss of an important energy regulator called AMPK in neural stem cells or glial cells called astrocytes causes neuronal death in laboratory rodents. They also discovered that AMPK loss in neural stem cells or neurons causes spontaneous brain seizures in the animals.
***
"'Very little is known about how astrocytes regulate glycolysis to generate lactate and supply it to neurons to support their metabolism and proper functioning," Dasgupta said. "We show for the first time that AMP kinase (AMPK) is the bottom line of the mechanism that controls astrocytic glycolysis and lactate production in the brain. And we show that interfering with this process does little harm to astrocytes but damages neurons."Neuronal metabolism is critical to every aspect of our lives and functioning. The question of whether glial cells like astrocytes are necessary for proper neuron metabolism and survival has been debated in the scientific field for decades."
Comment: This study simply discovers how the system works. A complex design not be chance.
Introducing the brain: energy requirements
by David Turell , Tuesday, September 01, 2020, 19:06 (1326 days ago) @ David Turell
Supplying oxygen when needed:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200901085247.htm
"When the brain isn't getting enough oxygen, estrogen produced by neurons in both males and females hyperactivates another brain cell type called astrocytes to step up their usual support and protect brain function.
"In the face of low brain oxygen that can occur with stroke or other brain injury, these astrocytes, star-shaped brain cells that help give the brain its shape and regularly provide fuel and other support to neurons, should become "highly reactive," increasing cell signaling, releasing neuroprotective factors and clearing neurotoxins, scientists report in The Journal of Neuroscience.
"Astrocytes also should start producing protective estrogen, but it's neurons' producing estrogen that is critical to the protective cascade, they report.
"'Astrocytes are always there and hovering and supporting," says Dr. Darrell W. Brann,
***
"They found that one way estrogen made by neurons is protective in ischemia is by suppressing signaling of the fibroblast growth factor, FGF2, which is also made by neurons and known to suppress astrocyte activation, Brann and his colleagues write. Normally neurons use this FGF2 brake to help keep astrocyte response from getting out of control.
"In this scenario, when they used a neutralizing antibody to block FGF2, astrocytes became more active and neuron damage was decreased. "The astrocyte activation came back and we saw the protective growth factors that they make," Brann says. Giving more estrogen produced similar benefits, including improving cognition after ischemia.
***
"When all is going well in the brain, only neurons appear to be a local estrogen source, but with a stressor like ischemia, aromatase and the estrogen it enables are known to increase significantly in the astrocytes as well, if they are activated."
Comment: More evidence of protective systems in the brain. Should be considered part of the initial design.
Introducing the brain: how odors are interpreted
by David Turell , Thursday, October 15, 2020, 17:17 (1282 days ago) @ David Turell
Further discussion:
http://nautil.us/issue/91/the-amazing-brain/our-mind_boggling-sense-of-smell?mc_cid=116...
"Our sense of smell offers an intriguing challenge to the mapping paradigm in vision. The nose is tailored to measure an unpredictable chemical array in our environment, allowing the brain to evaluate when minute molecular traces shift behavioral meanings to signal pleasure, danger, or novelty.
***
"The reason why has to do with an intriguing feature specific to the olfactory system. That is, it takes only two synapses for information to travel from the air, through your nose, and to the core cortex, deep in the brain. To put this into perspective: two synapses won’t get you out of the retina in the visual system. You cannot find a more direct route bringing the brain in touch with the world!
***
"The function of the olfactory system is not to map chemicals discretely in space. Instead, it tracks and computes the statistics of a changing chemical environment: How many, in what concentration, and how often do chemicals co-occur as a molecular cloud? (Our nose is tuned to detect blends of different chemicals—coffee aroma, for example, consists of 800 different compounds.) Simply consider the system’s mind-boggling capacity: If you calculate all possible combinations of structure-receptor interactions in smell (with one molecule hypothetically activating 100 receptors), you’d end up with a number higher than atoms in the galaxy.
***
"The olfactory receptors happened to be the most structurally diverse and sizable member of the largest multigene family of protein receptors in the mammalian genome (so-called G-protein coupled receptors—or GPCRs in short). Their striking diversity and sheer size—olfactory receptor genes have more “genetic storage” than the immune system, occupying about 4 percent of the mammalian genome—caught the attention of scientists interested in mechanisms of gene recombination and the evolutionary diversification of biological processes. How did some biological entities, like proteins, evolve to facilitate a variety of functions?
***
"With only two synapses straight into the cortex, a full understanding of the olfactory brain looked imminent. Yet the apparent simplicity of the olfactory system soon proved deceptive. Today, three decades after the receptor discovery, the mechanisms of odor perception continue to flummox researchers. Rather than close in on a full understanding, we merely started to appreciate the hidden complexity with which the brain makes sense of scents.
***
"...odor quality is linked to structurally highly diverse chemicals. These chemicals have about 5,000 molecular features, not correlated in any straightforward manner to odor quality, that olfactory receptors (of which humans have about 400 types) pick up on to identify them.
***
"All the brain “sees” (for a lack of a better term) is what receptors light up, how many of them, for how long, and in what combination and ratio. With about 400 types of receptors participating in a combinatorial coding of 5,000 molecular parameters, this turns out to be a rather sophisticated task.
***
"The brain, drawing on memory, recognizes patterns in the chemical composition of the olfactory stimulus. This is one way for the olfactory system to foreground novelty, meaning the introduction of unknown (and potentially behaviorally relevant) compounds into an otherwise constant environment.
***
"Such idiosyncrasies, like the weird complexity and variability of smell, now turn out vital to understanding the brain—how it maneuvers an organism through a landscape of fast-changing molecular combinations. The processing behind this is highly dynamic and radically prompt in answering how, what, and when to choose. The brain is not simply a projection screen. It is fundamentally a pattern-recognition device. Tracking the chemical statistics of an ever-changing environment needs a simple solution to a complex problem—an overly specialized map may even be disadvantageous here. Our brains evolved from our bodies, after all, not the other way around."
Comment: Amazing problem. It must involve memory of new odors. The newborn baby comes into the world with its memory system not yet formed. So the memory recognition process has to develop as the child grows older and we obviously learn how to identify odors. It is so complex, as this article shows, we still do not yet understand how the brain does its recognition job. Not by chnce. Only design will create this.
Introducing the brain: how odors are interpreted
QUOTE: "Our brains evolved from our bodies, after all, not the other way around."
DAVID: Amazing problem. It must involve memory of new odors. The newborn baby comes into the world with its memory system not yet formed. So the memory recognition process has to develop as the child grows older and we obviously learn how to identify odors. It is so complex, as this article shows, we still do not yet understand how the brain does its recognition job. Not by chnce. Only design will create this.
Bearing in mind that the body and the brain are composed of cell communities, the above quote certainly gives food for thought. But I'm only commenting here simply to thank you for yet another wonderfully revealing article on the complexities of all the cell communities - each one a miracle in itself, whether designed by your God or not.
Introducing the brain: how odors are interpreted
by David Turell , Friday, October 16, 2020, 15:13 (1282 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: "Our brains evolved from our bodies, after all, not the other way around."
DAVID: Amazing problem. It must involve memory of new odors. The newborn baby comes into the world with its memory system not yet formed. So the memory recognition process has to develop as the child grows older and we obviously learn how to identify odors. It is so complex, as this article shows, we still do not yet understand how the brain does its recognition job. Not by chnce. Only design will create this.
dhw: Bearing in mind that the body and the brain are composed of cell communities, the above quote certainly gives food for thought. But I'm only commenting here simply to thank you for yet another wonderfully revealing article on the complexities of all the cell communities - each one a miracle in itself, whether designed by your God or not.
Do you know of another designer?
Introducing the brain: how odors are interpreted
QUOTE: "Our brains evolved from our bodies, after all, not the other way around."
DAVID: Amazing problem. It must involve memory of new odors. The newborn baby comes into the world with its memory system not yet formed. So the memory recognition process has to develop as the child grows older and we obviously learn how to identify odors. It is so complex, as this article shows, we still do not yet understand how the brain does its recognition job. Not by chnce. Only design will create this.
dhw: Bearing in mind that the body and the brain are composed of cell communities, the above quote certainly gives food for thought. But I'm only commenting here simply to thank you for yet another wonderfully revealing article on the complexities of all the cell communities - each one a miracle in itself, whether designed by your God or not.
DAVID: Do you know of another designer?
Do you “know” of ANY designer? One proposal is that all these complexities have been designed over millions and millions of years by intelligent cell communities. I thought I’d mentioned that before. And who/what designed them? Maybe some kind of god (but how does his intelligence simply exist without a source?), maybe chance (hard to believe), maybe some sort of panpsychism (equally hard to believe)…I seem to remember also saying all this before.
Introducing the brain: how odors are interpreted
by David Turell , Saturday, October 17, 2020, 15:45 (1281 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: "Our brains evolved from our bodies, after all, not the other way around."
DAVID: Amazing problem. It must involve memory of new odors. The newborn baby comes into the world with its memory system not yet formed. So the memory recognition process has to develop as the child grows older and we obviously learn how to identify odors. It is so complex, as this article shows, we still do not yet understand how the brain does its recognition job. Not by chnce. Only design will create this.
dhw: Bearing in mind that the body and the brain are composed of cell communities, the above quote certainly gives food for thought. But I'm only commenting here simply to thank you for yet another wonderfully revealing article on the complexities of all the cell communities - each one a miracle in itself, whether designed by your God or not.
DAVID: Do you know of another designer?
dhw: Do you “know” of ANY designer? One proposal is that all these complexities have been designed over millions and millions of years by intelligent cell communities. I thought I’d mentioned that before. And who/what designed them? Maybe some kind of god (but how does his intelligence simply exist without a source?), maybe chance (hard to believe), maybe some sort of panpsychism (equally hard to believe)…I seem to remember also saying all this before.
You've covered all the possibilities, while ignoring the theory of the necessity for a first cause from the logic of causation.
Introducing the brain: how odors are interpreted
QUOTE: "Our brains evolved from our bodies, after all, not the other way around."
DAVID: Amazing problem. It must involve memory of new odors. The newborn baby comes into the world with its memory system not yet formed. So the memory recognition process has to develop as the child grows older and we obviously learn how to identify odors. It is so complex, as this article shows, we still do not yet understand how the brain does its recognition job. Not by chnce. Only design will create this.
dhw: Bearing in mind that the body and the brain are composed of cell communities, the above quote certainly gives food for thought. But I'm only commenting here simply to thank you for yet another wonderfully revealing article on the complexities of all the cell communities - each one a miracle in itself, whether designed by your God or not.
DAVID: Do you know of another designer?
dhw: Do you “know” of ANY designer? One proposal is that all these complexities have been designed over millions and millions of years by intelligent cell communities. I thought I’d mentioned that before. And who/what designed them? Maybe some kind of god (but how does his intelligence simply exist without a source?), maybe chance (hard to believe), maybe some sort of panpsychism (equally hard to believe)…I seem to remember also saying all this before.
DAVID: You've covered all the possibilities, while ignoring the theory of the necessity for a first cause from the logic of causation.
Those ARE the three hypothetical first causes! 1) an eternal, superintelligent, sourceless, immaterial being (top down evolution); 2) eternal energy and matter forming endless random combinations until one of them comes up trumps (chance - bottom up evolution); 3) eternal energy and matter with a rudimentary form of intelligence (pansychist, bottom up evolution).
Introducing the brain: how odors are interpreted
by David Turell , Sunday, October 18, 2020, 18:18 (1279 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: "Our brains evolved from our bodies, after all, not the other way around."
DAVID: Amazing problem. It must involve memory of new odors. The newborn baby comes into the world with its memory system not yet formed. So the memory recognition process has to develop as the child grows older and we obviously learn how to identify odors. It is so complex, as this article shows, we still do not yet understand how the brain does its recognition job. Not by chnce. Only design will create this.
dhw: Bearing in mind that the body and the brain are composed of cell communities, the above quote certainly gives food for thought. But I'm only commenting here simply to thank you for yet another wonderfully revealing article on the complexities of all the cell communities - each one a miracle in itself, whether designed by your God or not.
DAVID: Do you know of another designer?
dhw: Do you “know” of ANY designer? One proposal is that all these complexities have been designed over millions and millions of years by intelligent cell communities. I thought I’d mentioned that before. And who/what designed them? Maybe some kind of god (but how does his intelligence simply exist without a source?), maybe chance (hard to believe), maybe some sort of panpsychism (equally hard to believe)…I seem to remember also saying all this before.
DAVID: You've covered all the possibilities, while ignoring the theory of the necessity for a first cause from the logic of causation.
dhw: Those ARE the three hypothetical first causes! 1) an eternal, superintelligent, sourceless, immaterial being (top down evolution); 2) eternal energy and matter forming endless random combinations until one of them comes up trumps (chance - bottom up evolution); 3) eternal energy and matter with a rudimentary form of intelligence (pansychist, bottom up evolution).
I'll stick with (1). (2) is against all odds, with chance ending up with information and intelligence. (3) has some form of intelligence appearing at the beginning of matter's origin, and I view it as a bastard form of pantheism.
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate to mechanics
by David Turell , Monday, August 10, 2020, 23:20 (1348 days ago) @ dhw
In zebrafish inbreeding can make different brains in the larvae:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200810113222.htm
"Personality varies widely. There are bold and reserved individuals, who behave very differently when faced with the same environmental stimulus. What is true for humans also applies to fish: their behavior shows a range of individual differences. By selectively breeding zebrafish, scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology were able to show that distinct personality traits rapidly emerge and manifest not only in the behavior, but also through far-reaching changes in the brain.
"Young zebrafish are just five millimeters long and almost transparent. Nevertheless, the tiny fish display a spectrum of behavior in response to external stimuli. While some animals flee in panic at a loud sound, other fish remain calm. If the sound is repeated, fish in one group learn to ignore it quickly, while others never really get used to it. Between these two extremes -- relaxed or skittish -- there is a whole range of behavioral expressions.
***
"The researchers mated animals only within the extremely relaxed and the extremely skittish groups. After just two generations, the brains of the fry selected for skittishness differed significantly from the brains of the calm offspring.
"In the transparent fish larvae, the scientists were able to observe which brain regions were activated by the loud sound. The offspring of the two behavioral extremes showed clear differences in neuronal activity in a part of the hypothalamus and in the so-called dorsal raphe nucleus. A noticeable difference between these two brain regions is that the plastic part of the hypothalamus contains neurons that secrete dopamine, while the raphe nucleus mainly produces serotonin. Dopamine and serotonin are two prominent neuromodulators that have also been associated with personality differences and even psychiatric conditions in humans.
"'The ratio of cell activity in these two brain regions could regulate the sensitivity of an individual fish's reaction to the sound and how quickly it gets used to it," explains Carlos Pantoja. "However, this is certainly only one component, as there are also differences in a whole range of other brain areas."
***
"In both groups of fish, the dopamine-releasing part of the hypothalamus was activated during the startle reaction. However, while this region was only switched on by the sound in the relaxed fish, it was permanently active in the skittish fish. After a mere two generations of behavioral selection, these animals already seemed to be constantly prepared to escape.
"'The pace at which personality traits can be shifted and fixed in evolution is remarkable," reflects Herwig Baier. "The process might be similarly rapid in populations of Homo sapiens.'"
Comment: The bold is a stupid comment. Humans don't line breed. However, your personality is tailored to some degree by the brain you inherit from your parents. Of course, the experiences one has in life and how one integrates them into the final shape of the personality is another major aspect of the final product. You learn to use the brain you are given.
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate to mechanics
DAVID: In zebrafish inbreeding can make different brains in the larvae:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200810113222.htm
QUOTES: "Personality varies widely. There are bold and reserved individuals, who behave very differently when faced with the same environmental stimulus. What is true for humans also applies to fish: their behavior shows a range of individual differences. By selectively breeding zebrafish, scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology were able to show that distinct personality traits rapidly emerge and manifest not only in the behavior, but also through far-reaching changes in the brain.
"'The pace at which personality traits can be shifted and fixed in evolution is remarkable," reflects Herwig Baier. "The process might be similarly rapid in populations of Homo sapiens.'"
DAVID: The bold is a stupid comment. Humans don't line breed. However, your personality is tailored to some degree by the brain you inherit from your parents. Of course, the experiences one has in life and how one integrates them into the final shape of the personality is another major aspect of the final product. You learn to use the brain you are given.
Thank you for this fascinating article. I must say my first thought was to nod in appreciation of the fact that the researchers recognize the individual personalities of the fish. So many humans simply can’t envisage the possibility that our fellow organisms may be just as individual as we are. My second thought was the recurrent problem of materialism versus dualism. Just how much of the personality is “tailored” by the brain, and does the brain predetermine how we react to all the other influences on our lives: our upbringing, education, experiences, chance events etc.? Of course, nobody knows.
Introducing the brain: how emotions relate to mechanics
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 11, 2020, 22:16 (1347 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: In zebrafish inbreeding can make different brains in the larvae:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200810113222.htmQUOTES: "Personality varies widely. There are bold and reserved individuals, who behave very differently when faced with the same environmental stimulus. What is true for humans also applies to fish: their behavior shows a range of individual differences. By selectively breeding zebrafish, scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology were able to show that distinct personality traits rapidly emerge and manifest not only in the behavior, but also through far-reaching changes in the brain.
"'The pace at which personality traits can be shifted and fixed in evolution is remarkable," reflects Herwig Baier. "The process might be similarly rapid in populations of Homo sapiens.'"DAVID: The bold is a stupid comment. Humans don't line breed. However, your personality is tailored to some degree by the brain you inherit from your parents. Of course, the experiences one has in life and how one integrates them into the final shape of the personality is another major aspect of the final product. You learn to use the brain you are given.
dhw: Thank you for this fascinating article. I must say my first thought was to nod in appreciation of the fact that the researchers recognize the individual personalities of the fish. So many humans simply can’t envisage the possibility that our fellow organisms may be just as individual as we are. My second thought was the recurrent problem of materialism versus dualism. Just how much of the personality is “tailored” by the brain, and does the brain predetermine how we react to all the other influences on our lives: our upbringing, education, experiences, chance events etc.? Of course, nobody knows.
Thank you for enjoying it. It does bring up the points you raise.
Introducing the brain: everyone sees faces
by David Turell , Saturday, August 15, 2020, 22:01 (1343 days ago) @ David Turell
In all sorts of objects:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-08-brain-everyday.html
"'Face pareidolia' – the phenomenon of seeing faces in everyday objects—is a very human condition that relates to how our brains are wired. And now research from UNSW Sydney has shown we process these "fake" faces using the same visual mechanisms of the brain that we do for real ones.
***
"'This basic pattern of features that defines the human face is something that our brain is particularly attuned to, and is likely to be what draws our attention to pareidolia objects. But face perception isn't just about noticing the presence of a face. We also need to recognize who that person is, and read information from their face, like whether they are paying attention to us, and whether they are happy or upset." (my bold)
"They tested this using the process known as "sensory adaptation," a kind of visual illusion where one's perception is affected by what has recently been seen.
"'If you are repeatedly shown pictures of faces that are looking towards your left, for example, your perception will actually change over time so that the faces will appear to be looking more rightwards than they really are," says Dr. Palmer.
***
"'Our brain has evolved to facilitate social interaction, and this shapes the way that we see the world around us. There is an evolutionary advantage to being really good or really efficient at detecting faces, it's important to us socially. It's also important in detecting predators. So if you've evolved to be very good at detecting faces, this might then lead to false positives, where you sometimes see faces that aren't really there. Another way of putting this is that it's better to have a system that's overly sensitive to detecting faces, than one that is not sensitive enough."
***
"'Understanding face perception is important when you consider conditions or traits like face prosopagnosia, which is the inability to recognize faces, and the autism spectrum, which can include difficulties in reading information from other people's faces, such as their emotional state," Dr. Palmer says. (my bold)
"'And so the longer-term goal of this kind of research is to understand how difficulties in face perception and everyday social functioning can come about."
"Next, the researchers plan to investigate in more detail the specific brain mechanisms involved in 'reading' social information from another person's face, and whether these mechanisms can operate differently in different people."
Comment: The bold parallels my thinking that evolution has developed sense interpretations that help us understand reality when we realize what we see is the result of electrical impulses transmitted over nerves to be interpreted by neurons in a wet environment. The inability to recognize faces, prosopagnosia, in the second bold, reminds us not all brains are normal and this limits the interpretation of our senses when present.
Introducing the brain: linking sight and movement
by David Turell , Saturday, August 15, 2020, 22:52 (1343 days ago) @ David Turell
A logical coordination discovered:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200814123211.htm
"Researchers found that image-processing circuits in the primary visual cortex not only are more active when animals move freely, but that they receive signals from a movement-controlling region of the brain that is independent from the region that processes what the animal is looking at.
***
"The results of the study, published Tuesday in the journal Neuron, suggest that image-processing circuits in the primary visual cortex not only are more active when animals move, but that they receive signals from a movement-controlling region of the brain that is independent from the region that processes what the animal is looking at. In fact, the researchers describe two sets of movement-related patterns in the visual cortex that are based on head motion and whether an animal is in the light or the dark.
"The movement-related findings were unexpected, since vision tends to be thought of as a feed-forward computation system in which visual information enters through the retina and travels on neural circuits that operate on a one-way path, processing the information piece by piece. What the researchers saw here is more evidence that the visual system has many more feedback components where information can travel in opposite directions than had been thought.
'These results offer a nuanced glimpse into how neural activity works in a sensory region of the brain, and add to a growing body of research that is rewriting the textbook model of vision in the brain.
***
"'The model explanation for this is that the brain somehow needs to coordinate perception and action," Guitchounts said. "You need to know when a sensory input is caused by your own action as opposed to when it's caused by something out there in the world."
***
"'It's all to better understand how vision actually works," Guitchounts said. "Neuroscience is entering into a new era where we understand that perception and action are intertwined loops. ... There's no action without perception and no perception without action. We have the technology now to measure this.'"
Comment: All of these findings are logical. Understanding body and eye movements must be coordinated and understood by the brain and designed for function for all types of activity. In human sports the basketball player must contort his body to avoid the defense and keep his gaze on the basket to shoot the ball properly. As animals hunt the same considerations apply.
This must be designed, it is so neurologically complex.
Introducing the brain: dopamine, serotonin control genes
by David Turell , Tuesday, October 27, 2020, 21:35 (1270 days ago) @ David Turell
The latest findings from addiction reseaarch:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-epigenetic-secrets-behind-dopamine-drug-addiction-an...
"This is why cells in our body can be so different even though every cell has identical DNA. If the DNA is not unwound from its various spools — proteins called histones — the cell’s machinery can’t read the hidden code. So the genes that would make red blood corpuscles, for example, are shut off in cells that become neurons.
"How do cells know which genes to read? The histone spool that a specific gene’s DNA winds around is marked with a specific chemical tag, like a molecular Post-it note. That marker directs other proteins to “roll the tape” and unwind the relevant DNA from that histone (or not to roll it, depending on the tag).
"...[research] showed that serotonin has another function: It can act as one of those molecular Post-it notes. Specifically, it can bind to a type of histone known as H3, which controls the genes responsible for transforming human stem cells (the forerunner of all kinds of cells) into serotonin neurons. When serotonin binds to the histone, the DNA unwinds, turning on the genes that dictate the development of a stem cell into a serotonin neuron, while turning off other genes by keeping their DNA tightly wound.
"That finding inspired Maze’s team to wonder if dopamine might act in a similar way, regulating the genes involved in drug addiction and withdrawal. In the April Science paper that so surprised me, they showed that the same enzyme that attaches serotonin to H3 can also catalyze the attachment of dopamine to H3 — a process, I learned, called dopaminylation.
"Together, these results represent a huge change in our understanding of these chemicals. By binding to the H3 histone, serotonin and dopamine can regulate transcription of DNA into RNA and, as a consequence, the synthesis of specific proteins from them. That turns these well-known characters in neuroscience into double agents, acting obviously as neurotransmitters, but also as clandestine masters of epigenetics.
***
"In a commentary accompanying the research, Jean-Antoine Girault of Sorbonne University in Paris made a final, intriguing observation. We know that typical neural impulse firing works by causing a ripple effect of dynamic changes in calcium concentration inside neurons that eventually reach the nucleus. But Girault noted that the enzyme that catalyzes the attachment of dopamine to H3 is also regulated by levels of intracellular calcium. In this way, electrical chatter between neurons is relayed to the nucleus, suggesting that neural activity — driven by a behavior — could attach the dopamine epigenetic marker to genes responsible for drug-seeking behavior. That’s how the experiences one has in life can select which genes get read out, and which do not. Lamarck would be proud."
Comment: The functional aspects of gene expression controls in the brain are expanding with this research. The complexity increases and demands the recognition of design requirements. And of course, Lamarck is here to stay.
Introducing the brain: how neurons cement memory
by David Turell , Monday, November 02, 2020, 18:33 (1264 days ago) @ David Turell
It happens over time:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/brain-cell-dna-refolds-itself-to-aid-memory-recall-20201...
"In a study published last month, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tracked an important part of the memory-making process at the molecular scale in engram cells’ chromosomes. Neuroscientists already knew that memory formation is not instantaneous, and that the act of remembering is crucial to locking a memory into the brain. These researchers have now discovered some of the physical embodiment of that mechanism.
***
"Peering into the nuclei of these engram cells, the researchers spotted fine-grained changes in the architecture of the chromatin — the complex of DNA and regulatory proteins that makes up chromosomes — as the memory took shape. Parts of the chromatin reorganized in such a way that memory-associated genes could more easily spring into action to strengthen and preserve a memory. “Basically, the entire memory formation process is a priming event,” said Li-Huei Tsai, director of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning.
***
"When the mice were placed back in the environment where they originally formed this memory, a surge of gene expression followed. The structural changes to enhancers aligned with these activation patterns, leading to stronger connections between the neurons involved. That’s when Marco realized that the architectural changes to the chromatin were preparing the cells to reinforce the memories when they were recalled.
“'It’s almost like warming up for a workout,” explained Steve Ramirez, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Boston University. As a memory forms, engram cells gear up to express genes that will create and strengthen connections among them. Cells can only take full advantage of these latent changes, however, when the memory is called to mind again. “They’re ready to run and enable the process of recollection,” he said. “That idea is very tantalizing.”
***
"Still, even the most cutting-edge tools can’t track memory formation this closely in live animals, so scientists can’t observe human memory formation as closely. These processes were studied in mice, and human cells may not follow the same patterns while encoding more complex and overlapping memories. “At this stage, it’s very hard to evaluate how much can be translated to human research,” said Shawn Liu, an assistant professor of physiology and cellular biophysics at Columbia University.
"But mice and humans do have some memory circuitry in common. This study tracked cells in the hippocampus, a curved structure near the center of the brain in both species that’s vital for learning and memory. Differences between the human and mouse versions of the hippocampus temper the applicability of the study’s results, but within this new subfield, they are compelling data points. “Priming as a model to explain memory formation is very attractive,” Tsai said."
Comment: Considering common descent the mice may well tell us how our brain works with memory.
Introducing the brain: our neurons cement memory
by David Turell , Thursday, November 05, 2020, 19:19 (1261 days ago) @ David Turell
But chimps with similar brains don't do it like we do:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-human-intelligence-mysterious-neuroscientist.html
"It has previously been thought that pattern separation in the hippocampus, an area of the brain critical for memory, enables separate groups of neurons to store memories so that memories don't get mixed up.
"Now, after 15 years of research, Leicester University's director of systems neuroscience, Professor Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, believes that in fact, the opposite to pattern separation is present in the human hippocampus. He argues that contrary to what has been described in animals, the same group of neurons store all memories. The consequences of this are far-reaching, as such neuronal representation, devoid of specific contextual details, explains the abstract thinking that characterizes human intelligence.
"Quiroga explains, "In contrast to what everybody expects, when recording the activity of individual neurons, we have found that there is an alternative model to pattern separation storing our memories. Pattern separation is a basic principle of neuronal coding that precludes memory interference in the hippocampus. Its existence is supported by numerous theoretical, computational and experimental findings in different animal species, but these findings have never been directly replicated in humans. Previous human studies have been mostly obtained using functional magnetic resource imagining (fMRI), which doesn't allow recording the activity of individual neurons. Shockingly, when we directly recorded the activity of individual neurons, we found something completely different to what has been described in other animals. This could well be a cornerstone of human intelligence."
"The study, titled "No pattern separation in the human hippocampus," argues that the lack of pattern separation in memory coding is a key difference compared to other species, which has profound implications that could explain cognitive abilities uniquely developed in humans, such as our power of generalization and of creative thought.
"Professor Quian Quiroga believes we should go beyond behavioral comparisons between humans and animals and seek for more mechanistic insights, asking what in our brain gives rise to the unique and vast repertoire of cognitive functions in humans. In particular, he argues that brain size or number of neurons cannot solely explain the difference, since there is, for example, a comparable number and type of neuron in the chimp and the human brain, and both species have more or less the same anatomical structures. Therefore, our neurons, or at least some of them, must be doing something completely different, and one such difference is given by how they store our memories."
Comment: We have almost the same DNA as chimps, and almost the same brain areas for memory, but we are hugely different due to structural network relationships and different acting neurons in how they change their DNA structure, as previously shown.
Introducing the brain: autophagy role in neurons
by David Turell , Thursday, November 05, 2020, 19:34 (1261 days ago) @ David Turell
Autophagy is the garbage removal system in cells. Its action in neurons, which have to last a lifetime is important:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-insights-role-autophagy-neuron.html
"It appears that autophagy protects neurons in the brain, but for different reasons than previously assumed, as researchers from the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP) and Charité in Berlin have now shown. When the scientists used a genetic trick to switch off autophagy-mediated cellular waste disposal, instead of detecting protein deposits, as expected, they found elevated levels of the endoplasmic reticulum, a system composed of membrane sacs which acts, among other functions, as a calcium store. This leads to elevated neurotransmitter release and, ultimately, to fatal neuronal hyperexcitability.
"Autophagy plays a key role in the maintenance of healthy cells, one example being the degradation and recycling of damaged protein molecules or entire organelles such as defective mitochondria by means of so-called autophagosomes. This cleaning mechanism is particularly important for neurons in the brain, which serve us throughout our lives, given that autophagy clears protein aggregates, such as those occurring in neurodegenerative diseases. The neuroprotective effects of autophagy have since been confirmed by numerous experiments in model organisms.
***
"Using a genetic trick, the researchers first switched off an essential autophagy gene, and then used proteomics to analyze neuronal protein levels. Proteins previously hypothesized to be primarily degraded by autophagy were not enriched in the neurons at all—although this would have been expected, if their degradation occurred via autophagy.
"'It came as a complete surprise to us," remarked Marijn Kuijpers, lead author of the study now published in Neuron. "But what surprised us even more was what we found in the neurons instead."
"Instead of the expected autophagy substrates, the researchers discovered unusually high levels of the endoplasmic reticulum in the neuronal axons. One of the functions of these membrane sacs and tubules, which occur in all cells, is to provide a large intracellular store for calcium. The regulation of calcium is in turn fundamentally important for excitatory transmission in the central nervous system: When neurons communicate with each other, calcium channels open at synapses, leading to an influx of extracellular calcium into synapses and the release of neurotransmitters (neuronal messengers) from synaptic vesicles. Calcium can then either be pumped out of the neuron or enter the endoplasmic reticulum from where it can also be re-released, as required.
***
"'Until now, it was assumed that less autophagy meant the release of fewer transmitter molecules. We have now demonstrated the exact opposite," said postdoctoral fellow Marijn Kuijpers, commenting on the results of her study. "Too much, not too little neurotransmitter release is the problem. As a result, neurons become less plastic, and we suspect that they ultimately perish from hyperexcitability," added Charité's Professor Dietmar Schmitz, whose team contributed to the study.
"Since the study was conducted with healthy neurons from young animals, it does not preclude additional functions of autophagy under pathological conditions, in Alzheimer's disease, for example. That said, the study is of tremendous importance for our fundamental understanding of the physiology of autophagy."
Comment: Bit by bit we are coming to understand the complexity of preserving neurons for a lifetime. Only by very careful design.
Introducing the brain: astrocytes clean up waste
by David Turell , Tuesday, November 10, 2020, 20:13 (1256 days ago) @ David Turell
A new study:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201110102532.htm
"Microglia -- the brain's immune cells -- play a primary role in removing cellular debris from the brain. According to a recent study by a Nagoya University-led research team in Japan, another kind of brain cell, called astrocyte, is also involved in removing debris as a backup to microglia. The finding, published recently in The EMBO Journal, could lead to new therapies that accelerate the removal of cellular debris from the brain and thereby reduce detrimental effects of the debris on surrounding cells.
***
"Microglia -- brain "phagocytes" (a type of cell that engulfs and absorbs bacteria and cellular debris) -- act to clear the danger, but the debris sometimes overwhelms the microglia. This has led to suggestions that another mechanism that helps remove cellular debris is also at work.
***
"The researchers next analyzed the expression of molecules in the brains of the mouse models and identified astrocytes that play a role in the removal of microglial debris. Then, using mutant mice with phagocytosis-impaired microglia, they examined how astrocytes work when microglia don't function properly. The results showed that almost half of the cellular debris was engulfed by astrocytes, not by microglia. This indicates that astrocytes have the potential to compensate for microglial dysfunction.
"The team concluded that not only are astrocytes capable of engulfing cellular debris, but also that they are likely to actually do this when microglia don't function properly."
Comment: The brain is too valuable not to have backup garbage systems, a sign of thoughtful design.
Introducing the brain: neuropeptide confusion
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 11, 2020, 14:59 (1256 days ago) @ David Turell
It's not just connecting neurons. They are bathed in a variety of neuropeptides with different types and levels of influence, meaning that the study of 'brains' makes deciphering of how it all works very difficult to understand:
https://mindmatters.ai/2020/11/strettons-paradox-the-paradox-of-the-lowly-worm/
"In a recent podcast discussion” with computer engineer Robert J. Marks, tech philosopher George Gilder used the term “Stretton’s paradox” in connection with the attempt to understand the human connectome, the white matter in your brain that is as dense as the entire internet.
"Even the lowly nematode worm, frequent research subject and survivor of the space shuttle blowup, seems to be full of an intelligence that we are only beginning to understand.
"Robert J. Marks: You said enthusiasts for connectome studies must face Stretton’s paradox of connectome knowledge. I tried to Google Stretton’s Paradox but couldn’t find it. What is Stretton’s paradox?
"George Gilder: Tony Stretton, who worked with the major biological laboratory at Cambridge in Britain and then came to Wisconsin, where he’s been a professor of biology for decades, did the first full connectome of the nematode worm.
***
"At his university web page, Anthony Stretton writes,
"The major aim of my laboratory is to understand the way the nervous system controls behavior. We now know that the “simple nervous system” of the nematode Ascaris has much more complexity than was ever imagined–the chemical signaling system it uses are very diverse, and we are sorting them out. These signaling systems include the neuropeptides, which we are devoting a major effort towards identifying and sequencing; other signaling systems that we have worked on include serotonin and glutamate, both of which play an important role in the motor nervous system. These signaling systems typically are involved in the process of neuromodulation, and each chemical involved affects the system in a different way. Some produce profound effects on the neurons they influence, and others have subtle effects. Different chemicals affect different subsets of neurons. Neuromodulation is a matter of details, but the details matter.
"The complexity is exponentially greater with humans:
"Robert J. Marks: So the connectome doesn’t suffice for the explanation of what’s going on totally, I guess.
"George Gilder: Oh, yeah. Once you get this connectome of the human brain, you still don’t know how it works. Well, once you have a complete connectome for the Internet, you probably know how it works pretty well because it’s mostly binary computer processes can catenate it around the world. And if you can really map them in detail, you pretty much have the definition or the schematic for the entire global Internet. But you define the connectome of a mind, and it still eludes you…"
Comment: This level of complexity cannot be by chance.
Introducing the brain: sensory neurons do more than accept
by David Turell , Thursday, November 12, 2020, 19:02 (1254 days ago) @ David Turell
They also analyze:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-sensory-cortex-recognising-patterns.html
"The research, published in Current Biology, suggests that neurons in the sensory cortex don't just detect sensory information, but could actually decipher meaning and regulate bodily responses too.
***
"Dr. Maravall said: "The cerebral cortex is the part of the mammalian brain where we make sense of new objects and relate them to actions and memories.
"'We reasoned that, somewhere in the sensory part of the mouse's cerebral cortex, there would be a group of neurons that processed these sequences of vibrations. There would perhaps then be another group of neurons elsewhere that prompted the animal to respond whenever the target sequence was presented. This would be the basis for the animal reporting the sequence.
"'However, we found something far more intriguing. Even in the most sensory parts of the cortex, we observed neurons that directly linked the learnt sequence to the animals' motor response. Some neurons even responded to whether the animal was getting the expected reward or not."
"The findings suggest that the sensory cortex is not just sensory, as previously thought. Instead of responding only to stimuli around us, Dr. Maravall's study suggests that the sensory neurons are also involved in processing the meaning of the stimuli, and planning the subsequent behavioural responses.
"This means that learning to recognise a specific pattern or sequence and process the ensuing actions and outcomes, whether that be a new song or a speech, involves neurons across the whole cortex. This fundamentally challenges basic ideas about how our brains work.
***
"'Our findings challenge that process. Instead, we've seen that all kinds of information makes its way to the sensory cortex and that neurons there are even able to predict the animal's response, and report its consequences—almost as if the normal decision making process I've just explained is bypassed.
"'What's exciting is that we're seeing similar results coming out of multiple labs. Neurons in the sensory cortex are doing so much more than we first thought. An animal does not, it seems, sense the world separately from what it needs to feel in order to guide behaviour.
"'If sensations are tied into the task itself, this has implications for how we think about how the cortex is organised and how this might be affected by disease.'"
Comment: That neurons are not limited but can be jacks-of-all-trades explains way our brains work so cleverly. That makes the brain not just another computer. A very compelling new finding about its design. Not by chance.
Introducing the brain: adding a second language
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 18, 2020, 20:36 (1248 days ago) @ David Turell
Not just on the expected left side:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201117122840.htm
"The two sides of the brain don't evenly split labor for every function. In most people, language relies on the left hemisphere, but the right hemisphere can take over after an injury to the left. The right hemisphere can also contribute when learning a new language, making it unclear if the left hemisphere is actually specialized for language.
"Gurunandan et al. used fMRI to compare neural activity between hemispheres in adult language learners while reading, listening, and speaking in their native and new languages. In the earlier stages of language learning, native and new languages looked quite similar in the brain, but in advanced learners, the two languages were more distinct. The native and new languages were able to recruit opposite hemispheres for comprehension but speaking either language remained reliant on the left hemisphere. These results suggest production is hard-wired to the left hemisphere, while comprehension is more flexible.
"This may explain why it is more difficult to learn to speak a new language as an adult, even though it is possible to learn to understand it quite well."
Comment: Young kids have it so much easier. We obviously lose brain plasticity for this function as we age. But it emphasizes the design which lets newborns learn language quickly to facilitate their joining into family and group activity.
Introducing the brain: memory formation
by David Turell , Wednesday, December 09, 2020, 20:42 (1227 days ago) @ David Turell
Genetic and molecular details in hippocampal neurons:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-molecular-underpinnings-long-term-memory.html
"Reporting in Nature on Dec. 9, they describe a newly identified mechanism that neurons in the adult mouse hippocampus use to regulate signals they receive from other neurons, in a process that appears critical for memory consolidation and recall.
***
"The researchers observed that new experiences activate sparse populations of neurons in the hippocampus that express two genes, Fos and Scg2. These genes allow neurons to fine-tune inputs from so-called inhibitory interneurons, cells that dampen neuronal excitation. In this way, small groups of disparate neurons may form persistent networks with coordinated activity in response to an experience.
"'This mechanism likely allows neurons to better talk to each other so that the next time a memory needs to be recalled, the neurons fire more synchronously," Yap said. "We think coincident activation of this Fos-mediated circuit is potentially a necessary feature for memory consolidation, for example, during sleep, and also memory recall in the brain."
"In order to form memories, the brain must somehow wire an experience into neurons so that when these neurons are reactivated, the initial experience can be recalled. In their study, Greenberg, Yap and team set out to explore this process by looking at the gene Fos.
"First described in neuronal cells by Greenberg and colleagues in 1986, Fos is expressed within minutes after a neuron is activated. Scientists have taken advantage of this property, using Fos as a marker of recent neuronal activity to identify brain cells that regulate thirst, torpor and many other behaviors.
***
"Neurons expressing Fos were found to receive increased activity-dampening, or inhibitory, signals from one distinct type of interneuron and decreased inhibitory signals from another type. These signaling patterns disappeared in neurons with blocked Fos expression.
***
"In mice with experimentally silenced Scg2, Fos-activated neurons in the hippocampus displayed a defect in signaling from both types of interneurons. These mice also had defects in theta and gamma rhythms, brain properties thought to be critical features of learning and memory.
'Previous studies had shown that Scg2 codes for a neuropeptide protein that can be cleaved into four distinct forms, which are then secreted. In the current study, Yap and colleagues discovered that neurons appear to use these neuropeptides to fine-tune inputs they receive from interneurons.
"Together, the team's experiments suggest that after a new experience, a small group of neurons simultaneously express Fos, activating Scg2 and its derived neuropeptides, in order to establish a coordinated network with its activity regulated by interneurons.
"'When neurons are activated in the hippocampus after a new experience, they aren't necessarily linked together in any particular way in advance," Greenberg said. "But interneurons have very broad axonal arbors, meaning they can connect with and signal to many cells at once. This may be how a sparse group of neurons can be linked together to ultimately encode a memory."
"The study findings represent a possible molecular- and circuit-level mechanism for long-term memory. They shed new light on the fundamental biology of memory formation and have broad implications for diseases of memory dysfunction."
Comment: This is a look the cellular genetic and molecular level of encoding memories. Note the memory is an abstraction of an event. The brain has recorded it but none of this research explains how consciousness can seek and find it in recall. The soul to brain link is there but never seen. In my view of dualism discussions and debates, this fact must be emphasize: invisibly tied together
Introducing the brain: brain mental capacity
by David Turell , Thursday, December 17, 2020, 22:36 (1219 days ago) @ David Turell
It is what are of brain you are born with:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/mathematics/shakuntala-devi-counts-her-blessings/?ut...
"Although often referred to as a “human computer”, Shakuntala Devi was a different type of character, a woman who took an amazing talent for calculating numbers and turned it into a long and varied career as a performer, writer and motivational speaker.
"Devi was born into a Brahmin family in Bangalore, India, on 4 November 1929. Her father discovered his daughter’s facility with numbers when she was three, while teaching her card tricks. He quit his job and took her out on the road, displaying her as a novelty act. She never received a formal education.
***
"One of her most widely reported public appearances made it, eventually, into the Guinness Book of Records. At Imperial College London in 1980, Devi was asked to multiply two 13-digit numbers, selected at random: 7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779.
"It took her 28 seconds, including the time needed to deliver the answer: 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730.
"In a 1990 edition of the journal Intelligence, education researcher Arthur R Jensen published an extraordinarily entertaining paper titled “Speed of Information Processing in a Calculating Prodigy”. The prodigy in question was Devi.
"Jensen performed several tests of her abilities, finding that “cube roots could almost be called Devi’s specialty”.
“'To ‘warm up’, she requested a large number of cube root problems, that is, extracting the cube roots of large numbers, mostly in the millions, hundreds of millions, and trillions. The average time Devi took for extracting all of these cube roots was just six seconds, with a range of two to 10 seconds.'”
Comment: A form of highly functional autism. IQ can be raised by proper education to a degree, but this state is from birth and a gift.
Introducing the brain: how we read
by David Turell , Thursday, December 24, 2020, 22:19 (1212 days ago) @ David Turell
There are several active parts:
http://nautil.us/issue/94/evolving/reading-that-strange-and-uniquely-human-thing?mc_cid...
"For reading, there are two large tributaries, broadly correlated with sound and vision. (The third major area working on the task is the Broca’s area, in charge of executive function, which acts as the conductor, orchestrating all the inputs.)
***
"The so-called “Cambridge letter,” a meme in 2003, gives a proficient reader a chance to test this latter mode of reading, through shape recognition rather than sounding out the letters:
"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
"Most people can extract the meaning from this quotation without too much problem, which seems to prove its point: You can read using a general impression of the word rather than relying on the sound.
***
"The pathways used to extract meaning were the same for dyslexic readers whether they were reading pictographic Chinese or the phonetic alphabet. There were no differences between reading picture-based and sound-based words for the brain, just differences in how we’ve been trained to do the job.
"The key point is we’re all of us using both of these pathways all the time. You and I might differ slightly in our preferences for them, but we’re still using them both.” This 5,000-year-old technology of humans, which arose at different places around the globe, first used similar systems combining phonetic, pictographic, and classifier elements; a divergence came with the invention of the alphabet, which itself proliferated into such differing forms as Cyrillic, Arabic, Armenian, Tibetan, and Hindi—to name a few. But when we look deep inside the brain, it turns out that we are all doing this strange activity in similar ways."
Comment: This shows the point I always make. The brain is an organ designed to fit our needs as we learn to develop them. We are not its servant. It is ours. I think Romansh did not accept this role for the brain. It offers learned pattern for us to utilize.
Introducing the brain: how we see color
by David Turell , Saturday, February 06, 2021, 18:48 (1168 days ago) @ David Turell
Do we all see exactly the same shade?:
https://theconversation.com/do-you-see-red-like-i-see-red-151650?utm_medium=email&u...
"Is the red I see the same as the red you see?
***
"You’re confronted with an unsettling possibility. Even if we agree on the label, maybe your experience of red is different from mine and – shudder – could it correspond to my experience of green? How would we know?
***
"The color statistics of objects are not arbitrary. The parts of scenes that people choose to label (“ball,” “apple,” “tiger”) are not any random color: They are more likely to be warm colors (oranges, yellows, reds), and less likely to be cool colors (blues, greens). This is true even for artificial objects that could have been made any color.
'These observations suggest that your brain can use color to help recognize objects, and might explain universal color naming patterns across languages.
***
"This research builds up the idea that color isn’t so critical for telling you what stuff is but rather about its likely meaning. Color doesn’t tell you about the kind of fruit, but rather whether a piece of fruit is probably tasty. And for faces, color is literally a vital sign that helps us identify emotions like anger and embarrassment, as well as sickness, as any parent knows.
"It might be color’s importance for telling us about meaning, especially in social interactions, that makes variability in color experiences between people so disconcerting.
***
"With color, we can measure proportions of different wavelengths across the rainbow. But these “spectral power distributions” do not by themselves tell us the color, even though they are the physical basis for color. A given distribution can appear different colors depending on context and assumptions about materials and lighting, as #thedress proved.
"Perhaps color is a “psychobiological” property that emerges from the brain’s response to light. If so, could an objective basis for color be found not in the physics of the world but rather in the human brain’s response?
***
we can determine color by measuring what happens in the brain. Our results show that each color is associated with a distinct pattern of brain activity. (my bold)
"But are the patterns of brain response similar across people? This is a hard question to answer, because one needs a way of perfectly matching the anatomy of one brain to another, which is really tough to do. For now, we can sidestep the technical challenge by asking a related question. Does my relationship between red and orange resemble your relationship between red and orange?
***
"Physiological measurements are unlikely to ever resolve metaphysical questions such as “what is redness?” But the MEG results nonetheless provide some reassurance that color is a fact we can agree on."
Comment: We all use the same brain mechanisms and nonstructural context, but the problem is always the same solipsistic issue: we agree but each individual perception is based on living electrobiological interpretation and likely varies to a degree. Brain research goes only so far.
Introducing the brain: insect plasticity
by David Turell , Tuesday, February 09, 2021, 23:11 (1165 days ago) @ David Turell
As butterfliers enter new environments their brains change:
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-brains-species.html
"Scientists studying forest dwelling butterflies in Central and South America have discovered that changes in the way animals perceive and process information from their environment can support the emergence of new species.
"The international team, led by Dr. Stephen Montgomery...compared the brain morphology of two distinct but closely related lineages of butterfly that occur in distinct tropical forest habitats. The first, including the species Heliconius cydno, lives in deeper forests, where the canopy light levels are low. Its sister lineage, including a species called Heliconius melpomene, lives around the forest edges, where light is much more abundant. Despite their ecological differences, these species are very closely related and can still produce viable offspring, suggesting they sit right at the brink of being new species.
"The team found substantial differences in the brains of forest edge and deep forest species, with the latter investing more in parts of the brain that process visual information.
***
"Dr. Stephen Montgomery, Senior Research Fellow at Bristol, said: "These butterflies aren't separated by huge distances, nor are they distantly related, but their brain structure is finely tuned to the specific habitats they occupy, and we think this process helps keep the two lineages apart, allowing them to become distinct species."
"Similar differences were seen when the team examined the how highly different genes were expressed in the brain.
"Matteo Rossi, a Ph.D. student at LMU Munich, explained: "Based on the pattern of gene expression in brain tissue we can accurately cluster individuals into the correct species. The expression of genes driving these differences evolve fast, and seem to be located in regions of the genome that are most distinct between the two species."
***
"'The forest is a tapestry of different conditions, with different structures, resources and cues. This work illustrates how closely species evolve to occupy these different micro-habitats, supporting high numbers of species in seemingly small areas" said Dr. Owen McMillan, a co-author from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama"
Comment: The authors are trying to sell a method of speciation, but what I see is strong evidence of insect brain plasticity, mimicking ours, a strong indication brain plasticity is a property throughout species.
Introducing the brain: interpreting research
by David Turell , Friday, March 05, 2021, 00:14 (1142 days ago) @ David Turell
Most brain research is segmental which results in improper conclusions:
https://nautil.us/issue/98/mind/that-is-not-how-your-brain-works?mc_cid=108c95fd12&...
"As a neuroscientist, I see scientific myths about the brain repeated regularly in the media and corners of academic research. Three of them, in particular, stand out for correction. After all, each of us has a brain, so it’s critical to understand how that three-pound blob between your ears works.
"Myth number one is that specific parts of the human brain have specific psychological jobs. According to this myth, the brain is like a collection of puzzle pieces, each with a dedicated mental function. One puzzle piece is for vision, another is for memory, a third is for emotions, and so on.
***
"Today, we know the brain isn’t divided into puzzle pieces with dedicated psychological functions. Instead, the human brain is a massive network of neurons. Most neurons have multiple jobs, not a single psychological purpose. For example, neurons in a brain region called the anterior cingulate cortex are regularly involved in memory, emotion, decision-making, pain, moral judgments, imagination, attention, and empathy.
"I’m not saying that every neuron can do everything, but most neurons do more than one thing. For example, a brain region that’s intimately tied to the ability to see, called primary visual cortex, also carries information about hearing, touch, and movement.
***
"So why does the myth of a compartmentalized brain persist? One reason is that brain-scanning studies are expensive. As a compromise, typical studies include only enough scanning to show the strongest, most robust brain activity. These underpowered studies produce pretty pictures that appear to show little islands of activity in a calm-looking brain. But they miss plenty of other, less robust activity that may still be psychologically and biologically meaningful. In contrast, when studies are run with enough power, they show activity in the majority of the brain.
***
"Pretty much everything that your brain creates, from sights and sounds to memories and emotions, involves your whole brain. Every neuron communicates with thousands of others at the same time. In such a complex system, very little that you do or experience can be traced to a simple sum of parts.
"Myth number two is that your brain reacts to events in the world. Supposedly, you go through your day with parts of your brain in the off position. Then something happens around you, and those parts switch on and “light up” with activity.
"Brains, however, don’t work by stimulus and response. All your neurons are firing at various rates all the time. What are they doing? Busily making predictions.9 In every moment, your brain uses all its available information (your memory, your situation, the state of your body) to take guesses about what will happen in the next moment. If a guess turns out to be correct, your brain has a head start: It’s already launching your body’s next actions and creating what you see, hear, and feel. If a guess is wrong, the brain can correct itself and hopefully learn to predict better next time.
***
"What does all this mean for you? You’re not a simple stimulus-response organism. The experiences you have today influence the actions that your brain automatically launches tomorrow.
"The third myth is that there’s a clear dividing line between diseases of the body, such as cardiovascular disease, and diseases of the mind, such as depression. The idea that body and mind are separate was popularized by the philosopher René Descartes in the 17th century (known as Cartesian dualism) and it’s still around today, including in the practice of medicine. Neuroscientists have found, however, that the same brain networks responsible for controlling your body also are involved in creating your mind.10 A great example is the anterior cingulate cortex, which I mentioned earlier. Its neurons not only participate in all the psychological functions I listed, but also they regulate your organs, hormones, and immune system to keep you alive and well.
"When thinking about the relationship between mind and body, it’s tempting to indulge in the myth that the mind is solely in the brain and the body is separate. Under the hood, however, your brain creates your mind while it regulates the systems of your body. That means the regulation of your body is itself part of your mind.
Comment: this is where folks will jump in and say we do not have free will. the could not be more incorrect. Our amazing brain prepares you to reach decision with a huge background of information, but only a conscious you can choose the final decision.
Introducing the brain: interpreting research
DAVID: Most brain research is segmental which results in improper conclusions:
https://nautil.us/issue/98/mind/that-is-not-how-your-brain-works?mc_cid=108c95fd12&...
Your statement is very clear, and the first part of the article is also clear:
QUOTE: "Pretty much everything that your brain creates, from sights and sounds to memories and emotions, involves your whole brain. Every neuron communicates with thousands of others at the same time. In such a complex system, very little that you do or experience can be traced to a simple sum of parts.”
As we learned from the “gut” entry, though, it’s not just the brain. The whole body is involved. However, her demolition of Myth Number One is clear. But I find Myths 2 and 3 confusing.
QUOTE: In every moment, your brain uses all its available information (your memory, your situation, the state of your body) to take guesses about what will happen in the next moment.
I don’t understand this. I don’t see how my attempts to work out, for instance, how life might have originated, or how evolution works, or why I forgot to buy a stir fry yesterday when I went shopping, entail a guess about what will happen in the next moment.
QUOTE: Neuroscientists have found, however, that the same brain networks responsible for controlling your body also are involved in creating your mind.
Not just the brain networks. But the idea that the body and brain create the mind is of course pure materialism (she explicitly rejects Descartes’ dualism). Fair enough to believe it, but not to say that neuroscientists have “found” it.
QUOTE: Every mental experience has physical causes, and physical changes in your body often have mental consequences...
It is a huge assumption to state that EVERY mental experience has physical causes (see below), though fair enough to say that physical changes often have mental effects. The author's following explanation is based solely on materialism. I am not advocating dualism or materialism - I simply can't follow her thinking:
QUOTES: “When thinking about the relationship between mind and body, it’s tempting to indulge in the myth that the mind is solely in the brain and the body is separate. Under the hood, however, your brain creates your mind while it regulates the systems of your body. That means the regulation of your body is itself part of your mind.”
When it comes to illness, the boundary between physical and mental is porous. Depression is usually catalogued as a mental illness, but it’s as much a metabolic illness as cardiovascular disease, which itself has significant mood-related symptoms. These two diseases occur together so often that some medical researchers believe that one may cause the other. That perspective is steeped in Cartesian dualism. Both depression and cardiovascular disease are known to involve problems with metabolism, so it’s equally plausible that they share an underlying cause.”
I find all this very confusing. I hesitate to take on an expert in the field, but what we call mental illness, as I understand it, can be triggered by changes in the metabolism, or it can itself trigger changes in the metabolism. It makes no difference whether you are a materialist or a dualist: for the materialist, a diseased, materially caused mind can trigger problems in the rest of the body, or the rest of the body can trigger problems in the materially caused mind. For the dualist, leave out the words “materially caused”. Both approaches “involve problems with the metabolism” – either as cause or as effect. Covid-19 may affect the metabolism and this may cause depression; lockdown may cause depression, and this may affect the metabolism. What has this got to do with materialism or Cartesian dualism? The effects are the same whichever -ism you subscribe to. And for good measure, how can she claim that, for instance, the depressing loneliness (mental experience) of a pensioner deprived of all social contact during lockdown has a "physical cause".
DAVID: this is where folks will jump in and say we do not have free will. the could not be more incorrect. Our amazing brain prepares you to reach decision with a huge background of information, but only a conscious you can choose the final decision.
The article expressly dismisses Descartes’ dualism, and you expressly accept it. The author is concerned here with illness, not free will, which we have already discussed several times.
Introducing the brain: interpreting research
by David Turell , Friday, March 05, 2021, 14:59 (1142 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Most brain research is segmental which results in improper conclusions:
https://nautil.us/issue/98/mind/that-is-not-how-your-brain-works?mc_cid=108c95fd12&...
Your statement is very clear, and the first part of the article is also clear:
dhw: As we learned from the “gut” entry, though, it’s not just the brain. The whole body is involved. However, her demolition of Myth Number One is clear. But I find Myths 2 and 3 confusing.
QUOTE: In every moment, your brain uses all its available information (your memory, your situation, the state of your body) to take guesses about what will happen in the next moment.
dhw: I don’t understand this. I don’t see how my attempts to work out, for instance, how life might have originated, or how evolution works, or why I forgot to buy a stir fry yesterday when I went shopping, entail a guess about what will happen in the next moment.
I'll use a simple explanation, seeing patterns in clouds, Mickey Mouse, England/Scotland Island is the brain trying to help you, based on stored memories of patterns.
QUOTE: Neuroscientists have found, however, that the same brain networks responsible for controlling your body also are involved in creating your mind.dhw: Not just the brain networks. But the idea that the body and brain create the mind is of course pure materialism (she explicitly rejects Descartes’ dualism). Fair enough to believe it, but not to say that neuroscientists have “found” it.
QUOTE: Every mental experience has physical causes, and physical changes in your body often have mental consequences...
dhw: It is a huge assumption to state that EVERY mental experience has physical causes (see below), though fair enough to say that physical changes often have mental effects. The author's following explanation is based solely on materialism. I am not advocating dualism or materialism - I simply can't follow her thinking:
QUOTES: “When thinking about the relationship between mind and body, it’s tempting to indulge in the myth that the mind is solely in the brain and the body is separate. Under the hood, however, your brain creates your mind while it regulates the systems of your body. That means the regulation of your body is itself part of your mind.”
When it comes to illness, the boundary between physical and mental is porous. Depression is usually catalogued as a mental illness, but it’s as much a metabolic illness as cardiovascular disease, which itself has significant mood-related symptoms. These two diseases occur together so often that some medical researchers believe that one may cause the other. That perspective is steeped in Cartesian dualism. Both depression and cardiovascular disease are known to involve problems with metabolism, so it’s equally plausible that they share an underlying cause.”
dhw: I find all this very confusing. I hesitate to take on an expert in the field, but what we call mental illness, as I understand it, can be triggered by changes in the metabolism, or it can itself trigger changes in the metabolism. It makes no difference whether you are a materialist or a dualist: for the materialist, a diseased, materially caused mind can trigger problems in the rest of the body, or the rest of the body can trigger problems in the materially caused mind. For the dualist, leave out the words “materially caused”. Both approaches “involve problems with the metabolism” – either as cause or as effect. Covid-19 may affect the metabolism and this may cause depression; lockdown may cause depression, and this may affect the metabolism. What has this got to do with materialism or Cartesian dualism? The effects are the same whichever -ism you subscribe to. And for good measure, how can she claim that, for instance, the depressing loneliness (mental experience) of a pensioner deprived of all social contact during lockdown has a "physical cause".
DAVID: this is where folks will jump in and say we do not have free will. the could not be more incorrect. Our amazing brain prepares you to reach decision with a huge background of information, but only a conscious you can choose the final decision.dhw: The article expressly dismisses Descartes’ dualism, and you expressly accept it. The author is concerned here with illness, not free will, which we have already discussed several times.
The main reason I presented this is her view that he whole brain is at work at all times while much research is segmental and loses site of the totality of the working brain. I've not lost my dualism. One/soul can only work with the brain given, or its current changed state
Introducing the brain: interpreting research
QUOTE: In every moment, your brain uses all its available information (your memory, your situation, the state of your body) to take guesses about what will happen in the next moment.
dhw: I don’t understand this. I don’t see how my attempts to work out, for instance, how life might have originated, or how evolution works, or why I forgot to buy a stir fry yesterday when I went shopping, entail a guess about what will happen in the next moment.
DAVID: I'll use a simple explanation, seeing patterns in clouds, Mickey Mouse, England/Scotland Island is the brain trying to help you, based on stored memories of patterns.
You are talking about the process of perception, in which we form “Gestalten”. This has nothing whatsoever to do with her claim that “in every moment the brain takes guesses about what will happen in the next moment”.
QUOTE: Every mental experience has physical causes, and physical changes in your body often have mental consequences...
dhw: It is a huge assumption to state that EVERY mental experience has physical causes (see below), though fair enough to say that physical changes often have mental effects. The author's following explanation is based solely on materialism. I am not advocating dualism or materialism - I simply can't follow her thinking.
dhw: ...what we call mental illness, as I understand it, can be triggered by changes in the metabolism, or it can itself trigger changes in the metabolism. It makes no difference whether you are a materialist or a dualist: for the materialist, a diseased, materially caused mind can trigger problems in the rest of the body, or the rest of the body can trigger problems in the materially caused mind. For the dualist, leave out the words “materially caused”. Both approaches “involve problems with the metabolism” – either as cause or as effect. Covid-19 may affect the metabolism and this may cause depression; lockdown may cause depression, and this may affect the metabolism. What has this got to do with materialism or Cartesian dualism? The effects are the same whichever -ism you subscribe to. And for good measure, how can she claim that, for instance, the depressing loneliness (mental experience) of a pensioner deprived of all social contact during lockdown has a "physical cause".
I am disappointed that you have completely ignored all of the above, as I’d have liked to know your own opinion on her view that EVERY mental experience has a physical cause, and whether you agree with my view of mental illness. Instead, you switched the subject to free will, which she doesn’t even touch on.
DAVID: The main reason I presented this is her view that he whole brain is at work at all times while much research is segmental and loses site of the totality of the working brain.
I made it clear in my post that I completely agreed with this section. It is her attempt to discredit the other two “myths” that I find confusing.
DAVID: I've not lost my dualism. One/soul can only work with the brain given, or its current changed state.
My response to her article was not an attack on your dualism but on the confusing nature of her arguments relating to the nature and causes of mental illness, plus her automatic dismissal of Cartesian dualism which, I have suggested, is irrelevant to her subject.
Introducing the brain: interpreting research
by David Turell , Saturday, March 06, 2021, 15:08 (1140 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: In every moment, your brain uses all its available information (your memory, your situation, the state of your body) to take guesses about what will happen in the next moment.
dhw: I don’t understand this. I don’t see how my attempts to work out, for instance, how life might have originated, or how evolution works, or why I forgot to buy a stir fry yesterday when I went shopping, entail a guess about what will happen in the next moment.
DAVID: I'll use a simple explanation, seeing patterns in clouds, Mickey Mouse, England/Scotland Island is the brain trying to help you, based on stored memories of patterns.
dhw: You are talking about the process of perception, in which we form “Gestalten”. This has nothing whatsoever to do with her claim that “in every moment the brain takes guesses about what will happen in the next moment”.
Yes it does. The brain does this in more than perception. Libet's results are another example.
dhw: ...what we call mental illness, as I understand it, can be triggered by changes in the metabolism, or it can itself trigger changes in the metabolism. It makes no difference whether you are a materialist or a dualist: for the materialist, a diseased, materially caused mind can trigger problems in the rest of the body, or the rest of the body can trigger problems in the materially caused mind. For the dualist, leave out the words “materially caused”. Both approaches “involve problems with the metabolism” – either as cause or as effect. Covid-19 may affect the metabolism and this may cause depression; lockdown may cause depression, and this may affect the metabolism. What has this got to do with materialism or Cartesian dualism? The effects are the same whichever -ism you subscribe to. And for good measure, how can she claim that, for instance, the depressing loneliness (mental experience) of a pensioner deprived of all social contact during lockdown has a "physical cause".dhw: I am disappointed that you have completely ignored all of the above, as I’d have liked to know your own opinion on her view that EVERY mental experience has a physical cause, and whether you agree with my view of mental illness. Instead, you switched the subject to free will, which she doesn’t even touch on.
I didn't need to reply as I agree with your thought. She is pure materialist.
DAVID: The main reason I presented this is her view that he whole brain is at work at all times while much research is segmental and loses sight of the totality of the working brain.I made it clear in my post that I completely agreed with this section. It is her attempt to discredit the other two “myths” that I find confusing.
DAVID: I've not lost my dualism. One/soul can only work with the brain given, or its current changed state.
dhw: My response to her article was not an attack on your dualism but on the confusing nature of her arguments relating to the nature and causes of mental illness, plus her automatic dismissal of Cartesian dualism which, I have suggested, is irrelevant to her subject.
Her whole approach is instructive, no more; she is an unadulterated materialist.
Introducing the brain: interpreting research
QUOTE: In every moment, your brain uses all its available information (your memory, your situation, the state of your body) to take guesses about what will happen in the next moment.
dhw: I don’t understand this. I don’t see how my attempts to work out, for instance, how life might have originated, or how evolution works, or why I forgot to buy a stir fry yesterday when I went shopping, entail a guess about what will happen in the next moment.
DAVID: I'll use a simple explanation, seeing patterns in clouds, Mickey Mouse, England/Scotland Island is the brain trying to help you, based on stored memories of patterns.
dhw: You are talking about the process of perception, in which we form “Gestalten”. This has nothing whatsoever to do with her claim that “in every moment the brain takes guesses about what will happen in the next moment”.
DAVID: Yes it does. The brain does this in more than perception. Libet's results are another example.
Please tell me how my attempts to work out how evolution works, or why I forgot to buy my stir fry, entail “a guess about what will happen in the next moment”.
dhw: I’d have liked to know your own opinion on her view that EVERY mental experience has a physical cause, and whether you agree with my view of mental illness. Instead, you switched the subject to free will, which she doesn’t even touch on.
DAVID: I didn't need to reply as I agree with your thought. She is pure materialist.
And:
Her whole approach is instructive, no more; she is an unadulterated materialist.
Thank you. I found the second half of the article far from instructive, and indeed very confusing, not to say misleading (and in the context, I thought dualism and materialism were in fact irrelevant). Since currently you and I are the only contributors to the forum, and disagree on so many of our topics, it is doubly important for me to know your views – especially since in this case the author was dealing with medical matters on which you are our resident expert. 
Introducing the brain: interpreting research
by David Turell , Monday, March 08, 2021, 00:59 (1139 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I'll use a simple explanation, seeing patterns in clouds, Mickey Mouse, England/Scotland Island is the brain trying to help you, based on stored memories of patterns.
dhw: You are talking about the process of perception, in which we form “Gestalten”. This has nothing whatsoever to do with her claim that “in every moment the brain takes guesses about what will happen in the next moment”.
DAVID: Yes it does. The brain does this in more than perception. Libet's results are another example.
Please tell me how my attempts to work out how evolution works, or why I forgot to buy my stir fry, entail “a guess about what will happen in the next moment”.
dhw: I’d have liked to know your own opinion on her view that EVERY mental experience has a physical cause, and whether you agree with my view of mental illness. Instead, you switched the subject to free will, which she doesn’t even touch on.
DAVID: I didn't need to reply as I agree with your thought. She is pure materialist.
And:
Her whole approach is instructive, no more; she is an unadulterated materialist.dhw: Thank you. I found the second half of the article far from instructive, and indeed very confusing, not to say misleading (and in the context, I thought dualism and materialism were in fact irrelevant). Since currently you and I are the only contributors to the forum, and disagree on so many of our topics, it is doubly important for me to know your views – especially since in this case the author was dealing with medical matters on which you are our resident expert.
The main ns only point of the article for me is most brain studies are limited to areas and miss the point that the whole brain is always at work, so in a way thestudies are distorted in the impressions they present.
Introducing the brain: how plasticity might work
by David Turell , Monday, March 22, 2021, 19:04 (1124 days ago) @ David Turell
Recent research using growing brain tissue in the laB:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210322093732.htm
"A team of researchers from Tübingen and Israel uncovers how brain structures can maintain function and stable dynamics even in unusual conditions.
"The neurons in our brains are connected with each other, forming small functional units called neural circuits. A neuron that is connected to another one via a synapsis can transmit information to the second neuron by sending a signal. This, in turn, might prompt the second neuron to transmit a signal to other neurons in the neural circuit. If that happens, the first neuron is likely an excitatory neuron: one that prompts other neurons to fire. But neurons with the exact opposite task are equally important to the functionality of our brain: inhibitory neurons, which make it less likely that the neurons they are connected to send a signal to others.
"The interplay of excitation and inhibition is crucial for normal functionality of neural networks.
***
"They grew cultures that contained different, even extreme ratios of excitatory and inhibitory neurons.
"The scientists then measured the activity of these artificially designed brain tissues. "We were surprised that networks with various ratios of excitatory and inhibitory neurons remained active, even when these ratios were very far from natural conditions," explains Levina's PhD student Oleg Vinogradov. "Their activity does not change dramatically, as long as the share of inhibitory neurons stays somewhere in the range of 10 to 90 percent." It seems that the neural structures have a way of compensating for their unusual composition to remain stable and functional.
"So naturally the researchers asked next: what mechanism allow the brain tissue to adjust to these different conditions? The researchers theorized that the networks adapt by adjusting the number of connections: If there few inhibitory neurons, they have to take on a bigger role by building more synapses with the other neurons. Conversely, if the share of inhibitory neurons is large, the excitatory neurons have to make up for this by establishing more connections.
"The theoretical model of the Tübingen scientists can explain the experimental findings of their colleagues in Rehovot and uncover the mechanisms helping to maintain stable dynamics in the brain. The results provide a clearer picture of how excitation/inhibition balance is preserved and where it fails in living neural networks."
Comment: I think this is an expected finding. Ss new brain areas respond to demands from use, excitatory and inhibitory balance has to be maintained.
Introducing the brain: skin prick instant sensation
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 24, 2021, 15:00 (1123 days ago) @ David Turell
Libet again:
https://mindmatters.ai/2021/03/what-if-only-part-not-all-of-your-brain-were-transplanted/
"...neuroscientist Benjamin Libet became famous for his work on free will. But his most fascinating research was on perception. He pricked volunteers’ fingers and measured the nerve impulses from the finger to the brain and timed everything. Libet found that it took about a half second for any electrical activity to register in the brain after the finger prick. But the volunteer reported feeling the finger prick the moment it happened. In other words, the volunteers felt the prick a half second before the brain showed any activity corresponding to it.
"This response floored Libet, who couldn’t explain how someone could feel something a half second before the brain got the message. He actually a theory — he called it “post-dating” — according to which the volunteer didn’t feel the prick when it happened, but only when the brain responded, and that the brain tricked the person into thinking he felt it at the moment it happened. (See Mind Time, Chapter 2, Harvard University Press, 2004)
"The post-dating theory is unnecessary if we adopt the philosopher Aristotle’s view of the self/soul. Sensations occur in the sense organ and occur when the sense organ is stimulated. The skin, in this case, is the sense organ. The volunteers felt the prick the moment the sense organ was pricked. The brain is where perception occurs, which is the interpretation of the sensation. That took a half second to get started. So the sensation at the skin was instantaneous and the perceptual understanding in the brain took a little longer. That explains Libet’s results beautifully.
"But then we must drop the implicit belief that the soul “lives” in the brain (somewhere near the pineal gland, according to another philosopher, René Descartes). The soul lives where we live, where we act. There is nothing more to it than that.
"According to this view, sensations and perceptions occur in sense organs and perceptual organs.
***
"Organs that are transplanted do what they ordinarily do. Transplanted hearts pump blood, transplanted kidneys excrete urine, transplanted eyes/hemispheres perceive vision. But note one key difference:
"Perception has a power that blood circulation and urine excretion lack: There’s an “I” to perception. If Aristotle is right, the “I” that perceives after the transplant wouldn’t change.
***
"Aristotle’s principle that the soul is the set of powers of a living organism and that the powers act where the organs that mediate them act provides a framework, however uncomfortable, for dealing with these devilish thought questions. If we listened to Aristotle, 90% of our conundrums in neuroscience would disappear.
"I also believe that the central nervous system is designed specifically to preserve personal identity — that’s why it (unlike other body parts) won’t heal when cut. We are not permitted by our Creator to mess with souls."
Comment: Egnor is a believer in the soul. Perhaps he is right, and the soul does more than simple studies of how the brain works seem to show.
Introducing the brain: skin prick instant sensation
by David Turell , Saturday, March 27, 2021, 20:12 (1119 days ago) @ David Turell
Since the brain cannot produce new cells except in the hippocampus, damage control must be precisely handled to protect existing neurons:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210326104659.htm
"When the brain suffers injury or infection, glial cells surrounding the affected site act to preserve the brain's sensitive nerve cells and prevent excessive damage. A team of researchers from Charité -- Universitätsmedizin Berlin have been able to demonstrate the important role played by the reorganization of the structural and membrane elements of glial cells.
***
"Following brain injury or infection, various cells have to work together in a coordinated manner in order to limit damage and enable recovery. 'Astrocytes', the most common type of glial cell found in the central nervous system, play a key role in the protection of surrounding tissues. They form part of a defense mechanism known as 'reactive astrogliosis', which facilitates scar formation, thereby helping to contain inflammation and control tissue damage. Astrocytes can also ensure the survival of nerve cells located immediately adjacent to a site of tissue injury, thereby preserving the function of neuronal networks. The researchers were able to elucidate a new mechanism which explains what processes happen inside the astrocytes and how these are coordinated.
"'We were able to show for the first time that the protein 'drebrin' controls astrogliosis," says study lead Prof. Dr. Britta Eickholt, Director of Charité's Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. "Astrocytes need drebrin in order to form scars and protect the surrounding tissue."
***
"To enable scar formation, drebrin controls the reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton, an internal scaffold responsible for maintaining astrocyte mechanical stability. By doing so, drebrin also induces the formation of long cylindrical membrane structures known as tubular endosomes, which are used in the uptake, sorting and redistribution of surface receptors and are needed for the defensive measures of astrocytes. Summing up the researchers' findings, Prof. Eickholt says: "Our findings also show how drebrin uses the dynamic and versatile cytoskeleton as well as membrane structures to control astrocyte functions which are fundamental to the defense mechanism against injury.'"
Comment: We see a specially designed mechanism to protect the damaged brain. In all of the articles I present of this type we see the effects of the specific protein, but never learn just how the protein acts at the molecular level to cause the result. We must use living tissue and use changed DNA to understand the various steps, but we are always at the outside as observers, while the nitty-gritty remains unknown. Thus the details are not present and life remains a black box.
Introducing the brain: areas involved in language learning
by David Turell , Sunday, March 28, 2021, 20:07 (1118 days ago) @ David Turell
At least four-plus:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210326104719.htm
"A study with first-time learners of Japanese has measured how brain activity changes after just a few months of studying a new language. The results show that acquiring a new language initially boosts brain activity, which then reduces as language skills improve.
***
"'In simple terms, there are four brain regions specialized for language . Even in a native, second or third language, the same regions are responsible," said Sakai.
"Those four regions are the grammar center and comprehension area in the left frontal lobe as well as the auditory processing and vocabulary areas in the temporo-parietal lobe. Additionally, the memory areas of the hippocampus and the vision areas of the brain, the occipital lobes, also become active to support the four language-related regions while taking the tests.
***
"Researchers were able to distinguish between two subregions of the hippocampus during the listening tests. The observed activation pattern fits previously described roles for the anterior hippocampus in encoding new memories and for the posterior hippocampus in recalling stored information.
***
"'We expect that brain activation goes down after successfully learning a language because it doesn't require so much energy to understand," said Sakai.
"Notably during the second listening test, volunteers had slightly increased activation of the auditory processing area of their temporal lobes, likely due to an improved "mind's voice" while hearing.
***
"This pattern of brain activation over time in individual volunteers' brains mirrors results from previous research where Sakai and his collaborators worked with native Japanese-speaking 13- and 19-year-olds who learned English in standard Tokyo public school lessons. Six years of study seemed to allow the 19-year-olds to understand the second language well enough that brain activation levels reduced to levels similar to those of their native language.
"The recent study confirmed this same pattern of brain activation changes over just a few months, not years, potentially providing encouragement for anyone looking to learn a new language as an adult.
"'We all have the same human brain, so it is possible for us to learn any natural language."
Comment: I assume a degree of complexification occurred, while the major point to me is how the brain easily shuttles the information around the different cooperative areas to achieve the necessary result. Let us note this ability was present 315,000 year ago and unused until complex language appeared about 70,000 estimated years ago. It is obvious we humans didn't know how to use our very supple brain until we finally tried it out to its full extent. The stasis must be viewed as a required experimental learning period. The shrinkage from complexification obviously means it was oversized from the beginning. All in anticipation of future usage. dhw has never given a reasonable explanation of the oversized beginning to more than match the current needs use at the time of the initial appearance of this sapiens brain.
Introducing the brain: seeing patterns
by David Turell , Monday, March 29, 2021, 19:09 (1117 days ago) @ David Turell
Constellations are named patterns of stars:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/why-humans-chose-particular-groups-stars-constellat...
"The Big Dipper’s stars make up a conspicuous landmark in the sky of the Northern Hemisphere. Even novice stargazers can easily pick out the shape, part of the Ursa Major constellation. Now, scientists have shown that three factors can explain why certain groups of stars form such recognizable patterns.
"To replicate how humans perceive the celestial sphere, a team of researchers considered how the eye might travel randomly across this night sky. Human eyes tend to move in discrete jumps, called saccades (SN: 10/31/11), from one point of interest to another. The team created a simulation that incorporated the distribution of lengths of those saccades, combined that with basic details of the night sky as seen from Earth — namely the apparent distances between neighboring stars and their brightnesses.
"The technique could reproduce individual constellations, such as Dorado, the dolphinfish. And when used to map the whole sky, the simulation generated groupings of stars that tended to align with the 88 modern constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union, Sophia David and colleagues reported March 18 at an online meeting of the American Physical Society.
“'Ancient people from various cultures connected similar groupings of stars independently of each other,” said David, a high school student at Friends’ Central School in Wynnewood, Penn., who worked with network scientists at the University of Pennsylvania. “And this indicates that there are some fundamental aspects of human learning … that influence the ways in which we organize information.'”
Comment: reproduced in toto. The real point for me is not eye movement but brain interpretation. Our brain is built to help us see patterns and somewhat ancient sapiens did just that. I would assume with complex language development our forebears began naming star groupings.
Introducing the brain: long-lived neurons
by David Turell , Friday, April 02, 2021, 14:57 (1114 days ago) @ David Turell
Only the hippocampus makes new neurons. This means the neurons that exist at puberty are there for life and must repair themselves throughout life. This study looks at DNA repair:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6537/91?intcmp=trendmd-sci
"DNA repair within neurons
Humans have only a limited capacity to generate new neurons. These cells thus need to repair errors in the genome. To better understand this process, Reid et al. developed Repair-seq, a method to locate DNA repair within the genome of stem cell–derived neurons. DNA repair hotspots (DRHs) were more likely to occur within specific genomic features such as gene bodies as well as in genomic formations, open chromatin, and active regulatory regions. This method showed that repair was enriched at sites involved in neuronal function and identity. Furthermore, proteomic data indicated that genes in DRHs are enriched in Alzheimer's disease and that DRHs are more active in aging. These observations link neuronal DNA repair to aging and neurodegeneration.
Science, this issue p. 91
"Abstract
Neurons are the longest-lived cells in our bodies and lack DNA replication, which makes them reliant on a limited repertoire of DNA repair mechanisms to maintain genome fidelity. These repair mechanisms decline with age, but we have limited knowledge of how genome instability emerges and what strategies neurons and other long-lived cells may have evolved to protect their genomes over the human life span. A targeted sequencing approach in human embryonic stem cell–induced neurons shows that, in neurons, DNA repair is enriched at well-defined hotspots that protect essential genes. These hotspots are enriched with histone H2A isoforms and RNA binding proteins and are associated with evolutionarily conserved elements of the human genome. These findings provide a basis for understanding genome integrity as it relates to aging and disease in the nervous system.
***
"Our results suggest that DRHs are established in neurons and play a key role in identity and function. Going forward, Repair-seq will be a powerful tool to explore how age and disease disrupt genome integrity in the nervous system. Finally, whether DRHs are specific to neurons, particular developmental lineages, or other nondividing cells or are found in only some long-lived species remains an open question. The discovery of these sites in other cell types might further aid in our understanding of how age-related changes in their organization could drive differential aging or the development of disease in other tissue types."
Comment: as neurons drop away over a lifetime us old folks find it troublesome to find a specific word we want, but generally our thinking re mans quite clear and reaches reasonable results. But since overall numbers are necessary for all of life, this might explain why in evolution our brain was oversized early on with 150 cc of brain substance lost as we developed use of all its incipient functions. The most important and perhaps the most capable-at-surviving neurons were saved for a lifetime. Obvious design.
Introducing the brain: five-tier neuron net
by David Turell , Monday, April 19, 2021, 19:00 (1096 days ago) @ David Turell
The AI folks are using this scheme:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-neural-networks-solve-hardest-equations-faster-than-...
"To model a passenger jet scything through the air, a seismic wave rippling through Earth or the spread of a disease through a population — to say nothing of the interactions of fundamental forces and particles — engineers, scientists and mathematicians resort to “partial differential equations” (PDEs) that can describe complex phenomena involving many independent variables.
***
"Now researchers have built new kinds of artificial neural networks that can approximate solutions to partial differential equations orders of magnitude faster than traditional PDE solvers. And once trained, the new neural nets can solve not just a single PDE but an entire family of them without retraining.
***
"Last year, Anandkumar and her colleagues at Caltech and Purdue University built a deep neural network, called the Fourier neural operator (FNO), with a different architecture that they claim is faster. Their network also maps functions to functions, from infinite-dimensional space to infinite-dimensional space, and they tested their neural net on PDEs. “We chose PDEs because PDEs are immediate examples where you go from functions to functions,” said Kamyar Azizzadenesheli of Purdue.
***
"It also provides solutions at dramatically improved speeds. In one relatively simple example that required 30,000 simulations, involving solutions of the infamous Navier-Stokes equation, the FNO took fractions of a second for each simulation (comparable to DeepONet’s speed, had it been tested on this problem), for a total of 2.5 seconds; the traditional solver in this case would have taken 18 hours."
Comment: What the article shows in the figures is a two layer setup mimicking our frontal lobe five tier arrangement. It is interesting they refer to their AI units as 'neurons'. But our wiring system offers obvious advantages to follow by AI engineers, although we need computers' high speed, since we operate at biological speeds. Which brings me to my real thought. It is wiring complexity that makes us so different from anything in the past, even the larger-brain-sized Neanderthals.
Introducing the brain: some ant brains shrink and grow
by David Turell , Thursday, April 22, 2021, 16:21 (1093 days ago) @ David Turell
Indian jumping ants were studied:
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/18/988262580/the-incredible-shrinking-and-growing-brains-of...
"'In most ants, the queen is the only member of the colony that lays eggs," says Clint Penick, an assistant professor of biology at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. "The workers just do all of the hunting and take care of the babies and all of the chores in the colony. But the queen is the only one who reproduces. And when she dies, the colony dies."
"Not so for this type of ant, native to India. Their worker ants have the ability to mate and reproduce. So when the Indian jumping ant queen dies, "it actually triggers a dominance tournament. And they'll fight each other over a month to decide who's going to be the next ant to replace the queen."
"(These are all females we're talking about. The males really aren't involved in anything here except mating and dying.)
"The queen doesn't have an exact replacement. A handful of tournament winners — called "gamergates" — all assume queen-like duties of laying eggs.
"Penick and his colleagues found that when the ants take on the role of gamergate, their brains shrink by 19% on average. The shrinkage likely happens so that they can save energy to focus on producing eggs. Hormones trigger additional changes in the ants, including larger ovaries, less venom production and much longer lifespans.
"The fact that the ants' brains shrink to reproduce wasn't new.
"'But what we didn't know was if they had the capacity to regrow them back to their previous size," Penick tells NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro
***
"Penick and other scientists plucked these gamergates away from their colonies for a few weeks. The thinking was that the lack of social interaction and care would make them revert back to their previous worker status.
"It worked. After several weeks, the ex-gamergates were back to being lowly workers — with their bigger brains regrown.
***
"'It tells us that brains are a lot more plastic and have a lot more abilities to change back and forth between their size than we knew," Penick says. "And ants, their brains have some shared traits with humans, believe it or not. So now we're looking at digging into some of the genetic and other neural mechanisms that are underlying these brain changes.'"
Comment: Some branches in evolution have strange results, but this is a logical result as a tradeoff. Brains take lots daily energy requirements (20% in humans), and egg production is very energy demanding. It doesn't mean any other species brain can learn to do it.
Introducing the brain: all human brains don't react the same
by David Turell , Friday, April 23, 2021, 20:53 (1092 days ago) @ David Turell
A new careful study of of frontal lobe reactions in a group of folks all watching the same movie:
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/17/eabf7129?utm_campaign=toc_advances_2021-04...
"Abstract
How we process ongoing experiences is shaped by our personal history, current needs, and future goals. Consequently, ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) activity involved in processing these subjective appraisals appears to be highly idiosyncratic across individuals. To elucidate the role of the vmPFC in processing our ongoing experiences, we developed a computational framework and analysis pipeline to characterize the spatiotemporal dynamics of individual vmPFC responses as participants viewed a 45-minute television drama. Through a combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging, facial expression tracking, and self-reported emotional experiences across four studies, our data suggest that the vmPFC slowly transitions through a series of discretized states that broadly map onto affective experiences. Although these transitions typically occur at idiosyncratic times across people, participants exhibited a marked increase in state alignment during high affectively valenced events in the show. Our work suggests that the vmPFC ascribes affective meaning to our ongoing experiences.
(my bold)
"INTRODUCTION
Our brains process complex information with incredible speed and efficiency. This information can be broadly categorized into two distinct classes. First, our brains directly process exogenous information about the external environment by transducing physical phenomena (e.g., changes in energy, molecular concentrations, etc.) into sensory perceptions that allow us to generate and maintain a sense of what is happening around us. Mental representations that are directly driven by the external world are likely to be highly similar across individuals who share the same sensory experience. Second, our brains also process endogenous information that reflects our current internal homeostatic states, past experiences, and future goals. The integration of exogenous and endogenous information allows us to meaningfully interpret our surroundings, prioritize information that is relevant to our goals, and develop action plans. Given the same input information, individuals may have unique interpretations, feelings, and plans, often leading endogenous representations to be idiosyncratic across individuals. How can we establish a broad functional commonality across individuals when these specific endogenous experiences may be unique to each individual?
***
"Overall, we find that participants exhibit unique spatiotemporal response patterns in the vmPFC while viewing the same television episode. Our findings demonstrate that this cannot be solely accounted for by measurement issues (e.g., susceptibility artifacts and variations in hemodynamic response functions). These results present a significant challenge to traditional neuroimaging analysis methods that assume a common response profile across participants [e.g., two-level univariate analyses, resting-state analyses, multivariate pattern analysis approaches, intersubject synchrony, and functional alignment. Because subjective endogenous experiences are not typically shared across participants, regions like the vmPFC that appear to exhibit idiosyncratic stimulus–driven activity may be mischaracterized by these approaches. Our state-based analysis framework provides a means of characterizing this endogenous stimulus–driven activity, even when the response patterns do not align spatially or temporally across individuals, or to the external stimulus. Our approach may also be useful in translational applications where patient groups are often highly heterogeneous compared to healthy controls."
Comment: All the technical stuff is skipped. What this tells me is our oversized brains end up with individual results in complexification as we progress from infanthood to adulthood. This is the real picture we need to recognize. Our brains may be smaller than in our origin form from ongoing complexification, but we still complexify ourselves in very individual free-will fashion. God gave us this arrangement, knowing He wished us to have free will.
Introducing the brain: immunity at a distance
by David Turell , Wednesday, April 28, 2021, 20:32 (1087 days ago) @ David Turell
The immune system monitors the brain from without:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-immune-system-protects-the-brain-20210428/
"Rustenhoven and collaborators have identified how evolution achieves a balancing act, limiting the dangers of immune responses in the central nervous system while still providing protection from disease. The researchers reported recently in the journal Cell that the immune system operates from a distance to constantly inspect the brain for signs of trouble. Immune cells, rather than making themselves at home throughout the brain itself, patrol the sidelines until they detect a threat.
“'Immune surveillance of the brain takes place. It’s absolutely normal, like in any other tissue,” said a coauthor, Jonathan Kipnis, in whose lab at Washington University the research took place. “The only exception is that instead of this happening within the tissue, the brain pushed all its immune activity to its borders.”
"Using several kinds of imaging and tracing, the researchers tracked the cellular choreography that makes up this surveillance system. They saw that antigens — foreign substances, such as bits of pathogens — were washed from the brain in a flow of cerebral spinal fluid. This fluid streamed through a network of vessels that Kipnis’ lab identified a few years ago and swept the antigens along so that they accumulated in the back of the brain. Here, in the area around the dural sinuses — channels on the brain’s border that drain fluid out toward the body — the antigens came into close proximity to immune cells. “Everything’s actually highly concentrated in that one particular site,” Rustenhoven said.
"These vessels curving around the back of the brain proved to be a hub of immune system activity. The researchers tracked antigens and other substances crossing the arachnoid barrier, an obstacle that’s known for its impermeability but which, they found, leaks in this particular area. Immune cells are waiting there. When these cells find a worrisome antigen, like one that suggests disease, they initiate a chain reaction that creates an immune response.
***
"Tumors close to the ventricles flushed lots of antigens out to the edges of the brain, which caused a strong immune response. The more distant tumors flushed fewer antigens, which caused a weak immune response, one that the tumor could overcome.
"In other words, the immune system’s surveillance of the brain is a bit spotty — a downside of the balancing act that evolution has achieved. “Maybe this is a necessary compromise,” Rustenhoven said."
Comment: The so-called blood brain barrier keeps most chemicals in the blood away from the brain. On the other hand immunity had to be present. teh result is another complex design.
Introducing the brain: evolution of brain and body sizes
by David Turell , Friday, April 30, 2021, 00:48 (1086 days ago) @ David Turell
Comparing many animals since well before the dinosaurs went extinct:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/palaeontology/how-mammals-evolved-big-brains/?utm_so...
"Scientists have now pieced together a 150-million-year timeline to determine how mammals evolved big brains.
***
"The result? Brain size and body size didn’t evolve in a stable way.
"Instead, the researchers found that big-brained animals like humans, elephants and dolphins all evolved their brain-to-body-size proportions in different ways.
"Sometimes, brains got bigger as bodies got bigger, such as in the case of elephants, while other mammals like dolphins instead evolved smaller bodies while their brain size increased.
"Humans also appeared to evolve both bigger brains and smaller bodies in comparison to their other ape cousins, the authors show in their paper, published in Science Advances.
***
“'After all, many of the big-brained mammals such as elephants, dolphins, and great apes also have a high brain-to-body size. But this is not always the case. The California sea lion, for example, has a low relative brain size, which lies in contrast to their remarkable intelligence.”
"This means that not only is relative big-brain-to-body size not a clear measure of intelligence, but it is also not explicitly selected for in evolution, because body size had a greater impact on survival.
“We’ve overturned a long-standing dogma that relative brain size can be equivocated with intelligence,” says Kamran Safi, a research scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour and senior author on the study.
“'Sometimes, relatively big brains can be the end result of a gradual decrease in body size to suit a new habitat or way of moving – in other words, nothing to do with intelligence at all. Using relative brain size as a proxy for cognitive capacity must be set against an animal’s evolutionary history and the nuances in the way brain and body have changed over the tree of life.”
***
"...this study shows that marsupial brains have a similar relationship with body size as other mammals, such as bats, some rodents, and shrews”
"The research found that the biggest changes in brain size occurred after two major cataclysmic events in Earth’s history: the mass extinction 66 million years ago (when dinosaurs disappeared, at the end of the Cretaceous period) and a major climate shift 23-33 million years ago (in the Late Paleogene, after which many major evolutionary changes happened).
"The climate shift appeared to have triggered the evolution of the biggest brain-to-body ratios, such as those of dolphins, elephants and apes. (my bold)
“'A big surprise was that much of the variation in relative brain size of mammals that live today can be explained by changes that their ancestral lineages underwent following these cataclysmic events,” says Smaers.
“'Brain-to-body size is of course not independent of the evolution of intelligence. But it may actually be more indicative of more general adaptions to large scale environmental pressures that go beyond intelligence.'”
Comment: This is just descriptive, and offers no clues as to why the brains are bigger in the ways they are. The comment I bolded above is pure guess work. We don't know what causes the triggering of any aspect of evolution from a natural viewpoint.
Introducing the brain: religions' effects
by David Turell , Monday, May 10, 2021, 16:22 (1075 days ago) @ David Turell
From Andrew Newberg who studies it:
https://www.realclearscience.com/2021/05/10/the_new_science_of_neurotheology_776333.htm...
"In its simplest definition, neurotheology refers to the field of scholarship that seeks to understand the relationship between the brain and our religious and spiritual selves.
***
"it is important to consider both sides of neurotheology very broadly. Thus, the "neuro" side includes brain imaging, psychology, neurology, medicine, and even anthropology. And the "theology" side includes theology itself, but also various aspects related to religious beliefs, attitudes, practices, and experiences.
"Neurotheology also ranges from considering very esoteric concepts including questions around free will, consciousness, and the soul, to very practical concepts such as understanding how the brain functions and the relationship between spirituality and physical and mental health. This latter topic might be called "applied neurotheology." Applied neurotheology, therefore, seeks to understand the health-related aspects pertaining to our brain and our spiritual selves. In particular, we can try to understand how being religious or spiritual, or performing various spiritual practices, might be beneficial to our overall health and well-being.
***
"I have typically divided the mechanisms into indirect and direct ones. The indirect mechanisms have to do with specific aspects of a given tradition that end up having ancillary mental health benefits. For example, going to church or other social events that are part of a religious tradition can be beneficial because social support, in and of itself, is beneficial to our mental health. The more people that we have in our social support network, the better we are at coping with various life stressors including problems with jobs, relationships, or health.
"Most religions also teach people to avoid a lot of high-risk behaviors that can be very detrimental to our mental health and well-being.
***
"Another interesting indirect mechanism of action related to religion has to do with diet and nutrition. Diet and nutrition are frequently overlooked when it comes to good mental health, even though research increasingly indicates they are essential.
***
"The direct mechanisms of action have to do with specific spiritual practices and even a person's personal sense of spirituality. Much of my research over the past 30 years has been to study the brain while people engage in different practices such as meditation or prayer. We have even observed brain changes associated with unique spiritual practices such as speaking in tongues or trance states. The brain effects related to these practices are quite remarkable and diverse. It should come as no surprise since these practices affect people on many different levels, such as the way people think, feel, and experience the world around them. Thus, we should expect to observe physiological differences in the parts of the brain involved with these practices.
"Meditation and prayer, for example, activate the frontal lobes as well as the language areas of the brain, and research demonstrates that this occurs not only while the practice is performed but over the long-term as well. Our study of Kirtan Kriya meditation showed improvements of about 10 to 15 percent in cognition as well as reductions in stress, anxiety, and depression.
***
"One of our recent studies of a spiritual retreat program showed significant changes to the areas of the brain that release dopamine and serotonin. These are areas known to be involved in both cognition and emotional health. And there are a growing number of clinical studies which have documented the value of various spiritual practices or religiously oriented therapies for helping people manage a variety of mental health conditions including depression, anxiety, and ADHD as well as neurological conditions like Alzheimer's and seizure disorders.
***
"Applied neurotheology can teach us the value of exploring our religious and spiritual side as a way of improving our mental health and well-being. Even for those who are not religious, pursuing practices such as meditation and prayer — even when secularized — can be beneficial for reducing stress and anxiety."
Comment: Newberg was presented in my Science vs. Religion book. It seems our brain is built for religious practices and to benefit from them.
Introducing the brain: religions' effects
QUOTE: “The more people that we have in our social support network, the better we are at coping with various life stressors including problems with jobs, relationships, or health.”
Very true. But the church/synagogue/mosque is only one form of social network, and they have all been sources of conflict and stress as well as aid and comfort.
QUOTE: "Most religions also teach people to avoid a lot of high-risk behaviors that can be very detrimental to our mental health and well-being.”
You don’t have to believe in or worship a God to realize this!
QUOTE: "Another interesting indirect mechanism of action related to religion has to do with diet and nutrition. Diet and nutrition are frequently overlooked when it comes to good mental health, even though research increasingly indicates they are essential.”
Do we really have to believe in and worship God to learn about diet and nutrition?
QUOTE: “Even for those who are not religious, pursuing practices such as meditation and prayer — even when secularized — can be beneficial for reducing stress and anxiety."
Ah, at last a glimmer of light! Even for those who are not religious, a good diet, not breaking the law or indulging in “high risk behaviors”, and having a good social network can be beneficial, and religion is not the only way, and frequently not even the best way, to achieve these benefits. The author seems blissfully unaware of the enormous damage that can be and often is inflicted on people by religion. Throughout history, and right through to the present day, one religion has fought against others, and has been used as justification for the most barbaric practices. My own circle of friends encompasses many good, kind, healthy-living people, some of whom are religious and some of whom are not. We don’t need religion to know what is good or bad for us and for others!
DAVID: It seems our brain is built for religious practices and to benefit from them.
It seems to me that our brain evolved for social practices as well as for our own individual survival. It also evolved for us to ask questions, and since some of these are unanswerable, it may be that religions all grew from the same desire to find answers. However, I suspect that social practices evolved long before religions, and these practices were meant to be beneficial for all concerned. I fully accept that some people derive great comfort from belief in a loving superpower, and I also accept that some religions encourage and perform wonderful acts of humanitarian good. But I object very strongly to the implication that religion lies at the heart of all that is beneficial to humans. It also lies at the heart of much that is bad for humans. In fact it is only as “humanitarian” as the individuals who practise it. Thank you for the article, though. It makes a change from the other subjects we’ve been discussing!
Introducing the brain: religions' effects
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 11, 2021, 15:43 (1075 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: “The more people that we have in our social support network, the better we are at coping with various life stressors including problems with jobs, relationships, or health.”
Very true. But the church/synagogue/mosque is only one form of social network, and they have all been sources of conflict and stress as well as aid and comfort.
QUOTE: "Most religions also teach people to avoid a lot of high-risk behaviors that can be very detrimental to our mental health and well-being.”
You don’t have to believe in or worship a God to realize this!
QUOTE: "Another interesting indirect mechanism of action related to religion has to do with diet and nutrition. Diet and nutrition are frequently overlooked when it comes to good mental health, even though research increasingly indicates they are essential.”
Do we really have to believe in and worship God to learn about diet and nutrition?
QUOTE: “Even for those who are not religious, pursuing practices such as meditation and prayer — even when secularized — can be beneficial for reducing stress and anxiety."
Ah, at last a glimmer of light! Even for those who are not religious, a good diet, not breaking the law or indulging in “high risk behaviors”, and having a good social network can be beneficial, and religion is not the only way, and frequently not even the best way, to achieve these benefits. The author seems blissfully unaware of the enormous damage that can be and often is inflicted on people by religion. Throughout history, and right through to the present day, one religion has fought against others, and has been used as justification for the most barbaric practices. My own circle of friends encompasses many good, kind, healthy-living people, some of whom are religious and some of whom are not. We don’t need religion to know what is good or bad for us and for others!
DAVID: It seems our brain is built for religious practices and to benefit from them.
dhw: It seems to me that our brain evolved for social practices as well as for our own individual survival. It also evolved for us to ask questions, and since some of these are unanswerable, it may be that religions all grew from the same desire to find answers. However, I suspect that social practices evolved long before religions, and these practices were meant to be beneficial for all concerned. I fully accept that some people derive great comfort from belief in a loving superpower, and I also accept that some religions encourage and perform wonderful acts of humanitarian good. But I object very strongly to the implication that religion lies at the heart of all that is beneficial to humans. It also lies at the heart of much that is bad for humans. In fact it is only as “humanitarian” as the individuals who practise it. Thank you for the article, though. It makes a change from the other subjects we’ve been discussing!
Religions began because humans want explanations for everything they experience. It seems all ancient peoples invented explanatory gods for all the events they could not easily explain on a natural basis. Our modern religions grew out of those primitive beginnings and carry some of the primitive in present times. My simple belief comes from the necessity for intricate biochemical design must have a designing mind.
Introducing the brain: religions' effects
DAVID: It seems our brain is built for religious practices and to benefit from them.
dhw: It seems to me that our brain evolved for social practices as well as for our own individual survival. It also evolved for us to ask questions, and since some of these are unanswerable, it may be that religions all grew from the same desire to find answers. However, I suspect that social practices evolved long before religions, and these practices were meant to be beneficial for all concerned. I fully accept that some people derive great comfort from belief in a loving superpower, and I also accept that some religions encourage and perform wonderful acts of humanitarian good. But I object very strongly to the implication that religion lies at the heart of all that is beneficial to humans. It also lies at the heart of much that is bad for humans. In fact it is only as “humanitarian” as the individuals who practise it. [...]
DAVID: Religions began because humans want explanations for everything they experience. It seems all ancient peoples invented explanatory gods for all the events they could not easily explain on a natural basis. Our modern religions grew out of those primitive beginnings and carry some of the primitive in present times.
I agree (se my bold above). It’s an important point, since there are/have been so many religions with so many different gods. The implication would seem to be that all the beliefs have sprung from the human imagination and not from any known facts. Of course many people claim to have had revelations, but these are not confined to a single religion or even a single God, so they can’t all be right!
DAVID: My simple belief comes from the necessity for intricate biochemical design must have a designing mind.
I totally respect your reasoning and your belief, and in your books you very wisely steer clear of organized religion and the many different types of designer(s) envisaged by believers. I’d be interested to know your own feelings about what I see as the author’s blinkered views on the good effects of religion.
Introducing the brain: religions' effects
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 12, 2021, 16:10 (1073 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: It seems our brain is built for religious practices and to benefit from them.
dhw: It seems to me that our brain evolved for social practices as well as for our own individual survival. It also evolved for us to ask questions, and since some of these are unanswerable, it may be that religions all grew from the same desire to find answers. However, I suspect that social practices evolved long before religions, and these practices were meant to be beneficial for all concerned. I fully accept that some people derive great comfort from belief in a loving superpower, and I also accept that some religions encourage and perform wonderful acts of humanitarian good. But I object very strongly to the implication that religion lies at the heart of all that is beneficial to humans. It also lies at the heart of much that is bad for humans. In fact it is only as “humanitarian” as the individuals who practise it. [...]
DAVID: Religions began because humans want explanations for everything they experience. It seems all ancient peoples invented explanatory gods for all the events they could not easily explain on a natural basis. Our modern religions grew out of those primitive beginnings and carry some of the primitive in present times.
dhw: I agree (se my bold above). It’s an important point, since there are/have been so many religions with so many different gods. The implication would seem to be that all the beliefs have sprung from the human imagination and not from any known facts. Of course many people claim to have had revelations, but these are not confined to a single religion or even a single God, so they can’t all be right!
DAVID: My simple belief comes from the necessity for intricate biochemical design must have a designing mind.
dhw: I totally respect your reasoning and your belief, and in your books you very wisely steer clear of organized religion and the many different types of designer(s) envisaged by believers. I’d be interested to know your own feelings about what I see as the author’s blinkered views on the good effects of religion.
It seems to me you always look at the bad. As a kid my religion taught me to be a good person. The fighting in Israel and Gaza currently is Iran pushing Hamas.
Introducing the brain: religions' effects
DAVID: My simple belief comes from the necessity for intricate biochemical design must have a designing mind.
dhw: I totally respect your reasoning and your belief, and in your books you very wisely steer clear of organized religion and the many different types of designer(s) envisaged by believers. I’d be interested to know your own feelings about what I see as the author’s blinkered views on the good effects of religion.
DAVID: It seems to me you always look at the bad. As a kid my religion taught me to be a good person. The fighting in Israel and Gaza currently is Iran pushing Hamas.
I wrote: "I fully accept that some people derive great comfort from belief in a loving superpower, and I also accept that some religions encourage and perform wonderful acts of humanitarian good. But I object very strongly to the implication that religion lies at the heart of all that is beneficial to humans. It also lies at the heart of much that is bad for humans. In fact it is only as “humanitarian” as the individuals who practise it."
The article focused solely on the good, and as usual I attempted to restore the balance. Firstly, people can be “good” without being religious, and secondly religion itself can be the source of appalling suffering. This ranges from the religion-inspired wars and persecutions of the past to the religion-inspired terrorism of today. On a personal note, when I was a kid, the Jewish religion taught me to be afraid of God. At least some forms of Christianity put love before fear, though all too frequently Christianity too has set an example of prejudice and intolerance. But I am not denying the good teachings, and I am not denying the good deeds. I am asking for a fair balance. As for Israel, the fighting is not about religion, so I don’t know why you’ve mentioned it here.
Introducing the brain: religions' effects
by David Turell , Thursday, May 13, 2021, 15:52 (1073 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: My simple belief comes from the necessity for intricate biochemical design must have a designing mind.
dhw: I totally respect your reasoning and your belief, and in your books you very wisely steer clear of organized religion and the many different types of designer(s) envisaged by believers. I’d be interested to know your own feelings about what I see as the author’s blinkered views on the good effects of religion.
DAVID: It seems to me you always look at the bad. As a kid my religion taught me to be a good person. The fighting in Israel and Gaza currently is Iran pushing Hamas.
dhw: I wrote: "I fully accept that some people derive great comfort from belief in a loving superpower, and I also accept that some religions encourage and perform wonderful acts of humanitarian good. But I object very strongly to the implication that religion lies at the heart of all that is beneficial to humans. It also lies at the heart of much that is bad for humans. In fact it is only as “humanitarian” as the individuals who practise it."
The article focused solely on the good, and as usual I attempted to restore the balance. Firstly, people can be “good” without being religious, and secondly religion itself can be the source of appalling suffering. This ranges from the religion-inspired wars and persecutions of the past to the religion-inspired terrorism of today. On a personal note, when I was a kid, the Jewish religion taught me to be afraid of God. At least some forms of Christianity put love before fear, though all too frequently Christianity too has set an example of prejudice and intolerance. But I am not denying the good teachings, and I am not denying the good deeds. I am asking for a fair balance. As for Israel, the fighting is not about religion, so I don’t know why you’ve mentioned it here.
To cover the last point first, Israel is a Jewish state, and Hamas is Muslim group determined to destroy Israel. Two fighting religions. Next, my Jewish childhood teaching never made me fearful of God. And I agree all religious wars are wrong.
Introducing the brain: religions' effects
dhw: The article focused solely on the good, and as usual I attempted to restore the balance. Firstly, people can be “good” without being religious, and secondly religion itself can be the source of appalling suffering. This ranges from the religion-inspired wars and persecutions of the past to the religion-inspired terrorism of today. On a personal note, when I was a kid, the Jewish religion taught me to be afraid of God. At least some forms of Christianity put love before fear, though all too frequently Christianity too has set an example of prejudice and intolerance. But I am not denying the good teachings, and I am not denying the good deeds. I am asking for a fair balance. As for Israel, the fighting is not about religion, so I don’t know why you’ve mentioned it here.
DAVID: To cover the last point first, Israel is a Jewish state, and Hamas is Muslim group determined to destroy Israel. Two fighting religions.
If you really believe they are fighting only over religion (I emphatically don’t), then you are merely giving yet another example of the bad side of religion. Thank you for also attempting to restore some balance to the blinkered view of religion presented by the article.
DAVID: Next, my Jewish childhood teaching never made me fearful of God.
Then perhaps you or/and I were taught an edited version.
DAVID: And I agree all religious wars are wrong.
Thank you. All I set out to do was restore the balance in the light of the totally one-sided views presented by the article. Thank you for your support.
Introducing the brain: religions' effects
by David Turell , Friday, May 14, 2021, 19:52 (1071 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: The article focused solely on the good, and as usual I attempted to restore the balance. Firstly, people can be “good” without being religious, and secondly religion itself can be the source of appalling suffering. This ranges from the religion-inspired wars and persecutions of the past to the religion-inspired terrorism of today. On a personal note, when I was a kid, the Jewish religion taught me to be afraid of God. At least some forms of Christianity put love before fear, though all too frequently Christianity too has set an example of prejudice and intolerance. But I am not denying the good teachings, and I am not denying the good deeds. I am asking for a fair balance. As for Israel, the fighting is not about religion, so I don’t know why you’ve mentioned it here.
DAVID: To cover the last point first, Israel is a Jewish state, and Hamas is Muslim group determined to destroy Israel. Two fighting religions.
dhw: If you really believe they are fighting only over religion (I emphatically don’t), then you are merely giving yet another example of the bad side of religion. Thank you for also attempting to restore some balance to the blinkered view of religion presented by the article.
DAVID: Next, my Jewish childhood teaching never made me fearful of God.
dhw: Then perhaps you or/and I were taught an edited version.
I was clear enough in my childhood thinking to recognize Bible stories about God as inventive 'stories' and God was a nice guy.
DAVID: And I agree all religious wars are wrong.dhw: Thank you. All I set out to do was restore the balance in the light of the totally one-sided views presented by the article. Thank you for your support.
The only way to know God is through His works.
Introducing the brain: bird brains small but intelligent
by David Turell , Monday, May 17, 2021, 15:34 (1069 days ago) @ David Turell
Some birds are as intelligent as dolphins and primates:
https://www.activewild.com/bird-intelligence/
"In fact, as we find out more about bird intelligence, the more we are beginning to realize that certain groups of birds are among the most intelligent of all animals.
***
"...birds and mammals are very different types of animal. However, the basic “body plan” of both–i.e. having a backbone, four limbs, eyes, ears, a skull containing a brain, etc.–reveals their shared ancestry.
"Bird and mammal brains too share the same basic parts. However, 300 million years of evolution have left their brains–like their bodies–looking very different.
"A bird’s brain is mostly smooth, and lacks the bumps and grooves of a mammalian brain.
"Birds Have Big Brains (In Relation To Body Size)… But Small Brains In General
"The size and exact structure of a bird’s brain differs from species to species. In general, birds have large brains in relation to the size of their heads, and also in relation to the size of their bodies. That’s a good indicator of intelligence.
"The brains of crows and parrots – two of the smartest types of bird – are, in relation to body size, as large as those of the great apes.
***
"Although brain size is a reasonably good indicator of intelligence, it doesn’t necessarily follow that ‘the bigger the brain, the higher the intelligence’.
"The smartest birds – even with their small brains – are more intelligent than most mammals.
"A bird’s brain may be small, but it is highly efficient. Research has shown that the cells in a bird’s brain are extremely densely-packed. A parrot’s brain has the same number of neurons (brain cells) as that of a medium-sized primate.
"Numerous tests have been devised to measure animal intelligence. Despite having small brains, crows and parrots take their place alongside great apes, dolphins and whales as the most intelligent of all animals.
***
"During times when food is plentiful, many birds deliberately store surplus food in multiple locations. By doing so they’ll have a supply of food available during the winter. This behavior is known as ‘caching’.
"Caching requires a good memory; there wouldn’t be much point in hiding food if you couldn’t remember where you’d put it!
"One species known for its caching behavior is Clark’s nutcracker, a North American member of the crow family Corvidae. It the autumn this incredible bird hides seeds in over 3,000 different locations. It relies on these food stores during the cold months.
"Clark’s nutcracker can locate the caches with a high degree of accuracy up to nine months after the food was originally buried. It can even locate the caches if they are covered in snow."
Comment: the article contains many other examples of bird intelligence
Introducing the brain: bird brains' similar neurons
by David Turell , Monday, May 17, 2021, 15:45 (1069 days ago) @ David Turell
Same type of neuron in mammals and birds:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210513142358.htm
"The research, published May 13 in Current Biology, advances insight into the fundamental operation of complex brain circuits. It suggests that ancient cell types in the pallium -- the outer regions of the brain that include cortex -- most likely retained features over millions of years that are the building blocks for advanced cognition in birds and mammals.
***
"The team targeted excitatory vs. inhibitory neurons (using CaMKII? and GAD1 promoters, respectively) in the zebra finch auditory pallium to test predictions based on the mammalian pallium.
"'There's so much work out there on the physiology of these different cell types in the mammalian cortex that we were able to line up a series of predictions about what features birds may or may not have," Spool says.
"The CaMKII? and GAD1 populations in the songbird were distinct "in exactly the proportions you would expect from the mammalian brain," Spool says. With the cell type populations isolated, the researchers then examined systematically whether each population would correspond to the physiology of their mammalian counterparts.
"'As we kept moving forward, again and again these cell populations were acting as if they were essentially from the mammalian cortex in a lot of physiological ways," Spool says.
"Remage-Healey adds, "The correspondence between the cortex in mammals and what we're pulling out with molecularly identified cell types in birds is pretty striking."
"In both birds and mammals, these neurons are thought to support advanced cognitive functions, such as memory, individual recognition and associative learning, Spool says."
Comment: This study shows the key factor in common descent in evolution: what is developed and works well in the past carries into the future evolving forms. The process of evolution is a continuum.
Introducing the brain: many different types of neurons
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 18, 2021, 17:19 (1067 days ago) @ David Turell
Differ by function as in this example:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05-nerve-cell-food-intake.html
"...there are different types of neurons distributed over specific regions of the brain. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolic Research and the CECAD Cluster of Excellence in Aging Research of the University of Cologne have developed an approach that allows them to show that neurons that are supposedly the same are actually very different: they not only sense different hormones for the body's energy state, but also have a different influence on food intake. This can have a direct effect on our metabolism, for example by differentially restraining our appetite.
"The brain processes our sensory perceptions, controls our behaviour and stores our memories. Because of these many functions, different types of nerve cells with specific tasks exist in different regions of our brain. One such type of nerve cells are the so-called POMC neurons, which play an important role in the metabolism of our body. "POMC neurons are critically involved in the control of appetite, energy expenditure and metabolism," explains Nasim Biglari, a recently graduated Ph.D. and first author of the study. "In recent years, it has been increasingly confirmed that POMC neurons are more diverse than previously thought." Such differences result, for example, from a different response to hormones secreted by the body and are only noticeable when individual POMC neurons are compared with each other. In such a case, scientists refer to different subtypes of neurons. "Whether the different subtypes also play a different role in metabolism has not been clarified so far," says Nasim Biglari.
***
"'Using this new, genetic approach, we were able to describe two different subtypes of POMC neurons in detail for the first time. For example, our results show a different distribution of the two subtypes within the same specific brain region. Moreover, they sense different hormones for the body's energy state. The two subtypes even act differently on food intake, with one part of the POMC neurons suppressing appetite more potently than the other." Because of the influence of POMC neurons on metabolism and food intake, these observations could also be relevant to diseases such as obesity and diabetes.
"'We were able to show for the first time that the diversity of POMC neurons is important for their function in the control of metabolism. In further experiments, we would like to increasingly address the questions of how the two subtypes of POMC neurons influence metabolism in detail and which neuronal circuits in the brain they engage to carry out their effects", Nasim Biglari is looking forward to future experiments. "More generally, however, the approach we have developed can also be used to identify cell subtypes in other organs and for other types of cells. This could lead to many more insights into the diversity of our body's cells.'"
Comment: What this means is that when we discuss as 150 cc enlargement from erectus to sapiens we cannot know if some different kind of functional neuron was added to sapiens. So we know quantity but not true quality of the addition.
Introducing the brain: signals in both directions
by David Turell , Thursday, May 20, 2021, 19:38 (1065 days ago) @ David Turell
Some synapses are not one-way:
https://www.sciencealert.com/nerves-have-been-found-communicating-in-the-wrong-directio...
"The point at which our nerve cells meet to share information was thought to be a one-way street, with electrochemical signals strictly flowing from one neuron's sending axons to the next neuron's receiving dendrites.
"Now, for the first time, researchers have shown that information can also flow in the opposite direction at the neuron intersection we call a synapse.
"Once again, exact measurements have shown that reality is more complex than a simplified model would suggest," said cellular neuroscientist Peter Jonas from Austria's Institute of Science and Technology (IST).
***
"Within the hippocampus, the bit of our brains involved in memory and learning, is the mossy fiber pathway. This network of cells is crucial for storing short-term memory and has been shown in mice to be involved in spatial learning.
***
"As expected, the mossy neurons influenced the pyramidal neurons' signaling - but the researchers were surprised to find the reverse was true, too. (my bold)
"'The pre-synaptic mossy fiber detects when the post-synaptic neuron can't take more information: When activity increases in the post-synaptic neuron, the pre-synaptic neuron reduces the extent of plasticity," explains Jonas.
"This means there's a reverse-traveling signal from the dendrites of the pyramidal cell that in a complex way can modify the sending signal strength of the mossy neuron's axons. Challenging some long-standing assumptions, this confirms that the firing of synapses depends on both pre- and postsynaptic activity.
"'We find that this synapse acts like a 'smart teacher', who adapts the lessons when students are overloaded with information," said Jonas.
"They're not sure how the pyramid neuron sends its "I'm too full"' status update to the mossy neuron yet, but there are some clues, backed by previous research. Glutamate, the chemical messaging system used by neurons to DM each other, is a potential candidate.
"'Our results identify [glutamate receptors], probably activated by dendritically released glutamate, as the critical link between postsynaptic spiking activity and presynaptic terminal function," the researchers wrote in their paper.
"They suspect this modulating signal may be involved in optimizing information storage in our brains.
"'This might be a powerful mechanism to ensure that storage and recall are separated and that new information is preferentially stored in silent, non-coding pyramidal neurons," the team explained."
Comment: Note my bold and the surprise in the article at two-directional controls. Why do human guess at God's designs before they have the full story. It is like condemning the retina as backwards and upside down as a fault. We seem to guess wrong about God's works before we do the research.
Introducing the brain: fly vision and maneuvers
by David Turell , Friday, May 21, 2021, 01:23 (1065 days ago) @ David Turell
Direct neuron connections are found:
https://phys.org/news/2021-05-brains-possibly-universal-principles.html
"Flies predict changes in their visual environment in order to execute evasive maneuvers, according to new research from the University of Chicago. This reliance on predictive information to guide behavior suggests that prediction may be a general feature of animal nervous systems in supporting quick behavioral changes.
***
"'For a fly, everything is trying to eat you, and you want to avoid being eaten. However, the fly's environment is rapidly changing, and the neurons they have are laggy. We wanted to study how flies were able to execute quick evasive behaviors to avoid being eaten by predators when ongoing feedback from their sensory systems hasn't been processed."
***
"Using detailed diagrams of the connectivity between neurons in the fly visual system, the researchers made a simulation of the visual response as they fed in the previously recorded behavioral data set. "We compared what an optimal prediction would look like and what the fly's prediction looks like, and then we broke open the simulation to try to identify which parts were the most important for making these predictions," Palmer said.
***
"The authors identified structures called axonal gap junctions, which are physical channels connecting the neurons, that mediate an optimal form of this information bottleneck and are critical for both filtering out the unnecessary information and preserving the necessary information to make predictions.
"The investigators further found that a subpopulation of these vertical motion sensory neurons that are involved in making predictions is unique in that it is also directly connected to the fly's flight steering neurons. This suggests that there is direct input from the neurons responsible for making predictions about the fly's environment to neurons that control the fly's behavior. This direct connection might explain how predictions that the fly is making are able to quickly influence its behavior.
***
"'Cracking open the black box of how the fly does this has revealed what we think are universal design principles that the nervous systems of other animals probably also use," Palmer said. "We're interested in searching for another example of prediction-guiding behavior in another animal and asking if what we found in the fly really does apply broadly across species.'"
Comment: As the author's show, this is a highly designed system to help the fly hunt and survive. Not by chance.
Introducing the brain: a consciousness region?
by David Turell , Thursday, May 27, 2021, 21:02 (1058 days ago) @ David Turell
A wacky materialistic approach:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6545/911?utm_campaign=toc_sci-mag_2021-05-27...
"A comprehensive and agreed-upon theory of consciousness is necessary to answer the question of which systems—biologically evolved or artificially designed—experience anything and to define the ethical boundaries of our actions toward them. The research projects described here will hopefully point the way and indicate whether some of today's major theories hold water or not.
***
"So far, several theories of consciousness are being evaluated in this manner to test competing explanations for where and when neural activity gives rise to subjective experience.
"The global neuronal workspace theory (GNWT) (4) claims that consciousness is instantiated by the global broadcasting and amplification of information across an interconnected network of prefrontal-parietal areas and many high-level sensory cortical areas. The sensory areas carry out different functions that range from feature processing to object or word recognition. Information in those sensory areas is processed in encapsulated modules, remaining unconscious. The frontal-parietal networks support integrative and executive functions, including selective attention and working memory. According to the GNWT, a stimulus must be attended to trigger activity that helps distribute this sensory information to many parts of the brain for further processing and report. It is this global broadcasting across many modules of specialized subsystems that constitutes consciousness. Conversely, the integrated information theory (IIT) (5) holds that consciousness should be understood in terms of cause-effect “power” that reflects the amount of maximally irreducible integrated information generated by certain neuronal architectures. On the basis of mathematical and neuroanatomical considerations, the IIT holds that the posterior cortex is ideally situated for generating a maximum of integrated information. In this theory, consciousness is not input-output information processing but the intrinsic ability or power of a neuronal network to influence itself. That is, the neuronal substrate of consciousness perpetuates itself for as long as the experience exists. The more cause-effect power a system has, the more conscious it is. For the IIT, the content of an experience is a structure of causes and effects (integrated information), whereas for the GNWT, it is a message that is broadcast globally.
"Another controversy occurs between first-order and higher-order theories of consciousness. The former claims that reverberating activity in sensory areas suffices for consciousness, whereas the latter claims that a second, higher-order brain state must represent or “point at” these first-order sensory activations for them to be consciously experienced.
***
"With this series of adversarial collaborations, neuroscientists will get closer to understanding consciousness and how it fits into the physical world while improving scientific practices along the way. As for the initial theories undergoing this approach, it may be that neither the GNWT nor the IIT are quite correct. No matter the outcome, the field can use the results to make progress in framing new thinking about consciousness and testing other potential theories in the same way. The problem of consciousness will surely remain difficult, but understanding the ancient mind-body problem will become a little bit easier."
Comment: Egnor demolishes this foolishness by pointing to split brain folks with one consciousness. And also with folks who are single-conscious after large areas areas removed to stop severe epilepsy. Consciousness is immaterial.
Introducing the brain: hippocampus has two regions
by David Turell , Saturday, May 29, 2021, 19:33 (1056 days ago) @ David Turell
The cells seem to differ in the anterior vs. the posterior regions:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05-difference-halves-hippocampus-gene.html
"'These new data reveal molecular-level differences that allow us to view the anterior and posterior hippocampus in a whole new way," says study leader Genevieve Konopka, Ph.D., associate professor of neuroscience at UTSW.
"She and study co-leader Bradley C. Lega, M.D., associate professor of neurological surgery, neurology, and psychiatry, explain that the human hippocampus is typically considered a uniform structure with key roles in memory, spatial navigation, and regulation of emotions. However, some research has suggested that the two ends of the hippocampus—the anterior, which points downward toward the face, and the posterior, which points upward toward the back of the head—take on different jobs.
"Scientists have speculated that the anterior hippocampus might be more important for emotion and mood, while the posterior hippocampus might be more important for cognition. However, says Konopka, a Jon Heighten Scholar in Autism Research, researchers had yet to explore whether differences in gene activity exist between these two halves.
"For the study, Konopka and Lega, both members of the Peter O'Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, and their colleagues isolated samples of both the anterior and posterior hippocampus from five patients who had the structure removed to treat epilepsy. Seizures often originate from the hippocampus, explains Lega, who performed the surgeries. Although brain abnormalities trigger these seizures, microscopic analysis suggested that the tissues used in this study were anatomically normal.
"After removal, the samples underwent single nuclei RNA sequencing (snRNA-seq), which assesses gene activity in individual cells. Although snRNA-seq showed mostly the same types of neurons and support cells reside in both sections of the hippocampus, activity of specific genes in excitatory neurons—those that stimulate other neurons to fire—varied significantly between the anterior and the posterior portions of the hippocampus. When the researchers compared this set of genes to a list of genes associated with psychiatric and neurological disorders, they found significant matches. Genes associated with mood disorders, such as major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder, tended to be more active in the anterior hippocampus; conversely, genes associated with cognitive disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder, tended to be more active in the posterior hippocampus.
***
"'The idea that the anterior and posterior hippocampus represent two distinct functional structures is not completely new, but it's been underappreciated in clinical medicine," he says. "When trying to understand disease processes, we have to keep that in mind.'"
Comment: Isolating regions with specific functions in the brain is not usual research. Removal of one hippocampus can result in memory and visual problems:
"Of 376 patients who had the amygdalohippocampectomy procedure performed, compared to other types of temporal lobe resections, two thirds of this population were reported free of disabling seizures.[5] Some patients report defects in visual perception[6] and impaired memory function.[7]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdalohippocampectomy
Comment: How much trouble from the surgery may depend upon which hemisphere is dominant.
Introducing the brain: complexity of connections
by David Turell , Monday, June 07, 2021, 17:43 (1047 days ago) @ David Turell
A tiny piece of brain is micro sliced and a mass of connections turn up with a possible new neuron type:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2279937-google-has-mapped-a-piece-of-human-brain-i...
"Google has helped create the most detailed map yet of the connections within the human brain. It reveals a staggering amount of detail, including patterns of connections between neurons, as well as what may be a new kind of neuron.
"The brain map, which is freely available online, includes 50,000 cells, all rendered in three dimensions. They are joined together by hundreds of millions of spidery tendrils, forming 130 million connections called synapses. The data set measures 1.4 petabytes, roughly 700 times the storage capacity of an average modern computer.
"The data set is so large that the researchers haven’t studied it in detail, says Viren Jain at Google Research in Mountain View, California. He compares it to the human genome, which is still being explored 20 years after the first drafts were published.
***
"All of this details just a tiny fraction of the brain. Jain says its scale is best understood by thinking of a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan, used to show activity in different brain regions. “The entire data set we produced is a cubic millimetre, which is usually one pixel in an MRI scan,” he says. “It’s interesting to uncover all the stuff under the hood of one pixel of an MRI.” (my bold)
"For Dulac, the data set is “a trove of goodies for years to come”. Jain and his team have already made new discoveries about how our brain is wired: for example, there was a stark discrepancy in the numbers of connections between neurons.
"Normally, when a tendril from one neuron passed close to another, it would form just one synapse, or more rarely two to four. But there were also some tendrils that formed up to 20 synapses onto one target neuron, meaning this tendril by itself would probably be able to trigger that neuron to fire. (my bold)
"It isn’t clear why, but Lichtman speculates that the multi-synapse connections underlie learned behaviours. “There’s lots of things your brain does by cognition, by thinking and puzzling it out and making a decision, and there are many things you do automatically that could not have come genetically,” he says, such as braking when you see a red light. The super-strong connections would allow a message to pass swiftly through the network.
"The team also found mysterious pairs of neurons deep in the cortex that hadn’t been observed before. “The two cells pointed in exactly the opposite direction on the same axis,” says Lichtman. Nobody knows why.
"Brain mapping, or connectomics, has come a long way since its first breakthrough in the 1980s, when researchers mapped the 302 neurons in the nervous system of a worm called Caenorhabditis elegans. Jain, Dulac and Lichtman were part of a group that, in 2020, argued in favour of mapping an entire mouse brain at a similar level of detail.
“'A whole mouse brain is only 1000 times bigger than this, an exabyte instead of a petabyte,” says Lichtman. “It’s on a scale where we probably will be able to do that within a decade, I suspect.” Dulac wants to see how the cortex links to other parts of the brain, and mapping the mouse brain would reveal that."
Comment: fMRI is just a small taste of what our brain really looks like. The illustration is amazing. No wonder we can think like we do, well beyond the needs necessary for simple survival.
Introducing the brain: controls of hippocampal connections
by David Turell , Monday, June 07, 2021, 18:21 (1047 days ago) @ David Turell
Repulsive forms are found:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-06-reciprocal-repulsions-cell-surface-molecules-tan...
"A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in the U.S. has found that reciprocal repulsions of cell-surface molecules prevent tangling in parallel hippocampal networks.
***
"Prior research has shown that the hippocampus in mammals has two unique networks made up of neurons and axons—one is used to process spatial information, the other object related information. For several years, researchers have wondered how the brain manages to keep the two networks from becoming tangled with one another. In this new effort, the researchers sought to find the answer.
"Prior research has also shown that the hippocampus is made up of three subfields that have been named CA1, CA2 and CA3, and that neurons in CA1 project to targets in the subiculum—projecting means growing toward an attracting element. Projections in CA1 in the subiculum are organized along an axis where neurons in the proximal part of CA1 project to the distal subiculum and neurons in the distal CA1 project to the proximal subiculum.
"Researchers working on a prior effort found that a cell surface molecules called teneurin-3, which are expressed by neurons in the distal subiculum, bind to one another and create an attraction for axons coming from the proximal CA1. It was suggested at the time that it was likely that another type of surface molecule worked in similar ways to create an attraction between neurons in the distal CA1 and the proximal subiculum. The researchers used single-cell RNA sequencing to find that surface molecule, which turned out to be latrophilin 2. Further study showed that not only do the two surface molecules act as an attractive force for their respective axons, they also serve as a repelling force for neurons from the other network. Such repelling forces, the researchers note, help to keep the two networks from tangling."
Comment: When such an exact functioning molecule is found, repelling and attracting, I always wonder how chance evolution found it. There is no such thing as natural evolution.
Introducing the brain: another specific helper molecule
by David Turell , Monday, June 07, 2021, 18:38 (1047 days ago) @ David Turell
Protects the production of myelin, and diminishes in old age:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210607084633.htm
"A new study has identified a molecule called ten-eleven-translocation 1 (TET1) as a necessary component in the repair of myelin, which protects nerves and facilitates accurate transmission of electrical signals. The discovery could have important implications in treating neurodegenerative diseases and for molecular rejuvenation of aging brains in healthy individuals.
"Recent studies suggest that new brain cells are being formed every day in response to injury, physical exercise, and mental stimulation. Glial cells, and in particular the ones called oligodendrocyte progenitors, are highly responsive to external signals and injuries. They can detect changes in the nervous system and form new myelin, which wraps around nerves and provides metabolic support and accurate transmission of electrical signals. As we age, however, less myelin is formed in response to external signals, and this progressive decline has been linked to the age-related cognitive and motor deficits detected in older people in the general population. Impaired myelin formation also has been reported in older individuals with neurodegenerative diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis or Alzheimer's and identified as one of the causes of their progressive clinical deterioration.
"A new study from the Neuroscience Initiative team at the Advanced Science Research Center at The Graduate Center, CUNY (CUNY ASRC) has identified a molecule called ten-eleven-translocation 1 (TET1) as a necessary component of myelin repair. The research, published today in Nature Communications, shows that TET1 modifies the DNA in specific glial cells in adult brains so they can form new myelin in response to injury.
***
"'We found that TET1 levels progressively decline in older mice, and with that, DNA can no longer be properly modified to guarantee the formation of functional myelin."
"Combining whole-genome sequencing bioinformatics, the authors showed that the DNA modifications induced by TET1 in young adult mice were essential to promote a healthy dialogue among cells in the central nervous system and for guaranteeing proper function. The authors also demonstrated that young adult mice with a genetic modification of TET1 in the myelin-forming glial cells were not capable of producing functional myelin, and therefore behaved like older mice.
"'This newly identified age-related decline in TET1 may account for the inability of older individuals to form new myelin," said Patrizia Casaccia, founding director of the CUNY ASRC Neuroscience Initiative, a professor of Biology and Biochemistry at The Graduate Center, CUNY, and the study's primary investigator."
Comment: Another study finding a specific molecule with necessary specific function. Same thought: how does natural chance evolution stumble into this?
Introducing the brain: neurons in constant flux
by David Turell , Thursday, June 10, 2021, 18:38 (1044 days ago) @ David Turell
Nothing seems stationary with neurons changing as experience continues:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/06/the-brain-isnt-supposed-to-change-t...
"Schoonover, Fink, and their colleagues from Columbia University allowed mice to sniff the same odors over several days and weeks, and recorded the activity of neurons in the rodents’ piriform cortex—a brain region involved in identifying smells. At a given moment, each odor caused a distinctive group of neurons in this region to fire. But as time went on, the makeup of these groups slowly changed. Some neurons stopped responding to the smells; others started. After a month, each group was almost completely different. Put it this way: The neurons that represented the smell of an apple in May and those that represented the same smell in June were as different from each other as those that represent the smells of apples and grass at any one time.
***
"...other scientists have shown that the same phenomenon, called representational drift, occurs in a variety of brain regions besides the piriform cortex. Its existence is clear; everything else is a mystery. Schoonover and Fink told me that they don’t know why it happens, what it means, how the brain copes, or how much of the brain behaves in this way. How can animals possibly make any lasting sense of the world if their neural responses to that world are constantly in flux? If such flux is common, “there must be mechanisms in the brain that are undiscovered and even unimagined that allow it to keep up,” Schoonover said. “Scientists are meant to know what’s going on, but in this particular case, we are deeply confused. We expect it to take many years to iron out.”
***
"In another experiment, Laura Driscoll, a neuroscientist who is now at Stanford, placed mice in a virtual T-shaped maze, and trained them to go either left or right. This simple task depends on the posterior parietal cortex, a brain region involved in spatial reasoning. Driscoll and her colleagues found that activity in this area also drifted: The neurons that fired when the mice ran the maze gradually changed, even though the rodents’ choices remained the same.
"These results were surprising, but not overly so. The hippocampus is also involved in learning and short-term memory. You’d expect it to overwrite itself, and thus to continuously drift. “Up until now, observations of representational drift were confined to brain regions where we could tolerate it,” Schoonover said. The piriform cortex is different. It’s a sensory hub—a region that allows the brain to make sense of the stimuli around it. It ought to be stable: How else would smells ever be familiar? If representational drift can happen in the piriform cortex, it may be common throughout the brain.
"It might be less common in other sensory hubs, such as the visual cortex, which processes information from the eyes. The neurons that respond to the smell of grass might change from month to month, but the ones that respond to the sight of grass seem to mostly stay the same. That might be because the visual cortex is highly organized. Adjacent groups of neurons tend to represent adjacent parts of the visual space in front of us, and this orderly mapping could constrain neural responses from drifting too far. But that might be true only for simple visual stimuli, such as lines or bars. Even in the visual cortex, Ziv found evidence of representational drift when mice watched the same movies over many days."
Comment: I'm not surprised the brain is so confusing. It could not have been designed by chance.
Introducing the brain: vagus nerve interoception
by David Turell , Friday, June 11, 2021, 19:05 (1043 days ago) @ David Turell
How we sense our internal organs. The vagus nerve is very busy:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/06/newly-detailed-nerve-links-between-brain-and-ot...
"scientists are starting to unravel how our wet, spongy, slippery organs talk to the brain and how the brain talks back. That two-way communication, known as interoception, encompasses a complex, bodywide system of nerves and hormones. Much recent exploration has focused on the vagus nerve: a massive, meandering network of more than 100,000 fibers that travel from nearly every internal organ to the base of the brain and back again.
***
"As part of the parasympathetic nervous system—active when the body is at ease or recovering from stress—the vagus regulates autonomic functions such as heart rate, breathing, and digestion. But new studies have shown signals carried by vagal fibers climb beyond the brainstem, revealing a broad interoceptive network in the brain that interprets internal changes, anticipates the body’s needs, and sends commands to fulfill them. The network includes brain regions involved in more complex cognition, which means the nerves monitoring the body’s basic workings also respond to—and influence—how we remember, process emotion, and even construct our sense of self.
***
"Single-cell RNA sequencing, which allows scientists to identify cell types within a tissue on the basis of their patterns of gene expression, has at last made it possible to dissect the “dark matter of the vagus,” says Steve Liberles, a cell biologist at Harvard Medical School. His team used genetics to identify a “staggering diversity” of vagal cell types in rodents, including cells that control breathing and trigger cough, sense changes in blood pressure and oxygen, and detect stretching and nutrients in the digestive system. Most recently, Liberles’s team discovered cells in the brainstem, connected to vagal neurons, that trigger nausea.
***
"Peter Strick, a neuroscientist at the University of Pittsburgh, injected the virus into rat stomachs and discovered vagal pathways that lead to the rostral insula, a poorly understood region thought to process sensations from internal organs and regulate emotions. Strick later showed that those insula cells stimulate digestion, whereas a second vagus tract extending from the motor cortex to the stomach does the opposite—arresting acid production and muscle contractions that help digest and move food.
***
"Rather than passively receiving information, the brain is constantly constructing a model of its sensory conditions and guessing what caused them in order to direct the correct response, Barrett says. “You feel a tug in your chest, and your brain has to decide if it’s because you ate too much for dinner or if it’s the early sign of a heart attack.”
***
"To Tallon-Baudry, the research in coma patients challenges a long history of thinking of bodily regulation as separate from “higher” mental processes, such as language, that constitute our sense of self. Four centuries ago, René Descartes famously conceptualized the mind as being separate from the body. But the EEG study, she says, offers a different idea of consciousness, as a subtle and private act of interoception: “just being present, as the subject of experience.”
Comment: Part of our conscious awareness is the way we sense our bodily functions primarily through the vagus nerve, one of 12 cranial nerves that connect directly to the brain for interpretation. We are the only organism that can make those interpretations. For example, the vagus nerve makes the ape vomit, but only we wonder why. Currently I'm having a mild GI upset and so is my dog. I'm assuming we both have the same virus. These nerve connections let us live while the body primarily runs itself. The system is called the autonomic nervous system. This article is massive and describes many studies using vagus stimulation for various ameliorative purposes. A great design, very coordinated, requiring a designer mind.
Introducing the brain: our ingenious research tricks
by David Turell , Friday, June 11, 2021, 20:09 (1043 days ago) @ David Turell
Using fluorescence to depict cells and their functions:
https://us17.campaign-archive.com/?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=d53d405e33&e=...
"This microscope image shows a neural stem cell — the largest, brightest cell, towards the right — from a Drosophila fruit fly. The cell’s progeny trail to the left in a cluster resembling a bunch of grapes. Fluorescent markers have been embedded in the cells’ membranes so researchers can see how they divide. Such high-resolution imaging has captured the cells’ mechanical motions as they make neurons in the developing brain. “We discovered that stem cells have more in common with real machines on a factory floor than previously appreciated, in that they undergo a mechanical cycle when producing each neuron,” says biochemist Ken Prehoda."
This is how the authors describe their results:
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(21)00485-X?_returnURL=https%3A%2F...
"Our results indicate that the neuroblast membrane plays a role in polarity initiation and maintenance. We observed recruitment of aPKC to apical membrane domains and retention of aPKC at these domains even in the absence of the actin cytoskeleton. While aPKC is also recruited to apical sites outside of membrane domains, this “diffuse” aPKC requires the actin cytoskeleton and rapidly depolarizes in the presence of LatA. Furthermore, when membrane domains are ablated with cyclodextrin, polarity is significantly reduced. Thus, we propose that the two pools of membrane-bound aPKC, diffuse and membrane-domain associated, work together to initiate and maintain apical neuroblast polarity. Given that the membrane density appears to be higher at domain sites, the extended maintenance at domains could arise simply from an initially higher concentration of aPKC. Further work will be necessary to understand if domain-associated aPKC is mechanistically distinct from its diffuse counterpart."
Comment: They have used invented techniques to pick it apart molecule by molecule. Please look at the first website to see the microphotograph of a fluorescent stem cell. Cell intelligence (dhw theory) can't create this. Only a highly-advanced designing mind can.
Introducing the brain: new glial functions found
by David Turell , Monday, June 14, 2021, 19:28 (1040 days ago) @ David Turell
New findings about brain cells that repair:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210614110816.htm
"...a key role for glia, long considered support cells, is emerging. A research group at the University of Basel has now discovered two new types of glial cells in the brain, by unleashing adult stem cells from their quiescent state. These new types of glia may play an important role in brain plasticity and repair.
***
"The research group of Prof. Fiona Doetsch at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel is investigating stem cells in the ventricular-subventricular zone in the adult mouse brain. In this region, many of the stem cells are in a quiescent state, sensing signals in the environment that stimulate them to awaken and transform into new nerve cells.
***
"'Some of the stem cells did not develop into neurons, but into two different novel types of glial cells," Doetsch reports. This brain region studied is therefore a birthplace for different types of glial cells as well as its role as a breeding ground for neurons.
"'What was very unexpected was that one glial cell type was found attached to the surface of the wall of the brain ventricle, rather than in the brain tissue." These cells are continuously bathed by cerebrospinal fluid and interact with axons from other brain areas, and therefore are poised to sense and integrate multiple long-range signals.
"The research team also found that both glial cell types were activated in a model of demyelination. These new glial cell types may therefore be a source of cells for repair in neurodegenerative diseases, such as multiple sclerosis or after injury."
Comment: There is no end to the complexity of the brain
Introducing the brain: even our white matter is different
by David Turell , Thursday, June 17, 2021, 20:55 (1037 days ago) @ David Turell
A description of how our white matter is larger adn how it differs:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6548/1265?utm_campaign=toc_sci-mag_2021-06-1...
"...the cerebral cortex is only a few millimeters thick, so the relative neglect of the rest of the brain below the cortex has prompted the term “corticocentric myopia”. Other regions relevant to behavior include the deep gray matter of the basal ganglia and thalamus, the brainstem and cerebellum, and the white matter that interconnects all of these structures. On page 1304 of this issue, Zhao et al. present compelling evidence for the importance of white matter by demonstrating genetic influences on structural connectivity that invoke a host of provocative clinical implications.
***
"White matter occupies about half of the adult human brain, and some 135,000 km of myelinated axons course through a wide array of tracts to link gray matter regions into distributed neural networks that serve cognitive and emotional functions. The human brain is particularly well interconnected because white matter has expanded more in evolution than gray matter, which has endowed the brain of Homo sapiens with extensive structural connectivity. The myelin sheath, white matter's characteristic feature, appeared late in vertebrate evolution and greatly increased axonal conduction velocity. This development enhanced the efficiency of distributed neural networks, expanding the transfer of information throughout the brain. Information transfer serves to complement the information processing of gray matter, where neuronal cell bodies, synapses, and a variety of neurotransmitters are located. The result is a brain with prodigious numbers of both neurons and myelinated axons, which have evolved to subserve the domains of attention, memory, emotion, language, perception, visuospatial processing, executive function, and social cognition.
***
"The emerging recognition of white matter and its contribution to human behavior will advance medicine as well as neuroscience. Considering both environmental and genetic factors clarifies the structure and function of normal and abnormal tracts, and this knowledge promises in turn to improve the diagnosis and treatment of people in whom white matter dysfunction may be disturbing neurobehavioral capacity. Moreover, the understanding of AD and many disabling neuropsychiatric disorders may be transformed by a focus on microstructural pathology in myelinated tracts. Broadly, a more detailed understanding of the relationships between white matter and behavior will surely expand knowledge of the brain. A complete portrait of the structural basis of cognition and emotion cannot neglect the white matter because it interacts so intimately with its gray matter counterpart."
Comment: The main point is the enormous connectivity between the brain parts which allows to to have the thinking capacity we have. Had to be designed.
Introducing the brain: we learn to see
by David Turell , Saturday, June 19, 2021, 20:05 (1035 days ago) @ David Turell
A book review about man who had to learn to see after surgery at age 15. He never developed the sight we normal folks have:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-boy-who-learned-to-seeand-what-he-teaches-us-about-vis...
"To ask a blind person to acquire the sense of sight after childhood is to ask them to reshape their identity. They may have functioned quite independently when blind but now find themselves as vulnerable as a young child. With their new sight, they can see but cannot recognize a flight of stairs or a loved one’s face. Bombarded by visual stimuli they don’t understand, many who gain sight in adulthood become despondent, reject their vision or even lose the will to live.
***
"As the philosopher Alva Noë has written, “Perception is not something that happens to us, or in us. It is something we do.” We move our body, head and eyes to look and listen, to take in information about the world. Since we direct what we see, developing vision as an adult is an intensely active process. A new pair of eyes won’t lead to vision unless the owner of those new eyes pays attention to what he is sensing and figures out its meaning.
***
"Nine months after the second surgery, one of the lenses moved out of position, causing Liam to experience double vision. The lens was replaced, and this time the improvement in acuity was immediate. The gains in acuity after the first two surgeries may have occurred gradually because it took the brain some time to process all the new information that the eyes could now provide. Not only did his acuity improve tremendously, but his nystagmus was reduced. His binocular vision improved, as did his depth perception, albeit slowly.
"But the improvements were discombobulating. Surgery plunged Liam into a world of sharp lines and edges. He now saw lines wherever there were changes in color, light or texture; where one object ended and another began; where an object in front occluded an object behind; and where a shadow was cast on a surface. While we all see lines at the boundaries of objects or shadows, we know where these lines belong. We recognize an object immediately—all of its parts combine together, instantly and effortlessly, into a single unit. But after a childhood of near-blindness, Liam did not recognize the lines as boundaries of known objects. Instead, he saw a tangled, fragmented world.
***
"After his surgeries, Liam’s eyes provided his neurons with the input they had long been waiting for. But he lacked the visual experience of seeing beyond a few inches, so he had not yet developed the “top-down” processing that organizes these local details into coherent objects and landscapes. As a result, he had to rely heavily on “bottom-up” processing and consciously piece together the visual world from its parts.
“'Up close,” Liam wrote, “things are more like objects than visual chaos, but there is a definite difference when I see something further away. Those objects have no meaning, and I struggle to tell if a bar of color is the front of a truck or side of a bus or roof of a building. If people even stand slightly further away and talk to me or say hi from down the hall, it has a very different feeling, and it doesn’t seem as real.”
***
"Though we are not born with an innate ability to recognize household or most natural objects, we may be born with a rudimentary face-detecting skill. Infants just nine minutes old exhibit a preference for looking at a human face. This remarkable fact was discovered during an experiment in which different pictures were moved across a newborn’s field of view. When a face pattern (an oval for the head, enclosing shapes that looked like eyes, a nose and a mouth) was waved in front of the baby, the child would turn his or her head and eyes to follow the pattern. But if the features were all mixed up so that the pattern no longer resembled a face, the infant did not follow the pattern as reliably or for as long."
Comment: Just as we learn to walk we learn to see, and obviously we learn to feel, to hear, to taste, etc. Our brain is designed as quite helpful to build up an encyclopedia of recorded knowledge to help us navigate living. This is the blank slate aspect of the newborn brain, I have referred to in the past. What is not blank is our congenital inheritance and our experiences as we develop from infanthood. I've not reproduced a huge section of study about optic neurophysiology that the article contains.
Introducing the brain: interoception may make our self sense
by David Turell , Monday, June 28, 2021, 19:07 (1026 days ago) @ David Turell
A whole new study of self from the viewpoint of our feeling our insides:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-06-explores-perception-internal-bodily-concept.html
"In contrast with other animal species on Earth, over the course of their life, humans can develop a fairly clear idea of who they are as individuals and what sets them apart from others. This abstract concept of self is known to be fragmented and fuzzy in individuals with certain psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder and dissociative identity disorder.
"Researchers at the Aglioti Lab, part of Sapienza University of Rome recently authored a review paper examining experimental evidence suggesting that the birth, maintenance and loss of this abstract concept of self is deeply tied to what is known as interoception. This refers to an individual's sense of his/her internal physiological signals.
"'A couple of years ago, we discovered a new bodily illusion here at the Aglioti Lab," Alessandro Monti, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Medical Xpress. "This 'embreathment' illusion, as we called it, suggests that your concept of yourself (i.e., who you think you are) is partly shaped by feelings that come from your viscera, particularly from the heart and the lungs. We discussed our work with Prof. Anna Borghi, a good friend and colleague of ours."
***
The results of their analyses suggest that the most intimate and invariable features of people's concept of self were those that were, quite literally, closest to the heart (i.e., those most influenced by interoceptive signals). In other words, people's abstract concept of self appears to be closely influenced by their perception of signals originating from their body. More specifically, past studies suggest that those with a stronger and more stable concept of self are more entuned with their inner bodily signals, particularly their heartbeat and breath, and are less prone to sensory illusions.
"'While the concept of self is related also to transient sensory and motor experiences, we claim that it is the cyclic physiology of the viscera that provides the self-concept with a firm foundation, contributing to its stability and sanity over time by making it less permeable to external influences," Monti said. "We argue that this stabilizing role of interoception on the self-concept is not limited to the material self, but also extends to the social and spiritual self."
"The overreaching conclusion of the recent review paper authored by Monti and his colleagues is that humans' abstract concept of self is not merely embodied; it is deeply embodied. In the future, this observation could have important implications for the development of treatment strategies for psychiatric patients with a fragmented or hindered concept of self."
Comment: an interesting approach which points out we are the only evolved organisms who can analyze those internal feels with immaterial concepts of self.
Introducing the brain: an illusion of light rays
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 29, 2021, 19:21 (1025 days ago) @ David Turell
Vireo must be watched understand:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-06-kind-visual-illusion-uncovers-brains.html
The illusion, which the creators label "Scintillating Starburst," evokes illusory rays that seem to shimmer or scintillate—like a starburst. Composed of several concentric star polygons, the images prompt viewers to see bright fleeting rays emanating from the center that are not actually there.
"The research illustrates how the brain 'connects the dots' to create a subjective reality in what we see, highlighting the constructive nature of perception," explains Pascal Wallisch, a clinical associate professor in New York University's Department of Psychology and Center for Data Science and senior author of the paper, which appears in the journal i-Perception.
Comment: How our brain tries to help us. Watch the fascinating video
Introducing the brain: rat whisker codes
by David Turell , Wednesday, September 22, 2021, 23:12 (940 days ago) @ David Turell
Rat whiskers give their brain great detail:
https://evolutionnews.org/2016/03/by_a_whisker_sc/
"By connecting a motion source to a rat’s whisker when it was anesthetized, and attaching sensors on its brain to a computer, they could observe in real time how the brain responded through a complete phase cycle. A news item posted on Weizmann Wonder Wander explains what they discovered:
"As our sensory organs register objects and structures in the outside world, they are continually engaged in two-way communication with the brain. In research recently published in Nature Neuroscience, Weizmann Institute scientists found that for rats, which use their whiskers to feel out their surroundings at night, clumps of nerve endings called mechanoreceptors located at the base of each whisker act as tiny calculators. These receptors continuously compute the way the whisker’s base rotates in its socket, expressing it as a fraction of the entire projected rotation of the whisker, so that the brain is continually updated on the way that the whisker’s rotation is being followed through.
***
"What’s really fascinating is that these mechanoreceptors don’t just blindly send pulses to the brain, leaving the work to the brain to put the information together. They actually run some pre-processing algorithms on the data.
"The discovery that the mechanoreceptors within the whisker follicle were actually calculating the whisker’s motion phase “online” came as a surprise to the researchers, because knowing the phase implies predictive knowledge of how the whisker motion will develop. The assumption was that specialized neuronal circuits would perform this calculation using raw data from both the receptor and the brain’s motion-planning circuits.
“'On second thought,” says Ahissar, “this work division is sensible. The sensory organs are not merely ‘signal converters.’ Rather, they are broad, inclusive interfaces between organisms and their environments, providing everything the brain needs for making sense out of their signals.”
***
"The paper describes how the scientists found that the phase angle response was robust, no matter how fast the whisker twitched or how high it moved. This gave them a hint that the cells in the whisker follicle are running a “predictive algorithm” of some sort on the incoming data.
"Using a closed-loop interface in anesthetized rats, we found that whisking phase is already encoded in a frequency- and amplitude-invariant manner by primary vibrissal afferents. We found that, for naturally constrained whisking dynamics, such invariant phase coding could be obtained by tuning each receptor to a restricted kinematic subspace. Invariant phase coding was preserved in the brainstem, where paralemniscal neurons filtered out the slowly evolving offset, whereas lemniscal neurons preserved it. These results demonstrate accurate, perceptually relevant, mechanically based processing at the sensor level.
"The phase angle information appears to get encoded independently of other factors. All this information is coded in neural spikes to the brain, which has to decode the information. The brain can then encode feedback information through the nerves to the muscles that move the whiskers, providing near-real-time response to the data.
***
"Our most surprising finding is the ability of mechanoreceptive afferents to represent whisking phases in a reliable and selective manner; we found that most of these cells and their brainstem targets tended to fire at specific phases in the whisking cycle, irrespective of the cycle’s amplitude or duration. As this invariant phase computation is performed while the cycle is on-going, mechanoreceptor coding can be viewed as being equivalent to predicting the future evolution of the whisking cycle. The relative success of the first-order kinematic model in reproducing frequency- and amplitude-invariant phase tuning demonstrates that this capacity relies on the constrained dynamics of natural whisking and requires the cells to respond in a restricted region in the angle-velocity kinematic space. Notably, a recent study found [an] array of club-like mechanoreceptors in the follicular ringwurst structure that surrounds the vibrissal shaft, which, together with the rotation of the follicles during protraction, may enable the kinematic-to-phase transformation along the whisking cycle."
Comment: An extensive design that could not develop by chance. Rats are nocturnal and the whiskers guide them. Baby rats use the whiskers by learning to use them. They were created by design for future use.
Introducing the brain: making different neurons
by David Turell , Thursday, September 23, 2021, 19:35 (939 days ago) @ David Turell
The process for making different neurons:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-09-neuron-reveals-cellular-diversity-emerges.html
"Now, researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the Flatiron Institute have shown how two key cell types in the brain's cortex arise from a single progenitor in mice. Led by Kathryn Allaway, Orly Wapinski, and Gord Fishell of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at Broad, as well as Mariano Gabitto and Richard Bonneau of the Flatiron Institute, the researchers have discovered genetic and molecular factors that allow the two populations of interneurons to develop different identities.
***
"Interneurons are neurons located exclusively in the central nervous system, and are more diverse in shape, connectivity, and function than any other type of cell in the front of the brain. The two most prominent types of interneurons are parvalbumin (PV)- and somatostatin (SST)-positive cells. In adults, these cells could not be more dissimilar.
"While both are inhibitory cells—they stop or slow down neuronal firing—PV and SST cells do this in different ways. PV cells act as a kind of veto, stopping a signal altogether, whereas SST cells fine-tune neuronal communication, allowing some signals to go through while halting others.
***
"By comparing gene regulatory networks for different time points before and after birth, the team found that the two interneuron types diverged when they stopped migrating during early development and settled in the cortex. They found that certain proteins called transcription factors, which help regulate gene activity, were shared in both cell types but acted differently to direct development of the two cell types. This suggests that chromatin architecture plays a major role in maintaining the ultimate fate of the cells by controlling which transcription factors can access DNA to regulate gene expression. (my bold)
"Using their computational models, Fishell's team was then able to predict the impact of certain genes on cell type development. In particular, they found that the Mef2c gene, which is mutated in a severe form of autism, was involved in sculpting chromatin in both PV and SST cells but was particularly critical for PV cells. When the team disabled Mef2c in cells in the lab, they confirmed that their model accurately predicted 80 percent of the molecular targets that are regulated by Mef2c in both SST and PV cells."
Comment: My bold notes the importance of 3-D relationships. These relationships have to be deigned for proper gene expression for controlled activation by neighboring sites. This offers more insight into the embryology of the brain.
Introducing the brain: deep brain stimulation
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 06, 2021, 17:36 (1018 days ago) @ David Turell
One study on OCD with deeply implanted electrodes:
https://aeon.co/essays/how-deep-brain-stimulation-changes-a-persons-sense-of-confidence...
"Our group specialises in deep brain stimulation (DBS), an innovative treatment in psychiatry offered to a small but significant number of patients who don’t respond to psychotherapy or medication. DBS involves the implantation of electrodes that deliver pulses of electrical stimulation to areas deep inside the brain.
***
"Since 2005, our research group has treated 85 patients with OCD. As the trained philosophers on the team, our interest has naturally been piqued by the instantaneous changes in lived experiences we’ve observed in these patients. But we’re also puzzled: how could applying an electrical current to neuronal cells deep in the brain lead to such complex changes in the patient’s experience, like those we’ve just described? Why would electrically induced changes in the brain have an immediate impact on the suffering of patients for whom all other treatments in psychiatry have failed? If anxiety can be turned down in a split second, just by modifying the electrical activity of neurons, what does this tell us about the mind and its relation to the brain?
"To learn more about how DBS has changed the lives of the patients we’re treating for OCD, we decided to carry out interviews with a group of them, eliciting responses that reflected as closely as possible these patients’ own personal stories of struggle and transformation after treatment with DBS. They told us that following DBS they felt more certain about themselves in their transactions with the world. They trusted in their own abilities for dealing with the world. Several patients told us they felt empowered by DBS:
"DBS certainly has done something, because I am much stronger and powerful now. And much more like, you know, this is what I want, and this is what I will pursue, making my own choices. Before, I would never have done that, I didn’t dare.
***
"Why does electrical stimulation of the brain restore the ability to project a possible future not determined by a patient’s illness? Direct impact on brain function and neuronal mechanisms might provide an answer. The patients being treated in our hospital, for instance, receive stimulation of brain areas located in the ventral striatum, leading to changes in the large-scale connections that form between the striatum, the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, brain areas that play a role in decision-making, memory and thinking. One might hypothesise that the transformation following DBS can be explained by changes to this once-dysfunctional neural network. (my bold)
"But this cannot be the whole answer. The changes the patient experiences following DBS go far beyond a decrease in their obsessions and compulsions. They include a wholesale change in the person, including an increase in self-confidence; yet loss of self-confidence is not among the symptoms currently used to diagnose OCD."
Comment: Much of this article is psychiatric discussion of how this stimulation works, but never reaches the 'why' at a neuronal level which is described in my bold just above. OCD is an anxiety disorder which drives patients to repeated habits, such as a person who constantly washes hands and always wear sterile gloves in fear of encountering germs. The patient described at the start of this article had a compulsion to kill her newborn, cured by the therapy. My view as a dualist is the network, described in the bold, is sick and misinterprets thoughts received from the consciousness, and the electric stimulation corrects the reception ability of the sick neuron network. dhw will claim this is pure materialism=. It isn't. Malfunctioning neurons are material and misfiring receivers of an immaterial consciousness. Thus two-part dualism. Neurons don't create consciousness as dhw seems to imply.
Introducing the brain: forming the neo-cortex
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 06, 2021, 19:06 (1018 days ago) @ David Turell
A study in mice:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-cerebral-neocortex.html
"The neocortex is a layered structure of the brain in which neurons are arranged parallel to each other. This organization is critical for healthy brain function. A team of researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin have uncovered two key processes that direct this organization. Reporting in Science Advances, the researchers identify one crucial factor which ensures the timely movement of neurons into their destined layer and, subsequently, their final parallel orientation within this space.
"The neocortex is the outer region of the brain. It is responsible for cognitive functions such as language, decision-making, and voluntary movement. A highly organized structure, its component neurons are stratified horizontally into six layers in which neurons and their branched processes (dendrites) assume a parallel orientation to each other. In order to form this layered structure, neurons must first migrate from the ventricular zone—where they are generated by neural stem cells—to their final destination. "The structure of the neocortex determines its function.
***
"'We found that this layered structure only forms if newly generated neurons are able to start migration to their intended destinations at the right time. We were also able to show for the first time that, upon arrival, these cells undergo a process of reorientation to enable them to extend their main dendritic protrusion—the apical dendrite—in the direction of the cerebral membranes, and thus align in a parallel fashion to each other," says Dr. Rosário. She adds: "Only by completing these two key processes can neurons subsequently form the correct connections with other neurons, necessary for brain function."
"Using a mouse model, the researchers were able to identify the regulatory protein Zeb2 as responsible for controlling both processes. In order to commence migration at the right moment, neurons must first detach from their original location, where they are firmly anchored within the surrounding 'extracellular matrix'. Zeb2 acts to restrict the production of the surface protein neuropilin-1, which is responsible for maintaining adhesion. To ensure that neurons can reorient themselves upon arrival in the cerebral cortex, Zeb2 employs another surface protein, cadherin-6, to control adhesion, ensuring that cell-cell and cell-matrix contacts occur in a balanced manner. Zeb2 therefore controls two crucial signaling pathways which are responsible for interactions between cells and their environment."
Comment: This study shows DNA controls over neuron migration in embryological development which must end up as a precise arrangement. Only design by a designer fits.
Introducing the brain: finding phase precession
by David Turell , Wednesday, July 07, 2021, 21:44 (1017 days ago) @ David Turell
A study of human brain waves:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-kind-of-information-coding-seen-in-the-human-brain...
"For the first time, Jacobs and two coauthors spied neurons in the human brain encoding spatial information through the timing, rather than rate, of their firing. This temporal firing phenomenon is well documented in certain brain areas of rats, but the new study and others suggest it might be far more widespread in mammalian brains. “The more we look for it, the more we see it,” Jacobs said.
***
"The phenomenon is called phase precession. It’s a relationship between the continuous rhythm of a brain wave — the overall ebb and flow of electrical signaling in an area of the brain — and the specific moments that neurons in that brain area activate. A theta brain wave, for instance, rises and falls in a consistent pattern over time, but neurons fire inconsistently, at different points on the wave’s trajectory. In this way, brain waves act like a clock, said one of the study’s coauthors, Salman Qasim, also of Columbia. They let neurons time their firings precisely so that they’ll land in range of other neurons’ firing — thereby forging connections between neurons.
"Researchers began noticing phase precession decades ago among the neurons in rat brains that encode information about spatial position. Human brains and rat brains both contain these so-called place cells, each of which is tuned to a specific region or “place field.” Our brains seem to scale these place fields to cover our current surroundings, whether that’s miles of freeway or the rooms of one’s home,...The closer you get to the center of a place field, the faster the corresponding place cell fires. As you leave one place field and enter another, the firing of the first place cell peters out, while that of the second picks up.
"But along with rate, there’s also timing: As the rat passes through a place field, the associated place cell fires earlier and earlier with respect to the cycle of the background theta wave. As the rat crosses from one place field into another, the very early firing of the first place cell occurs close in time with the late firing of the next place cell. Their near-coincident firings cause the synapse, or connection, between them to strengthen, and this coupling of the place cells ingrains the rat’s trajectory into the brain. (Information seems to be encoded through the strengthening of synapses only when two neurons fire within tens of milliseconds of each other.)
***
"Monitoring individual neurons is too invasive to do on the average human study participant, but the Columbia team took advantage of data collected years ago from 13 epilepsy patients who had already had electrodes implanted to map the electrical signals of their seizures. The electrodes recorded the firings of individual neurons while patients steered their way through a virtual-reality simulation using a joystick. As the patients maneuvered themselves around, the researchers identified phase precession in 12% of the neurons they were monitoring.
***
"...in humans, research co-authored by Jacobs last year found phase precession in time-sensitive brain cells. A not-yet-peer-reviewed preprint by cognitive scientists in France and the Netherlands indicated that processing serial images involved phase precession, too. Finally, in Jacobs’ new study, it was found not just in literal navigation, but also as the humans progressed toward abstract goals in the simulation.
"These studies suggest that phase precession allows the brain to link sequences of times, images and events in the same way as it does spatial positions. “Finding that first evidence really opens the door for it to be some sort of universal coding mechanism in the brain — across mammalian species, possibly,” Qasim said. “You might be missing a whole lot of information coding if you’re not tracking the relative timing of neural activity.”
"Neuroscientists are, in fact, on the lookout for a new kind of coding in the brain to answer the longstanding question: How does the brain encode information so quickly?...But artificial intelligence researchers typically have to train artificial neural networks on hundreds or thousands of examples of a pattern or concept before the synapse strengths adjust enough for the network to learn the pattern. Mysteriously, humans can typically learn from just one or a handful of examples.
***
"Phase precession organizes the timing so that learning happens more often than it could otherwise. It arranges for neurons activated by related information to fire in quick-enough succession for the synapse between them to strengthen. “It would point to this notion that the brain is basically computing faster than you would imagine from rate coding alone,” Diba said."
Comment: Just to show all of us the brain is not a computer as AI folks are learning. Note we find early evidence of these systems in lesser brained animals. In evolution early working designs appear later in more advanced designs in more advanced forms. dhw take note.
Introducing the brain: how place cells work
by David Turell , Monday, July 12, 2021, 19:01 (1012 days ago) @ David Turell
A special area of the hippocampus used as we travel:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210708143856.htm
"When driving up to a busy intersection, you probably pay more attention to where you will be in the near future than where you are at that moment. After all, knowing when you will arrive at the intersection -- and whether you need to stop or slow down to avoid a collision with a passing car, pedestrian or cyclist -- is usually much more important than knowing your current location.
"This ability to focus on where we will be in the near future -- rather than where we are in the present -- may be a key characteristic of the mammalian brain's built-in navigation system, suggests a new study appearing online Thursday, July 8, in the journal Science.
***
"When the researchers compared the bats' flight paths with their neural readings, they found that the activities of the bats' "place cells" -- special type of neurons responsible for encoding an animal's spatial position -- were often more closely correlated with where the bats would be in the near future, rather than where they were in the moment.
"'We wanted to find out: Does the neural activity at the present moment do a better job at representing a past or future position than it does the actual present position? And we found that, for some neurons, the neural activity actually does a much better job of representing a future position," said lead author Nicholas Dotson, who conducted the research as a postdoctoral scholar at UC Berkeley. "The finding shows that neural activity in this region is representing more than the bat's present position -- it's tentatively representing a full flight trajectory."
"Place cells, located in a region of the brain called the hippocampus, work together to form an innate "GPS system" for a variety of land animals, including humans. As an animal explores a new environment, different place cells activate at different positions, creating an internal map of the territory that can be saved and stored.
***
"When Yartsev and Dotson compared the timing of neural activity with the bats' flight paths, they found that when shifting the bats' positions forward in time -- by comparing the neural activity with the locations where the bats would be in a few hundred milliseconds, or in a second -- suddenly, the neural activity correlated much more strongly with spatial position.
"'Based on the data, you might assume that some neurons don't encode spatial information at all, because there is no correlation with the position at time zero or the present moment," Yartsev said. "But if you compare their activity to a position a second in the future, suddenly the correlation is incredibly sharp.'"
"The findings suggest that place cells' activity doesn't just represent a single current position, but actually a trajectory that stretches into the near future, and into the past, as well."
Comment: The researches, based on logic, assume we use place cells as bats do. This brain ability must be designed into hippocampal organization. It is not clear how chance mutation could create this necessary system in a stepwise fashion..
Introducing the brain: microglial repair mechanism
by David Turell , Friday, July 23, 2021, 18:49 (1001 days ago) @ David Turell
New discovery:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-07-discovery-unknown-brain-repair-epilepsy-treatmen...
"Using high-powered imaging, the researchers were able to see, for the first time, that immune cells called microglia were not just removing damaged material after experimental seizures, but actually appeared to be healing damaged neurons.
***
"Rather than simply cleaning up debris, the microglia began forming pouches. These pouches didn't swallow up damaged material, as many immune cells do. Instead, they began tending to swollen dendrites—the branches of nerve cells that transmit nerve impulses. They weren't removing, the scientists realized; they appeared to be healing.
"These odd little pouches—the scientists named them "microglial process pouches"—stuck around for hours. They often shrank, but they were clearly doing something beneficial, because the dendrites they targeted ended up looking better and healthier than those they didn't.
"'We did not find microglia to be 'eating' the neuronal elements in this context," Eyo said. "Rather, we saw a strong correlation between these interactions and a structural resolution of injured neurons suggestive of a 'healing' process.'"
Comment: this finding is in mouse brains, but points to the early development in evolution of brain protections, which are so necessary to protect the brain's vital functions. In my belief system, a great example of God evolving protections for the human brain.
Introducing the brain: helps us understanding reality
by David Turell , Saturday, July 24, 2021, 19:28 (1000 days ago) @ David Turell
As shown in this vision study:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2285131-we-thought-our-eyes-turned-off-when-moving...
"Several times each second, we quickly change our line of sight, shifting our focus from one point in a scene to another. These fast, jerky eye movements, or saccades, each last less than 50 milliseconds, and our vision is reduced during that time. Some people have argued that our eyes lose their ability to process visual information in this time.
"Richard Schweitzer and Martin Rolfs at Humboldt University of Berlin in Germany have shown that this isn’t the case: we are, in fact, able to absorb information from our surroundings during such rapid eye movements.
“'This kind of changes the way we approach perception because we used to think about motor actions and perception as two distinct things,” says Rolfs. “What this insight shows, I think, is that as we continue to interact between how we move and what we perceive, that it’s not two separate processes. It’s two things working together; they go hand in hand.”
"The pair worked with 20 volunteers who were asked to seek out and focus on a visual target displayed on a screen, which naturally encouraged their eyes to dart around performing saccades. However, the target on the screen was shown using a high-speed projector that was capable of generating about 70 images during each 50-millisecond-long saccade. This meant the researchers could have the target move smoothly so that its position at the end of the saccade was different from its position at the start.
"The volunteers detected this within-saccade movement: at the end of the saccade, when their eyes looked for the target again, they seemed to have anticipated where the target would now be located. The researchers could confirm this because the volunteers were able to correct their eye movement to locate the target more quickly than would have been the case had their eyes not detected the target’s movement during the saccade.
“'The paper suggests that during eye movements, what is left of motion streaks (the traces left in our visual system by fast-moving objects) helps perception, whereas it is a disturbance when the eyes are steady,” says Paola Binda at the University of Pisa in Italy. “This point would need direct testing, of course, but it is an intriguing one.'”
Comment: Just our visual cortex helping fill in the gaps. No other way to explain this good brain design.
Introducing the brain: how we recognize faces
by David Turell , Thursday, July 29, 2021, 21:54 (995 days ago) @ David Turell
In the temporal lobe:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6554/581
"What makes familiar faces so special?
Explicit semantic information in the brain is generated by gradually stripping off the specific context in which the item is embedded. A particularly striking example of such explicit representations are face-specific neurons. Landi et al. report the properties of neurons in a small region of the monkey anterior temporal cortex that respond to the sight of familiar faces. These cells respond to the internal features of familiar faces but not unknown faces. Some of these responses are very highly selective, reliably responding to only one face out of a vast number of other stimuli. These findings will advance our understanding about where and how semantic memories are stored in the brain.
"Abstract
The question of how the brain recognizes the faces of familiar individuals has been important throughout the history of neuroscience. Cells linking visual processing to person memory have been proposed but not found. Here, we report the discovery of such cells through recordings from an area in the macaque temporal pole identified with functional magnetic resonance imaging. These cells responded to faces that were personally familiar. They responded nonlinearly to stepwise changes in face visibility and detail and holistically to face parts, reflecting key signatures of familiar face recognition. They discriminated between familiar identities, as fast as a general face identity area. The discovery of these cells establishes a new pathway for the fast recognition of familiar individuals.
***
"Face cells and an entire network of face areas have been discovered in the superior temporal sulcus (STS) and inferotemporal (IT) cortex, and person memory cells have been discovered in the medial temporal lobe. However, in the temporal pole, only a few electrophysiological recordings have been performed. With neuropsychological evidence pointing toward a role of this region in person recognition (8), and the recent discovery of a small subregion (temporal pole face area TP) selective for familiar faces, we decided to record from the temporal pole. Because face identity memories might be consolidated exactly where they are processed, we also recorded from the most identity-selective face area in the IT, the anterior-medial face area (face area AM).)
Comment: Presented for interest. it shows the brain uses specific areas for specific tasks. In any social setting face recognition is essential, for both apes and monkeys and us. wezee it damaged in strokes
Introducing the brain: processing sounds and words
by David Turell , Wednesday, August 18, 2021, 18:48 (975 days ago) @ David Turell
More complex than thought:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-08-words-simultaneously-brain.html
"After years of research, neuroscientists have discovered a new pathway in the human brain that processes the sounds of language. The findings, reported August 18 in the journal Cell, suggest that auditory and speech processing occur in parallel, contradicting a long-held theory that the brain processed acoustic information then transformed it into linguistic information.
***
"Surprisingly, the team found that some areas located in the STG responded as fast as the primary auditory cortex when sentences were played, suggesting that both areas started processing acoustic information at the same time.
"Additionally, as part of clinical language mapping, reseaarchers stimulated the participants' primary auditory cortex with small electric currents. If speech processing follows a serial pathway as the traditional model suggests, the stimuli would likely distort the patients' perception of speech. On the contrary, while participants experienced auditory noise hallucinations induced by the stimuli, they were still able to clearly hear and repeat words said to them. However, when the STG was stimulated, the participants reported that they could hear people speaking, "but can't make out the words."
***
"The latest evidence suggests the traditional hierarchy model of speech processing is over-simplified and likely incorrect. The researchers speculate that the STG may function independently from—instead of as a next step of—processing in the primary auditory cortex.
"The parallel nature of speech processing may give doctors new ideas for how to treat conditions such as dyslexia, where children have trouble identifying speech sounds."
Comment: the brain is always more complex than expected.
Introducing the brain: rethinking brain organization
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 24, 2021, 19:22 (969 days ago) @ David Turell
There are general areas of specific function, but generally the brain works a whole:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/mental-phenomena-dont-map-into-the-brain-as-expected-202...
"Neuroscientists are the cartographers of the brain’s diverse domains and territories — the features and activities that define them, the roads and highways that connect them, and the boundaries that delineate them. Toward the front of the brain, just behind the forehead, is the prefrontal cortex, celebrated as the seat of judgment. Behind it lies the motor cortex, responsible for planning and coordinating movement. To the sides: the temporal lobes, crucial for memory and the processing of emotion. Above them, the somatosensory cortex; behind them, the visual cortex.
***
"But a brain map with neat borders is not just oversimplified — it’s misleading. “Scientists for over 100 years have searched fruitlessly for brain boundaries between thinking, feeling, deciding, remembering, moving and other everyday experiences,” Barrett said. A host of recent neurological studies further confirm that these mental categories “are poor guides for understanding how brains are structured or how they work.”
"Neuroscientists generally agree about how the physical tissue of the brain is organized: into particular regions, networks, cell types. But when it comes to relating those to the task the brain might be performing — perception, memory, attention, emotion or action — “things get a lot more dodgy,” said David Poeppel, a neuroscientist at New York University.
***
"But they also found unsettling evidence that those categories and the neural networks that support them don’t work as expected. It’s not just that the architecture of the brain disrespects the boundaries between the established mental categories. It’s that there’s so much overlap that a single brain network “has more aliases than Sherlock Holmes,” Barrett said.
***
"But he and other scientists believe the recent findings also highlight a deeper conceptual problem in neuroscience. “We divide the real estate of the brain according to our preconceived ideas, assuming — wrongly, as far as I’m concerned — that those preconceived ideas have boundaries, and the same boundaries exist in brain function,” Buzsáki said.
"In 2019, Russell Poldrack, a neuroscientist at Stanford University, and his colleagues set out to test how appropriate the recognized categories for mental function are. They gathered a massive amount of behavioral data — obtained from experiments designed to test different aspects of cognitive control, including working memory, response inhibition and learning — and ran it through a machine learning classifier. The resulting classifications defied expectations, mixing up traditional categories of brain results and sorting them into new groups that seemed to “move together in terms of some much more generic constructs,” Poldrack said — constructs for which we don’t yet have labels, and which might not relate directly to our conscious experience.
***
"But teasing apart the significance of different brain areas is further complicated by the discovery that the involvement of neural systems in particular functions isn’t simply all or nothing. Sometimes it’s contingent on the details of what’s being processed."
Comment: We see the brain is not a computer. As a living organ the neurons of a specific area can recruit any and all of the brain as required when the neurons recognize the current task at hand. That has to be seen as superb design. The article is very long and filled with examples of current discoveries.
Introducing the brain: complexity of one neuron
by David Turell , Thursday, September 02, 2021, 19:09 (960 days ago) @ David Turell
A comparison from AI:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-computationally-complex-is-a-single-neuron-20210902/
"...our understanding of the computational complexity of single neurons has dramatically expanded, so biological neurons are known to be more complex than artificial ones. But by how much?
"To find out, David Beniaguev, Idan Segev and Michael London, all at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, trained an artificial deep neural network to mimic the computations of a simulated biological neuron. They showed that a deep neural network requires between five and eight layers of interconnected “neurons” to represent the complexity of one single biological neuron.
***
"The most basic analogy between artificial and real neurons involves how they handle incoming information. Both kinds of neurons receive incoming signals and, based on that information, decide whether to send their own signal to other neurons. While artificial neurons rely on a simple calculation to make this decision, decades of research have shown that the process is far more complicated in biological neurons. Computational neuroscientists use an input-output function to model the relationship between the inputs received by a biological neuron’s long treelike branches, called dendrites, and the neuron’s decision to send out a signal.
***
"They continued increasing the number of layers until they achieved 99% accuracy at the millisecond level between the input and output of the simulated neuron. The deep neural network successfully predicted the behavior of the neuron’s input-output function with at least five — but no more than eight — artificial layers. In most of the networks, that equated to about 1,000 artificial neurons for just one biological neuron.
Comment: This study from AI shows how very complex a single neuron is in its potential activities. Not by chance.
Introducing the brain: interpreting somatosensory input
by David Turell , Monday, October 04, 2021, 19:38 (928 days ago) @ David Turell
Requires specialized receptors:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/medicine-nobel-prize-goes-for-temperature-and-touch-disc...
"We often talk about having five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. But as a category of sensation, touch is so broad that it really should be treated as more than one. Tactile perception is just one component of the body and brain’s somatosensory system, which also includes the perception of temperature, pain, body position and self-movement.
"The ability to feel hot and cold, to recognize an object by touch alone, to respond to pain, to balance on a beam — all fall under the umbrella of somatosensation. The somatosensory system also helps to regulate many key internal physiological processes, including blood pressure, respiration, urination and bone remodeling.
***
"What makes the somatosensory system even more complex is that it needs to discriminate between sensations that are graded in intensity but sometimes sharply distinguished in their effect: Gentle warmth can build into searing heat, and what starts as a welcome embrace can become crushing pressure. Moreover, those thresholds can change depending on context: A light touch can feel uncomfortable or painful if one has a sunburn, and our experience of the same stimulus can similarly shift in different social settings. The somatosensory system has to integrate a wide range of different signals to correctly interpret what’s going on and how to respond.
"As Julius’ and Patapoutian’s work has shown, somatosensory receptors are ion channels. When stimulated — by some degree of temperature or physical force, or by a chemical compound — the channels open and allow charged particles to flow into a nerve cell, which in turn allows the cell to pass along somatosensory information in the form of electrical signals.
"Even within one category of somatosensation, different receptors respond to different sets of stimuli. There are distinct receptors for specific ranges of temperature; receptors for sharp pain versus a dull ache; for a gentle touch or a rapid vibration or a firm pressure. Still others are tuned to how muscles or tendons might be contracting or stretching.
***
"While the various types of somatosensory information are all vital for day-to-day activity and survival, their involvement in pain stands out in importance. It’s the job of pain to attract immediate attention and alert us to potential dangers, both external and internal. Free nerve endings respond to chemicals released by inflamed or damaged tissue, or to extreme levels of mechanical force that we perceive as painful. Different receptors distinguish between kinds of pain: sharp or pinching, dull or aching."
Comment: How does a very necessary system like this develop if evolution is just chance mutations? It must be designed as part of our sensory protection. In practice I told my patients pain was a waring friend. Of course chronic pain must be treated.
Introducing the brain: how many cell types?
by David Turell , Friday, October 08, 2021, 01:01 (925 days ago) @ David Turell
A new study finds lots:
https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.acx9293
"To efficiently gather such information, BICCN collaborators agreed to focus on a single region: a strip of tissue across the top of the brain called the primary motor cortex that orchestrates muscle movements. Some techniques could capture multiple features at once. For example, a method developed in Zhuang’s lab allows researchers to image hundreds or thousands of RNA sequences in a slice of brain tissue, revealing both cells’ transcriptomes and their relative locations. Another method, Patch-seq, records electrical activity from cells, stains them to reveal their shapes, and then sucks out their innards to sequence their RNA.
"In BICCN’s data, cells grouped according to their transcriptomes tend to share other features, such as location, shape, and electrical activity. That finding “provides strong validation to the molecularly defined cell types,” the BICCN authors write in a paper summarizing the work. For the human motor cortex, 127 such types emerged.
"The exact number depends on the criteria used to group cells, says BICCN investigator Hongkui Zeng, director of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. “Is it 127? Is it 130? Is it 100? … It’s not clear cut like that.” What’s more important, she says, is the hierarchy of cell types that emerged, with a few basic cell types at the top and more nuanced divisions in lower branches. Cells in the same top-level class tend to be similar across various types of measurements—and across the three species studied. Further down, Zeng says, distinctions between cell types “become a lot fuzzier.”
***
"Having created a partial parts list, researchers still need to study how the cell types behave and interact in a functioning brain. UCL neuroscientist Kenneth Harris is among those imaging genetically labeled cells in living mice to relate gene expression to electrical firing patterns. “We’re going to have to learn what all these cell types are and try to figure out how they all work together,” he says. “It’s going to be difficult.” But with the new cell census, “we’re entering this stage where we know how much we don’t know—and that’s progress.'”
Comment: Splitting the cells down so finely recognizes how complex the brain really is. So many types many many subunits of activity. This is far beyond the fMRI regional studies that are quite rough in the analysis of brain function. Must have been designed
Introducing the brain: how fine-touch areas work
by David Turell , Monday, October 11, 2021, 19:03 (921 days ago) @ David Turell
Very sensitive skin regions have many extra brain connections:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-10-unraveling-mystery-mechanism-uncovered-body.html
"Some parts of the body—hands and lips, for example—are more sensitive than others, making them essential tools in our ability to discern the most intricate details of the world around us.
"This ability is key to our survival, enabling us to safely navigate our surroundings and quickly understand and respond to new situations. It is perhaps unsurprising that the brain devotes considerable space to these sensitive skin surfaces that are specialized for fine, discriminative touch and continually gather detailed information via the sensory neurons that innervate them.
"But how does the connection between sensory neurons and the brain result in such exquisitely sensitive skin?
***
"The research, conducted in mice and published Oct. 11 in Cell, shows that the overrepresentation of sensitive skin surfaces in the brain develops in early adolescence and can be pinpointed to the brain stem. Moreover, the sensory neurons that populate the more sensitive parts of the skin and relay information to the brain stem form more connections and stronger ones than neurons in less sensitive parts of the body.
"'This study provides a mechanistic understanding of why more brain real estate is devoted to surfaces of the skin with high touch acuity,"
***
"While the study was done in mice, the overrepresentation of sensitive skin regions in the brain is seen across mammals—suggesting that the mechanism may be generalizable to other species. From an evolutionary perspective, mammals have dramatically varied body forms, which translates into sensitivity in different skin surfaces. For example, humans have highly sensitive hands and lips, while pigs explore the world using highly sensitive snouts. Thus, Ginty thinks this mechanism could provide the developmental flexibility for different species to develop sensitivity in different areas.
***
"Scientists have long known that certain body parts are overrepresented in the brain—as depicted by the brain's sensory map, called the somatosensory homunculus, a schematic of human body parts and the corresponding areas in the brain where signals from these body parts are processed. The striking illustration includes cartoonishly oversized hands and lips. Previously, it was thought that the overrepresentation of sensitive skin regions in the brain could be attributed to a higher density of neurons innervating those skin areas. However, earlier work by the Ginty lab revealed that while sensitive skin does contain more neurons, these extra neurons are not sufficient to account for the additional brain space.
***
"To probe even further, the scientists compared the connections between sensory neurons and brain stem neurons for different types of paw skin. They found that these connections between neurons were stronger and more numerous for sensitive, hairless skin than for less sensitive, hairy skin. Thus, the team concluded, the strength and number of connections between neurons play a key role in driving overrepresentation of sensitive skin in the brain. Finally, even when sensory neurons in sensitive skin weren't stimulated, mice still developed expanded representation in the brain—suggesting that skin type, rather than stimulation by touch over time, causes these brain changes.
"'We think we've uncovered a component of this magnification that accounts for the disproportionate central representation of sensory space." Ginty said. "This is a new way of thinking about how this magnification comes about.'"
Comment: this pattern requirews design to fit the touch needs. Not by chance.
Introducing the brain: astrocyte speed control
by David Turell , Friday, October 15, 2021, 14:54 (918 days ago) @ David Turell
Astrocytes influence axon speed controls:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abh2858
"Glia control white matter information flow
The myelinated axons of the white matter mediate rapid information transmission between the brain’s processing nodes. Axonal excitability and conduction speed are key determinants of neural circuit function, but it is largely unknown how they are regulated. Lezmy et al. examined the effects of adenosine on the functional properties of myelinated axons. They observed activity-dependent calcium rise in astrocyte processes, calcium-triggered ATP release from astrocytes, activation of adenosine receptors in the axon initial segment and the nodes of Ranvier, increased cyclic AMP concentration, activation of HCN2 channels, and depolarization of axons by 5 to 10 millivolts. This molecular pathway enabled astrocytes to increase the excitability of pyramidal neurons and to profoundly decrease the axonal conduction velocity. Astrocytes thus control signaling speed in myelinated axons. "
"RESULTS
Astrocytes closely approach the axons of myelinated neurons in layer V of the cerebral cortex that enter the corpus callosum. Uncaging Ca2+ within astrocytes or stimulating spike trains in neurons evoked a rise of astrocyte [Ca2+]i that triggered the release of ATP-containing vesicles from these cells. This evoked an inward current in the AIS and nodes of Ranvier of the pyramidal neurons. Pharmacology showed that this was mediated by the activation of Gs-linked adenosine A2a receptors (A2aRs), implying that the released ATP was converted to adenosine by extracellular enzymes. The A2aRs raise the intracellular concentration of cyclic AMP, which activates hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide–gated (HCN) channels mediating the inward hyperpolarization-activated current (Ih) and thus depolarizes the cell. In the AIS, the activation of A2aRs alters excitability and hence action potential generation, whereas in the nodes of Ranvier, it decreases the conduction speed of the action potential along the axon.
"CONCLUSION
As in the gray matter, astrocyte [Ca2+]i regulates the release of ATP into the extracellular space in the white matter. After conversion to adenosine, this regulates the excitability and conduction speed of myelinated axons. The changes in excitability at the AIS will lead to changes in the relationship between the synaptic input and action potential output of the cell. The altered conduction speed of the myelinated axon may change neural circuit function by changing the action potential arrival time at the cell’s output synapses, thus altering the integration of signals in postsynaptic neurons. Variations in astrocyte-derived adenosine level can occur between wake and sleep states, and the extracellular adenosine concentration rises during energy deprivation conditions. These changes in adenosine level could thus control white matter information flow and neural circuit function."
Comment: this tells us how astrocytes do their work but not how adenosine lev els are ultimately regulated. Doing this type of research never ends as the designed fine controls are seemingly endless.
Introducing the brain: structure studies
by David Turell , Thursday, October 28, 2021, 15:19 (905 days ago) @ David Turell
Careful anatomical studies don't tell us how the brain works:
https://nautil.us/issue/107/the-edge/neurosciences-existential-crisis
"Neuroscientists have made considerable progress toward understanding brain architecture and aspects of brain function. We can identify brain regions that respond to the environment, activate our senses, generate movements and emotions. But we don’t know how different parts of the brain interact with and depend on each other. We don’t understand how their interactions contribute to behavior, perception, or memory. Technology has made it easy for us to gather behemoth datasets, but I’m not sure understanding the brain has kept pace with the size of the datasets.
***
"Some serious efforts, however, are now underway to map brains in full. One approach, called connectomics, strives to chart the entirety of the connections among neurons in a brain. In principle, a complete connectome would contain all the information necessary to provide a solid base on which to build a holistic understanding of the brain. We could see what each brain part is, how it supports the whole, and how it ought to interact with the other parts and the environment. We’d be able to place our brain in any hypothetical situation and have a good sense of how it would react.
***
"It’s just there’s so much going on at the same time. That’s what a human brain is. It’s millions of things happening simultaneously among different types of cells, neuromodulators, genetic components, things from the outside. There’s no point when you can suddenly say, ‘I now understand the brain,’ just as you wouldn’t say, ‘I now get New York City.’ ”
***
"Scientists still need to understand the relationship between those minute anatomical features and dynamical activity profiles of neurons—the patterns of electrical activity they generate—something the connectome data lacks. This is a point on which connectomics has received considerable criticism, mainly by way of example from the worm: Neuroscientists have had the complete wiring diagram of the worm C. elegans for a few decades now, but arguably do not understand the 300-neuron creature in its entirety; how its brain connections relate to its behaviors is still an active area of research. (my bold)
***
“'A strong intuition among many neuroscientists is that individual neurons are exquisitely complicated: They have all of these back-propagating action potentials, they have dendritic compartments that are independent, they have all these different channels there. And so a single neuron might even itself be a network. To caricature that as a rectified linear unit”—the simple mathematical model of a neuron in DNNs—“is clearly missing out on so much.” [DNNs: deep neural networks]
***
"It seems likely that Lichtman’s two exabytes of brain slices, and even my 48 terabytes of rat brain data, will not fit through any individual human mind. Or at least no human mind is going to orchestrate all this data into a panoramic picture of how the human brain works. As I sat at my office desk, watching the setting sun tint the cloudless sky a light crimson, my mind reached a chromatic, if mechanical, future. The machines we have built—the ones architected after cortical anatomy—fall short of capturing the nature of the human brain. But they have no trouble finding patterns in large datasets. Maybe one day, as they grow stronger building on more cortical anatomy, they will be able to explain those patterns back to us, solving the puzzle of the brain’s interconnections, creating a picture we understand."
Comment: we've invented fantastic ways of analyzing the brain and don't have a way of understanding how it really works. A reductionism approach won't work. Will anything? The designer is laughing.
Introducing the brain: sensing autonomic activity
by David Turell , Monday, November 08, 2021, 18:33 (893 days ago) @ David Turell
This is no surprise to me:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-science-shows-immune-memory-in-the-brain-20211108/
"...in a paper published today in Cell, the neuroimmunologist Asya Rolls has shown that a similar kind of conditioning extends to immune responses. Using state-of-the-art genetic tools in mice, her team at the Technion in Haifa, Israel, identified brain neurons that became active during experimentally induced inflammation in the abdomen. Later, the researchers showed that restimulating those neurons could trigger the same types of inflammation again.
***
"In recent years Rolls’ lab has begun to get a handle on how thoughts and emotions could affect physical health. In 2018, she and her co-workers reported that stimulating neurons in the brain’s pleasure centers in mice disabled a subset of immune cells that suppress the body’s defenses; tumor growth slowed in those animals. In a study published in May, her team found that activating specific nerves in the colon prevented immune cells in the blood from entering the tissue — offering a mechanism for brain control over local inflammation.
"Given that these groups of neurons regulated immune activity with such precision, Rolls couldn’t imagine that the brain would control a system without knowing its status. “So we wanted to see how the brain represents the state of the immune system,” she said.
***
"The immune responses sparked by neural stimulation “were reminiscent of the original” disease state, Rolls said. The similarities extended to the molecular level: In the mice with induced peritonitis, white blood cells carrying a specific receptor protein became more abundant in the abdominal lining during both the original inflammation and the inflammation evoked later.
"The researchers also observed the opposite effect: When they instead inhibited the initial set of activated neurons, the animals’ disease symptoms weren’t as severe. This suggests that even during chemically induced inflammation, signals from the brain may be helping to determine its severity.
"In a set of nerve-mapping experiments, the team determined that the insula neurons that kicked into action during the initial inflammation in fact “have a way to deliver a message all the way to the colon,” Rolls said.
"In Tracey’s view, the new research shows “you can’t separate the state of the neuron activity from the state of the immune system activity. It’s a two-way street.”
***
"Unlike the vagal nerve system, however, the insula neurons in Rolls’ mechanism sense the inflammation, remember that immune state and can reactivate it — a behavior that is more like Pavlovian conditioning than a negative feedback response, Medzhitov said. Tracey thinks of it this way: The vagus nerve is like a brake line in a car. Rolls’ study shows “there is a driver,” he said. “There is someone who decides whether to hit the brake or the gas pedal.”
***
"However, as Rolls and her colleagues noted in their paper, they cannot yet say whether the insula neurons’ “memory” of the inflammation in some way describes the immune response itself, or if it’s instead a record of the sensations from the inflamed body tissues — in effect, the memory of what it felt like to be sick with that inflammation. They also can’t rule out that other parts of the brain could be involved in remembering the immune response too. What the study does show is that “this information is encoded even though it may not be consciously experienced,” said Medzhitov.
"The new findings also upend the common top-down view of the brain. “Most people tend to think, ‘We’re so smart, we decide what to do,’ and then we make our body do it,” Tracey said. “But that’s not how the nervous system works.” Instead, the brain receives and synthesizes information about changes in the body — an infection, a fever — and delivers a response.
"Rolls’ work shows that “the brain is inseparable from the immune system,” said Tracey. “I think immunologists and neuroscientists both are going to be excited and surprised.'”
Comment: the autonomic system runs body processes automatically, but this shows the brain keeps track of it all and can modulate responses. A very neat design. We are busy with our own external affairs, so our internal affairs need to run on their own, but have a backup the brain keeps and automatic eye on what's happening and avoid overreactions. Not by chance.
Introducing the brain: sensing autonomic activity II
by David Turell , Monday, November 08, 2021, 19:04 (893 days ago) @ David Turell
Another article comments:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-11-exploring-psychosomatic-inflammation.html
"'There are evolutionary advantages to such a connection," said Prof. Rolls in explaining the strange phenomenon whereby the immune system should be activated by memory alone, without an outside trigger. "The body needs to respond to infection as quickly as possible before the attacking bacteria or viruses can multiply. If certain activity, for example consuming particular foods, has exposed the body to infection and inflammation once, there is an advantage to gearing up for battle when one is about to engage in the same activity again. A shorter response time would allow the body to defeat the infection faster and with less effort. The problem of course is when such an effective mechanism goes out of control and can on its own generate the disease."
"The group's findings have broad implications for understanding the way the human mind and body affect each other, but also more immediate implications for understanding and treating illness with a psychosomatic element, like irritable bowel syndrome, and even autoimmune diseases and allergies."
Comment: Here again we note the good body responses can make mistakes, despite the fact that the protective processes must necessarily be present to edit responses within proper bounds. A system fault when running on its own is not God's fault. dhw would like Him to supervise every biochemical reaction on Earth!
Introducing the brain: human neurons different
by David Turell , Thursday, November 11, 2021, 20:23 (890 days ago) @ David Turell
Differ from all other mammalians:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211110131613.htm
"Human neurons have a lower density of ion channels than expected, compared to neurons of other mammals, according to a new study. The researchers hypothesize that a lower channel density may have helped the human brain evolve to operate more efficiently.
***
"Harnett and his colleagues analyzed neurons from 10 different mammals, the most extensive electrophysiological study of its kind, and identified a "building plan" that holds true for every species they looked at -- except for humans. They found that as the size of neurons increases, the density of channels found in the neurons also increases.
"However, human neurons proved to be a striking exception to this rule.
***
"The researchers found that in nearly every mammalian species they looked at, the density of ion channels increased as the size of the neurons went up. The one exception to this pattern was in human neurons, which had a much lower density of ion channels than expected.
***
"The human brain represents a striking deviation from this building plan, however. Instead of increased density of ion channels, the researchers found a dramatic decrease in the expected density of ion channels for a given volume of brain tissue.
"The researchers believe this lower density may have evolved as a way to expend less energy on pumping ions, which allows the brain to use that energy for something else, like creating more complicated synaptic connections between neurons or firing action potentials at a higher rate.
"'We think that humans have evolved out of this building plan that was previously restricting the size of cortex, and they figured out a way to become more energetically efficient, so you spend less ATP per volume compared to other species," Harnett says." (my bold)
Comment: My bold may hold the key. Our big brain burns 20% of daily energy expenditure, and this may be a trick to hold down the energy requirement. Makes humans different in another way. Close apes and monkey brains need to be reviewed to see how their neurons relate to us.
Introducing the brain: myelin more than insulation
by David Turell , Friday, November 12, 2021, 14:56 (890 days ago) @ David Turell
It is active in brain plasticity:
https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/12_november_2021/MobilePagedArti...
"The brain is responsive to an ever-changing environment, enabling the organism to learn and change behavior accordingly. Efforts to understand the underpinnings of this plasticity have almost exclusively focused on the functional and underlying structural changes that neurons undergo at neurochemical synapses. What has received comparatively little attention is the involvement of activity-dependent myelination in such plasticity and the functional output of circuits controlling behavior. The traditionally held view of myelin as a passive insulator of axons is changing to one of lifelong changes in myelin, modulated by neuronal activity and experience. We review the nascent evidence of the functional role of myelin plasticity in strengthening circuit functions that underlie learning and behavior.
"More than half of the human brain is white matter, which supports rapid and synchronized transfer of information across the many gray-matter areas of the central nervous system (CNS). The function of white matter depends on oligodendrocytes. These specialized glial cells wrap a lipid-rich membrane, myelin, around axons in the CNS, increasing the speed of the action potential and providing axons with energy for impulse propagation required for maintaining high impulse frequency.Changes inmyelinwithin a tract or brain region can affect the function of neural circuits, such as those involved in emotion, cognition, motivation, and associated behavior, by fine-tuning and reducing the failure rate of information transfer between different areas in the brain's gray matter.
"Although the essential function of myelin has long been recognized in white-matter diseases such as multiple sclerosis, where myelin loss leads to both motor and cognitive dysfunction, it remains widely viewed as a passive insulator. However, evidence indicates that myelination in mammals is a protracted dynamic process involved in CNS function and development. Myelination in humans begins during the last trimester and extends into late adulthood and varies between individuals, potentially affecting personality traits.
"Human postmortem histological observations suggest that myelination of axonal tracts linking brain regions is synchronized with the functional maturation of the neural circuits they form. Likewise, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have revealed that the maturation of sensorimotor or language-related white-matter tracts in humans is associated with the development of these basic skills in childhood, whereas the maturation of frontoparietal and frontostriatal white-matter pathways coincides with protracted development of executive functions and behavioral control during adolescence and early adulthood.
"Evidence is accumulating that myelination is not confined to the developmental period; rather, it now appears that myelin turns over and its patterns change throughout the lifespan, which may relate to experience-dependent changes in the function of neural circuits. Here, we focus on the functional implications of myelin changes, capitalizing on previous reviews of mechanisms of myelin plasticity to assess how these might be linked to circuit function underlying learning and memory.
Comment: extremely long review article of current preliminary research. Here we see major new complexity discovered in the plasticizing processes of the brain. These processes must be designed all at once to be useful. Only design can do this, not chance mutations.
Introducing the brain: predicting perception
by David Turell , Monday, November 15, 2021, 17:23 (886 days ago) @ David Turell
A new theory of how the brain works:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-be-energy-efficient-brains-predict-their-perceptions-...
"How our brain, a three-pound mass of tissue encased within a bony skull, creates perceptions from sensations is a long-standing mystery. Abundant evidence and decades of sustained research suggest that the brain cannot simply be assembling sensory information, as though it were putting together a jigsaw puzzle, to perceive its surroundings. This is borne out by the fact that the brain can construct a scene based on the light entering our eyes, even when the incoming information is noisy and ambiguous.
"Consequently, many neuroscientists are pivoting to a view of the brain as a “prediction machine.” Through predictive processing, the brain uses its prior knowledge of the world to make inferences or generate hypotheses about the causes of incoming sensory information. Those hypotheses — and not the sensory inputs themselves — give rise to perceptions in our mind’s eye. The more ambiguous the input, the greater the reliance on prior knowledge.
“'The beauty of the predictive processing framework [is] that it has a really large — sometimes critics might say too large — capacity to explain a lot of different phenomena in many different systems,” said Floris de Lange, a neuroscientist at the Predictive Brain Lab of Radboud University in the Netherlands.
***
[I've skipped a long recitation of computer studies.]
"Persuasive as these insights from computational studies may seem, in the end, only evidence from live brains can convince neuroscientists of predictive processing in the brain. To this end, Blake Richards, a neuroscientist and computer scientist at McGill University and Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, and his colleagues formulated some clear hypotheses about what they should see in brains learning to make predictions about unexpected events.
***
"Of particular interest were certain pyramidal neurons in the brain’s neocortex, which are thought to be anatomically suited to predictive processing. They can receive both local bottom-up sensory signals from nearby neurons (through inputs to their cell body) and top-down prediction signals from more distant neurons (through their apical dendrites).
***
"All the while, the researchers observed the activity in the mice’s brains.
"What they saw was that lots of neurons responded differently to expected and unexpected stimuli. Crucially, this difference was strong in the local, bottom-up signals on the first day of testing, but it waned on the second and third days. In the context of predictive processing, this suggested that newly formed top-down expectations began inhibiting the responses to incoming sensory information as the stimuli became less surprising.
"Meanwhile, the opposite was happening in the apical dendrites: The difference in their response to unexpected stimuli increased over time. The neural circuits appeared to be learning to represent properties of the surprising events better, to make better predictions the next time around.
“'This study provides further support for the idea that something like predictive learning or predictive coding is happening in the neocortex,” said Richards.
"It’s true that individual observations of neuronal activity or an animal’s behavior can at times be explained by some other model of the brain. For example, the waning responses in neurons to the same input, instead of being interpreted as the inhibition of error units, might simply be due to a process of adaptation. But then “you get this whole phone book of explanations for different phenomena,” said de Lange.
"Predictive processing, on the other hand, provides a unifying framework to explain many phenomena in one go, hence its allure as a theory of how the brain works. “I think the evidence at this point is pretty compelling,” said Richards. “I’m willing to put a lot of money on that claim, actually.'”
Comment: all along in the past I have predicted the brain is built to help us perceive. It makes perfect sense to view it that way.
Introducing the brain: genes produce multiple proteins
by David Turell , Tuesday, November 16, 2021, 16:14 (885 days ago) @ David Turell
From a new study:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2297650-some-genes-in-the-brain-may-make-100-diffe...
"The genetic code for the human brain is much more complex than we realised, with some genes potentially encoding tens or even hundreds of different proteins.
***
"From the nearly 13,000 genes active in the cerebral cortex, the researchers found almost 33,000 different mRNA molecules. About a fifth of the genes produced mRNAs containing introns, and more than 200 genes made between 10 and 100 different mRNAs. This shows that alternative splicing in the brain is more important than we realised, says Mill. “The brain is this very complex organ, so it would make sense.”
"It isn’t known if all the mRNAs discovered end up being turned into proteins, but even if they aren’t, they can affect gene activity, says Mill. The researchers have also found that brain cells from people with Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia make different mRNAs, suggesting that alternative splicing may play a role in these conditions."
Comment: the brain is shown to be more complex than ever. Not by chance.
Introducing the brain: satiation is in the cerebellum
by David Turell , Saturday, November 20, 2021, 20:14 (881 days ago) @ David Turell
Mouse studies:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211117211610.htm
"Chen, an associate professor at the Scintillion Institute, in San Diego, used clues from Prader Willi patients to guide investigations in mice that uncovered a subset of cerebellar neurons that signals satiation after eating.
"When the researchers activated these neurons, the magnitude of the effect "was enormous," accordingly to Betley. The animals ate just as often as typical mice, but each of their meals was 50-75% smaller.
***
"Turning to the mice, single-cell transcriptomic analysis confirmed that a small subset of glutamatergic neurons in the aDCN were the ones being activated upon eating. Activating only these aDCN neurons led the animals to dramatically constrain their meal size, whether they had been deprived of food or given as much food as they wanted previously. When the researchers did the reverse, inhibiting these same neurons, the mice ate larger-than-normal meals. While reducing food intake can often lead people and animals to compensate by eating more food later, the aDCN-stimulated animals did not do so, and measures of metabolic activity remained steady.
"The findings were remarkable but didn't reveal what exactly the neurons were doing. Were they simply causing the animals to eat less, or were they involved in helping them predict how much to eat or regulate eating based on other feedback?
"The work, shared in the journal Nature, suggests that neurons in the cerebellum's anterior deep cerebellar nuclei (aDCN) are involved in helping animals regulate their meal size.
***
"Feeding behaviors can also be driven by the reward and pleasure of eating, and thus Betley, Low, and colleagues next looked to see if dopamine signaling in the brain's ventral striatrum -- associated with neural "reward" pathways -- was affected by aDCN activation. They found that when the aDCN neurons associated with reduced feeding were activated dopamine flooded the ventral striatum. This was perplexing, as increased dopamine signaling generally drives animals to seek more reward.
"To better understand the relationship between dopamine signaling and aDCN activity, the researchers activated the mice's aDSC neurons for an hour prior to feeding them. While mice normally have a spike in dopamine levels upon being given food, the aDCN-activated mice had a severely hindered dopamine increase.
"'Other people have seen that when you activate dopaminergic neurons with dopamine, or take away dopamine, the animal will eat less," says Betley. "There may be a Goldilocks principle, making sure you eat just enough." Too much dopamine blocks the subsequent dopamine spike to rewards, ultimately changing behavior, he says."
Comment: Keep eating and stop eating controls must be present to maintain body size, and must be present in all new species from the beginning of animal evolution. Only design can do this.
Introducing the brain: hearing one voice in many
by David Turell , Friday, December 17, 2021, 19:42 (854 days ago) @ David Turell
Another way our special brain is designed for language:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-12-revealing-brain-voice-noisy-crowd.html
In a crowded room where many people are talking, such as a family birthday party or busy restaurant, our brains have the ability to focus our attention on a single speaker.
***
Recently, his lab found a new clue into how the brain is able to unpack this information and intentionally hear one speaker, while weaning out or ignoring a different speaker. The brain is actually taking an extra step to understand the words coming from the speaker being listened to, and not taking that step with the other words swirling around the conversation. "Our findings suggest that the acoustics of both the attended story and the unattended or ignored story are processed similarly," said Lalor. "But we found there was a clear distinction between what happened next in the brain."
For this study, recently published in The Journal of Neuroscience, participants simultaneously listened to two stories, but were asked to focus their attention on only one. Using EEG brainwave recordings, the researchers found the story that participants were instructed to pay attention to was converted into linguistic units known as phonemes—these are units of sound that can distinguish one word from another—while the other story was not. "That conversion is the first step towards understanding the attended story," Lalor said. "Sounds need to be recognized as corresponding to specific linguistic categories like phonemes and syllables, so that we can ultimately determine what words are being spoken—even if they sound different—for example, spoken by people with different accents or different voice pitches."
Comment: we recently discussed language ability as a possible algorithm we were given by design. Is this mechanism of following one voice a learned process or by design?
Introducing the brain: real neuron resting periods
by David Turell , Thursday, January 06, 2022, 18:47 (834 days ago) @ David Turell
A new discovery:
https://phys.org/news/2022-01-century-old-assumption-neurons-brain-disproven.html
"For more than a hundred years it was surmised that each neuron is characterized by a unique short resting time of approximately two to three milliseconds after the spike occurred, in which the neuron cannot re-generate a consecutive spike. This resting period is followed by a longer period of stutter neuronal responses until full responsiveness is achieved.
***
"First, the duration of the resting time can exceed 20 milliseconds, almost 10 times longer than previously assumed. These long refractory periods are even further increased depending on preceding neuronal activity.
"Second, the resting period is sensitive to the origin of the input signal. Stimulation of the neuron from different directions (e.g., "left" and "right") results in different refractory periods. When the neuron is stimulated from the left, for example, the duration of the refractory period is much longer than stimulation from the "right."
"Third, the neuron is a very precise element with a sharp transition from the refractory period to full responsiveness, without an intermediate stutter phase where the same stimulation of the neuron results in an evoked spike only with some probability."
Comment: further proof Labet's findings of time delay were reasonable.
Introducing the brain: creating sharp attention
by David Turell , Friday, January 07, 2022, 18:11 (833 days ago) @ David Turell
The mechanism is explored:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-01-brain-focus-attention.html
"How can we shift from a state of inattentiveness to one of highest attention? The locus coeruleus, literally the "blue spot," is a tiny cluster of cells at the base of the brain. As the main source of the neurotransmitter noradrenaline, it helps us control our attentional focus. Synthesizing evidence from animal and human studies, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the University of Southern California have now developed a novel framework describing the way the blue spot regulates our brain's sensitivity to relevant information in situations requiring attention.
***
"...when a car you did not notice suddenly honks, you are readily able to redirect your attention and respond to this new situation. But how does the brain shift from a state of inattentiveness to one of focused attention?
"During states of inattentiveness, our brains are governed by slow, rhythmic fluctuations of neural activity. In particular, neural rhythms at a frequency around 10 Hertz, termed alpha oscillations, are thought to suppress the active processing of sensory inputs during inattentiveness. Thus, alpha oscillations can be understood as a filter that regulates our brain's sensitivity for external information.
***
"To explore this question, the researchers focused on the blue spot (locus coeruleus), a tiny cell structure that is located in the brainstem, hidden deep under the cortex. This cell cluster is only about 15 millimeters in size, but it is connected to most of the brain via an extensive network of long-ranging nerve fibers. The blue spot is made up of neurons that are the main source of the neurotransmitter noradrenaline. By regulating neural communication, noradrenaline contributes to the control of stress, memory, and attention.
"'Due to its small size and its location deep in the brainstem, it was previously almost impossible to investigate the noradrenergic nucleus non-invasively in living humans. Fortunately, over the past years, animal research has revealed that fluctuations in pupil size are linked to the activity of the blue spot. Thus, our eyes can be regarded as a window to a brain region that long seemed inaccessible," says Mara Mather, professor of Gerontology at the University of Southern California and coauthor on the opinion article.
"To study whether the blue spot's noradrenaline could be one factor regulating alpha oscillations, the researchers combined recordings of pupil size and neural oscillations while participants solved a demanding attention task. As expected, during moments of larger pupil size, indicative of higher noradrenergic activity, alpha oscillations disappeared. Moreover, participants who showed stronger pupil and alpha responses were better at solving the attention task. These findings, that were published 2020 in an article in the Journal of Neuroscience, suggest that by modulating alpha oscillations, the blue spot can help us focus our attention.
***
"Assembling the findings across studies, we were able to describe how noradrenaline and the thalamus might interact to control alpha rhythmic activity. We suggest that the blue spot's noradrenaline regulates our brain's sensitivity to process relevant information by suppressing alpha generators in the thalamus," says Martin Dahl, postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and the University of Southern California and first author on the opinion article.
"Thus, during situations requiring a sudden shift in attention, a surge of noradrenaline helps us refocus—and quickly dodge the approaching car."
Comment: this process developed in deep time in all brained animals living in a setting that required constant awareness. Our lives do not require that constant degree of awareness all the time, but the mechanism has not devolved under the designer of evolution. Even in ourv relatively calm world my barn cat, even when with me, shows constant vigilance.
Introducing the brain: creating memory
by David Turell , Monday, January 10, 2022, 20:14 (830 days ago) @ David Turell
A dramatic synapse change:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-01-memories-brain-potential-impact-conditions.html
"After six years of research, they made the groundbreaking discovery that learning causes synapses, the connections between neurons, to proliferate in some areas and disappear in others rather than merely changing their strength, as commonly thought. These changes in synapses may help explain how memories are formed and why certain kinds of memories are stronger than others.
***
"Through a multidisciplinary collaboration between the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, the teams were able to determine for the first time the strength and location of synapses before and after learning in the brain of a living zebrafish, an animal commonly used to study brain function. Zebrafish are large enough to have brains that function like our own, but small and transparent enough to offer a window into the living brain. By keeping the intact fish alive, they were able to compare synapses in the same brain over time, a breakthrough in the neuroscience field.
***
"The main takeaway when analyzing those images: Rather than the memory causing the strength of existing synapses to change, the synapses in one part of the brain were destroyed and completely new synapses were created in a different region of the brain.
"'For the last 40 years the common wisdom was that you learn by changing the strength of the synapses," said Kesselman, who also serves as director of the Informatics Division at the USC Information Sciences Institute and is a professor with the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, "but that's not what we found in this case.'"
Comment: the hippocampus receives recent events and sends them elsewhere for permanent storage. Since our brain's processes evolved from earlier forms the zebra fish is an excellent research animal.
Introducing the brain: algorithm creating odors
by David Turell , Monday, January 10, 2022, 20:22 (830 days ago) @ David Turell
Has to do with ON and OFF neurons:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-01-surprisingly-simple-arithmetic.html
"Why don't other smells or different environmental factors "get in the way," so to speak, of the experience of smelling individual odors? Researchers at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis turned to their trusted research subject, the locust, to find out.
"What they found was "surprisingly simple," according to Barani Raman, professor of biomedical engineering. Their results were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
"The algorithm turned out to be very simple to interpret. It exploited two functional types of neurons: there are ON neurons, which are activated when an odorant is present, and there are OFF neurons, which are silenced when an odorant is present but become activated after the odor presentation ends.
"'You can think of the ON neurons as conveying 'evidence for' an odor being present, and OFF neurons as 'evidence against' that odor being present," Raman said. To recognize an odorant's presence, researchers simply needed to add evidence for the odorant being present (i.e. add the spikes across all ON neurons) and subtract evidence against that odor being present (i.e. add the spikes across all OFF neurons). If the result was above a certain threshold, machine learning would predict the locust smelled the odor".
Comment: smelling odors is the result of hundreds of receptor spots in humans with many more in dogs.
Introducing the brain: a role of retrotransposons
by David Turell , Wednesday, January 12, 2022, 18:40 (828 days ago) @ David Turell
Still a confusing process:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-01-retrotransposons-brain.html
"Retrotransposons that are specific to mammals; the common LINE-1 (L1) element, for example, comprises a class of transposons that salt our genomes to the tune of a couple hundred-thousand genetic mini-islands. That's about 20% of our total sequence. Of the few thousand L1s that are still mostly full-length, only about 100 or so have maintained their full coding potential, i.e., are still able to move around the genome by retrotransposition. This involves a copy-and-paste mechanism using a reverse transcriptase specified in their second and final open reading frame, commonly designated as ORF2.
^^^
"The essential ubiquity of retrotransposition has seemingly caught much of the biological community by surprise in the sense that it can suddenly, and often very neatly, explain away many of their most vexing unanswered questions and pursuits. For example, it now appears that all (or at least 300,000) of our genome's critical regulatory regions—the enhancers and promoters at the front of genes—ultimately derive from remnants of retroviral inserts. Some have even suggested that mitochondrial localization sequences could have evolved or been inserted by retrotransposons. Furthermore, many of our traditional genes are now understood to descend from the good-old run-of-the-mill retroviral gag, pol, or env genes that were co-opted for a new use.
***
"The viral epiphany began in earnest some time ago, when the idea that retrotransposons were genetic parasites that evolved to be active only in germ cells (which could propagate them) was roundly dispelled by Fred Gage at the Salk Institute in 2005. His group demonstrated that full-blown somatic cells, particularly neuronal precursor cells of the hippocampus, are ready and willing hosts for the transposition party. While estimates vary widely, work by his lab and others suggests that developing neurons might each be hit with a dozen or transposition events en route to maturity. This implies that our brains, and likely our bodies as well, are significantly mosaic in the sense that neighboring cells of much the same putative phenotype can have notably different genome architectures due to opportune transposition events.
"Alongside these prodigious announcements was a parallel observation that much more of the genome is actually transcribed than had formerly been appreciated. Rather than just a few genes being expressed here or there, studies revealed that upwards of 80 percent of our entire genome is likely translated into some kind of RNA. With half a genome's worth of retroviral additions, many of these transcriptions are undoubtedly retrotransposons one sort or another.
***
"As the importance of DNA damage and repair is increasingy understood, it becomes apparent that competition for restorative nucleotides in nervous systems must be cutthroat. Adenine nucleotides must be relatively abundant and held far from equilibrium for energetic reasons while guanine nucletides must be properly balanced among their cyclic and multiply phosphorylated forms according to their signaling requirements. Access to nucletides and maintaining their levels in just the right ratios for reliable repair and mitochondrial replication can now be increasingly comprehended to be the major organizing and driving force underlying neural structure. Many the same observations regarding the providence of DNA damage and repair processes might be equally applied to cancer. Each kind of cell and organelle has their own unique suite of nucleotide synthesis, salvage and repair proteins, and correspondingly, their preferred nucleotide levels and codon preferences.
"Perhaps the best way we currently have to penetrate and comprehend this complex network of nucletide-controlling enzymes is to start with the bases that sit at the critical point of DNA and RNA—what we might call the thymine-uracil nexus. Since polymerases don't distinguish between deoxyUracil (principally dUTP) and thiamine, dUTP predictably finds its way into both into our endogenous DNA, and also into any viral DNA intermediates that infect us. Both we and viruses therefore retain an extensive palette of uracil glycosylases to promptly fix any uracil-corrupted DNA. We also have a complimentary arsenal of dUTP-degrading enzymes to reduce free dUTP levels or convert their bases to cytosines. Interestingly, assimilated retroviruses that have degraded or morphed into retrotransposons still often retain uracil glycosylases of one form or another. While these are now active areas of drug discovery, particularly for antiviral drugs that might be specific to foreign uracil glycosylases, it is a relatively new field and much remains to be explored."
Comment: that the genome in our complex brain is highly active is no surprise, considering its ability to complexify. I might add the viral source of retrotransposons fits my theory that God uses viruses to code changes in evolution. Note also the whole genome is active so where is 'junk'?
Introducing the brain: saving energy consumption
by David Turell , Friday, January 14, 2022, 19:17 (826 days ago) @ David Turell
Important since our brain uses 20% of daily consumption:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-01-free-energy-principle-brain.html
"Published in the scientific journal Communications Biology, the study first shows how the free-energy principle is the basis for any neural network that minimizes energy cost. Then, as proof of concept, it shows how an energy minimizing neural network can solve mazes. This finding will be useful for analyzing impaired brain function in thought disorders as well as for generating optimized neural networks for artificial intelligences.
"Biological optimization is a natural process that makes our bodies and behavior as efficient as possible. A behavioral example can be seen in the transition that cats make from running to galloping. Far from being random, the switch occurs precisely at the speed when the amount of energy it takes to gallop becomes less that it takes to run. In the brain, neural networks are optimized to allow efficient control of behavior and transmission of information, while still maintaining the ability to adapt and reconfigure to changing environments.
"'We were able to demonstrate that standard neural networks, which feature delayed modulation of Hebbian plasticity, perform planning and adaptive behavioral control by taking their previous 'decisions' into account," says first author and unit leader Takuya Isomura. "Importantly, they do so the same way that they would when following the free-energy principle."
"Once they established that neural networks theoretically follow the free-energy principle, they tested the theory using simulations. The neural networks self-organized by changing the strength of their neural connections and associating past decisions with future outcomes. In this case, the neural networks can be viewed as being governed by the free-energy principle, which allowed it to learn the correct route through a maze through trial and error in a statistically optimal manner.
"These findings point toward a set of universal mathematical rules that describe how neural networks self-optimize. As Isomura explains, "Our findings guarantee that an arbitrary neural network can be cast as an agent that obeys the free-energy principle, providing a universal characterization for the brain.'"
Comment: I assume the initial neurons in the first sapiens brain had this designed ability, and that that ability to conserve energy was present in all previous ancestors. Since brain activity is so fuel-costly as brains became larger this system was vital to maintain an energy metabolism that could be fed properly by keeping it in limits. Chanced uncontrolled design of the brain could lead to run away costs.
Introducing the brain: improve, preserve it, exercise more
by David Turell , Thursday, January 27, 2022, 20:51 (813 days ago) @ David Turell
New study on young and old:
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2022/01/27/how_regular_exercise_restructures_the_...
"...physical activity can...buff up your brain. Science is increasingly revealing that the brains of those who regularly work out can look very different compared to the brains of people who don't.
***
"...in 2018, researchers from the University of Southern California found that for teens aged 15-18, regular exercisers tended to have larger hippocampal volumes as well as larger rostral middle frontal volumes compared to healthy matched control teenagers. The hippocampus is most commonly associated with memory and spatial navigation, while the rostral middle frontal gyrus has been linked to emotion regulation and working memory. Studies suggest that these structural changes translate to improved cognitive performance and better academic outcomes.
***
"The researchers recruited older African Americans, all previously sedentary, to complete twenty weeks of twice-weekly cardio-dance exercise classes held at local churches and senior centers. As compared to the control group comprised of community members of similar age and background who did not exercise, those in the program showed significant improvements in dynamic brain connectivity (or “neural flexibility”) in their hippocampus and surrounding medial temporal lobe, as measured using resting-state functional MRI.
***
"Researchers have also tried exercise interventions on much older adults, even those with Alzheimer's disease, to see if physical activity could repair their stricken brains. In 2016, a team of scientists recruited 68 older individuals with probable Alzheimer's disease to determine whether moving more could help with their symptoms. Some subjects aerobically exercised for 150 minutes per week while others underwent a less rigorous control regimen of stretching and toning for 26 weeks. Compared to the control group, the aerobic exercise group improved more on the Disability Assessment for Dementia at the study's conclusion. Boosts to cardiorespiratory fitness were also linked to improvements in memory and reduced atrophy of the hippocampus.
"Working out also augments the brains of otherwise healthy older adults. Getting thirty minutes of physical activity each day does seem to preserve brain volumes in adults over age 70 compared to sedentary individuals, according to a study published in August of last year. Moreover, higher cardiorespiratory fitness was linked to lower levels of brain atrophy in the research.
"One way exercise can induce changes in the brain is by increasing levels of the protein brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the blood, which is linked to neurogenesis. More BDNF may mean more new neurons in the brain. Regular exercise also increases the growth of additional blood vessels in the brain and helps maintain current ones, leading to boosted blood flow for the oxygen-hungry organ. Lastly, physical activity seems to keep microglia in good working order. Microglia "constantly check the brain for potential threats from microbes or dying or damaged cells and clear any damage they find," Áine Kelly, a Professor in Physiology at Trinity College Dublin wrote."
Comment: Keep moving!!
Introducing the brain: handling a large new use
by David Turell , Monday, February 07, 2022, 19:52 (802 days ago) @ David Turell
Teaching a goldfish to drive:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-do-you-teach-a-goldfish-to-drive-first-you-need-a-vehi...
"Animal brains are flexible enough to adapt to new situations, a fundamental characteristic of all brains, neuroscientists say.
"He put a goldfish in a tank aboard a robot outfitted with computer-vision software that tracked the fish’s movement. When the fish moved inside its plexiglass pool, the robot moved with it. The fish had to learn that when it swam right, the robotic vehicle moved in that direction too.
"The fish had to use their new cognitive skills to find a target, a pink board inside a lab. In return for hitting their mark, the fish got rewarded with a pellet of food. Even when Dr. Segev’s team moved the target or added decoys to trick them, such as a blue or green board, the fish navigated to the right place, suggesting they had mastered a complex motor-memory task, Dr. Segev said.
"That’s despite the fact they had to contend with distorted vision. Their plexiglass tank warped their view of their environment.
***
"Eventually, she recruited another colleague to build her a car fit for a rodent. Out of a large plastic cereal container, rubber tires, wires and other spare parts, their ratmobile was born. The wires had to be hidden because the rats liked to chew on them, according to the researchers.
The ratmobile video:
https://m.wsj.net/video-atmo/20220203/0203robofish2/0203robofish2_1000.mp4
***
"Her aim was to figure out whether this task could be used as a model for the effects of behavioral training, or acquiring a new task, on brain function and brain health. Prior research suggests that learning new skills, like a new language or juggling, can be beneficial for brain plasticity, she said. Researchers also know that prior experience can affect learning.
"Over the course of months, she and her team got two groups of lab rats to drive the ratmobile by rewarding them with Froot Loops."
Comment: this shows that current brains of all animals can learn new physical tricks. But this not the prefrontal cortex of new sapiens brains 315,000 years ago. Huge compared to before and not immediately used to develop new conceptualizations beyond current needs for the present activities of daily living. Very simple at the time. What we now know is that addition to the brain allowed the development of our vast knowledge now without any enlargement, but shrinkage. dhw's theoretical argument doesn't hold that new conceptual requirements forced enlargement. Our huge new brain was like a sponge. The prefrontal region has a very specialized five layers of neurons, comparable to nothing previous in chimps and apes. This is what was ready for the uses that lead to our current civilization.
Introducing the brain: female sex and complexification
by David Turell , Wednesday, February 09, 2022, 15:06 (800 days ago) @ David Turell
New findings related to the clitoris:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/her-munculus-situates-female-genital-sensati...
"Using fMRI imaging, the researchers mapped 20 participants’ responses to those puffs of air to regions along the top and side of the cortex, known as its dorsolateral areas. Female genitalia, the authors conclude, are represented in the cortex next to the representation of hips and upper legs—where one might expect it if genitalia followed the somatotopic arrangement. Importantly, “the precise location within this region varied from woman to woman,” Heim points out. But across all the women, “there were no activations in other areas of the somatosensory cortex” beyond the region by the hips and upper legs. This observation is in line with a previous study in males using a non-arousing stimulus, which similarly placed the penis’ representation field at a somatotopic location between the legs and the trunk.
***
"In a second component of the study, Heim and colleagues measured the thickness of each participant’s genital field by gauging the individual region that was activated the most by clitoral stimulation. They then correlated thickness of these genital fields with the subjects’ reports of how frequently they had intercourse, both in the past year and since the start of sexual activity. “Very interestingly,” says Einstein, the results show a link between the two. Heim points out that future studies are needed to establish whether this relationship between the genital field and frequency of sex is causal, but adds that she and her colleagues “provide a proof of principle for structural variation of this field related to its use,” something which had not been demonstrated in humans before, Heim writes.
"In previous work, Heim and colleagues associated experiences of sexual abuse with reduced cortical thickness. “These studies are very important for understanding not just sexual dysfunction as it might be described in biomedical literature, but also how people respond to sexual abuse,” says Einstein."
Comment: another activity shown to induce an area of brain thickness. All these activities handled by our brain without it exploding.
Introducing the brain: memory depostion is scattered
by David Turell , Wednesday, February 09, 2022, 19:55 (800 days ago) @ David Turell
A summary of new studies:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-map-of-meaning-in-the-brain-changes-ideas-about-memo...
"But in recent years, researchers have repeatedly found subtle yet significant differences between visual and memory representations, with the latter showing up consistently in slightly different locations in the brain. Scientists weren’t sure what to make of this transformation: What function did it serve, and what did it mean for the nature of memory itself?
"Now, they may have found an answer — in research focused on language rather than memory.
***
"The finding, published last October in Nature Neuroscience, suggests that in many cases, a memory isn’t a facsimile of past perceptions that gets replayed. Instead, it is more like a reconstruction of the original experience, based on its semantic content.
"That insight might help to explain why memory is so often such an imperfect record of the past — and could provide a better understanding of what it really means to remember something.
***
"They found remarkably consistent patterns in all the participants — patterns that formed a generalized map of visual meaning. It confirmed the identity of some regions of the visual cortex that were already known from earlier research, such as areas selectively responsive to faces or places. But it also turned up hundreds of other selective patches for the first time: regions that responded to images of animals, family members, indoor scenes, outdoor scenes, people in motion, and more.
***
"So Huth called up the data from his 2012 vision experiments and saw that in this place-selective area of the cortex, the back part responded exclusively to place-related images. When he looked in areas closer to the front, both place images and place words were represented — until, at the boundary of the region, only words evoked brain activity, just as he’d seen when he was toying around with his 2016 visualization. There seemed to be a gradual, continuous shift from visual representations of places to linguistic representations over just a couple of centimeters of cortex.
“'It was surprisingly neat,” Huth said. “This was the exciting ‘aha’ moment, seeing this pattern pop out.”
"To test how systematic the pattern might be, Sara Popham, then a graduate student in Gallant’s lab, developed a statistical analysis for the team that looked for these gradients along the border of the visual cortex. They found it everywhere. For every one of the hundreds of categories studied in the experiments, the representations aligned in transition zones that formed a nearly perfect ribbon around the entire visual cortex. “There’s a match between what happens behind the border and what happens in front of the border,” Gallant said.
***
"The pattern was also systematic across individuals, appearing over and over in each participant. “This real boundary in the brain seems to be a general organizing principle,” said Adam Steel, a postdoctoral fellow studying perception and memory at Dartmouth College.
***
"In hierarchical models of visual processing, the brain first extracts specific features such as edges and contours, then combines those to build more complex representations. But it’s been unclear how those complex representations then get increasingly abstract. Sure, visual details might get pieced together to create an image of, say, a cat. But how does that final image get assigned to the conceptual category of “cats”?
***
"Over the past year, several new studies — including research by Bainbridge, Baker, Steel and Caroline Robertson of Dartmouth College — have reinforced that finding by directly comparing people’s brain activity as they looked at and later recalled or imagined various images. In each case, a systematic spatial transformation marked the difference between the brain’s sensory and memory representations. And the visual representations appeared just behind the associated memory ones — just as they had in Huth’s language-based study.
"Like that study, this one seemed to indicate that perception and memory are also deeply entangled. “It doesn’t make sense to think of our memory system as a totally separate workspace,” Baldassano said.
***
"Huth’s work provides new insights into the nature of that transformation. Perhaps memory isn’t as visually driven as we thought. Maybe it’s more abstract, more semantic, more linguistic. “We often have this impression that we have these fantastic visual representations of things,” Baker said. “You feel like you can see it. But maybe you can’t.”
"To Kuhl, that makes sense. After all, “we know that when we’re imagining something or remembering something, it’s distinct from actually seeing it,” he said. What we see in our mind’s eye might be a reinterpretation of a remembered scene or object based on its semantic content rather than a literal replay of it. “We’re so fixated on using perceptual experience as a template. But I think that has blinded us a little bit.'”
Comment: we see our brain cane initially prepared to organize itself. What were all these regions doing 315,000 years ago? Some regions were quite active and some not so much. Deny the brain came unprepared for future use.
Introducing the brain: learning new motor skills
by David Turell , Wednesday, February 09, 2022, 20:31 (800 days ago) @ David Turell
Specialized area is found:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-02-newly-brain-circuit-motor.html
"'We were particularly interested in two major types of cells in the cortex, known as IT (intratelencephalic) and PT (pyramidal tract) neurons," said Nicolas Morgenstern, the first author of this study which was developed in the group at the time led by Rui Costa, at Champalimaud Foundation, in Lisbon, Portugal. "Both IT and PT cells send signals from the cortex to another area buried deeper in the brain, called the striatum. These 'cortico-striatal' connections (i.e. connections from the cortex to the striatum) are very important for motor learning and have been implicated in movement disorders like Parkinson's disease."
"This is where the third major character in our story appears: the spiny projection neurons (SPNs), which make up 95% of the neurons in the striatum. SPNs are directly contacted by both IT and PT cells. "We wanted to understand the different roles of IT and PT cells in this brain circuit, which is so important for motor learning and behavior."
***
"while recording the activity of neurons in vitro, the authors uncovered a new corticostriatal pathway. In this pathway, a fourth principal player emerged: striatal cholinergic interneurons (ChIs). Acting as the "middle-man" in a three-person relay, ChIs in the striatum receive input from PT cells and, in turn, excite SPNs. "We found that PT cells preferentially connect to ChIs, which indirectly activated SPNs," said Morgenstern.
"Using pharmacological methods, the authors were able to show precisely how ChIs excite SPNs. When activated by PT neurons, ChIs release a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine (ACh). Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that transmit signals from one cell to another. When ChIs release ACh, they cause the nerve fibers of cells nearby to excite SPNs.
"These results demonstrate that SPNs are excited twice: first, through the known direct routes (IT→SPN and PT→SPN), and second, through this previously unknown indirect circuit (PT→ChI→SPN), which amplifies the initial excitation. What is the purpose of this double excitation? The authors speculate that the direct IT→SPN connection initially prepares specific motor actions, while the PT→ChI→SPN connection subsequently triggers movement.
"'Besides movement execution," notes Nicolas Morgenstern, "this second excitatory phase mediated by PT neurons could be important for inducing long-lasting changes in the strength of specific connections, via the neurotransmitter ACh. This could be important for behavior, since learning happens when connections between brain cells change'."
(my bold)
Comment: the final paragraph is a key point. We know practice makes perfect and this is how the brain does it. Over the years we have invented all sorts of activities our 315,000 years old ancestors had no idea about doing; think sports for example. Our brain came fully prepared for these new activities. But dhw thinks there was no anticipation by God arranged for in our new big brain..
Introducing the brain: questionable role of astrocytes
by David Turell , Wednesday, February 09, 2022, 20:42 (800 days ago) @ David Turell
More new findings:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-02-star-like-brain-cells-unique-patterns.html
"The way people experience the world occurs due to complex and intricate interactions between neurons in the brain. Now, a study, published 9th February 2022 in Science Advances, suggests that astrocytes—star-shaped, non-neuronal cells in the brain—might also play an important role in processing information, and perhaps even memory.
"Using advanced imaging and analysis techniques, researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) recorded signaling within single astrocytes at a previously unseen level of detail and speed in the brains of awake mice.
"Their findings, including ultra-fast signals on par with those seen in neurons and patterns of signaling activity that correspond to different behaviors, suggest that astrocytes may play a crucial role in many functions of our brain, including how we think, move, and learn.
***
"...in recent years, there's been increasing amounts of evidence that astrocytes can listen to chemical messages sent between neurons at synapses, and can respond with their own signals, providing an extra layer of complexity to how our brain receives and responds to information.
"Still, the previously detected signals in astrocytes were about ten times slower than signals seen in neurons, with scientists therefore believing the cells were too slow for information processing.
"However, by developing a new toolkit that allows the study of astrocyte activity in awake mice with unprecedented detail, the researchers at OIST showed for the first time that astrocytes generate signals in vivo which are as fast as that of neurons, lasting fewer than 300 milliseconds.
***
"The scientists then used an advanced computer program to analyze the recorded images, allowing them to detect the never-before-seen ultra-fast flashes of calcium signals, and evaluate signal patterns in an unbiased way.
"They found that sensory stimulation, by tickling the whiskers, resulted in very little calcium signaling, while certain behaviors, like running or walking, resulted in high levels of activity.
"The scientists also realized that there were certain areas in the astrocyte, or hotspots, where levels of activity were higher.
"'These hotspot maps are like fingerprints—for a specific behavior, they are stable over time, remaining the same over a period of days, and unique to each astrocyte," said Dr. Georgiou.
"Even more surprisingly, the team noticed that different behaviors corresponded to unique hotspot patterns.
"'So when the mouse is resting, you see one pattern. And then when the mouse is running, you see a different pattern," said Prof. Kuhn.
"One hypothesis suggested by Prof. Kuhn is that these hotspot maps could represent memory engrams—a pattern that represents a specific behavior or a memory. Different neuron networks are active during specific behaviors or when learning and recalling information, which could also change the activity of nearby astrocytes. Memory engrams are still theoretical, and highly controversial, he acknowledged.
"'We still don't know how memories are stored in a brain, but it's incredible to think that it could involve astrocytes," he said. "It's likely too good to be true, but it's an exciting hypothesis to follow up on.'"
Comment: one human failing is to assume too little. I fully believe everything we find in living material has a reason for its existence. Don't assumer anything until we can study it well. Remember the fiasco of 'junk' DNA.
Introducing the brain: general
Quotes taken from various threads:
dhw: You keep saying your God provided sapiens with cells that were not used until thousands of years later because he put them there in preparation for future concepts. [...] I don’t believe there were any cells, including cortex cells, that were not used. I propose that our new concepts would have resulted in existing cells complexifying. (And shrinkage happened when complexification made some hitherto useful cells redundant.)
DAVID: Complexification is a new consolidation of existing neurons and connections. So neurons waiting for new conceptualization were certainly alive, somewhat active, but not like when eventually in deep active thought producing a new concept, like Einstein's special thickened area. Complexification is the result of intensive new use.
And:
DAVID: we see our brain came initially prepared to organize itself. What were all these regions doing 315,000 years ago? Some regions were quite active and some not so much. Deny the brain came unprepared for future use.
Thank you for agreeing that the brain organizes itself. That is a step forward. So too is your agreement that all the existing cells were used, though to different degrees, and they complexified in response to new ideas. They did not lie around doing nothing. Every stage of expansion would have been needed for PRESENT use, and was able to cope with later uses through complexification until more cells were needed. In our brain complexification has taken over (apart from minor instances of autonomous expansion which support my theory). And shrinkage was the result of previously useful cells being made redundant by the efficiency of complexification.(See later for your use of “prepared”.) Anything there that seems to you to be illogical?
Memory deposition is scattered
QUOTE: "Like that study, this one seemed to indicate that perception and memory are also deeply entangled. “It doesn’t make sense to think of our memory system as a totally separate workspace,” Baldassano said.
Agreed. The brain is a community of cell communities, all of which work together.
Female sex and complexification
DAVID: another activity shown to induce an area of brain thickness. All these activities handled by our brain without it exploding.
and
Learning new motor skills
QUOTE: "'Besides movement execution," notes Nicolas Morgenstern, "this second excitatory phase mediated by PT neurons could be important for inducing long-lasting changes in the strength of specific connections, via the neurotransmitter ACh. This could be important for behavior, since learning happens when connections between brain cells change'."(DAVID’s bold)
DAVID: the final paragraph is a key point. We know practice makes perfect and this is how the brain does it. Over the years we have invented all sorts of activities our 315,000 years old ancestors had no idea about doing; think sports for example. Our brain came fully prepared for these new activities. But dhw thinks there was no anticipation by God arranged for in our new big brain.
You have agreed that all our cells were used 315,000 years ago. Of course we invented new activities, and both examples vividly illustrate the fact that EXISTING cells change IN RESPONSE to activities. If we fail to learn, they won’t change! The only “preparation” for future use, then, is the mechanism that enables cells to complexify. You agree that complexification takes place autonomously, and so if your God invented the mechanism for past and present autonomous complexification, why should the same mechanism not have led to autonomous expansion in the past and up to and including our own expansion?
DAVID: Previously explained. The complexity of new designs requires an active mind planning it. The whole point of ID. You want secondhand design. If you had a new play in mind, would you outline the plot to a friend and ask him to write it?
Your analogy is apt. According to you, your God designed my brain, but it is my brain that autonomously does its own designing. According to the theistic version of the cellular intelligence theory, your God designs the cells, and the cells autonomously do their own designing. Once more: you agree that our new cells were used from the start, and did not simply lie around waiting to fulfil some vague future requirement, and you agree that the process of complexification takes place autonomously in response to new ideas/requirements, without your God’s intervention. So why shouldn’t expansion do the same? Elsewhere you have told us that ID-ers allow for God as the designer of cellular intelligence, so I’m afraid you can’t foist your beliefs onto them any more.
astrocytes
DAVID: I fully believe everything we find in living material has a reason for its existence. Don't assume anything until we can study it well.
I agree, but I would go further. Whether your God designed every life form, or cells did their own designing, I “fully believe” that nothing new would come into being if it was not useful at the time. Exit the theory that your God designed species in anticipation of later changes in conditions, and that he provided brains with new cells that would lie around doing nothing for tens of thousands of years.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Thursday, February 10, 2022, 16:03 (799 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: we see our brain came initially prepared to organize itself. What were all these regions doing 315,000 years ago? Some regions were quite active and some not so much. Deny the brain came unprepared for future use.
dhw: Thank you for agreeing that the brain organizes itself. That is a step forward. So too is your agreement that all the existing cells were used, though to different degrees, and they complexified in response to new ideas. They did not lie around doing nothing. Every stage of expansion would have been needed for PRESENT use, and was able to cope with later uses through complexification until more cells were needed. In our brain complexification has taken over (apart from minor instances of autonomous expansion which support my theory). And shrinkage was the result of previously useful cells being made redundant by the efficiency of complexification. Anything there that seems to you to be illogical?
The ability to handle new unexpected uses, implies design in anticipation of new uses.
Female sex and complexificationDAVID: another activity shown to induce an area of brain thickness. All these activities handled by our brain without it exploding.
and
Learning new motor skillsQUOTE: "'Besides movement execution," notes Nicolas Morgenstern, "this second excitatory phase mediated by PT neurons could be important for inducing long-lasting changes in the strength of specific connections, via the neurotransmitter ACh. This could be important for behavior, since learning happens when connections between brain cells change'."(DAVID’s bold)
DAVID: the final paragraph is a key point. We know practice makes perfect and this is how the brain does it. Over the years we have invented all sorts of activities our 315,000 years old ancestors had no idea about doing; think sports for example. Our brain came fully prepared for these new activities. But dhw thinks there was no anticipation by God arranged for in our new big brain.
dhw: The only “preparation” for future use, then, is the mechanism that enables cells to complexify. You agree that complexification takes place autonomously, and so if your God invented the mechanism for past and present autonomous complexification, why should the same mechanism not have led to autonomous expansion in the past and up to and including our own expansion?
Complexification involves the reorganization of existing neuron connections. The extra 200 cc of neurons came first before new complexification could even happen. And you are left to
explain fossil skull size gaps.
DAVID: Previously explained. The complexity of new designs requires an active mind planning it. The whole point of ID. You want secondhand design. If you had a new play in mind, would you outline the plot to a friend and ask him to write it?dhw: Your analogy is apt. According to you, your God designed my brain, but it is my brain that autonomously does its own designing. According to the theistic version of the cellular intelligence theory, your God designs the cells, and the cells autonomously do their own designing. Once more: you agree that our new cells were used from the start, and did not simply lie around waiting to fulfil some vague future requirement, and you agree that the process of complexification takes place autonomously in response to new ideas/requirements, without your God’s intervention. So why shouldn’t expansion do the same?
Expansion requires design anticipating future use. The existing neurons can't do that considering all the parts involved from differing individuals
dhw: Elsewhere you have told us that ID-ers allow for God as the designer of cellular intelligence, so I’m afraid you can’t foist your beliefs onto them any more.
Total distortion of my statement: I'll repeat, cells follow God's designed instructions in their genomes to look and act as if innately intelligent. Pure ID
astrocytesDAVID: I fully believe everything we find in living material has a reason for its existence. Don't assume anything until we can study it well.
dhw: I agree, but I would go further. Whether your God designed every life form, or cells did their own designing, I “fully believe” that nothing new would come into being if it was not useful at the time. Exit the theory that your God designed species in anticipation of later changes in conditions, and that he provided brains with new cells that would lie around doing nothing for tens of thousands of years.
I know your belief. So the enormous new uses of our brain we have now discovered can't imply anticipation 315,000 years ago. Illogical as usual.
Introducing the brain: needs compared to AI
by David Turell , Thursday, February 10, 2022, 18:43 (799 days ago) @ David Turell
AI scientists are surprised at how many neural networks are needed:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/computer-scientists-prove-why-bigger-neural-networks-do-...
"Fundamental mathematical results had suggested that networks should only need to be so big, but modern neural networks are commonly scaled up far beyond that predicted requirement — a situation known as overparameterization.
"In a paper presented in December at NeurIPS, a leading conference, Sébastien Bubeck of Microsoft Research and Mark Sellke of Stanford University provided a new explanation for the mystery behind scaling’s success. They show that neural networks must be much larger than conventionally expected to avoid certain basic problems. The finding offers general insight into a question that has persisted over several decades.
***
"A network’s size determines how much it can memorize.
***
"When neural networks first emerged as a force in the 1980s, it made sense to think the same thing. They should only need n parameters to fit n data points — regardless of the dimension of the data.
“'This is no longer what’s happening,” said Alex Dimakis of the University of Texas, Austin. “Right now, we are routinely creating neural networks that have a number of parameters more than the number of training samples. This says that the books have to be rewritten.”
***
"In their new proof, the pair show that overparameterization is necessary for a network to be robust. They do it by figuring out how many parameters are needed to fit data points with a curve that has a mathematical property equivalent to robustness: smoothness.
***
"Other research has revealed additional reasons why overparameterization is helpful. For example, it can improve the efficiency of the training process, as well as the ability of a network to generalize. While we now know that overparameterization is necessary for robustness, it is unclear how necessary robustness is for other things. But by connecting it to overparameterization, the new proof hints that robustness may be more important than was thought, a single key that unlocks many benefits.
“'Robustness seems like a prerequisite to generalization,” said Bubeck. “If you have a system where you just slightly perturb it, and then it goes haywire, what kind of system is that? That’s not reasonable. I do think it’s a very foundational and basic requirement.'”
Comment: an unfair comparison I admit, but it hints at the underlying complexity of our brain which is built from its beginning to handle anything we throw at it. Only design can explain our brain's capacity for handling new uses
Introducing the brain: neurotransmitters role in movement
by David Turell , Thursday, February 10, 2022, 19:08 (799 days ago) @ David Turell
New biochemical study:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-02-proteins-fine-tune-movement.html
"Three members of a family of proteins have been identified that are important to helping us fine tune the activity of brain chemicals which enable us to walk or stand at will, scientists report.
"The findings point toward the proteins KCTD5, KCTD17 and KCTD2 as potential new therapeutic targets in conditions like Parkinson's and dystonia where control of movement is lost, says Dr. Brian Muntean, pharmacologist and toxicologist at the Medical College of Georgia
***
"The fine tuning these KCTD family members appear to enable is called neuromodulation, which involves hundreds if not thousands of proteins inside neurons that are part of the complex pathway that precisely fine tunes the fast-moving sharing of neurotransmitters, or chemical messengers, between these brain cells so we can accomplish a desired function of our brain and body like walking across the room.
"It's the first discovery about the role these KCTD proteins play in neurons called striatal neurons, which are essential to movement and a variety of other fundamental functions.
"One of the key pathways neuromodulators use is cyclic AMP, or cAMP, which is called a "second messenger" because it's a response inside a cell that occurs in response to something that happens outside a cell.
"In the case of movement, a key external influence is the neurotransmitter dopamine, known to be important to controlled movement and known to be deficient in Parkinson's. As a neurotransmitter, dopamine works by interacting with a receptor on the surface of neurons, which triggers a lot of activity inside the cell including triggering proteins, which they now know include these three members of the KCTD family. In this complex scenario, dopamine also functions as a neuromodulator by helping regulate cAMP levels inside neurons.
"The scientists have found that these three KCTD proteins are doing at least two things simultaneously to modulate the fast work of neurotransmitters.
"They are helping regulate the way dopamine is making cAMP both by interacting with the proteins that directly make it and by interacting with proteins that put zinc, which is also known to regulate cAMP, into the neurons.
"'Modulating the cAMP level is what can kind of dictate the long-term ability of these neurotransmitters to work perfectly," Muntean says.
"KCTD is a family of about two dozen proteins, which scientists have begun to realize are involved in this complicated pathway of regulating the regulators, by binding to some of the proteins in the pathway that regulate cAMP.
***
"In this scenario, the scientists found zinc appears important in the "very layered" process of modulating cAMP and that KCTD5 regulates zinc levels by controlling levels of the transporter, Zip 14, which brings zinc inside cells.
***
"The KCTD gene family has 25 members, which early work indicates are involved in a myriad of neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders, including bipolar disorder, autism and schizophrenia. It's known that some patients with dystonia have a mutation in KCTD17 and variations in the gene that makes Zip-14 have recently been implicated in Parkinson's and dystonia, the authors write."
Comment: a very intricate control system which is so carefully balanced, it has to have been designed.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: we see our brain came initially prepared to organize itself. What were all these regions doing 315,000 years ago? Some regions were quite active and some not so much. Deny the brain came unprepared for future use.
dhw: Thank you for agreeing that the brain organizes itself. That is a step forward. So too is your agreement that all the existing cells were used, though to different degrees, and they complexified in response to new ideas. They did not lie around doing nothing. Every stage of expansion would have been needed for PRESENT use, and was able to cope with later uses through complexification until more cells were needed. In our brain complexification has taken over (apart from minor instances of autonomous expansion which support my theory). And shrinkage was the result of previously useful cells being made redundant by the efficiency of complexification. Anything there that seems to you to be illogical?
DAVID: The ability to handle new unexpected uses, implies design in anticipation of new uses.
You’ve got it. We can skip the examples, since you have echoed the following:
dhw: The only “preparation” for future use, then, is the mechanism that enables cells to complexify. You agree that complexification takes place autonomously, and so if your God invented the mechanism for past and present autonomous complexification, why should the same mechanism not have led to autonomous expansion in the past and up to and including our own expansion? […]
DAVID: Expansion requires design anticipating future use. The existing neurons can't do that considering all the parts involved from differing individuals.
If your God exists, then of course he would have designed the mechanisms for complexification and expansion to be used in the future! Once more: you have agreed that the mechanism for complexification works autonomously – i.e. your God does not keep popping in to tell us all what to think, and to fiddle with the neurons to make the necessary connections. And so yet again I ask you why he could not have done the same for expansion. Please don’t just tell me that he couldn’t have done it, or that cells can complexify their connections autonomously but you just happen to know they can’t increase their numbers autonomously.
astrocytes
DAVID: I fully believe everything we find in living material has a reason for its existence. Don't assume anything until we can study it well.
dhw: I agree, but I would go further. Whether your God designed every life form, or cells did their own designing, I “fully believe” that nothing new would come into being if it was not useful at the time. Exit the theory that your God designed species in anticipation of later changes in conditions, and that he provided brains with new cells that would lie around doing nothing for tens of thousands of years.
DAVID: I know your belief. So the enormous new uses of our brain we have now discovered can't imply anticipation 315,000 years ago. Illogical as usual.
All dealt with in detail above and earlier.
Your other posts emphasize the complexities which you say must have been designed. I agree, just as I agree that all the other complexities of complex life forms must have been designed, including the millions of animal, bird, fish and insect brains. But instead of them all being individually designed by your God for the one and only purpose of evolving humans plus food, I suggest that your God (if he exists) may have given to the cells of which they are all composed the autonomous ability to do their own designing (as with the human brain's autonomous ability to complexify, as you have agreed) – which in due course led to all the life forms that had no connection with humans and our food.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Friday, February 11, 2022, 15:40 (798 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The ability to handle new unexpected uses, implies design in anticipation of new uses.
You’ve got it. We can skip the examples, since you have echoed the following:
dhw: The only “preparation” for future use, then, is the mechanism that enables cells to complexify. You agree that complexification takes place autonomously, and so if your God invented the mechanism for past and present autonomous complexification, why should the same mechanism not have led to autonomous expansion in the past and up to and including our own expansion? […]DAVID: Expansion requires design anticipating future use. The existing neurons can't do that considering all the parts involved from differing individuals.
dhw: If your God exists, then of course he would have designed the mechanisms for complexification and expansion to be used in the future! Once more: you have agreed that the mechanism for complexification works autonomously – i.e. your God does not keep popping in to tell us all what to think, and to fiddle with the neurons to make the necessary connections. And so yet again I ask you why he could not have done the same for expansion. Please don’t just tell me that he couldn’t have done it, or that cells can complexify their connections autonomously but you just happen to know they can’t increase their numbers autonomously.
You are forgetting our brain makes few new neurons after infanthood is over. Please use known facts. You know God gave us so many extra neurons with complexification it shrank. No evidence of an intrinsic expansion mechanism. Thickening of areas is part of complexification, nothing more.
astrocytesDAVID: I fully believe everything we find in living material has a reason for its existence. Don't assume anything until we can study it well.
dhw: I agree, but I would go further. Whether your God designed every life form, or cells did their own designing, I “fully believe” that nothing new would come into being if it was not useful at the time. Exit the theory that your God designed species in anticipation of later changes in conditions, and that he provided brains with new cells that would lie around doing nothing for tens of thousands of years.
DAVID: I know your belief. So the enormous new uses of our brain we have now discovered can't imply anticipation 315,000 years ago. Illogical as usual.
dhw: All dealt with in detail above and earlier.
Your other posts emphasize the complexities which you say must have been designed. I agree, just as I agree that all the other complexities of complex life forms must have been designed, including the millions of animal, bird, fish and insect brains. But instead of them all being individually designed by your God for the one and only purpose of evolving humans plus food, I suggest that your God (if he exists) may have given to the cells of which they are all composed the autonomous ability to do their own designing (as with the human brain's autonomous ability to complexify, as you have agreed) – which in due course led to all the life forms that had no connection with humans and our food.
Back to illogical secondhand design, and slicing evolution into discontinuous parts.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: The ability to handle new unexpected uses, implies design in anticipation of new uses.
dhw: You’ve got it. We can skip the examples, since you have echoed the following:
dhw: The only “preparation” for future use, then, is the mechanism that enables cells to complexify. You agree that complexification takes place autonomously, and so if your God invented the mechanism for past and present autonomous complexification, why should the same mechanism not have led to autonomous expansion in the past and up to and including our own expansion? […]
DAVID: Expansion requires design anticipating future use. The existing neurons can't do that considering all the parts involved from differing individuals.
dhw: If your God exists, then of course he would have designed the mechanisms for complexification and expansion to be used in the future! Once more: you have agreed that the mechanism for complexification works autonomously – i.e. your God does not keep popping in to tell us all what to think, and to fiddle with the neurons to make the necessary connections. And so yet again I ask you why he could not have done the same for expansion. Please don’t just tell me that he couldn’t have done it, or that cells can complexify their connections autonomously but you just happen to know they can’t increase their numbers autonomously.
DAVID: You are forgetting our brain makes few new neurons after infanthood is over. Please use known facts. You know God gave us so many extra neurons with complexification it shrank. No evidence of an intrinsic expansion mechanism. Thickening of areas is part of complexification, nothing more.
You dodge from one escape route to another. You’ve just agreed that the only so-called preparation for the future consists in the autonomous ability to meet new requirements, and yet again I ask why the ability to add new cells should not also be part of this mechanism. What, then, is your point about infanthood? We inherit the same form of brain as our parents, and after infanthood we will have roughly the same number of neurons. So what? What was the point of your God giving us extra neurons if we didn’t use them? And how often do I have to repeat my explanation of shrinkage: we used the extra neurons until complexification made them redundant. There is no evidence of a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for expansion and for every undabbled development in life’s history, but all the evidence we have tells us that the brain RESPONDS to new requirements, that now instead of expanding, it complexifies and does so autonomously, and there are still tiny examples of enlargement: you wrote: “The advanced use of a new need, like London cabbies results in a thickened complexified area!!! That is a tiny example of enlargement….” I don’t see why you’ve changed your mind – a thickened area would also be an enlargement caused by (not created in anticipation of) a response to a new requirement.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Saturday, February 12, 2022, 16:50 (797 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The ability to handle new unexpected uses, implies design in anticipation of new uses.
dhw: You’ve got it. We can skip the examples, since you have echoed the following:
dhw: The only “preparation” for future use, then, is the mechanism that enables cells to complexify. You agree that complexification takes place autonomously, and so if your God invented the mechanism for past and present autonomous complexification, why should the same mechanism not have led to autonomous expansion in the past and up to and including our own expansion? […]DAVID: Expansion requires design anticipating future use. The existing neurons can't do that considering all the parts involved from differing individuals.
dhw: If your God exists, then of course he would have designed the mechanisms for complexification and expansion to be used in the future! Once more: you have agreed that the mechanism for complexification works autonomously – i.e. your God does not keep popping in to tell us all what to think, and to fiddle with the neurons to make the necessary connections. And so yet again I ask you why he could not have done the same for expansion. Please don’t just tell me that he couldn’t have done it, or that cells can complexify their connections autonomously but you just happen to know they can’t increase their numbers autonomously.
DAVID: You are forgetting our brain makes few new neurons after infanthood is over. Please use known facts. You know God gave us so many extra neurons with complexification it shrank. No evidence of an intrinsic expansion mechanism. Thickening of areas is part of complexification, nothing more.dhw: You dodge from one escape route to another. You’ve just agreed that the only so-called preparation for the future consists in the autonomous ability to meet new requirements, and yet again I ask why the ability to add new cells should not also be part of this mechanism. What, then, is your point about infanthood? We inherit the same form of brain as our parents, and after infanthood we will have roughly the same number of neurons. So what? What was the point of your God giving us extra neurons if we didn’t use them? And how often do I have to repeat my explanation of shrinkage: we used the extra neurons until complexification made them redundant. There is no evidence of a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for expansion and for every undabbled development in life’s history, but all the evidence we have tells us that the brain RESPONDS to new requirements, that now instead of expanding, it complexifies and does so autonomously, and there are still tiny examples of enlargement: you wrote: “The advanced use of a new need, like London cabbies results in a thickened complexified area!!! That is a tiny example of enlargement….” I don’t see why you’ve changed your mind – a thickened area would also be an enlargement caused by (not created in anticipation of) a response to a new requirement.
So confused, ignoring my points. Complexification enlarges tiny areas of the existing brain, and does not explain the 200cc jumps in pre-human and then early homo enlargements. Einstein's special area was one tiny fold five millimeters thicker in 1,350 cc of brain. Shrinkage makes room for those enlargements, caused by new uses. You have twisted the mechanism of complexification all out of shape. All previous brains in human evolution had the complexification mechanism. It didn't appear with us.
Introducing the brain: how bilingualism works
by David Turell , Saturday, February 12, 2022, 20:14 (797 days ago) @ David Turell
Very easily:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-brains-seamlessly-switch-between-languag...
"Billions of people worldwide speak two or more languages. (Though the estimates vary, many sources assert that more than half of the planet is bilingual or multilingual.) One of the most common experiences for these individuals is a phenomenon that experts call “code switching,” or shifting from one language to another within a single conversation or even a sentence.
"This month Sarah Frances Phillips, a linguist and graduate student at New York University, and her adviser Liina Pylkkänen published findings from brain imaging that underscore the ease with which these switches happen and reveal how the neurological patterns that support this behavior are very similar in monolingual people. The new study reveals how code switching—which some multilingual speakers worry is “cheating,” in contrast to sticking to just one language—is normal and natural.
***
"Current ideas about the bilingual brain suggest that both languages are always accessible, even when the bilingual person is speaking with a monolingual person. So in specific social contexts, bilingual people have to further develop their working memory and attention skills to prevent switching to the language that the monolingual speaker would not understand.
***
"We found this both in language switching [between English and Korean] and orthography [with Roman and Korean characters]. We’re manipulating the language, as well as the representation of these words.
"In other words, the brain activity looks a lot like what occurs in people who speak just one language.
"The fact that the left anterior temporal lobe is able to combine these concepts in meaningful ways without slowing down, without being affected by where these concepts are coming from or how they’re being presented to us, tells us that our brains are able to do this kind of process naturally, and so we shouldn’t shy away from it.
"One of the things that I want people to know and understand is that code switching is very natural for bilingual people. Asking us to maintain a single language is harder. I think that while most bilingual individuals have a negative attitude toward code switching—they think it’s bad or that we should stick to one language—it’s not actually bad for our brain. I think that it’s important to recognize that just because something doesn’t look like monolingual behavior doesn’t mean it’s deviant."
Comment: Bilingualism is easily handled. 315,000 years ago language beyond grunts and hand signs barely existed. If our brain handles it well now, it came prepared for it. Obvious design anticipation of use.
Introducing the brain: general
There is no point in reproducing all the arguments that have preceded your complaint, since they already contained the answers which you have ignored!
DAVID: So confused, ignoring my points. Complexification enlarges tiny areas of the existing brain, and does not explain the 200cc jumps in pre-human and then early homo enlargements.
Explained ad nauseam: each stage of expansion, including our own, would have been triggered by new requirements (e.g. new ideas, inventions, environments, discoveries) which exceeded the existing brain’s capacity for complexification.
DAVID: Einstein's special area was one tiny fold five millimeters thicker in 1,350 cc of brain. Shrinkage makes room for those enlargements, caused by new uses. You have twisted the mechanism of complexification all out of shape. All previous brains in human evolution had the complexification mechanism. It didn't appear with us.
I have laid great emphasis on the proposal that ALL brains complexified – see my bold above. It is your contention that your God enlarged sapiens’ brain in anticipation of future use. Initially you claimed that the additional cells were not used, but subsequently you changed this to their not being “fully” used. It is my contention that sapiens’ brain expanded, like its predecessors, because of some new requirement. ALL the cells were necessary, and then as usual brains complexified IN RESPONSE to new requirements. However, in sapiens the process of expansion stopped (perhaps because further expansion would have required major changes to the anatomy) and instead the process of complexification took over. We know that the brain complexifies IN RESPONSE to new requirements and not in anticipation of them, and you have agreed that this process takes place without intervention from your God (if he exists). Shrinkage, I propose, has occurred because complexification has made hitherto useful cells redundant. Some areas of the brain have enlarged slightly in certain circumstances. We may take this as evidence that in the past the brain was able to expand as well as complexify. The brain may never be “fully” used, so long as existing cells can go on complexifying in response to our new ideas etc. How on earth all this “twists the complexification mechanism out of shape” is quite beyond me, but perhaps you will explain your own concept of how it works. And finally, since you accept the autonomy of the complexification process, I have repeatedly asked you why you can’t except the possible autonomy of the expansion process.
DAVID (under “Bilingualism”): Bilingualism is easily handled. 315,000 years ago language beyond grunts and hand signs barely existed. If our brain handles it well now, it came prepared for it. Obvious design anticipation of use.
Do you mean your God anticipated bilingualism and prepared the brain to produce and understand two separate lots of sounds, or do you mean he “prepared” the brain for whatever new requirements might arise in the future? If it’s the latter, then we go right back to the design of the MECHANISMS that enable species to adapt and innovate and enabled all earlier brains to expand and complexify. No need to keep harping on about 315,000 years ago or about 3.8-billion-years-old programmes for every life form and decision and natural wonder, or about overnight operations on a group of humans to give them bigger brains and pelvises. I can narrow it down if you like: did your God look into his crystal ball and say: “Them pre-whales are gonna need flippers one day in the future, so I’ll operate now to prepare ‘em. And them humans are gonna speak two languages in 250,000 or so years’ time, so I’ll operate now an’ give ‘em the right cells to prepare ‘em to speak two languages.” If not, what do you think he did prepare/anticipate?
Introducing the brain: controlling spoken words
by David Turell , Sunday, February 13, 2022, 14:38 (797 days ago) @ dhw
Studies in epileptic reveal specific locations of control:
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-find-the-part-of-the-brain-responsible-for-maki...
"While it might feel as though we do it without thinking, getting words from our brain and out of our mouths in an intelligible way is actually an incredibly complex process – and scientists just made a new discovery about a key part of it.
"Our brains are always adjusting what we're saying based on what we're hearing, such as when we raise our voices in a loud environment. When problems with this feedback system happen, it can lead to disorders including stuttering, autism, Parkinson's disease, and schizophrenia, among others.
"New research has identified the part of the brain that makes sure our words are being properly articulated : the dorsal precentral gyrus. This knowledge could help treat speech problems and neural disorders in the future, the researchers say.
"'Our study confirms for the first time the critical role of the dorsal precentral gyrus in maintaining control over speech as we are talking and to ensure that we are pronouncing our words as we want to," says neuroscientist Adeen Flinker from New York University.
"While it was already known that the section of the brain called the cerebral cortex was responsible for controlling the movement of the mouth, lips, and tongue to form words, the details of how this worked hadn't yet been fully established.
"In the new study, researchers enlisted the help of 15 people with epilepsy who were already scheduled to have surgery to look at the cause of their seizures. This surgery involved fitting 200 electrodes to their brain, making them useful subjects to study.
***
"Human speech production is strongly influenced by the auditory feedback it generates," write the researchers in their published paper. "When we speak, we continuously monitor our vocal output and adjust our vocalization to maintain fluency."
***
"The study showed that the superior temporal gyrus and the supramarginal gyrus were involved in correcting errors in speech – both brain regions have been implicated in aphasia, the inability to understand or produce language.
"However, the dorsal precentral gyrus was dominant in terms of activity when the delays were introduced, suggesting this part of the brain is behind our vocal self-monitoring."
Comment: our brain 315,000 years ago prepared to organize itself as part of its in initial design. Specific controls as described don't appear by chance.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Sunday, February 13, 2022, 15:50 (796 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: So confused, ignoring my points. Complexification enlarges tiny areas of the existing brain, and does not explain the 200cc jumps in pre-human and then early homo enlargements.
dhw: Explained ad nauseam: each stage of expansion, including our own, would have been triggered by new requirements (e.g. new ideas, inventions, environments, discoveries) which exceeded the existing brain’s capacity for complexification.
Erectus and early sapiens lived very similar lives. You require some magical new uses to magically force a brain expansion by natural means.
DAVID: Einstein's special area was one tiny fold five millimeters thicker in 1,350 cc of brain. Shrinkage makes room for those enlargements, caused by new uses. You have twisted the mechanism of complexification all out of shape. All previous brains in human evolution had the complexification mechanism. It didn't appear with us.dhw: I have laid great emphasis on the proposal that ALL brains complexified – see my bold above. It is your contention that your God enlarged sapiens’ brain in anticipation of future use. Initially you claimed that the additional cells were not used, but subsequently you changed this to their not being “fully” used. It is my contention that sapiens’ brain expanded, like its predecessors, because of some new requirement.
As above, what new requirements, 315,000 years ago by cave dwellers? Please specifics to support your contention.
dhw: ALL the cells were necessary, and then as usual brains complexified IN RESPONSE to new requirements. However, in sapiens the process of expansion stopped (perhaps because further expansion would have required major changes to the anatomy) and instead the process of complexification took over. We know that the brain complexifies IN RESPONSE to new requirements and not in anticipation of them, and you have agreed that this process takes place without intervention from your God (if he exists). Shrinkage, I propose, has occurred because complexification has made hitherto useful cells redundant. Some areas of the brain have enlarged slightly in certain circumstances. We may take this as evidence that in the past the brain was able to expand as well as complexify. The brain may never be “fully” used, so long as existing cells can go on complexifying in response to our new ideas etc. How on earth all this “twists the complexification mechanism out of shape” is quite beyond me, but perhaps you will explain your own concept of how it works. And finally, since you accept the autonomy of the complexification process, I have repeatedly asked you why you can’t except the possible autonomy of the expansion process.
Simply because I have accepted Adler's view that humans were made by God, under His direct intent. A designer must exist as the complexities of biochemistry show. Do you ever see the whole picture of why I choose God as my books show?
DAVID (under “Bilingualism”): Bilingualism is easily handled. 315,000 years ago language beyond grunts and hand signs barely existed. If our brain handles it well now, it came prepared for it. Obvious design anticipation of use.dhw: Do you mean your God anticipated bilingualism and prepared the brain to produce and understand two separate lots of sounds, or do you mean he “prepared” the brain for whatever new requirements might arise in the future? If it’s the latter, then we go right back to the design of the MECHANISMS that enable species to adapt and innovate and enabled all earlier brains to expand and complexify. No need to keep harping on about 315,000 years ago or about 3.8-billion-years-old programmes for every life form and decision and natural wonder, or about overnight operations on a group of humans to give them bigger brains and pelvises. I can narrow it down if you like: did your God look into his crystal ball and say: “Them pre-whales are gonna need flippers one day in the future, so I’ll operate now to prepare ‘em. And them humans are gonna speak two languages in 250,000 or so years’ time, so I’ll operate now an’ give ‘em the right cells to prepare ‘em to speak two languages.” If not, what do you think he did prepare/anticipate?
Back to narrow view of the whale series. The whole series defies you. You have no logical answer to the three-part birth problem except the separate cells of the three individuals so how tele-communicate. As for language, our brain handled it well when language appeared. A brain arriving by a chance Darwin mechanism doing that is way beyond logical. Language in all forms didn't exist 315,000 years ago when the brain appeared. That means the brain was capable all that time ago. Seems like prepared by anticipation of future need, which is what happened.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: So confused, ignoring my points. Complexification enlarges tiny areas of the existing brain, and does not explain the 200cc jumps in pre-human and then early homo enlargements.
dhw: Explained ad nauseam: each stage of expansion, including our own, would have been triggered by new requirements (e.g. new ideas, inventions, environments, discoveries) bbbbwhich exceeded the existing brain’s capacity for complexification.
DAVID: Erectus and early sapiens lived very similar lives. You require some magical new uses to magically force a brain expansion by natural means.
And later:
DAVID: what new requirements, 315,000 years ago by cave dwellers? Please specifics to support your contention.
We’ve been through all this! Nobody knows what triggered any of the expansions (I gave you a list of possibilities above) but all the homos, despite their new tools and weapons etc., would have led similar lives to early sapiens, based on the essentials for survival. The astonishing invention and making of the spear did not change the way of life. And intelligent cells multiplying are no more “magical” than a God’s 3.8-billion-year–old programme for all undabbled innovations etc. for the rest of time.
I shan’t repeat the summary of my theory here, but I will repeat the last question, as your reply illustrates the main problem with our current discussions.
dhw:. And finally, since you accept the autonomy of the complexification process, I have repeatedly asked you why you can’t except the possible autonomy of the expansion process.
DAVID: Simply because I have accepted Adler's view that humans were made by God, under His direct intent. A designer must exist as the complexities of biochemistry show. Do you ever see the whole picture of why I choose God as my books show?
And so you dodge every single question and ignore every single explanation as you rush back to the theory that the complexities of life provide evidence for the existence of God, which is not the subject under discussion! In what way does my theory “twist the complexity mechanism out of shape”, do you now accept that the cells were used 315,000 years ago instead of lying there doing nothing, and that they complexified, and the efficiency of complexification resulted in shrinkage, and (yet again) why do you think your God could design an autonomous mechanism for complexification but could not or did not design one for expansion? Please don’t tell us that it’s because you and Adler believe that God exists.
DAVID (under “Bilingualism”): 315,000 years ago language beyond grunts and hand signs barely existed. If our brain handles it well now, it came prepared for it. Obvious design anticipation of use.
And
DAVID: Language in all forms didn't exist 315,000 years ago when the brain appeared. That means the brain was capable all that time ago. Seems like prepared by anticipation of future need, which is what happened.
You have completely ignored my question yesterday about WHAT was prepared/anticipated. If you mean that the mechanism for future complexifications was already there, then that would also be true of all the earlier homos. But do you mean that 315,000 years ago your God specially prepared certain cells to cope with the demands of language and of bilingualism, and so they just lay around for, say, 250,000 years doing nothing? I asked the same question about whales: did your God give them the mechanism to change legs to flippers, or did he look into his crystal ball and perform the operation to “prepare” them for a watery life at some time in the future?
DAVID: Back to narrow view of the whale series. The whole series defies you.
Explained in my response on your theory thread.
DAVID: You have no logical answer to the three-part birth problem except the separate cells of the three individuals so how tele-communicate.
Already explained at least three times: Large-brained parents mix DNA, result bigger baby, birth canal and surrounds must communicate in order to adapt to bigger baby…no doubt lots of problems initially, but over generations would have sorted itself out.
DAVID: As for language, our brain handled it well when language appeared. A brain arriving by a chance Darwin mechanism doing that is way beyond logical.
See above. How often do I have to repeat that I don’t accept chance either. As language developed, so the brain cells would have responded by making adjustments to accommodate the new usage of sounds.
Controlling spoken words
QUOTE: "New research has identified the part of the brain that makes sure our words are being properly articulated : the dorsal precentral gyrus. This knowledge could help treat speech problems and neural disorders in the future, the researchers say.
DAVID: our brain 315,000 years ago prepared to organize itself as part of its in initial design. Specific controls as described don't appear by chance.
I like the change from your God dabbling to the brain organizing itself, but I disagree profoundly with the idea that it prepared itself for requirements that would only arise 250,000 or so years later. Just like the whale’s anatomy “organizing itself” IN RESPONSE to different usages in the water, our brain would have “organized itself” IN RESPONSE to different usages, including the development of language.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Monday, February 14, 2022, 16:46 (795 days ago) @ dhw
dhw:. And finally, since you accept the autonomy of the complexification process, I have repeatedly asked you why you can’t except the possible autonomy of the expansion process.
DAVID: Simply because I have accepted Adler's view that humans were made by God, under His direct intent. A designer must exist as the complexities of biochemistry show. Do you ever see the whole picture of why I choose God as my books show?
dhw: And so you dodge every single question and ignore every single explanation as you rush back to the theory that the complexities of life provide evidence for the existence of God, which is not the subject under discussion! In what way does my theory “twist the complexity mechanism out of shape”, do you now accept that the cells were used 315,000 years ago instead of lying there doing nothing, and that they complexified, and the efficiency of complexification resulted in shrinkage, and (yet again) why do you think your God could design an autonomous mechanism for complexification but could not or did not design one for expansion? Please don’t tell us that it’s because you and Adler believe that God exists.
Same repeat: a logical God doesn't do secondhand design through others (your cells). The five tier of frontal lobe neurons is extremely intricate and required very thoughtful design. I wish we knew what erectus had for comparison, but I'd guess it was less complex.
DAVID (under “Bilingualism”): 315,000 years ago language beyond grunts and hand signs barely existed. If our brain handles it well now, it came prepared for it. Obvious design anticipation of use.
And
DAVID: Language in all forms didn't exist 315,000 years ago when the brain appeared. That means the brain was capable all that time ago. Seems like prepared by anticipation of future need, which is what happened.dhw: You have completely ignored my question yesterday about WHAT was prepared/anticipated. If you mean that the mechanism for future complexifications was already there, then that would also be true of all the earlier homos. But do you mean that 315,000 years ago your God specially prepared certain cells to cope with the demands of language and of bilingualism, and so they just lay around for, say, 250,000 years doing nothing? I asked the same question about whales: did your God give them the mechanism to change legs to flippers, or did he look into his crystal ball and perform the operation to “prepare” them for a watery life at some time in the future?
And I'm still with God speciating, however and when ever He did it. The cells (neurons) were there from the beginning in excess so complexification could work when needed in the future. You approach complexification from a backwards viewpoint.
DAVID: You have no logical answer to the three-part birth problem except the separate cells of the three individuals so how tele-communicate.dhw: Already explained at least three times: Large-brained parents mix DNA, result bigger baby, birth canal and surrounds must communicate in order to adapt to bigger baby…no doubt lots of problems initially, but over generations would have sorted itself out.
I feel sorry for the early homos with your wishful thinking and their terrible birth losses.
DAVID: As for language, our brain handled it well when language appeared. A brain arriving by a chance Darwin mechanism doing that is way beyond logical.dhw: See above. How often do I have to repeat that I don’t accept chance either. As language developed, so the brain cells would have responded by making adjustments to accommodate the new usage of sounds.
Exactly how God-provided complexification worked.
Controlling spoken words
QUOTE: "New research has identified the part of the brain that makes sure our words are being properly articulated : the dorsal precentral gyrus. This knowledge could help treat speech problems and neural disorders in the future, the researchers say.DAVID: our brain 315,000 years ago prepared to organize itself as part of its in initial design. Specific controls as described don't appear by chance.
dhw: I like the change from your God dabbling to the brain organizing itself, but I disagree profoundly with the idea that it prepared itself for requirements that would only arise 250,000 or so years later. Just like the whale’s anatomy “organizing itself” IN RESPONSE to different usages in the water, our brain would have “organized itself” IN RESPONSE to different usages, including the development of language.
And did it by the God-provided complexification mechanism using the excess neurons in part of the process
Introducing the brain: general
dhw: […] you dodge every single question and ignore every single explanation as you rush back to the theory that the complexities of life provide evidence for the existence of God, which is not the subject under discussion! In what way does my theory “twist the complexity mechanism out of shape”, do you now accept that the cells were used 315,000 years ago instead of lying there doing nothing, and that they complexified, and the efficiency of complexification resulted in shrinkage, and (yet again) why do you think your God could design an autonomous mechanism for complexification but could not or did not design one for expansion? Please don’t tell us that it’s because you and Adler believe that God exists.
DAVID: Same repeat: a logical God doesn't do secondhand design through others (your cells).
If your God wants to give autonomy to something, there is nothing illogical about his giving it autonomy! You agree that if he exists, he designed the complexification mechanism to work autonomously without his intervention. Why would it be illogical for him to do the same with expansion?
DAVID: The five tier of frontal lobe neurons is extremely intricate and required very thoughtful design. I wish we knew what erectus had for comparison, but I'd guess it was less complex.
I don’t know which of my questions this is supposed to answer.
Anticipation
dhw: You have completely ignored my question yesterday about WHAT was prepared/anticipated. If you mean that the mechanism for future complexifications was already there, then that would also be true of all the earlier homos. But do you mean that 315,000 years ago your God specially prepared certain cells to cope with the demands of language and of bilingualism, and so they just lay around for, say, 250,000 years doing nothing? I asked the same question about whales: did your God give them the mechanism to change legs to flippers, or did he look into his crystal ball and perform the operation to “prepare” them for a watery life at some time in the future?
DAVID: And I'm still with God speciating, however and when ever He did it. The cells (neurons) were there from the beginning in excess so complexification could work when needed in the future. You approach complexification from a backwards viewpoint.
Why won’t you give a straight answer to my questions?
DAVID: You have no logical answer to the three-part birth problem except the separate cells of the three individuals so how tele-communicate.
dhw: Already explained at least three times: Large-brained parents mix DNA, result bigger baby, birth canal and surrounds must communicate in order to adapt to bigger baby…no doubt lots of problems initially, but over generations would have sorted itself out.
DAVID: I feel sorry for the early homos with your wishful thinking and their terrible birth losses.
What wishful thinking? Do you really believe your God popped in one night and operated on some women’s birth canals and pelvises so that when they next became pregnant the baby would slip straight out? If this is not your theory, please tell us what is.
DAVID: As for language, our brain handled it well when language appeared. A brain arriving by a chance Darwin mechanism doing that is way beyond logical.
dhw: See above. How often do I have to repeat that I don’t accept chance either. As language developed, so the brain cells would have responded by making adjustments to accommodate the new usage of sounds.
DAVID: Exactly how God-provided complexification worked.
Thank you. Yet again you agree that complexification is a RESPONSE to new requirements, not an anticipation of them. So why do you go on telling me that I “approach complexification from a backwards viewpoint?”
Controlling spoken words
QUOTE: "New research has identified the part of the brain that makes sure our words are being properly articulated : the dorsal precentral gyrus. This knowledge could help treat speech problems and neural disorders in the future, the researchers say.
DAVID: our brain 315,000 years ago prepared to organize itself as part of its in initial design. Specific controls as described don't appear by chance.
dhw: I like the change from your God dabbling to the brain organizing itself, but I disagree profoundly with the idea that it prepared itself for requirements that would only arise 250,000 or so years later. Just like the whale’s anatomy “organizing itself” IN RESPONSE to different usages in the water, our brain would have “organized itself” IN RESPONSE to different usages, including the development of language.
DAVID: And did it by the God-provided complexification mechanism using the excess neurons in part of the process
Once again you agree with me that brains and bodies organize themselves, and that complexificaton results from the change and does not precede it. Our only point of disagreement is that your God gives organisms ”excess” neurons, whereas I believe that new neurons would not be created without an immediate purpose.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Tuesday, February 15, 2022, 16:08 (794 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Same repeat: a logical God doesn't do secondhand design through others (your cells).
dhw: If your God wants to give autonomy to something, there is nothing illogical about his giving it autonomy! You agree that if he exists, he designed the complexification mechanism to work autonomously without his intervention. Why would it be illogical for him to do the same with expansion?
Expansion requires new design, especially our special five-tier frontal lobe cortex design. Complexification is simply a mechanism within a given design. Design works for the future.
DAVID: The five tier of frontal lobe neurons is extremely intricate and required very thoughtful design. I wish we knew what erectus had for comparison, but I'd guess it was less complex.dhw: I don’t know which of my questions this is supposed to answer.
It answers your confusion about what design does.
Anticipationdhw: You have completely ignored my question yesterday about WHAT was prepared/anticipated. If you mean that the mechanism for future complexifications was already there, then that would also be true of all the earlier homos. But do you mean that 315,000 years ago your God specially prepared certain cells to cope with the demands of language and of bilingualism, and so they just lay around for, say, 250,000 years doing nothing? I asked the same question about whales: did your God give them the mechanism to change legs to flippers, or did he look into his crystal ball and perform the operation to “prepare” them for a watery life at some time in the future?>
I've told you constantly design always considers the future. You constantly attack the point, which I get weary of answering. God speciates is my firm belief.
DAVID: As for language, our brain handled it well when language appeared. A brain arriving by a chance Darwin mechanism doing that is way beyond logical.
dhw: See above. How often do I have to repeat that I don’t accept chance either. As language developed, so the brain cells would have responded by making adjustments to accommodate the new usage of sounds.
DAVID: Exactly how God-provided complexification worked.
Thank you. Yet again you agree that complexification is a RESPONSE to new requirements, not an anticipation of them. So why do you go on telling me that I “approach complexification from a backwards viewpoint?”
Controlling spoken words
QUOTE: "New research has identified the part of the brain that makes sure our words are being properly articulated : the dorsal precentral gyrus. This knowledge could help treat speech problems and neural disorders in the future, the researchers say.
DAVID: our brain 315,000 years ago prepared to organize itself as part of its in initial design. Specific controls as described don't appear by chance.
dhw: I like the change from your God dabbling to the brain organizing itself, but I disagree profoundly with the idea that it prepared itself for requirements that would only arise 250,000 or so years later. Just like the whale’s anatomy “organizing itself” IN RESPONSE to different usages in the water, our brain would have “organized itself” IN RESPONSE to different usages, including the development of language.
DAVID: And did it by the God-provided complexification mechanism using the excess neurons in part of the process
dhw: Once again you agree with me that brains and bodies organize themselves, and that complexificaton results from the change and does not precede it. Our only point of disagreement is that your God gives organisms ”excess” neurons, whereas I believe that new neurons would not be created without an immediate purpose.
From above: "Expansion requires new design, especially our special five-tier frontal lobe cortex design. Complexification is simply a mechanism within a given design. Design works for the future." Complexification exists in the now, fully designed to work immediately.
Introducing the brain: a study of blood brain barrier cells
by David Turell , Tuesday, February 15, 2022, 17:07 (794 days ago) @ David Turell
The barrier is very real and apparently very necessary to exist. The cells that do it are difficult to isolate:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-02-atlas-cells-blood-brain.html
"Those cells, which comprise only 0.3 percent of the brain's cells, also make up the blood-brain barrier, a critical interface that prevents pathogens and toxins from entering the brain, while allowing critical nutrients and signals through.
***
"Their study also revealed differences between cerebrovascular cells from healthy people and people suffering from Huntington's disease, which could offer new targets for potential ways to treat Huntington's disease. Breakdown of the blood-brain barrier is associated with Huntington's and many other neurodegenerative diseases, and often occurs years before any other symptoms appear.
***
"Cerebrovascular cells make up the network of blood vessels that deliver oxygen and nutrients to the brain, and they also help to clear out debris and metabolites. Dysfunction of this irrigation system is believed to contribute to the buildup of harmful effects seen in Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's, and other neurodegenerative diseases.
***
"The researchers performed single-cell RNA-sequencing on more than 16,000 cerebrovascular cells, and used the cells' gene-expression patterns to classify them into 11 different subtypes. These types included endothelial cells, which line the blood vessels; mural cells, which include pericytes, found in the walls of capillaries, and smooth muscle cells, which help regulate blood pressure and flow; and fibroblasts, a type of structural cell. (my bold)
""This study allowed us to zoom in to this incredibly central cell type that facilitates all of the functioning of the brain," Kellis says. "What we've done here is understand these building blocks and this diversity of cell types that make up the vasculature in unprecedented resolution, across hundreds of individuals."
"The researchers also found evidence for a phenomenon known as zonation. This means that the endothelial cells that line the blood vessels express different genes depending on where they are located—in an arteriole, capillary, or venule. Furthermore, among the hundreds of genes they identified that are expressed differently in the three zones, only about 10 percent of them are the same as the zonated genes that have been previously seen in the mouse cerebrovasculature.
***
"Because cerebrovascular cells can be accessed through the bloodstream, they could make an enticing target for possible treatments for Huntington's and other neurodegenerative diseases, Heiman says. The researchers now plan to test whether they might be able to deliver potential drugs or gene therapy to these cells, and study what therapeutic effect they might have, in mouse models of Huntington's disease.
"'Given that cerebrovascular dysfunction arises years before more disease-specific symptoms, perhaps it's an enabling factor for disease progression," Heiman says. "If that's true, and we can prevent that, that could be an important therapeutic opportunity.'"
Comment: a highly designed system, not by chance. And as usual looking to correct metabolic errors. Our high-speed living biochemistry causes occasional mistakes, as previously noted.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: Same repeat: a logical God doesn't do secondhand design through others (your cells).
dhw: If your God wants to give autonomy to something, there is nothing illogical about his giving it autonomy! You agree that if he exists, he designed the complexification mechanism to work autonomously without his intervention. Why would it be illogical for him to do the same with expansion?
DAVID: Expansion requires new design, especially our special five-tier frontal lobe cortex design. Complexification is simply a mechanism within a given design. Design works for the future.
Both theories link expansion to new design. Your theory is that your God pops in to add new cells so that the brain will be able to cope with new requirements (= new design) some time in the future. I propose that the brain needs new cells in order to cope with new requirements in the present. Each complexification may be called a new “design”, but clearly most will be on a smaller scale than the new design(s) that led cells to expand the existing cortex. All cell communities are presumably able to complexify, but (a) we do not know of cells complexifying in advance of requirements, and (b) the mechanism works independently of your God’s intervention. Hence my question, repeated ad nauseam: if your God can create a mechanism through which each new design requires and leads to autonomous complexification, why would the same mechanism not autonomously generate new cells when new designs require them?
Anticipation
This whole section has been covered by entries elsewhere.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Wednesday, February 16, 2022, 15:42 (793 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Same repeat: a logical God doesn't do secondhand design through others (your cells).
dhw: If your God wants to give autonomy to something, there is nothing illogical about his giving it autonomy! You agree that if he exists, he designed the complexification mechanism to work autonomously without his intervention. Why would it be illogical for him to do the same with expansion?
DAVID: Expansion requires new design, especially our special five-tier frontal lobe cortex design. Complexification is simply a mechanism within a given design. Design works for the future.
dhw: Both theories link expansion to new design. Your theory is that your God pops in to add new cells so that the brain will be able to cope with new requirements (= new design) some time in the future. I propose that the brain needs new cells in order to cope with new requirements in the present. Each complexification may be called a new “design”, but clearly most will be on a smaller scale than the new design(s) that led cells to expand the existing cortex. All cell communities are presumably able to complexify, but (a) we do not know of cells complexifying in advance of requirements, and (b) the mechanism works independently of your God’s intervention. Hence my question, repeated ad nauseam: if your God can create a mechanism through which each new design requires and leads to autonomous complexification, why would the same mechanism not autonomously generate new cells when new designs require them?
Please use fact: our brain, as a prime example makes only a few new neurons for memory. Our brain has handled all the new uses thrown at it over 315,000 years of existence. Implies prepared for future use. Complexification is an already existing designed mechanism, with no implication that it can relate in any way to new expansion/design. The process simply reorganizes existing neuron networks for new use, a God-given mechanism not requiring His further intervention. Your now bolded phrase is a stretch of fact. Cells can modify slightly as adaptations to impinging changes/challenges.
Introducing the brain: general
dhw: You agree that if [God] exists, he designed the complexification mechanism to work autonomously without his intervention. Why would it be illogical for him to do the same with expansion?
DAVID: Expansion requires new design, especially our special five-tier frontal lobe cortex design. Complexification is simply a mechanism within a given design. Design works for the future.
dhw: Both theories link expansion to new design. Your theory is that your God pops in to add new cells so that the brain will be able to cope with new requirements (= new design) some time in the future. I propose that the brain needs new cells in order to cope with new requirements in the present. Each complexification may be called a new “design”, but clearly most will be on a smaller scale than the new design(s) that led cells to expand the existing cortex. All cell communities are presumably able to complexify [I should have specified brain cell communities here], but (a) we do not know of cells complexifying in advance of requirements, and (b) the mechanism works independently of your God’s intervention. Hence my question, repeated ad nauseam: if your God can create a mechanism through which each new design requires and leads to autonomous complexification, why would the same mechanism not autonomously generate new cells when new designs require them?
DAVID: Please use fact: our brain, as a prime example makes only a few new neurons for memory. Our brain has handled all the new uses thrown at it over 315,000 years of existence. Implies prepared for future use.
Once any change of any kind – brain expansion, whale flipper, camel nose, giraffe neck – is made and succeeds, then of course it will be used in the future! That doesn’t mean your God popped in and operated on brains, legs, noses and necks before there was any present need for them!
DAVID: Complexification is an already existing designed mechanism, with no implication that it can relate in any way to new expansion/design. The process simply reorganizes existing neuron networks for new use, a God-given mechanism not requiring His further intervention.
New use = new design. Thank you for again confirming that it is autonomous. Earlier brains would have used the same mechanism: the cells responded autonomously to new requirements. But at some point, the cells were unable to cope with new requirements: their capacity for complexification had reached its limit. And so more cells were required. Why do you think cells can autonomously create all the connections necessary to cope with the most complex of requirements now, but in the past they were incapable of adding to their number and needed the intervention of your God?
DAVID: Your now bolded phrase is a stretch of fact. Cells can modify slightly as adaptations to impinging changes/challenges.
See my new parenthesis. The fact is that in your theistic theory, God provides an autonomous mechanism for complexification, but apparently he had to dabble to provide brains with more cells when they didn’t need them.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Thursday, February 17, 2022, 15:52 (792 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Both theories link expansion to new design. Your theory is that your God pops in to add new cells so that the brain will be able to cope with new requirements (= new design) some time in the future. I propose that the brain needs new cells in order to cope with new requirements in the present. Each complexification may be called a new “design”, but clearly most will be on a smaller scale than the new design(s) that led cells to expand the existing cortex. All cell communities are presumably able to complexify [I should have specified brain cell communities here], but (a) we do not know of cells complexifying in advance of requirements, and (b) the mechanism works independently of your God’s intervention. Hence my question, repeated ad nauseam: if your God can create a mechanism through which each new design requires and leads to autonomous complexification, why would the same mechanism not autonomously generate new cells when new designs require them?
Why is the idea of God giving existing cells autonomy for new design so important to you? You theoretically allow God's design and then demand no God in new design. It seems agnosticism is difficult to defend.
DAVID: Please use fact: our brain, as a prime example makes only a few new neurons for memory. Our brain has handled all the new uses thrown at it over 315,000 years of existence. Implies prepared for future use.dhw: Once any change of any kind – brain expansion, whale flipper, camel nose, giraffe neck – is made and succeeds, then of course it will be used in the future! That doesn’t mean your God popped in and operated on brains, legs, noses and necks before there was any present need for them!
Well, He did it somehow!
DAVID: Complexification is an already existing designed mechanism, with no implication that it can relate in any way to new expansion/design. The process simply reorganizes existing neuron networks for new use, a God-given mechanism not requiring His further intervention.dhw: New use = new design. Thank you for again confirming that it is autonomous. Earlier brains would have used the same mechanism: the cells responded autonomously to new requirements. But at some point, the cells were unable to cope with new requirements: their capacity for complexification had reached its limit. And so more cells were required. Why do you think cells can autonomously create all the connections necessary to cope with the most complex of requirements now, but in the past they were incapable of adding to their number and needed the intervention of your God?
Simple. I believe in a God who is the creator.
DAVID: Your now bolded phrase is a stretch of fact. Cells can modify slightly as adaptations to impinging changes/challenges.dhw: See my new parenthesis. The fact is that in your theistic theory, God provides an autonomous mechanism for complexification, but apparently he had to dabble to provide brains with more cells when they didn’t need them.
The additional neurons with new complexity of networks, handled 315,000 thousand years of new mental activity as prepared.
Introducing the brain: neurons have specialized dendrites
by David Turell , Thursday, February 17, 2022, 19:22 (792 days ago) @ David Turell
These contact branches of different types have different duties:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-02-dendrites-neurons-complicated.html
"Within the human brain, neurons perform complex calculations on information they receive. Researchers at MIT have now demonstrated how dendrites—branch-like extensions that protrude from neurons—help to perform those computations.
"The researchers found that within a single neuron, different types of dendrites receive input from distinct parts of the brain, and process it in different ways. These differences may help neurons to integrate a variety of inputs and generate an appropriate response, the researchers say.
***
"Any given neuron can have dozens of dendrites, which receive synaptic input from other neurons. Neuroscientists have hypothesized that these dendrites can act as compartments that perform their own computations on incoming information before sending the results to the body of the neuron, which integrates all these signals to generate an output.
"Previous research has shown that dendrites can amplify incoming signals using specialized proteins called NMDA receptors. These are voltage-sensitive neurotransmitter receptors that are dependent on the activity of other receptors called AMPA receptors. When a dendrite receives many incoming signals through AMPA receptors at the same time, the threshold to activate nearby NMDA receptors is reached, creating an extra burst of current.
"This phenomenon, known as supralinearity, is believed to help neurons distinguish between inputs that arrive close together or farther apart in time or space, Harnett says.
"In the new study, the MIT researchers wanted to determine whether different types of inputs are targeted specifically to different types of dendrites, and if so, how that would affect the computations performed by those neurons. They focused on a population of neurons called pyramidal cells, the principal output neurons of the cortex, which have several different types of dendrites. Basal dendrites extend below the body of the neuron, apical oblique dendrites extend from a trunk that travels up from the body, and tuft dendrites are located at the top of the trunk.
"Harnett and his colleagues chose a part of the brain called the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) for their studies because it is a good model for association cortex—the type of brain cortex used for complex functions such as planning, communication, and social cognition. The RSC integrates information from many parts of the brain to guide navigation, and pyramidal neurons play a key role in that function.
"In a study of mice, the researchers first showed that three different types of input come into pyramidal neurons of the RSC: from the visual cortex into basal dendrites, from the motor cortex into apical oblique dendrites, and from the lateral nuclei of the thalamus, a visual processing area, into tuft dendrites.
***
"In the basal dendrites, the researchers saw just what they expected: Input coming from the visual cortex provoked supralinear electrical spikes, generated by NMDA receptors. However, just 50 microns away, in the apical oblique dendrites of the same cells, the researchers found no signs of supralinear activity. Instead, input to those dendrites drives a steady linear response. Those dendrites also have a much lower density of NMDA receptors.
***
"Those linear inputs likely represent information such as running speed or destination, Harnett says, while the visual information coming into the basal dendrites represents landmarks or other features of the environment. The supralinearity of the basal dendrites allows them to perform more sophisticated types of computation on that visual input, which the researchers hypothesize allows the RSC to flexibly adapt to changes in the visual environment.
"In the tuft dendrites, which receive input from the thalamus, it appears that NMDA spikes can be generated, but not very easily. Like the apical oblique dendrites, the tuft dendrites have a low density of NMDA receptors. "
Comment: this is elegant design. These are mouse neurons. One can imagine how much more complex are the signals in a human cortex with five layers of pyramidal neurons all coordinated in specialize networks.
Introducing the brain: special pyramidal neurons
by David Turell , Thursday, July 14, 2022, 15:31 (646 days ago) @ David Turell
Only in primates:
https://elifesciences.org/articles/79839?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&u...
"it has been reported that the axons of some pyramidal neurons in the mammalian cortex emerge from dendrites rather than from the base of the soma
"These ‘axon carrying dendrites’ are unusual because the signals dendrites receive are usually processed in the soma before they are sent out via the axon to other neurons (Förster, 2014). These kinds of morphological differences are important because they influence how individual neurons and neuronal groups compute information. Researchers are particularly interested in features that only occur in humans and primates, as these may be associated with cognitive behaviors as well as neurological and psychiatric conditions. Now, in eLife, Petra Wahle from Ruhr University Bochum and co-workers in Germany, Austria and Spain report that the proportion of axon carrying dendrites (AcDs) varies between mammalian species and different areas of the brain (Wahle et al., 2022)
"Wahle et al. used a range of histological techniques to compare the morphology and structure of pyramidal neurons in postmortem tissue samples extracted from six cortical areas at different stages of the animals’ development (Figure 2). This revealed that the proportion of pyramidal neurons with an AcD was around 10–20% in non-primate mammals (rat, cat and ferret), but much lower (typically a few percent) in macaque monkeys and humans. Moreover, AcDs were rarely found in the upper layers of the neocortex: these layers are thicker in non-human primates and humans, and are associated with complex behaviors and higher cortical functions. (my bold)
"So, what might be the reason for humans and non-human primates having fewer AcDs? It is thought that AcDs enhance the electrical behavior of pyramidal neurons by allowing signals to bypass the soma and flow directly from the dendrite to the axon. This is supported by prior studies showing that AcDs generate stronger and more frequent electrical spikes, and also require a lower threshold to trigger an action potential (Thome et al., 2014; Kole and Brette, 2018). Wahle et al. propose that humans and non-human primates have fewer AcDs because they already have other cellular specializations that can boost the strength of the electrical signal sent through pyramidal neurons.
"So, what might be the reason for humans and non-human primates having fewer AcDs? It is thought that AcDs enhance the electrical behavior of pyramidal neurons by allowing signals to bypass the soma and flow directly from the dendrite to the axon. This is supported by prior studies showing that AcDs generate stronger and more frequent electrical spikes, and also require a lower threshold to trigger an action potential (Thome et al., 2014; Kole and Brette, 2018). Wahle et al. propose that humans and non-human primates have fewer AcDs because they already have other cellular specializations that can boost the strength of the electrical signal sent through pyramidal neurons. (My bold)
***
"Third, consistent with previous work on the hippocampus (Benavides-Piccione et al., 2020), Wahle et al. found that humans had more pyramidal neurons with AcDs in this region of the brain than mice – which is the opposite of what happens in other parts of the cortex. Wahle et al. suggest that this could be because the hippocampus of humans and non-human primates requires extra features to carry out its complex memory-related processes." (my bold)
Comment: in the progression of brain development by simple evolution from simpler forms this is distinctly different. In regions for higher cognitive abilities there are marked very precise differences in neurons. This is a strong ability for design, and certainly not by chance.
Introducing the brain: general
dhw: … if your God can create a mechanism through which each new design requires and leads to autonomous complexification, why would the same mechanism not autonomously generate new cells when new designs require them?
DAVID: Why is the idea of God giving existing cells autonomy for new design so important to you? You theoretically allow God's design and then demand no God in new design. It seems agnosticism is difficult to defend.
Nothing to do with agnosticism, and I wish you would answer the question! For the sake of all these discussions, I am accepting that your God may exist. Hence my constant reminder – which you constantly ignore - that the intelligent cell could have been designed by him. Autonomy is key to the question of how evolution works. We only came back to the subject of brain expansion because you tried to use it as an example of your God making changes in advance of any immediate need for them. This seems to me to go against all logic and against all observation. So too do your theories of a divine 3.8-billion-year-old programme and direct dabbling (see below). But I agree with you that the complexities are such that they are best explained by design. Of the four theories on offer (we have to include Darwin’s random mutations), that of the intelligent cell seems to me to fit in best with life’s history.
DAVID: Please use fact: our brain, as a prime example makes only a few new neurons for memory. Our brain has handled all the new uses thrown at it over 315,000 years of existence. Implies prepared for future use.
dhw: Once any change of any kind – brain expansion, whale flipper, camel nose, giraffe neck – is made and succeeds, then of course it will be used in the future! That doesn’t mean your God popped in and operated on brains, legs, noses and necks before there was any present need for them!
DAVID: Well, He did it somehow!
If he exists, yes. See above for the four theories discussed so far.
dhw: Why do you think cells can autonomously create all the connections necessary to cope with the most complex of requirements now, but in the past they were incapable of adding to their number and needed the intervention of your God?
DAVID: Simple. I believe in a God who is the creator.
Back we go: why could your God the creator not have created the mechanism for expansion as well as complexification?
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Friday, February 18, 2022, 16:48 (791 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: … if your God can create a mechanism through which each new design requires and leads to autonomous complexification, why would the same mechanism not autonomously generate new cells when new designs require them?
DAVID: Why is the idea of God giving existing cells autonomy for new design so important to you? You theoretically allow God's design and then demand no God in new design. It seems agnosticism is difficult to defend.
dhw: Nothing to do with agnosticism, and I wish you would answer the question! For the sake of all these discussions, I am accepting that your God may exist. Hence my constant reminder – which you constantly ignore - that the intelligent cell could have been designed by him. Autonomy is key to the question of how evolution works. We only came back to the subject of brain expansion because you tried to use it as an example of your God making changes in advance of any immediate need for them. This seems to me to go against all logic and against all observation. So too do your theories of a divine 3.8-billion-year-old programme and direct dabbling (see below). But I agree with you that the complexities are such that they are best explained by design. Of the four theories on offer (we have to include Darwin’s random mutations), that of the intelligent cell seems to me to fit in best with life’s history.
And my response is intelligence needs minds which cells do not have. So how did they become intelligent in your theory?
DAVID: Please use fact: our brain, as a prime example makes only a few new neurons for memory. Our brain has handled all the new uses thrown at it over 315,000 years of existence. Implies prepared for future use.dhw: Once any change of any kind – brain expansion, whale flipper, camel nose, giraffe neck – is made and succeeds, then of course it will be used in the future! That doesn’t mean your God popped in and operated on brains, legs, noses and necks before there was any present need for them!
DAVID: Well, He did it somehow!
If he exists, yes. See above for the four theories discussed so far.
dhw: Why do you think cells can autonomously create all the connections necessary to cope with the most complex of requirements now, but in the past they were incapable of adding to their number and needed the intervention of your God?
DAVID: Simple. I believe in a God who is the creator.
dhw: Back we go: why could your God the creator not have created the mechanism for expansion as well as complexification?
Same answer. A true designer who knows what he wishes to design, does not give the job off to secondhand methods. The outcome is not controlled.
Introducing the brain: general
dhw: … if your God can create a mechanism through which each new design requires and leads to autonomous complexification, why would the same mechanism not autonomously generate new cells when new designs require them?
DAVID: Why is the idea of God giving existing cells autonomy for new design so important to you? You theoretically allow God's design and then demand no God in new design. It seems agnosticism is difficult to defend.
dhw: Nothing to do with agnosticism, and I wish you would answer the question! For the sake of all these discussions, I am accepting that your God may exist. Hence my constant reminder – which you constantly ignore - that the intelligent cell could have been designed by him. Autonomy is key to the question of how evolution works. We only came back to the subject of brain expansion because you tried to use it as an example of your God making changes in advance of any immediate need for them. This seems to me to go against all logic and against all observation. So too do your theories of a divine 3.8-billion-year-old programme and direct dabbling (see below). But I agree with you that the complexities are such that they are best explained by design. Of the four theories on offer (we have to include Darwin’s random mutations), that of the intelligent cell seems to me to fit in best with life’s history.
DAVID: And my response is intelligence needs minds which cells do not have. So how did they become intelligent in your theory?
Why have you suddenly introduced the word “mind”? Cells do not have brains. That does not mean they don’t have some form of intelligence. Nobody knows the origin of intelligence, but as an agnostic, I acknowledge the possibility that there is a God who designed it. Why do you refuse to accept this possibility?
DAVID: Please use fact: our brain, as a prime example makes only a few new neurons for memory. Our brain has handled all the new uses thrown at it over 315,000 years of existence. Implies prepared for future use.
dhw: Once any change of any kind – brain expansion, whale flipper, camel nose, giraffe neck – is made and succeeds, then of course it will be used in the future! That doesn’t mean your God popped in and operated on brains, legs, noses and necks before there was any present need for them!
DAVID: Well, He did it somehow!
dhw: If he exists, yes. See above for the four theories discussed so far.
dhw: Why do you think cells can autonomously create all the connections necessary to cope with the most complex of requirements now, but in the past they were incapable of adding to their number and needed the intervention of your God?
DAVID: Simple. I believe in a God who is the creator.
dhw: Back we go: why could your God the creator not have created the mechanism for expansion as well as complexification?
DAVID: Same answer. A true designer who knows what he wishes to design, does not give the job off to secondhand methods. The outcome is not controlled.
We are talking here about the human brain. So when your God designed the autonomous mechanism for complexification, which he did not control because we are free to come up with the ideas that require complexification, he was not a true designer. Ts, ts.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Saturday, February 19, 2022, 16:27 (790 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: And my response is intelligence needs minds which cells do not have. So how did they become intelligent in your theory?
dhw: Why have you suddenly introduced the word “mind”? Cells do not have brains. That does not mean they don’t have some form of intelligence. Nobody knows the origin of intelligence, but as an agnostic, I acknowledge the possibility that there is a God who designed it. Why do you refuse to accept this possibility?
That is exactly what I do accept: God designed cells with intelligent instructions they carefully follow..
dhw: Back we go: why could your God the creator not have created the mechanism for expansion as well as complexification?DAVID: Same answer. A true designer who knows what he wishes to design, does not give the job off to secondhand methods. The outcome is not controlled.
dhw: We are talking here about the human brain. So when your God designed the autonomous mechanism for complexification, which he did not control because we are free to come up with the ideas that require complexification, he was not a true designer. Ts, ts.
Total distortion. God undoubtedly designed previous brains and our current one with the complexification with the exact purpose to allow handling new uses of the brain. Why are you mixing our free will into this debate? We have free will and in new ideas and concepts our brain has the ability to handle them with complexification, a plasticity well recognized.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: And my response is intelligence needs minds which cells do not have. So how did they become intelligent in your theory?
dhw: Why have you suddenly introduced the word “mind”? Cells do not have brains. That does not mean they don’t have some form of intelligence. Nobody knows the origin of intelligence, but as an agnostic, I acknowledge the possibility that there is a God who designed it. Why do you refuse to accept this possibility?
DAVID: That is exactly what I do accept: God designed cells with intelligent instructions they carefully follow.
You know perfectly well that by cellular intelligence I mean the autonomous intelligence of cells and not the intelligence of God who issues instructions for them to follow.
dhw: Back we go: why could your God the creator not have created the mechanism for expansion as well as complexification?
DAVID: Same answer. A true designer who knows what he wishes to design, does not give the job off to secondhand methods. The outcome is not controlled.
dhw: We are talking here about the human brain. So when your God designed the autonomous mechanism for complexification, which he did not control because we are free to come up with the ideas that require complexification, he was not a true designer. Ts, ts.
DAVID: Total distortion. God undoubtedly designed previous brains and our current one with the complexification with the exact purpose to allow handling new uses of the brain.
That is precisely what I am saying – if he exists, God provided the complexification mechanism, and you have agreed that it works without his intervention. He does not control the process whereby cells complexify in response to new uses. But according to you, a true designer controls everything!
DAVID: Why are you mixing our free will into this debate? We have free will and in new ideas and concepts our brain has the ability to handle them with complexification, a plasticity well recognized.
I am talking about free will because if God exists, he gave us the freedom to do our own thinking, designing etc., and he gave us the mechanism which enables us to give material reality to our thoughts, designs etc. It’s what you sneeringly call “second-hand design” because he does not control the thoughts or the complexifications. So if he is happy to let our cells do the complexifying, why do you think he would not have let them also add to their numbers when they needed to?
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Sunday, February 20, 2022, 16:11 (789 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Back we go: why could your God the creator not have created the mechanism for expansion as well as complexification?
DAVID: Same answer. A true designer who knows what he wishes to design, does not give the job off to secondhand methods. The outcome is not controlled.
dhw: We are talking here about the human brain. So when your God designed the autonomous mechanism for complexification, which he did not control because we are free to come up with the ideas that require complexification, he was not a true designer. Ts, ts.
DAVID: Total distortion. God undoubtedly designed previous brains and our current one with the complexification with the exact purpose to allow handling new uses of the brain.
dhw: That is precisely what I am saying – if he exists, God provided the complexification mechanism, and you have agreed that it works without his intervention. He does not control the process whereby cells complexify in response to new uses. But according to you, a true designer controls everything!
Your wrong extrapolation of the meaning of a designing God. He obviously sets up necessary mechanism to run on their own. Sexual reproduction works on its own , as does embryology. You rigid brain invented a tunnel-visioned God who does not exist. Purpose is not a tunnel.
DAVID: Why are you mixing our free will into this debate? We have free will and in new ideas and concepts our brain has the ability to handle them with complexification, a plasticity well recognized.dhw: I am talking about free will because if God exists, he gave us the freedom to do our own thinking, designing etc., and he gave us the mechanism which enables us to give material reality to our thoughts, designs etc. It’s what you sneeringly call “second-hand design” because he does not control the thoughts or the complexifications. So if he is happy to let our cells do the complexifying, why do you think he would not have let them also add to their numbers when they needed to?
Secondhand design is not precisely directed design. In the bold you repeat you theory. Please note the fact our brain adds only a few neurons related to memory in the hippocampus. It doesn't anticipate enlargement,.
Introducing the brain: general
dhw: Back we go: why could your God the creator not have created the mechanism for expansion as well as complexification?
DAVID: Same answer. A true designer who knows what he wishes to design, does not give the job off to secondhand methods. The outcome is not controlled.
dhw: We are talking here about the human brain. So when your God designed the autonomous mechanism for complexification, which he did not control because we are free to come up with the ideas that require complexification, he was not a true designer. Ts, ts.
DAVID: Total distortion. God undoubtedly designed previous brains and our current one with the complexification with the exact purpose to allow handling new uses of the brain.
dhw: That is precisely what I am saying – if he exists, God provided the complexification mechanism, and you have agreed that it works without his intervention. He does not control the process whereby cells complexify in response to new uses. But according to you, a true designer controls everything!
DAVID: Your wrong extrapolation of the meaning of a designing God. He obviously sets up necessary mechanism to run on their own. Sexual reproduction works on its own, as does embryology. You rigid brain invented a tunnel-visioned God who does not exist. Purpose is not a tunnel.
Thank you for agreeing with me, even though you say I am wrong. Brain complexification is one of those mechanisms which you agree runs on its own and changes all the time by autonomously making new connections. So it is patently absurd to say that he always wants control, and therefore he could not also have given the cells the means of adding to their numbers! How on earth this deliberate sacrifice of control makes him tunnel-visioned is beyond my comprehension. Praise be to human reason, you have now jettisoned your tunnel-visioned theory that your God specially designed every life form, natural wonder etc. for the one and only purpose of designing humans plus food, but any purpose IS a tunnel! It channels all activity to run in a particular direction. For a possible purpose which we have both agreed on and which encompasses the whole history of life, see your "theory of evolution" thread.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Monday, February 21, 2022, 14:58 (789 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Back we go: why could your God the creator not have created the mechanism for expansion as well as complexification?
DAVID: Same answer. A true designer who knows what he wishes to design, does not give the job off to secondhand methods. The outcome is not controlled.
dhw: We are talking here about the human brain. So when your God designed the autonomous mechanism for complexification, which he did not control because we are free to come up with the ideas that require complexification, he was not a true designer. Ts, ts.
DAVID: Total distortion. God undoubtedly designed previous brains and our current one with the complexification with the exact purpose to allow handling new uses of the brain.
dhw: That is precisely what I am saying – if he exists, God provided the complexification mechanism, and you have agreed that it works without his intervention. He does not control the process whereby cells complexify in response to new uses. But according to you, a true designer controls everything!
DAVID: Your wrong extrapolation of the meaning of a designing God. He obviously sets up necessary mechanism to run on their own. Sexual reproduction works on its own, as does embryology. You rigid brain invented a tunnel-visioned God who does not exist. Purpose is not a tunnel.
dhw: Thank you for agreeing with me, even though you say I am wrong. Brain complexification is one of those mechanisms which you agree runs on its own and changes all the time by autonomously making new connections. So it is patently absurd to say that he always wants control, and therefore he could not also have given the cells the means of adding to their numbers! How on earth this deliberate sacrifice of control makes him tunnel-visioned is beyond my comprehension.
Don't you remember? Tunnel-visioned was your description in discussions about planning on humans. As for your distorted discussion of complexification assuming God gave up some sort of control, do you remember your autonomic system that efficiently runs most of your bodily functions? Do you want God to help you defecate each time you feel the need?
Introducing the brain: varying unequal synapse transmissions
by David Turell , Monday, February 21, 2022, 20:53 (788 days ago) @ David Turell
Not surprising neurons have multifunctional synapses:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-02-unequal-neurons-common-previously-thought.html
"New research out of Lehigh University has revealed several aspects of how neurons communicate with each other in the brain that were previously unknown.
"The work involves electrical synapses, which provide a major form of communication between neurons in the brain, says Julie Haas, an associate professor of neuroscience in Lehigh's Department of Biological Sciences. Electrical synapses are based on pores that connect the cell membranes of two neurons.
"'You might initially expect them to pass electricity equally between cells, but they rarely do," says Haas. " Inequality of communication, or asymmetry, is a property of electrical synapses that is often noted but seldom explored."
"In a new paper, published this month in eNeuro called "Intrinsic sources and functional impacts of asymmetry at electrical synapses," Haas and graduate student Austin Mendoza demonstrate that multiple factors can contribute to electrical synapse asymmetry including synapse location, strength, direction of conductance, dendritic geometry and input resistance. Interestingly, the research also shows that these same factors can mask asymmetry. In other words, they can make it seem like the electrical synapses are equal when they are not.
"Finally, the work demonstrates that asymmetric connections impact two basic functions of neurons: timing of spikes and rhythmic synchrony.
"'These results highlight that asymmetric transmission and its impacts are likely occurring throughout the brain, much more than previously thought," says Mendoza.
***
"After further characterizing the asymmetry, Haas and Mendoza examined how the contributing factors might affect two known functions of electrical synapses: how quickly cells fire action potentials and how synchronous activities occur.
"'One surprisingly strong cause of asymmetry was the location of the synapse itself along the dendrites of a cell," says Haas. "We were surprised at how much influence even a little asymmetry had on the functions of electrical synapses."
"'Often when papers report that cells are coupled by electrical synapses they may gloss over how asymmetric they are, or even report they are symmetric without going into much detail showing that is the case," adds Mendoza. "We hope that this research will be broadly considered within our field, as it highlights basic but impactful properties of electrical synapses.'"
Comment: as each level of neuron activity is uncovered, the activity within the brain demonstrates its complexity, and shows us why our brain acts as it does. I wish we could see how much complexity existed in preceding hominins and homos. My guess is size isn't the issue but neuronal network complexity created the brain we use, which makes it superior to all preceding brains. Larger size makes room for more complexity but unless the increased
complexity exists just larger size will not matter. The Neanderthal's bigger rain is a prime example.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: He obviously sets up necessary mechanism to run on their own. Sexual reproduction works on its own, as does embryology. You rigid brain invented a tunnel-visioned God who does not exist. Purpose is not a tunnel.
dhw: Thank you for agreeing with me, even though you say I am wrong. Brain complexification is one of those mechanisms which you agree runs on its own and changes all the time by autonomously making new connections. So it is patently absurd to say that he always wants control, and therefore he could not also have given the cells the means of adding to their numbers! How on earth this deliberate sacrifice of control makes him tunnel-visioned is beyond my comprehension.
DAVID: Don't you remember? Tunnel-visioned was your description in discussions about planning on humans.
I remember only too well rejecting your view of a free-for-all as “tunnel-visioned”, when compared to your theory that all life forms, including those that had no connection with humans, were “part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans” and their food!
DAVID: As for your distorted discussion of complexification assuming God gave up some sort of control, do you remember your autonomic system that efficiently runs most of your bodily functions? Do you want God to help you defecate each time you feel the need?
Answered umpteen times, and repeated today on the “cellular intelligence” thread. Most of our established organs have to work automatically. And have you forgotten that you have agreed that complexification takes place without your God intervening? Hence my constantly asking you why, if he designed a mechanism for autonomous complexification, you insist that he could not have done so for enlargement.
Varying unequal synapses
DAVID: as each level of neuron activity is uncovered, the activity within the brain demonstrates its complexity, and shows us why our brain acts as it does. I wish we could see how much complexity existed in preceding hominins and homos. My guess is size isn't the issue but neuronal network complexity created the brain we use, which makes it superior to all preceding brains. Larger size makes room for more complexity but unless the increased
complexity exists just larger size will not matter.
From my standpoint, this is an excellent summary of the whole process. The autonomous mechanism of complexification would have existed in the brains of all preceding hominins and homos, and whenever requirements necessitated additional cells, there was expansion. The size only matters because it is the increase in the number of cells that enhances the ability to complexify. (But in sapiens, the ability to complexify itself has been so enhanced that not only is expansion unnecessary, but some cells that had been useful in the past have become redundant – hence shrinkage). Since you agree that size only matters in relation to the autonomous ability to complexify, I cannot understand why, in the theistic version of this theory, you think the addition of cells requires your God’s intervention.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Tuesday, February 22, 2022, 16:28 (787 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: As for your distorted discussion of complexification assuming God gave up some sort of control, do you remember your autonomic system that efficiently runs most of your bodily functions? Do you want God to help you defecate each time you feel the need?
dhw: Answered umpteen times, and repeated today on the “cellular intelligence” thread. Most of our established organs have to work automatically. And have you forgotten that you have agreed that complexification takes place without your God intervening? Hence my constantly asking you why, if he designed a mechanism for autonomous complexification, you insist that he could not have done so for enlargement.
I'll repeat. Complexification is simply one necessary part of a designed brain and its functions. A designer does his own designing is my constant reply.
Varying unequal synapsesDAVID: as each level of neuron activity is uncovered, the activity within the brain demonstrates its complexity, and shows us why our brain acts as it does. I wish we could see how much complexity existed in preceding hominins and homos. My guess is size isn't the issue but neuronal network complexity created the brain we use, which makes it superior to all preceding brains. Larger size makes room for more complexity but unless the increased
complexity exists just larger size will not matter.dhw: From my standpoint, this is an excellent summary of the whole process. The autonomous mechanism of complexification would have existed in the brains of all preceding hominins and homos, and whenever requirements necessitated additional cells, there was expansion. The size only matters because it is the increase in the number of cells that enhances the ability to complexify. (But in sapiens, the ability to complexify itself has been so enhanced that not only is expansion unnecessary, but some cells that had been useful in the past have become redundant – hence shrinkage). Since you agree that size only matters in relation to the autonomous ability to complexify, I cannot understand why, in the theistic version of this theory, you think the addition of cells requires your God’s intervention.
What makes the extra cells from Habilis to Erectus to Sapiens? God or intelligent neurons?
Introducing the brain: special neurons for music, singing
by David Turell , Tuesday, February 22, 2022, 19:49 (787 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Tuesday, February 22, 2022, 20:24
Just discovered:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2309238-there-are-neurons-in-the-brain-that-only-s...
"Humans may have neurons whose main job is to process singing. Scientists have previously found neurons that are selective for speech and music, suggesting that our brains have specific cells that handle different types of sounds we hear.
***
"...the researchers discovered a population of neurons that seemed to respond nearly exclusively to singing, although they also had a very small response to speech and instrumental music.
“'This work suggests there’s a distinction in the brain between instrumental music and vocal music,” says Norman-Haignere, although the researchers didn’t test whether the neurons also responded to spoken word or rap music.
"They overlaid these results with fMRI data from 30 other people who listened to the same sounds so that they could map the neurons to a specific region of the brain. The “singing” neurons were located roughly between the music and speech-selective areas of the auditory cortex.
"The researchers don’t know why we would have such neurons. “It could have been due to some evolutionary role,” says Norman-Haignere. “Many people think that singing has some important role in the evolution of music.” (my bold)
“'But it’s also totally possible that it’s all driven by exposure,” he says. “People spend a huge amount of time listening to music.” The team is confident that these neurons aren’t driven by musical training and that we all probably have them.
“'To be able to distinguish the musical properties of sounds is fundamental for survival,” says Jörg Fachner at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, UK. “It makes sense that this dispositional ability is wired into our auditory cortex.”
“'It may also explain why singing a beloved song to a person with dementia may allow responses [even though] the neurodegenerative process has limited the functionality of brain areas,” he says. “This result, along with other neuroimaging-related results of musical memory, may help to explain why songs may help dementia patients.'”
Comment: if the neurons were specialized from the beginning perhaps they were part of the original design in anticipation of music and singing. Based on primitive tribes, they mostly use rhythm not the musical scale. Another article:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-02-neuroscientists-population-neurons-brain-music.html
"For the first time, MIT neuroscientists have identified a population of neurons in the human brain that lights up when we hear singing, but not other types of music.
"These neurons, found in the auditory cortex, appear to respond to the specific combination of voice and music, but not to either regular speech or instrumental music. Exactly what they are doing is unknown and will require more work to uncover, the researchers say.
***
"For those participants, the researchers played the same set of 165 sounds that they used in the earlier fMRI study. The location of each patient's electrodes was determined by their surgeons, so some did not pick up any responses to auditory input, but many did. Using a novel statistical analysis that they developed, the researchers were able to infer the types of neural populations that produced the data that were recorded by each electrode.
"'When we applied this method to this data set, this neural response pattern popped out that only responded to singing," Norman-Haignere says. "This was a finding we really didn't expect, so it very much justifies the whole point of the approach, which is to reveal potentially novel things you might not think to look for."
"That song-specific population of neurons had very weak responses to either speech or instrumental music, and therefore is distinct from the music- and speech-selective populations identified in their 2015 study.
***
"The song-specific hotspot that they found is located at the top of the temporal lobe, near regions that are selective for language and music. That location suggests that the song-specific population may be responding to features such as the perceived pitch, or the interaction between words and perceived pitch, before sending information to other parts of the brain for further processing, the researchers say."
Further comment: this article makes deliberate design of this small brain area more reasonable to assume.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: As for your distorted discussion of complexification assuming God gave up some sort of control, do you remember your autonomic system that efficiently runs most of your bodily functions? Do you want God to help you defecate each time you feel the need?
dhw: Answered umpteen times, and repeated today on the “cellular intelligence” thread. Most of our established organs have to work automatically. And have you forgotten that you have agreed that complexification takes place without your God intervening? Hence my constantly asking you why, if he designed a mechanism for autonomous complexification, you insist that he could not have done so for enlargement.
DAVID: I'll repeat. Complexification is simply one necessary part of a designed brain and its functions. A designer does his own designing is my constant reply.
I’ll repeat. According to you, the process of complexification operates autonomously without your God’s intervention. If he exists, then that is the way he designed it. And so why should he not also have designed cells to autonomously add to their number as well as to complexify?
Varying unequal synapses
DAVID: as each level of neuron activity is uncovered, the activity within the brain demonstrates its complexity, and shows us why our brain acts as it does. I wish we could see how much complexity existed in preceding hominins and homos. My guess is size isn't the issue but neuronal network complexity created the brain we use, which makes it superior to all preceding brains. Larger size makes room for more complexity but unless the increased
complexity exists just larger size will not matter.
dhw: From my standpoint, this is an excellent summary of the whole process. The autonomous mechanism of complexification would have existed in the brains of all preceding hominins and homos, and whenever requirements necessitated additional cells, there was expansion. The size only matters because it is the increase in the number of cells that enhances the ability to complexify. (But in sapiens, the ability to complexify itself has been so enhanced that not only is expansion unnecessary, but some cells that had been useful in the past have become redundant – hence shrinkage). Since you agree that size only matters in relation to the autonomous ability to complexify, I cannot understand why, in the theistic version of this theory, you think the addition of cells requires your God’s intervention.
DAVID: What makes the extra cells from Habilis to Erectus to Sapiens? God or intelligent neurons?
I propose intelligent neurons and maybe other brain cells as well. I keep asking you why your God has to do it, since you believe he has given the brain cells the intelligence to do their own complexifying. Your only answer seems to be the vague complaint about "secondhand design", but I'd have thought that if he could design autonomous complexification, he could design autonomous expansion too.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Wednesday, February 23, 2022, 15:55 (786 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I'll repeat. Complexification is simply one necessary part of a designed brain and its functions. A designer does his own designing is my constant reply.
dhw: I’ll repeat. According to you, the process of complexification operates autonomously without your God’s intervention. If he exists, then that is the way he designed it. And so why should he not also have designed cells to autonomously add to their number as well as to complexify?
Our only example we have is our brain. Fact: new neurons are vary limited to a small memory area. No enlargement mechanism is seen to exist. You are illogically assuming preceding brains were very different. What the fact supports is logically evolution is over.
Varying unequal synapsesDAVID: as each level of neuron activity is uncovered, the activity within the brain demonstrates its complexity, and shows us why our brain acts as it does. I wish we could see how much complexity existed in preceding hominins and homos. My guess is size isn't the issue but neuronal network complexity created the brain we use, which makes it superior to all preceding brains. Larger size makes room for more complexity but unless the increased
complexity exists just larger size will not matter.dhw: From my standpoint, this is an excellent summary of the whole process. The autonomous mechanism of complexification would have existed in the brains of all preceding hominins and homos, and whenever requirements necessitated additional cells, there was expansion. The size only matters because it is the increase in the number of cells that enhances the ability to complexify. (But in sapiens, the ability to complexify itself has been so enhanced that not only is expansion unnecessary, but some cells that had been useful in the past have become redundant – hence shrinkage). Since you agree that size only matters in relation to the autonomous ability to complexify, I cannot understand why, in the theistic version of this theory, you think the addition of cells requires your God’s intervention.
DAVID: What makes the extra cells from Habilis to Erectus to Sapiens? God or intelligent neurons?
dhw: I propose intelligent neurons and maybe other brain cells as well. I keep asking you why your God has to do it, since you believe he has given the brain cells the intelligence to do their own complexifying. Your only answer seems to be the vague complaint about "secondhand design", but I'd have thought that if he could design autonomous complexification, he could design autonomous expansion too.
We differ as usual. God specifically designs new species. The specific five tier design in our cortex cannot happen by chance.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: I'll repeat. Complexification is simply one necessary part of a designed brain and its functions. A designer does his own designing is my constant reply.
dhw: I’ll repeat. According to you, the process of complexification operates autonomously without your God’s intervention. If he exists, then that is the way he designed it. And so why should he not also have designed cells to autonomously add to their number as well as to complexify?
DAVID: Our only example we have is our brain. Fact: new neurons are vary limited to a small memory area. No enlargement mechanism is seen to exist. You are illogically assuming preceding brains were very different. What the fact supports is logically evolution is over
An enlarged mechanism is seen to exist in a small and limited area.
One small and limited area is enough to prove that the brain is capable of autonomous expansion! In view of our agreement that earlier brains would also have complexified, and new cells would have served to enhance the capacity for complexification, the difference lies only in the fact that in our brains, complexification has been so enhanced that expansion is no longer necessary. I don’t know why this means the end of evolution, or why you’ve even mentioned that, but I’m inclined to agree that our brains and skulls are unlikely to expand any further, since I suggest that they stopped expanding in the first place because further expansion would have required major changes in our anatomy.
Varying unequal synapses
DAVID: What makes the extra cells from Habilis to Erectus to Sapiens? God or intelligent neurons?
dhw: I propose intelligent neurons and maybe other brain cells as well. I keep asking you why your God has to do it, since you believe he has given the brain cells the intelligence to do their own complexifying. Your only answer seems to be the vague complaint about "secondhand design", but I'd have thought that if he could design autonomous complexification, he could design autonomous expansion too.
DAVID: We differ as usual. God specifically designs new species. The specific five tier design in our cortex cannot happen by chance.
Your usual statement of rigid belief as if it were fact. And your usual fall back on the chance argument, as if we hadn’t both rejected that 14 years ago. And still you have failed to offer a single explanation why your God, who designed an AUTONOMOUS mechanism for complexification, could not have enabled the same mechanism to add cells to those that already existed.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Thursday, February 24, 2022, 15:37 (785 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I'll repeat. Complexification is simply one necessary part of a designed brain and its functions. A designer does his own designing is my constant reply.
dhw: I’ll repeat. According to you, the process of complexification operates autonomously without your God’s intervention. If he exists, then that is the way he designed it. And so why should he not also have designed cells to autonomously add to their number as well as to complexify?
DAVID: Our only example we have is our brain. Fact: new neurons are vary limited to a small memory area. No enlargement mechanism is seen to exist. You are illogically assuming preceding brains were very different. What the fact supports is logically evolution is over
An enlarged mechanism is seen to exist in a small and limited area.dhw: One small and limited area is enough to prove that the brain is capable of autonomous expansion!
Complexification is an internal process in our brain that in no way explains how brains got bigger during evolutin.
dhw: In view of our agreement that earlier brains would also have complexified, and new cells would have served to enhance the capacity for complexification, the difference lies only in the fact that in our brains, complexification has been so enhanced that expansion is no longer necessary. I don’t know why this means the end of evolution, or why you’ve even mentioned that, but I’m inclined to agree that our brains and skulls are unlikely to expand any further, since I suggest that they stopped expanding in the first place because further expansion would have required major changes in our anatomy.
Your final idea that 200 cc of more brain would cause major anatomic alterations is a constant very strange theory. Seven ounces is not a very heavy addition to handle.
Varying unequal synapsesDAVID: What makes the extra cells from Habilis to Erectus to Sapiens? God or intelligent neurons?
dhw: I propose intelligent neurons and maybe other brain cells as well. I keep asking you why your God has to do it, since you believe he has given the brain cells the intelligence to do their own complexifying. Your only answer seems to be the vague complaint about "secondhand design", but I'd have thought that if he could design autonomous complexification, he could design autonomous expansion too.
DAVID: We differ as usual. God specifically designs new species. The specific five tier design in our cortex cannot happen by chance.
dhw: Your usual statement of rigid belief as if it were fact. And your usual fall back on the chance argument, as if we hadn’t both rejected that 14 years ago. And still you have failed to offer a single explanation why your God, who designed an AUTONOMOUS mechanism for complexification, could not have enabled the same mechanism to add cells to those that already existed.
Secondhand design is my constant rebuttal. Our brain specifically can only add a few cells. It cannot expand. The only example we have
Introducing the brain: general
dhw: According to you, the process of complexification operates autonomously without your God’s intervention. If he exists, then that is the way he designed it. And so why should he not also have designed cells to autonomously add to their number as well as to complexify?
DAVID: Our only example we have is our brain. Fact: new neurons are vary limited to a small memory area. No enlargement mechanism is seen to exist. You are illogically assuming preceding brains were very different. What the fact supports is logically evolution is over
An enlarged mechanism is seen to exist in a small and limited area.
dhw: One small and limited area is enough to prove that the brain is capable of autonomous expansion!
DAVID: Complexification is an internal process in our brain that in no way explains how brains got bigger during evolution.
Of course it doesn’t. But if a very small area of our brain has expanded because of additional requirements, it is not unreasonable to suppose that in the past, when complexification could not cope with new requirements, the same process would have applied. You still like to skate over the fact that you believe the complexification mechanism works as and when required, independently of your God’s intervention, so once more: why do you think it was necessary for him to keep operating on all the hominins and homos when the same mechanism could have been used to produce new cells as and when required?
dhw: I’m inclined to agree that our brains and skulls are unlikely to expand any further, since I suggest that they stopped expanding in the first place because further expansion would have required major changes in our anatomy.
DAVID: Your final idea that 200 cc of more brain would cause major anatomic alterations is a constant very strange theory. Seven ounces is not a very heavy addition to handle.
One moment you talk of our uniquely huge brain, and the next moment the addition is minimized. Neanderthal brains were bigger than ours, and their anatomy was different from ours. But I’m only theorizing. What is your explanation for the end of expansion in favour of complexification. Do you think your God might have been trying out different designs? (See "More miscellany")
Neurons may make future plans
DAVID: I view this as an attempt to understand complexification.
I’ve had trouble understanding the article. Please could you explain to me what exactly neurons are believed to predict.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Friday, February 25, 2022, 15:44 (784 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Complexification is an internal process in our brain that in no way explains how brains got bigger during evolution.
dhw: Of course it doesn’t. But if a very small area of our brain has expanded because of additional requirements, it is not unreasonable to suppose that in the past, when complexification could not cope with new requirements, the same process would have applied. You still like to skate over the fact that you believe the complexification mechanism works as and when required, independently of your God’s intervention, so once more: why do you think it was necessary for him to keep operating on all the hominins and homos when the same mechanism could have been used to produce new cells as and when required?
Same mistake. Our brain has very limited ability to produce new neurons. I think God made all prior hominin/homo brains in the same form.
dhw: I’m inclined to agree that our brains and skulls are unlikely to expand any further, since I suggest that they stopped expanding in the first place because further expansion would have required major changes in our anatomy.DAVID: Your final idea that 200 cc of more brain would cause major anatomic alterations is a constant very strange theory. Seven ounces is not a very heavy addition to handle.
dhw: One moment you talk of our uniquely huge brain, and the next moment the addition is minimized. Neanderthal brains were bigger than ours, and their anatomy was different from ours. But I’m only theorizing. What is your explanation for the end of expansion in favour of complexification. Do you think your God might have been trying out different designs? (See "More miscellany")
Seven ounce change objection of mine not answered.
Neurons may make future plansDAVID: I view this as an attempt to understand complexification.
dhw: I’ve had trouble understanding the article. Please could you explain to me what exactly neurons are believed to predict.
Obviously handling future uses:
"The recent study carried out by this team of researchers could have many interesting implications, both for the field of neuroscience and machine learning. Overall, their findings suggest that a predictive mechanism underpinning the functioning of individual neurons could play a crucial role in learning.
"In the future, this idea may also help to create more powerful artificial neural networks to solve challenging real-life problems," Luczak said. "I believe that the predictive learning rule we unveiled is an important step towards finding a unifying theory of the brain. However, more steps are needed to achieve this, and we are excited to continue this journey."
It is in large part a theoretical prediction.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: Complexification is an internal process in our brain that in no way explains how brains got bigger during evolution.
dhw: Of course it doesn’t. But if a very small area of our brain has expanded because of additional requirements, it is not unreasonable to suppose that in the past, when complexification could not cope with new requirements, the same process would have applied. You still like to skate over the fact that you believe the complexification mechanism works as and when required, independently of your God’s intervention, so once more: why do you think it was necessary for him to keep operating on all the hominins and homos when the same mechanism could have been used to produce new cells as and when required?
DAVID: Same mistake. Our brain has very limited ability to produce new neurons. I think God made all prior hominin/homo brains in the same form.
It is not a mistake. It is a different theory from yours. The fact that we generally do not produce new neurons can be attributed to the fact that complexification has taken over from production of new cells. We don’t know why, though at least I’m sure you will agree that our brain could hardly go on expanding indefinitely without dire repercussions on the rest of our anatomy. Imagine an elephant-sized head being carried around on your body. The time had to come when expansion would cease. I have no doubt that prior hominin/homo brains would have complexified, and since we know that they expanded, it makes perfect sense that once their capacity for complexification had been reached, they needed new cells. That also applies to your own theory. Why else would your God have needed to give them additional cells? The only difference between us is that you insist they had the extra cells BEFORE they needed them, whereas I propose that the additions were made in response to new requirements. And you still haven’t explained why your God could not have given them the same autonomy for expansion as for complexification.
dhw: What is your explanation for the end of expansion in favour of complexification. Do you think your God might have been trying out different designs? (See "BIGGEST BACTERIUM.")
DAVID: Seven ounce change objection of mine not answered.
See above. If our brains had gone on expanding indefinitely, we would have been walking around balancing an elephant head on our puny bodies. Expansion had to end at some time. Now please tell us your own explanation for the end of expansion in favour of complexification.
Neurons may make future plans
DAVID: I view this as an attempt to understand complexification.
dhw: I’ve had trouble understanding the article. Please could you explain to me what exactly neurons are believed to predict.
DAVID: Obviously handling future uses: [dhw: we don’t need the quotes]
It is in large part a theoretical prediction.
What is a theoretical prediction? Most predictions are “theoretical” since nobody KNOWS the future, though of course predictions based on established facts have every chance of coming true. (I predict that tomorrow will be Sunday, 27th February.) But I don’t understand WHAT is predicted by our neurons. It seems that you don’t either.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Saturday, February 26, 2022, 16:04 (783 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Same mistake. Our brain has very limited ability to produce new neurons. I think God made all prior hominin/homo brains in the same form.
dhw: It is not a mistake. It is a different theory from yours. The fact that we generally do not produce new neurons can be attributed to the fact that complexification has taken over from production of new cells. We don’t know why, though at least I’m sure you will agree that our brain could hardly go on expanding indefinitely without dire repercussions on the rest of our anatomy. Imagine an elephant-sized head being carried around on your body. The time had to come when expansion would cease. I have no doubt that prior hominin/homo brains would have complexified, and since we know that they expanded, it makes perfect sense that once their capacity for complexification had been reached, they needed new cells. That also applies to your own theory. Why else would your God have needed to give them additional cells? The only difference between us is that you insist they had the extra cells BEFORE they needed them, whereas I propose that the additions were made in response to new requirements. And you still haven’t explained why your God could not have given them the same autonomy for expansion as for complexification.
Answered many times. Our frontal cortex has a very different complex design involving specialized pyramidal neurons in five distinct layers, like nothing seen in apes/chimps. Requires a designing mind. Neurons carry our thoughts, but can't design new network arrangements. Complexification simply means the ability of existing neurons to make new dendritic connections in existing circuits as necessary.
DAVID: Seven ounce change objection of mine not answered.dhw: See above. If our brains had gone on expanding indefinitely, we would have been walking around balancing an elephant head on our puny bodies. Expansion had to end at some time. Now please tell us your own explanation for the end of expansion in favour of complexification.
See above.
Neurons may make future plansDAVID: I view this as an attempt to understand complexification.
dhw: I’ve had trouble understanding the article. Please could you explain to me what exactly neurons are believed to predict.
DAVID: Obviously handling future uses: [dhw: we don’t need the quotes]
It is in large part a theoretical prediction.dhw: What is a theoretical prediction? Most predictions are “theoretical” since nobody KNOWS the future, though of course predictions based on established facts have every chance of coming true. (I predict that tomorrow will be Sunday, 27th February.) But I don’t understand WHAT is predicted by our neurons. It seems that you don’t either.
Exactly. It is proposed neurons understand the probability of future use. Nothing more. Helps explain how complexification happens.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: Our brain has very limited ability to produce new neurons. I think God made all prior hominin/homo brains in the same form.
dhw: The fact that we generally do not produce new neurons can be attributed to the fact that complexification has taken over from production of new cells. We don’t know why, though at least I’m sure you will agree that our brain could hardly go on expanding indefinitely without dire repercussions on the rest of our anatomy. Imagine an elephant-sized head being carried around on your body. The time had to come when expansion would cease.
You have not responded to this explanation of why the brain ceased to expand, and you have not told us your own theory either.
dhw: The only difference between us is that you insist they had the extra cells BEFORE they needed them, whereas I propose that the additions were made in response to new requirements. And you still haven’t explained why your God could not have given them the same autonomy for expansion as for complexification.
DAVID: Answered many times. Our frontal cortex has a very different complex design involving specialized pyramidal neurons in five distinct layers, like nothing seen in apes/chimps.
And how does that come to mean that your God, who apparently gave our brain cells the autonomous ability to complexify, could not possibly have given the same cells the ability to add to their numbers?
DAVID: Requires a designing mind. Neurons carry our thoughts, but can't design new network arrangements. Complexification simply means the ability of existing neurons to make new dendritic connections in existing circuits as necessary.
Neurons are able to make new connections but they are not able to make new network arrangements. I’m baffled.
DAVID: Seven ounce change objection of mine not answered.
dhw: See above. If our brains had gone on expanding indefinitely, we would have been walking around balancing an elephant head on our puny bodies. Expansion had to end at some time. Now please tell us your own explanation for the end of expansion in favour of complexification.
DAVID: See above.
No explanation offered.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Sunday, February 27, 2022, 15:56 (782 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Our brain has very limited ability to produce new neurons. I think God made all prior hominin/homo brains in the same form.
dhw: The fact that we generally do not produce new neurons can be attributed to the fact that complexification has taken over from production of new cells. We don’t know why, though at least I’m sure you will agree that our brain could hardly go on expanding indefinitely without dire repercussions on the rest of our anatomy. Imagine an elephant-sized head being carried around on your body. The time had to come when expansion would cease.
dhw: You have not responded to this explanation of why the brain ceased to expand, and you have not told us your own theory either.
Answered previously. Our current bodies could easily handle 200cc of more brain consistent with the last enlargement. My theory is that we are the endpoint of evolution. And the elephant skull is a debate trick known as taking an idea to an illogical extreme
dhw: The only difference between us is that you insist they had the extra cells BEFORE they needed them, whereas I propose that the additions were made in response to new requirements. And you still haven’t explained why your God could not have given them the same autonomy for expansion as for complexification.DAVID: Answered many times. Our frontal cortex has a very different complex design involving specialized pyramidal neurons in five distinct layers, like nothing seen in apes/chimps.
dhw: And how does that come to mean that your God, who apparently gave our brain cells the autonomous ability to complexify, could not possibly have given the same cells the ability to add to their numbers?
Adding numbers of new neurons requires new design like our current design. God does His own designing. Your confusion about complexification continues. It is simply neurons reorganizing their dendritic connections to handle new work.
DAVID: Requires a designing mind. Neurons carry our thoughts, but can't design new network arrangements. Complexification simply means the ability of existing neurons to make new dendritic connections in existing circuits as necessary.
dhw: Neurons are able to make new connections but they are not able to make new network arrangements. I’m baffled.
Yes! You are confused. Existing neurons always can change connecting dendrites to make new complex arrangements between existing neurons. But our frontal pyramidal neuron arrangement is pure design, most likely new to the past brain designs.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: Our brain has very limited ability to produce new neurons. I think God made all prior hominin/homo brains in the same form.
dhw: The fact that we generally do not produce new neurons can be attributed to the fact that complexification has taken over from production of new cells. We don’t know why, though at least I’m sure you will agree that our brain could hardly go on expanding indefinitely without dire repercussions on the rest of our anatomy. Imagine an elephant-sized head being carried around on your body. The time had to come when expansion would cease.
dhw: You have not responded to this explanation of why the brain ceased to expand, and you have not told us your own theory either.
DAVID: Answered previously. Our current bodies could easily handle 200cc of more brain consistent with the last enlargement. My theory is that we are the endpoint of evolution. And the elephant skull is a debate trick known as taking an idea to an illogical extreme
How much more could they handle? The process of expansion had to stop at some time. Your theory that we are the “endpoint”, by which you apparently mean the one and only purpose, does not explain why our brains have stopped expanding. Erectus was still erectus, even though his brain continued to expand.
dhw: The only difference between us is that you insist they had the extra cells BEFORE they needed them, whereas I propose that the additions were made in response to new requirements. And you still haven’t explained why your God could not have given them the same autonomy for expansion as for complexification.
DAVID: Answered many times. Our frontal cortex has a very different complex design involving specialized pyramidal neurons in five distinct layers, like nothing seen in apes/chimps.
dhw: And how does that come to mean that your God, who apparently gave our brain cells the autonomous ability to complexify, could not possibly have given the same cells the ability to add to their numbers?
DAVID: Adding numbers of new neurons requires new design like our current design. God does His own designing. Your confusion about complexification continues. It is simply neurons reorganizing their dendritic connections to handle new work.
The new neurons are added for the same reason as complexification: to handle new work. And I suggest that this is what species do generally: they reorganize themselves in order to handle new conditions. And if your God creates the mechanism for autonomous complexification, I continue to ask why you think he couldn’t have done the same for enlargement, which fulfils the same purpose as complexification.
DAVID: Requires a designing mind. Neurons carry our thoughts, but can't design new network arrangements. Complexification simply means the ability of existing neurons to make new dendritic connections in existing circuits as necessary.
dhw: Neurons are able to make new connections but they are not able to make new network arrangements. I’m baffled.
DAVID: Yes! You are confused. Existing neurons always can change connecting dendrites to make new complex arrangements between existing neurons. But our frontal pyramidal neuron arrangement is pure design, most likely new to the past brain designs.
You agree that our neurons make complex new arrangements, but apparently they are incapable of making a very complex new arrangement. God had to operate. But hey, you also had him operating to expand all the brains of all the hominins and homos before us. And you know as well as I do that other mammals have a frontal cortex, so did your God operate to create theirs as well as ours? And let’s not forget that you also have him operating on whale legs and blow holes, and giving courses to weaverbirds...No, I’m not being “facetious”. You've confirmed that this is what you believe. I’m merely suggesting that if your God was able to give autonomy to our neurons to design their own connections and form complex new arrangements, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that he could have given autonomy to other cells/cell communities as well to enable them to do their own designing.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Monday, February 28, 2022, 18:58 (781 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: You have not responded to this explanation of why the brain ceased to expand, and you have not told us your own theory either.
DAVID: Answered previously. Our current bodies could easily handle 200cc of more brain consistent with the last enlargement. My theory is that we are the endpoint of evolution. And the elephant skull is a debate trick known as taking an idea to an illogical extreme
dhw: How much more could they handle? The process of expansion had to stop at some time. Your theory that we are the “endpoint”, by which you apparently mean the one and only purpose, does not explain why our brains have stopped expanding. Erectus was still erectus, even though his brain continued to expand.
Which should mean to you our small expansion from Erectus to Sapiens, which you tout, contained more than just more neurons but a major new complexity, the five layer pyramidal neuron arrangement.
dhw: And how does that come to mean that your God, who apparently gave our brain cells the autonomous ability to complexify, could not possibly have given the same cells the ability to add to their numbers?DAVID: Adding numbers of new neurons requires new design like our current design. God does His own designing. Your confusion about complexification continues. It is simply neurons reorganizing their dendritic connections to handle new work.
dhw: The new neurons are added for the same reason as complexification: to handle new work. And I suggest that this is what species do generally: they reorganize themselves in order to handle new conditions. And if your God creates the mechanism for autonomous complexification, I continue to ask why you think he couldn’t have done the same for enlargement, which fulfils the same purpose as complexification.
Our brain has no real facility for enlargement. Your argument fails in that we see our current frontal lobe arrangement as a very complex design that neurons alone could not create. Our living predecessors don't show any of it.
DAVID: Requires a designing mind. Neurons carry our thoughts, but can't design new network arrangements. Complexification simply means the ability of existing neurons to make new dendritic connections in existing circuits as necessary.dhw: Neurons are able to make new connections but they are not able to make new network arrangements. I’m baffled.
DAVID: Yes! You are confused. Existing neurons always can change connecting dendrites to make new complex arrangements between existing neurons. But our frontal pyramidal neuron arrangement is pure design, most likely new to the past brain designs.
dhw: You agree that our neurons make complex new arrangements, but apparently they are incapable of making a very complex new arrangement. God had to operate. But hey, you also had him operating to expand all the brains of all the hominins and homos before us. And you know as well as I do that other mammals have a frontal cortex, so did your God operate to create theirs as well as ours? And let’s not forget that you also have him operating on whale legs and blow holes, and giving courses to weaverbirds...No, I’m not being “facetious”. You've confirmed that this is what you believe. I’m merely suggesting that if your God was able to give autonomy to our neurons to design their own connections and form complex new arrangements, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that he could have given autonomy to other cells/cell communities as well to enable them to do their own designing.
Worth repeating: "Our brain has no real facility for enlargement. Your argument fails in that we see our current frontal lobe arrangement as a very complex design that neurons alone could not create. Our living predecessors don't show any of it." Complexification is existing neurons adding dendritic connections, nothing more, and cannot imply existing neurons can design for future use.
Introducing the brain: general
dhw: You have not responded to this explanation of why the brain ceased to expand, and you have not told us your own theory either.
DAVID: Answered previously. Our current bodies could easily handle 200cc of more brain consistent with the last enlargement. My theory is that we are the endpoint of evolution. And the elephant skull is a debate trick known as taking an idea to an illogical extreme
dhw: How much more could they handle? The process of expansion had to stop at some time. Your theory that we are the “endpoint”, by which you apparently mean the one and only purpose, does not explain why our brains have stopped expanding. Erectus was still erectus, even though his brain continued to expand.
DAVID: Which should mean to you our small expansion from Erectus to Sapiens, which you tout, contained more than just more neurons but a major new complexity, the five layer pyramidal neuron arrangement.
I am quite happy to accept the theory that all expansions would have involved new neurons creating complex connections in response to new requirements which exceeded the complexification capacity of the existing neurons. That is the nub of my proposal – as opposed to your own, which was that new neurons were added just to hang around doing nothing until they were required for some as yet unknown future requirement.
dhw: The new neurons are added for the same reason as complexification: to handle new work. And I suggest that this is what species do generally: they reorganize themselves in order to handle new conditions. And if your God creates the mechanism for autonomous complexification, I continue to ask why you think he couldn’t have done the same for enlargement, which fulfils the same purpose as complexification.
DAVID: Our brain has no real facility for enlargement. Your argument fails in that we see our current frontal lobe arrangement as a very complex design that neurons alone could not create. Our living predecessors don't show any of it.
I have asked you before why you think our brain stopped enlarging and complexification took over. I don’t know what you mean by “no real facility”. Are you then saying that the current size of the skull won’t allow any enlargement, and if so, are you agreeing that any further enlargement of the skull would create anatomical problems? As regards the frontal lobe, my argument is that neurons can and do create complex designs – and you keep agreeing that your God does not intervene in the process of complexification! All of our living predecessors have frontal lobes, but clearly ours are far more complex. So are you saying that chimps and early homos autonomously developed their own frontal lobes, and only ours required your God’s intervention?
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 01, 2022, 15:17 (780 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: How much more could they handle? The process of expansion had to stop at some time. Your theory that we are the “endpoint”, by which you apparently mean the one and only purpose, does not explain why our brains have stopped expanding. Erectus was still erectus, even though his brain continued to expand.
DAVID: Which should mean to you our small expansion from Erectus to Sapiens, which you tout, contained more than just more neurons but a major new complexity, the five layer pyramidal neuron arrangement.
dhw: I am quite happy to accept the theory that all expansions would have involved new neurons creating complex connections in response to new requirements which exceeded the complexification capacity of the existing neurons. That is the nub of my proposal – as opposed to your own, which was that new neurons were added just to hang around doing nothing until they were required for some as yet unknown future requirement.
Homo sapiens 315,000 years ago sure used their brains just like we do. Illogical as usual.
dhw: The new neurons are added for the same reason as complexification: to handle new work. And I suggest that this is what species do generally: they reorganize themselves in order to handle new conditions. And if your God creates the mechanism for autonomous complexification, I continue to ask why you think he couldn’t have done the same for enlargement, which fulfils the same purpose as complexification.DAVID: Our brain has no real facility for enlargement. Your argument fails in that we see our current frontal lobe arrangement as a very complex design that neurons alone could not create. Our living predecessors don't show any of it.
dhw: I have asked you before why you think our brain stopped enlarging and complexification took over. I don’t know what you mean by “no real facility”. Are you then saying that the current size of the skull won’t allow any enlargement, and if so, are you agreeing that any further enlargement of the skull would create anatomical problems? As regards the frontal lobe, my argument is that neurons can and do create complex designs – and you keep agreeing that your God does not intervene in the process of complexification! All of our living predecessors have frontal lobes, but clearly ours are far more complex. So are you saying that chimps and early homos autonomously developed their own frontal lobes, and only ours required your God’s intervention?
My point remains God designed all evolutionary new-sized brains with new complexity. The only new designs existing neurons create is new dendrite branches and connections, but no new neurons except in the hippocampus. As for anatomic requirements, some Erectus were as tall as us with smaller brains , i.e., no need for new anatomy to prop up the skull when we arrived. Forget your elephant head ridiculous point
Introducing the brain: general
dhw: I am quite happy to accept the theory that all expansions would have involved new neurons creating complex connections in response to new requirements which exceeded the complexification capacity of the existing neurons. That is the nub of my proposal – as opposed to your own, which was that new neurons were added just to hang around doing nothing until they were required for some as yet unknown future requirement.
DAVID: Homo sapiens 315,000 years ago sure used their brains just like we do. Illogical as usual.
Of course they used their brains like we do, meeting requirements with complexifications, but our new thoughts, ideas, discoveries, inventions and requirements have produced more and more complex connections (complexifications) instead of the expansions that previous homos needed in order to meet new requirements.
dhw: The new neurons are added for the same reason as complexification: to handle new work. And I suggest that this is what species do generally: they reorganize themselves in order to handle new conditions. And if your God creates the mechanism for autonomous complexification, I continue to ask why you think he couldn’t have done the same for enlargement, which fulfils the same purpose as complexification.
DAVID: Our brain has no real facility for enlargement. Your argument fails in that we see our current frontal lobe arrangement as a very complex design that neurons alone could not create. Our living predecessors don't show any of it.
dhw: I have asked you before why you think our brain stopped enlarging and complexification took over. I don’t know what you mean by “no real facility”. Are you then saying that the current size of the skull won’t allow any enlargement, and if so, are you agreeing that any further enlargement of the skull would create anatomical problems? As regards the frontal lobe, my argument is that neurons can and do create complex designs – and you keep agreeing that your God does not intervene in the process of complexification! All of our living predecessors have frontal lobes, but clearly ours are far more complex. So are you saying that chimps and early homos autonomously developed their own frontal lobes, and only ours required your God’s intervention?
DAVID: My point remains God designed all evolutionary new-sized brains with new complexity. The only new designs existing neurons create is new dendrite branches and connections, but no new neurons except in the hippocampus.
New neurons in the hippocampus provide evidence that autonomous expansion is possible. You have always agreed that complexification takes place without your God’s intervention. The addition of new cells would only result in “new complexity” if those cells were used to meet new requirements, as opposed to hanging around doing nothing. To complete the picture, new connections are the result of the complexification process which would have taken place in all previous brains, but which is now so efficient that expansion is no longer necessary, and indeed some previously useful cells became redundant (shrinkage).
DAVID: As for anatomic requirements, some Erectus were as tall as us with smaller brains , i.e., no need for new anatomy to prop up the skull when we arrived. Forget your elephant head ridiculous point.
Obviously our skull was large enough to accommodate the relatively small number of new cells. Our question is why it has stopped expanding, and complexification has taken over almost completely. You still haven’t given us your own explanation. Mine is that it could not have gone on expanding indefinitely. Why is that ridiculous?
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 02, 2022, 19:04 (779 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Our brain has no real facility for enlargement. Your argument fails in that we see our current frontal lobe arrangement as a very complex design that neurons alone could not create. Our living predecessors don't show any of it.
dhw: I have asked you before why you think our brain stopped enlarging and complexification took over. I don’t know what you mean by “no real facility”. Are you then saying that the current size of the skull won’t allow any enlargement, and if so, are you agreeing that any further enlargement of the skull would create anatomical problems? As regards the frontal lobe, my argument is that neurons can and do create complex designs – and you keep agreeing that your God does not intervene in the process of complexification! All of our living predecessors have frontal lobes, but clearly ours are far more complex. So are you saying that chimps and early homos autonomously developed their own frontal lobes, and only ours required your God’s intervention?
DAVID: My point remains God designed all evolutionary new-sized brains with new complexity. The only new designs existing neurons create is new dendrite branches and connections, but no new neurons except in the hippocampus.
dhw: New neurons in the hippocampus provide evidence that autonomous expansion is possible. You have always agreed that complexification takes place without your God’s intervention. The addition of new cells would only result in “new complexity” if those cells were used to meet new requirements, as opposed to hanging around doing nothing. To complete the picture, new connections are the result of the complexification process which would have taken place in all previous brains, but which is now so efficient that expansion is no longer necessary, and indeed some previously useful cells became redundant (shrinkage).
New neurons in the hippocampus are necessary as we build memories over a lifetime. They are designed to fill a specific need. Shows God's purposeful designs at work.
DAVID: As for anatomic requirements, some Erectus were as tall as us with smaller brains , i.e., no need for new anatomy to prop up the skull when we arrived. Forget your elephant head ridiculous point.dhw: Obviously our skull was large enough to accommodate the relatively small number of new cells. Our question is why it has stopped expanding, and complexification has taken over almost completely. You still haven’t given us your own explanation. Mine is that it could not have gone on expanding indefinitely. Why is that ridiculous?
I've explained it many times. Humans are God's endpoint for evolution. Giant expansions have never been needed as we were evolved.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: My point remains God designed all evolutionary new-sized brains with new complexity. The only new designs existing neurons create is new dendrite branches and connections, but no new neurons except in the hippocampus.
dhw: New neurons in the hippocampus provide evidence that autonomous expansion is possible. You have always agreed that complexification takes place without your God’s intervention. The addition of new cells would only result in “new complexity” if those cells were used to meet new requirements, as opposed to hanging around doing nothing. To complete the picture, new connections are the result of the complexification process which would have taken place in all previous brains, but which is now so efficient that expansion is no longer necessary, and indeed some previously useful cells became redundant (shrinkage).
DAVID: New neurons in the hippocampus are necessary as we build memories over a lifetime. They are designed to fill a specific need. Shows God's purposeful designs at work.
I have always assumed that all enlargements and complexifications occur because of a specific need, whereas for some reason you think past enlargements took place in preparation for some unknown future need. If God exists, then of course both complexification and enlargement would show his powerful designs at work. You have agreed that he designed a mechanism for autonomous complexification, and you have given no reason why he should not also have designed the mechanism for autonomous enlargement.
DAVID: As for anatomic requirements, some Erectus were as tall as us with smaller brains , i.e., no need for new anatomy to prop up the skull when we arrived. Forget your elephant head ridiculous point.
dhw: Obviously our skull was large enough to accommodate the relatively small number of new cells. Our question is why it has stopped expanding, and complexification has taken over almost completely. You still haven’t given us your own explanation. Mine is that it could not have gone on expanding indefinitely. Why is that ridiculous?
DAVID: I've explained it many times. Humans are God's endpoint for evolution. Giant expansions have never been needed as we were evolved.
We know expansion is not needed, because complexification has taken over. But why would your God have decided to end what you believe to have been his technique of popping in to expand brains, and instead to leave it to his autonomous complexification design to cope with any future new requirements? Why would it be ridiculous for him to think: "Expansion can't go on indefinitely. This is the optimum size for my humans"? Don’t forget his decisions are always purposeful.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Thursday, March 03, 2022, 15:46 (778 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: New neurons in the hippocampus are necessary as we build memories over a lifetime. They are designed to fill a specific need. Shows God's purposeful designs at work.
dhw: I have always assumed that all enlargements and complexifications occur because of a specific need, whereas for some reason you think past enlargements took place in preparation for some unknown future need. If God exists, then of course both complexification and enlargement would show his powerful designs at work. You have agreed that he designed a mechanism for autonomous complexification, and you have given no reason why he should not also have designed the mechanism for autonomous enlargement.
My reason previously given many times is in our brain many very complex pyramidal neurons appeared, requiring God's personal design. Note design in preparation:
https://www.the-scientist.com/the-literature/termite-brains-anticipate-future-visual-ch...
"Dampwood termites with the potential to leave the colony have larger optic lobes before ever being exposed to different visual environments, an example of predictive brain plasticity.
"The brains of many species, including humans, change as a consequence of the stimuli they encounter throughout life. But in addition to this type of responsive brain plasticity, research in insects has shown that the brain can also shape itself in anticipation of change, a process known as experience-expectant brain plasticity. (my bold)
"Drexel University evolutionary ecologist Sean O’Donnell recently identified this plasticity in dampwood termites (Zootermopsis angusticollis and Z. nevadensis), colonial insects that each develop into one of several different castes. Reproductive kings and queens, for example, are the only individuals to leave the nest, and require heightened visual processing capacities to cope with the bright conditions outside. However, not all nymphs with the potential to become kings or queens do, and O’Donnell and his colleagues found evidence that these nymphs still structure their brains in anticipation of light.
***
"The researchers found that the visual processing brain regions, or optic lobes, of king and queen termites were about three times larger, on average, than the optic lobes of workers or soldiers. This finding also extended to nymphs that could develop into kings or queens, whether or not they ultimately did. “We see the brain making this rather dramatic, and we assume very expensive, increase in investment without an immediate payoff,” O’Donnell says.
"Boston University evolutionary biologist James Traniello, who was not involved in the research, calls the work a “sort of pilot study” for understanding termite brain evolution, but maintains that more questions need answering, such as how brain plasticity manifests in other brain regions and how optic lobe substructures differ among castes. "
Comment: design in anticipation of use. No surprise to me.
Introducing the brain: rewiring memory
by David Turell , Thursday, March 03, 2022, 22:09 (778 days ago) @ David Turell
New technique in zebrafish:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/scientists-watch-a-memory-form-in-a-living-brain-20220303/
"Researchers have now directly observed what happens inside a brain learning that kind of emotionally charged response. In a new study published in January in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team at the University of Southern California was able to visualize memories forming in the brains of laboratory fish, imaging them under the microscope as they bloomed in beautiful fluorescent greens. From earlier work, they had expected the brain to encode the memory by slightly tweaking its neural architecture. Instead, the researchers were surprised to find a major overhaul in the connections.
"What they saw reinforces the view that memory is a complex phenomenon involving a hodgepodge of encoding pathways. But it further suggests that the type of memory may be critical to how the brain chooses to encode it — a conclusion that may hint at why some kinds of deeply conditioned traumatic responses are so persistent, and so hard to unlearn.
***
"The amygdala is particularly responsible for associative memories, an important class of emotionally charged memories that link disparate things — like that spider in your cereal. While this type of memory is very common, how it forms is not well understood, partly because it occurs in a relatively inaccessible area of the brain.
"Fraser and his colleagues saw an opportunity to get around that anatomical limitation and learn more about associative memory formation by using zebra fish. Fish don’t have an amygdala as mammals do, but they have an analogous region called a pallium where associative memories form. The pallium is much more accessible for study,
***
"The marker protein, created in the lab of Don Arnold, a professor of biological sciences and biological engineering at USC, fluoresced under the dim laser light of a custom microscope: The challenge was “to be able to eavesdrop on something as it takes place,” but use as little light as possible to avoid scorching the creatures, Fraser said. The researchers could then see not only the location of individual synapses but also their strength — the brighter the light, the stronger the connection.
***
"Contrary to expectation, the synaptic strengths in the pallium remained about the same regardless of whether the fish learned anything. Instead, in the fish that learned, the synapses were pruned from some areas of the pallium — producing an effect “like cutting a bonsai tree,” Fraser said — and replanted in others.
"Previous studies have sometimes suggested that memories can form through the addition and deletion of synapses — but this real-time and large-scale visualization of the brain suggests that this method of memory formation may be much more significant than researchers realized. Though it’s not definitive proof, “I think it provides compelling evidence” that this could be a major way the brain forms memories, said Tomás Ryan, a neuroscientist at Trinity College Dublin who was not involved with the study.
"To reconcile the results of their new study with their initial expectations of memory formation, Fraser, Arnold and their team hypothesize that the type of memory might direct how the brain chooses to encode it. These “associative events that we’ve looked at might be the strongest sort of memories,” Fraser said. For the fish they’re do-or-die, so “it’s not too surprising that you might encode these strong memories in a very strong way.”
"But what’s appropriate for locking in fear-ridden memories may not be best for more mundane types of memories. When learning to pronounce somebody’s name, you probably “wouldn’t want to be yanking synapses out of your brain and adding new ones,” Fraser said."
Comment: we see other of my predictions validated. Simple organisms complexify brains just like our brains do. Complexification in brains was evolved long before humans appeared, destroying dhw's contention that evolution is a disconnected process. Biological processes going back to Archaea support human life. Every twig on the bush of life uses various processes from the past.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: New neurons in the hippocampus are necessary as we build memories over a lifetime. They are designed to fill a specific need. Shows God's purposeful designs at work.
dhw: I have always assumed that all enlargements and complexifications occur because of a specific need, whereas for some reason you think past enlargements took place in preparation for some unknown future need. If God exists, then of course both complexification and enlargement would show his powerful designs at work. You have agreed that he designed a mechanism for autonomous complexification, and you have given no reason why he should not also have designed the mechanism for autonomous enlargement.
DAVID: My reason previously given many times is in our brain many very complex pyramidal neurons appeared, requiring God's personal design.
So although your God can design a mechanism for the autonomous complexification of the brain, he couldn’t have designed a mechanism for very complex complexities.
DAVID: Note design in preparation:
https://www.the-scientist.com/the-literature/termite-brains-anticipate-future-visual-ch...
QUOTES: "Dampwood termites with the potential to leave the colony have larger optic lobes before ever being exposed to different visual environments, an example of predictive brain plasticity.
"The brains of many species, including humans, change as a consequence of the stimuli they encounter throughout life. But in addition to this type of responsive brain plasticity, research in insects has shown that the brain can also shape itself in anticipation of change, a process known as experience-expectant brain plasticity. (DAVID’s bold)
"Drexel University evolutionary ecologist Sean O’Donnell recently identified this plasticity in dampwood termites (Zootermopsis angusticollis and Z. nevadensis), colonial insects that each develop into one of several different castes. Reproductive kings and queens, for example, are the only individuals to leave the nest, and require heightened visual processing capacities to cope with the bright conditions outside. However, not all nymphs with the potential to become kings or queens do, and O’Donnell and his colleagues found evidence that these nymphs still structure their brains in anticipation of light.
Interesting that in order to demonstrate the unique qualities of the human brain, you draw on insects and on fish (below) to show how you think our brains work. I would guess that the origin of this particular variation is that if new colonies were to be founded, as the article says, it was essential that the founder should be able to cope with brighter conditions when leaving the nest (i.e. the ability first arose in response to a new requirement). Such is the nature of “castes” in termite society that this ability was passed on, just as other abilities were passed on to other castes. Of course this means the brain is plastic, but I don’t see the origin of the ability as being predictive: the ability would have arisen in response to an immediate need. To understand the whole history, we would need fossils of every stage of termite development. I doubt if we’ll find them.
Rewiring memory
Zebra fish
DAVID: we see other of my predictions validated. Simple organisms complexify brains just like our brains do. Complexification in brains was evolved long before humans appeared, destroying dhw's contention that evolution is a disconnected process. Biological processes going back to Archaea support human life. Every twig on the bush of life uses various processes from the past.
So much for the uniqueness of the human brain. There is no validated prediction here! The whole theory of evolution is based on simpler organisms developing into more complex organisms, and I do not regard the process as being disconnected. Biological processes going back to Archaea have supported EVERY form of life, and not just humans and their food. Yes, every twig uses processes from the past. That does not mean that every single twig was preparation for humans, and was individually designed by your God as “part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans” plus their food. Past foods were for past life, and extinct life has no role to play in current life. Those are your own words.. This is why it is impossible for us to drop the subject of your illogical theory – because you continue to gloss over its details with general truths about evolution.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Friday, March 04, 2022, 15:54 (777 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: My reason previously given many times is in our brain many very complex pyramidal neurons appeared, requiring God's personal design.
dhw: So although your God can design a mechanism for the autonomous complexification of the brain, he couldn’t have designed a mechanism for very complex complexities.
You still don't understand the need for intense mental activity behind creating complex designs. You don't hand off your play writing to a substitute, as a perfect example.
DAVID: Note design in preparation:
https://www.the-scientist.com/the-literature/termite-brains-anticipate-future-visual-ch...QUOTES: "Dampwood termites with the potential to leave the colony have larger optic lobes before ever being exposed to different visual environments, an example of predictive brain plasticity.
"The brains of many species, including humans, change as a consequence of the stimuli they encounter throughout life. But in addition to this type of responsive brain plasticity, research in insects has shown that the brain can also shape itself in anticipation of change, a process known as experience-expectant brain plasticity. (DAVID’s bold)"Drexel University evolutionary ecologist Sean O’Donnell recently identified this plasticity in dampwood termites (Zootermopsis angusticollis and Z. nevadensis), colonial insects that each develop into one of several different castes. Reproductive kings and queens, for example, are the only individuals to leave the nest, and require heightened visual processing capacities to cope with the bright conditions outside. However, not all nymphs with the potential to become kings or queens do, and O’Donnell and his colleagues found evidence that these nymphs still structure their brains in anticipation of light.
dhw: Interesting that in order to demonstrate the unique qualities of the human brain, you draw on insects and on fish (below) to show how you think our brains work. I would guess that the origin of this particular variation is that if new colonies were to be founded, as the article says, it was essential that the founder should be able to cope with brighter conditions when leaving the nest (i.e. the ability first arose in response to a new requirement). Such is the nature of “castes” in termite society that this ability was passed on, just as other abilities were passed on to other castes. Of course this means the brain is plastic, but I don’t see the origin of the ability as being predictive: the ability would have arisen in response to an immediate need. To understand the whole history, we would need fossils of every stage of termite development. I doubt if we’ll find them.
What a weak response. All you have done is insert your bias and refuted the point the author's made. A brain in anticipation of need!
Rewiring memory
Zebra fishDAVID: we see other of my predictions validated. Simple organisms complexify brains just like our brains do. Complexification in brains was evolved long before humans appeared, destroying dhw's contention that evolution is a disconnected process. Biological processes going back to Archaea support human life. Every twig on the bush of life uses various processes from the past.
dhw: So much for the uniqueness of the human brain. There is no validated prediction here! The whole theory of evolution is based on simpler organisms developing into more complex organisms, and I do not regard the process as being disconnected. Biological processes going back to Archaea have supported EVERY form of life, and not just humans and their food. Yes, every twig uses processes from the past. That does not mean that every single twig was preparation for humans, and was individually designed by your God as “part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans” plus their food.
Are we discussing how God produced evolution, or not? In my view all of evolution as created by God. What is your view, assuming God is in charge with your theistic cap on?
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: My reason previously given many times is in our brain many very complex pyramidal neurons appeared, requiring God's personal design.
dhw: So although your God can design a mechanism for the autonomous complexification of the brain, he couldn’t have designed a mechanism for very complex complexities.
DAVID: You still don't understand the need for intense mental activity behind creating complex designs. You don't hand off your play writing to a substitute, as a perfect example.
On the contrary, my point is that intense mental activity produces the complex designs. Whereas you argue that the complex designs are created in anticipation of intense mental activity. Your silly playwriting example would mean that your God handed creation over to some other god. As a playwright, like many other writers I know, I begin with an idea and allow it to develop of its own accord; I do not want to know in advance what is going to happen (otherwise I myself get bored with it), and am frequently surprised by developments, although I do always have the option to dabble (but rarely do). Thank you once again for an excellent analogy, even though you have repeated the same mistake as last time.
Physics current dead end
QUOTE: "The distribution of neurons in my brain is fractal, with density increasing as a power of D^2.decimal, much like Natalie’s description of Area^.75 power. It turns out that this is the optimal density to maintain connectivity between brain cells.
DAVID: Please note the bold about the design of our brain's neurons. Chance won't do that, only design will. Please remember my description of the specialized pyramidal neurons in five tiers dhw never dares comment about. It makes us very special.
I presume the quote applies to all brains and not just ours. I agree that we are very special, but I do not agree that your God would have operated on a group of sleeping homos to insert five tiers of specialized pyramidal neurons before there was any need for them. I suggest that our frontal lobe would have evolved from existing frontal lobes in response to new requirements, whatever these may have been. Here is a fascinating article which at first sight you will think confirms your beliefs, but which goes on to support my own proposals:
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
www.haaretz.com/archaeology/new-study-changes-everything-we-know-about-hum…
QUOTES: …these structural innovations in the cerebral regions, thought to allow for many of humans' unique behaviors and abilities were probably in place by 1.5 to 1.7 million years ago.
As we drove our dinner extinct, we had to develop capabilities and technologies to hunt down smaller, fleeter animals. We may also have needed increasingly to communicate in order to strategize the hunt for fast food. Right now this is speculative, but the truth is, it adds up.
It certainly does, though you will stick to your dabble of a few hundred thousand years ago.
DAVID: Note design in preparation:
https://www.the-scientist.com/the-literature/termite-brains-anticipate-future-visual-ch...
QUOTE: "Dampwood termites with the potential to leave the colony have larger optic lobes before ever being exposed to different visual environments, an example of predictive brain plasticity."
dhw: [...] I would guess that the origin of this particular variation is that if new colonies were to be founded, as the article says, it was essential that the founder should be able to cope with brighter conditions when leaving the nest (i.e. the ability first arose in response to a new requirement). Such is the nature of “castes” in termite society that this ability was passed on, just as other abilities were passed on to other castes. Of course this means the brain is plastic, but I don’t see the origin of the ability as being predictive: the ability would have arisen in response to an immediate need. To understand the whole history, we would need fossils of every stage of termite development. I doubt if we’ll find them.
DAVID: What a weak response. All you have done is insert your bias and refuted the point the author's made. A brain in anticipation of need!
The author makes no attempt to explain how such an ability originated. I see it as precisely the same process as pre-whale legs turning into flippers. You presumably have your God popping in to perform an operation on a few termites to prepare their eyes for the day when they will leave their nests to search outside in the light for a new location. (And somehow also in preparation for when humans will arrive a hundred million years or so later.) I have the termites realizing that accommodation is getting crowded, and they need to go and search. Over time, just as over generations legs turn into flippers from repeated usage in the water, the eyesight of the kings and queens improves over generations. The termite brain is plastic – it responds to new needs, just like ours. Please tell me why you find this explanation less believable than the divine one outlined above.
Rewiring memory
Zebra fish
All dealt with on the thread concerning your illogical theory of evolution.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Saturday, March 05, 2022, 16:31 (776 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You still don't understand the need for intense mental activity behind creating complex designs. You don't hand off your play writing to a substitute, as a perfect example.
dhw: On the contrary, my point is that intense mental activity produces the complex designs. Whereas you argue that the complex designs are created in anticipation of intense mental activity... As a playwright, like many other writers I know, I begin with an idea and allow it to develop of its own accord; I do not want to know in advance what is going to happen (otherwise I myself get bored with it),
Thank you! You have again shown us your personal approach to designing a play. This is why you design a god who doesn't care about an end point to avoid boredom. A very humanized form of a god.
Physics current dead endQUOTE: "The distribution of neurons in my brain is fractal, with density increasing as a power of D^2.decimal, much like Natalie’s description of Area^.75 power. It turns out that this is the optimal density to maintain connectivity between brain cells.
DAVID: Please note the bold about the design of our brain's neurons. Chance won't do that, only design will. Please remember my description of the specialized pyramidal neurons in five tiers dhw never dares comment about. It makes us very special.
dhw: I presume the quote applies to all brains and not just ours. I agree that we are very special,... I suggest that our frontal lobe would have evolved from existing frontal lobes in response to new requirements, whatever these may have been. Here is a fascinating article which at first sight you will think confirms your beliefs, but which goes on to support my own proposals:
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
www.haaretz.com/archaeology/new-study-changes-everything-we-know-about-hum…
QUOTES: …these structural innovations in the cerebral regions, thought to allow for many of humans' unique behaviors and abilities were probably in place by 1.5 to 1.7 million years ago.
"As we drove our dinner extinct, we had to develop capabilities and technologies to hunt down smaller, fleeter animals. We may also have needed increasingly to communicate in order to strategize the hunt for fast food. Right now this is speculative, but the truth is, it adds up.
dhw: It certainly does, though you will stick to your dabble of a few hundred thousand years ago.
I prefer my view of the article to your biased take:
"the modern structure of the frontal cortex where we do our advanced-human things such as language hasn’t been with us since our evolution began after all.
"We know this because it turns out that the first members of the Homo line to leave Africa – the diminutive primitive specimens found at Dmanisi, Georgia, dating to 1.8 million years ago – had frontal lobe structures like great apes, not like humans,
"On the other hand, hominins younger than 1.5 million years in Africa, and Homo erectus in southeast Asia from that time, did have human-type frontal lobe structures.
***
"Long story short, without going into the minutiae of analyzing frontal lobe organization in endocasts of fossils, the team concluded that the Dmanisi crowd had ape-like structures where it counts, and all the Homo erectus from southeast Asia had a more modern-like structure.
"Ergo the advanced structure had to arise after the Dmanisi residents left Africa. However, these structural innovations in the cerebral regions, thought to allow for many of humans’ unique behaviors and abilities, were probably in place by 1.5 million to 1.7 million years ago, the authors say. (my bold)
***
"...if a brain cast indicates a chimp-like Broca’s cap, the assumption is that the brain is primitive: The “single-furrow condition” is interpreted as representing the ancestral condition, she writes.
"The Dmanisi specimens show the unique furrow, which is the primitive condition, Beaudet told Haaretz. The Homo erectus, based on the inference of the casts, had a modern organization of the lobe.
***
"Also, more “recent” human species such as Homo naledi also show the human-like configuration, the double furrow, of the Broca’s cap, she adds.
"She also notes that the Broca area is involved in tool-making, and that all this begs the question: What kind of selection pressure may have been responsible for the reorganization of the human frontal lobes? Good question."
Comment: the Dmanisi are very early small homos found in an Israel area cave, out of Africa. The article clearly shows giant sapiens brain advances long before any current needs and uses. Note the early appearance of "Broca's language area long before real language developed. All organized in advance for future use. Part 11 follows.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: […] You don't hand off your play writing to a substitute, as a perfect example.
dhw: […]As a playwright, like many other writers I know, I begin with an idea and allow it to develop of its own accord; I do not want to know in advance what is going to happen (otherwise I myself get bored with it)…
DAVID: Thank you! You have again shown us your personal approach to designing a play. This is why you design a god who doesn't care about an end point to avoid boredom. A very humanized form of a god.
Your analogy was meant to use the creative process as support for your theory of God’s control, but in fact it supports the idea of your God creating a free-for-all. Maybe you should look for an analogy that fits in with your own humanized concept of a god.
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
QUOTES: “...these structural innovations in the cerebral regions, thought to allow for many of humans' unique behaviors and abilities were probably in place by 1.5 to 1.7 million years ago.”
"As we drove our dinner extinct, we had to develop capabilities and technologies to hunt down smaller, fleeter animals. We may also have needed increasingly to communicate in order to strategize the hunt for fast food. Right now this is speculative, but the truth is, it adds up.”
dhw: It certainly does, though you will stick to your dabble of a few hundred thousand years ago.
DAVID: I prefer my view of the article to your biased take.
You now proceed to quote great chunks of the article, even bolding the first one above, so I will skip to your extraordinary conclusion, though I will add one to my original two:
QUOTE: "She also notes that the Broca area is involved in tool-making, and that all this begs the question: What kind of selection pressure may have been responsible for the reorganization of the human frontal lobes? Good question."
DAVID: The article clearly shows giant sapiens brain advances long before any current needs and uses. Note the early appearance of "Broca's language area long before real language developed. All organized in advance for future use.
The quotes above support my own theory: new CURRENT requirements would have led to the changes (including Broca). The author speculates that these may have been related to the need for “new capabilities and technologies” and for enhanced communication. This flatly contradicts your theory that the changes to the frontal lobe were unique to sapiens, and it directly supports the proposal that the changes RESULTED from current requirements.
DAVID: Note design in preparation:
QUOTE: "Dampwood termites with the potential to leave the colony have larger optic lobes before ever being exposed to different visual environments, an example of predictive brain plasticity."
dhw: [...] I would guess that the origin of this particular variation is that if new colonies were to be founded, as the article says, it was essential that the founder should be able to cope with brighter conditions when leaving the nest (i.e. the ability first arose in response to a new requirement). […]
DAVID: What a weak response. All you have done is insert your bias and refuted the point the author's made. A brain in anticipation of need!
dhw: The author makes no attempt to explain how such an ability originated.
DAVID: Why should he? He is a Darwinist who assumes natural selection easily saw the future and prepared for it.
There is no mention of natural selection, which in any case can only select what exists and is useful in the present. Your point and his is that some innovations are preparations for the future. (You wrote: “Design in anticipation of use. No surprise to me.”) What surprises me is that you don’t support the author. My point is that innovations begin as responses to current needs – not in anticipation of needs that do not yet exist. If they are successful, then of course they will be used in the future.
dhw: Over time, just as over generations legs turn into flippers from repeated usage in the water, the eyesight of the kings and queens improves over generations. The termite brain is plastic – it responds to new needs, just like ours. Please tell me why you find this explanation less believable than the divine one outlined above.
DAVID: The point is clear. You must disregard Darwinist interpretation if it doesn't fit you enormous bias.
I have no idea what you mean. Darwin attributes innovations to random mutations, whereas I suggest they come about through intelligent responses to current needs. May I assume you think your God operated on a few termite eyes before they needed to leave the nest (and as “part of the goal of evolving humans” plus food)? If not, what is your theory? And why is your theory more likely than my proposal that the need to find a suitable new location originally led to the relevant cells - possibly empowered by your God’s gift of intelligence - making the necessary changes to improve their ability to fulfil the then current requirement. (The successful changes would then, of course, have been handed down to future generations.)
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Sunday, March 06, 2022, 15:33 (775 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Sunday, March 06, 2022, 15:40
DAVID: Thank you! You have again shown us your personal approach to designing a play. This is why you design a god who doesn't care about an end point to avoid boredom. A very humanized form of a god.
dhw: Your analogy was meant to use the creative process as support for your theory of God’s control, but in fact it supports the idea of your God creating a free-for-all. Maybe you should look for an analogy that fits in with your own humanized concept of a god.
False response. I can't provide a humanized God. My previous descriptions are vastly different, which you cannot deny. The only defense you have is distort my God!
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.comDAVID: I prefer my view of the article to your biased take.
dhw: You now proceed to quote great chunks of the article, even bolding the first one above, so I will skip to your extraordinary conclusion, though I will add one to my original two:
QUOTE: "She also notes that the Broca area is involved in tool-making, and that all this begs the question: What kind of selection pressure may have been responsible for the reorganization of the human frontal lobes? Good question."
DAVID: The article clearly shows giant sapiens brain advances long before any current needs and uses. Note the early appearance of "Broca's language area long before real language developed. All organized in advance for future use.
dhw: The quotes above support my own theory: new CURRENT requirements would have led to the changes (including Broca). The author speculates that these may have been related to the need for “new capabilities and technologies” and for enhanced communication. This flatly contradicts your theory that the changes to the frontal lobe were unique to sapiens, and it directly supports the proposal that the changes RESULTED from current requirements.
The bold is Darwinist theory. Proves only your Darwinist bias. Remember I reinterpret from the Darwinist to my God theory as designer.
DAVID: Note design in preparation:dhw: The author makes no attempt to explain how such an ability originated.
DAVID: Why should he? He is a Darwinist who assumes natural selection easily saw the future and prepared for it.
dhw: There is no mention of natural selection, which in any case can only select what exists and is useful in the present. Your point and his is that some innovations are preparations for the future. (You wrote: “Design in anticipation of use. No surprise to me.”) What surprises me is that you don’t support the author. My point is that innovations begin as responses to current needs – not in anticipation of needs that do not yet exist. If they are successful, then of course they will be used in the future.
The bold is exactly my point. Selection is mentioned! A Darwinist makes my point and you get so upset you must fight with him, even to ignore the word 'selection '.
dhw: Over time, just as over generations legs turn into flippers from repeated usage in the water, the eyesight of the kings and queens improves over generations. The termite brain is plastic – it responds to new needs, just like ours. Please tell me why you find this explanation less believable than the divine one outlined above.DAVID: The point is clear. You must disregard Darwinist interpretation if it doesn't fit you enormous bias.
dhw: I have no idea what you mean. Darwin attributes innovations to random mutations, whereas I suggest they come about through intelligent responses to current needs. May I assume you think your God operated on a few termite eyes before they needed to leave the nest (and as “part of the goal of evolving humans” plus food)? If not, what is your theory? And why is your theory more likely than my proposal that the need to find a suitable new location originally led to the relevant cells - possibly empowered by your God’s gift of intelligence - making the necessary changes to improve their ability to fulfil the then current requirement. (The successful changes would then, of course, have been handed down to future generations.)
Same old, same old. God designs and any resultant intelligent activity by any living organism comes from God's intelligent instructions in God's designed genomes.
Introducing the brain: general
dhw: Your analogy was meant to use the creative process as support for your theory of God’s control, but in fact it supports the idea of your God creating a free-for-all. Maybe you should look for an analogy that fits in with your own humanized concept of a god.
DAVID: False response. I can't provide a humanized God. My previous descriptions are vastly different, which you cannot deny. The only defense you have is distort my God!
Your analogy supported the concept of a free-for-all as opposed to a puppet show. Your own humanized God is a control freak who designs everything from weaverbird nest-building and the opossum “death” strategy to whale flippers and each enlargement of the human brain. You are sure he enjoys creating and is interested in what he sees, is too kind to create causes of suffering, tries to alleviate them but despite his omnipotence sometimes fails and leaves it to humans to find remedies he couldn’t design, and when asked what purpose your all-purposeful God might have had for designing us, you suggest he wants us to admire his work, and maybe have a relationship with him. But you “can’t provide a humanized God”.
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
QUOTE: "She also notes that the Broca area is involved in tool-making, and that all this begs the question: What kind of selection pressure may have been responsible for the reorganization of the human frontal lobes? Good question." (DAVID’s bold)
DAVID: The article clearly shows giant sapiens brain advances long before any current needs and uses. Note the early appearance of "Broca's language area long before real language developed. All organized in advance for future use.
dhw: The quotes above [I have not reproduced them here] support my own theory: new CURRENT requirements would have led to the changes (including Broca). The author speculates that these may have been related to the need for “new capabilities and technologies” and for enhanced communication. This flatly contradicts your theory that the changes to the frontal lobe were unique to sapiens, and it directly supports the proposal that the changes RESULTED from current requirements. [dhw's bold]
DAVID: The bold [See DAVID's bold] is Darwinist theory. Proves only your Darwinist bias. Remember I reinterpret from the Darwinist to my God theory as designer.
“Selection” reminds you of Darwin, so you ignore the whole bolded argument, which clearly favours my theory against yours and contradicts your belief that the complexities of the frontal lobe originated with sapiens. (I don’t understand why “selection” appears here, since the article simply speculates on what new requirements might have caused the changes.) The bias is entirely yours.
Dampwood termites
DAVID: Note design in preparation:
dhw: The author makes no attempt to explain how such an ability originated.
DAVID: Why should he? He is a Darwinist who assumes natural selection easily saw the future and prepared for it.
dhw: There is no mention of natural selection, which in any case can only select what exists and is useful in the present. bbYour point and his is that some innovations are preparations for the future. (You wrote: “Design in anticipation of use. No surprise to me.”) What surprises me is that you don’t support the author. My point is that innovations begin as responses to current needs – not in anticipation of needs that do not yet exist. If they are successful, then of course they will be used in the future.
DAVID: The bold is exactly my point. Selection is mentioned! A Darwinist makes my point and you get so upset you must fight with him, even to ignore the word 'selection '.
You are confused. This is a different article, putting the case for predictive brain changes. There is no mention of selection, and more to the point, there is no mention of how this adaptation might have originated. I have offered a possible explanation (shortened here for reasons of space):
dhw: Over time, just as over generations legs turn into flippers from repeated usage in the water, the eyesight of the kings and queens improves over generations. The termite brain is plastic – it responds to new needs, just like ours. Please tell me why you find this explanation less believable than the divine one outlined above.
DAVID: The point is clear. You must disregard Darwinist interpretation if it doesn't fit you enormous bias.
dhw: I have no idea what you mean. Darwin attributes innovations to random mutations, whereas I suggest they come about through intelligent responses to current needs. […]
DAVID: Same old, same old. God designs and any resultant intelligent activity by any living organism comes from God's intelligent instructions in God's designed genomes.
Yes, it is same old, same old. Your God either preprogrammed the big eyes of potential kings and queens 3.8 billion years ago, or he popped in about 100 million years ago, to plant big-eye instructions in a few of the termites he’d just designed (in preparation for humans and their food). I propose that God – if he exists – might have given cells the ability to design their own responses to new requirements, but although there’s a 50/50 chance that intelligent behaviour denotes intelligence, you reject that possibility.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 08, 2022, 00:12 (774 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: False response. I can't provide a humanized God. My previous descriptions are vastly different, which you cannot deny. The only defense you have is distort my God!
dhw: Your analogy supported the concept of a free-for-all as opposed to a puppet show. Your own humanized God is a control freak who designs everything from weaverbird nest-building and the opossum “death” strategy to whale flippers and each enlargement of the human brain. You are sure he enjoys creating and is interested in what he sees, is too kind to create causes of suffering, tries to alleviate them but despite his omnipotence sometimes fails and leaves it to humans to find remedies he couldn’t design, and when asked what purpose your all-purposeful God might have had for designing us, you suggest he wants us to admire his work, and maybe have a relationship with him. But you “can’t provide a humanized God”.
Your 'control freak' equals purposeful. I am not SURE of anything about God, but make guesses about His thinking for his purposes. Illness, mistakes of metabolism all previously discussed. 'Admire' and 'relationship' all the result of guessing. The only defense you have is to attack my God. Your desired humanized form of God is not in any way related to my view of a real god.
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
DAVID: The article clearly shows giant sapiens brain advances long before any current needs and uses. Note the early appearance of "Broca's language area long before real language developed. All organized in advance for future use.
dhw: The quotes above [I have not reproduced them here] support my own theory: new CURRENT requirements would have led to the changes (including Broca). The author speculates that these may have been related to the need for “new capabilities and technologies” and for enhanced communication. This flatly contradicts your theory that the changes to the frontal lobe were unique to sapiens, and [it directly supports the proposal that the changes RESULTED from current requirements./b] [dhw's bold]
DAVID: The bold [See DAVID's bold] is Darwinist theory. Proves only your Darwinist bias. Remember I reinterpret from the Darwinist to my God theory as designer.dhw: “Selection” reminds you of Darwin, so you ignore the whole bolded argument, which clearly favours my theory against yours and contradicts your belief that the complexities of the frontal lobe originated with sapiens. (I don’t understand why “selection” appears here, since the article simply speculates on what new requirements might have caused the changes.) The bias is entirely yours.
You continue a strange dichotomy of thought. Note the red phrase above. What agency responded to the new requirements? None was needed. Broca's area preceded language.
Dampwood termitesdhw: Over time, just as over generations legs turn into flippers from repeated usage in the water, the eyesight of the kings and queens improves over generations. The termite brain is plastic – it responds to new needs, just like ours. Please tell me why you find this explanation less believable than the divine one outlined above.
DAVID: The point is clear. You must disregard Darwinist interpretation if it doesn't fit you enormous bias.
dhw: I have no idea what you mean. Darwin attributes innovations to random mutations, whereas I suggest they come about through intelligent responses to current needs. […]
DAVID: Same old, same old. God designs and any resultant intelligent activity by any living organism comes from God's intelligent instructions in God's designed genomes.
dhw: Yes, it is same old, same old. Your God either preprogrammed the big eyes of potential kings and queens 3.8 billion years ago, or he popped in about 100 million years ago, to plant big-eye instructions in a few of the termites he’d just designed (in preparation for humans and their food). I propose that God – if he exists – might have given cells the ability to design their own responses to new requirements, but although there’s a 50/50 chance that intelligent behaviour denotes intelligence, you reject that possibility.
Yes God MAY HAVE done anything. The 50/50 is my original point that from the outside those are the odds. When the insides are studied, it is all automatic. You totally reject that.
Introducing the brain: memory formation
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 08, 2022, 00:35 (774 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Tuesday, March 08, 2022, 00:47
New studies on epileptic patients with implants:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2311077-special-brain-cells-may-signal-when-to-sta...
"A newly discovered kind of brain cell involved in memory formation seems to mark the boundary between distinct events as we experience them.
"The neurons, which have been called boundary cells, fire when new events happen, such as if we see someone walking into a room.
"The cells were discovered in people with epilepsy who had electrodes put into their brain before surgery, by asking them to watch films showing sequences of events.
***
"In the latest study, Rutishauser’s team asked 19 such people to watch carefully constructed film sequences while the recording took place, listening to about 30 cells per person.
"About 7 per cent of the neurons were boundary cells, whose firing peaked when new things happened. “They don’t say anything about the memory content, they just say there is a boundary,” says Rutishauser. He speculates that activity in these cells signals that the brain should begin to form a new memory, like starting a new folder.
"When people were tested later by showing them pictures from the films, they were better at remembering scenes from straight after a boundary than those that had happened a few seconds later.
"The findings “make a lot of sense”, says Rodrigo Quian Quiroga at the University of Leicester, UK. “They suggest a mechanism by which the hippocampus is signalling what scenes to put together and what scenes not to put together.”
"Boundary cells haven’t been seen before because previous work in people with electrodes implanted before epilepsy surgery used memory tests involving words or still pictures, not films, says Rutishauser."
Comment: the hippocampus is the memory control center, but memory gets scattered all around the brain shown previously here. second article with more richer info.
https://www.sciencealert.com/neuroscientists-find-two-types-of-brain-cells-that-help-us...
"Similar to how we perceive objects and entities in the world, our memories have clear boundaries, and in the new study, neuroscientists ask if the neurophysiological formation of memories reflects the discrete character of memories in our conscious experience.
***
"With their consent, epilepsy patients often take part in neuroscientific studies due to these useful intracranial electrodes. They allowed investigators to record the activity of individual neurons while patients viewed film clips with 'cognitive boundaries'.
"While these boundaries in our daily lives may be nuanced and less obvious, scientists, for research purposes, focused on what they called 'hard' and 'soft' boundaries.
"'An example of a soft boundary would be a scene with two people walking down a hallway and talking, and in the next scene, a third person joins them, but it is still part of the same overall narrative," said Ueli Rutishauser, a neurosurgeon at Cedars-Sinai hospital, interim director of the Center for Neural Science and Medicine, and co-author of the study.
"'The difference between hard and soft boundaries is in the size of the deviation from the ongoing narrative. Is it a totally different story, or like a new scene from the same story?"
Researchers were able to find two types of cells that responded to these cognitive boundaries: 'boundary cells', that responded to both soft boundaries and hard boundaries, and 'event cells' that responded solely to hard boundaries.
"Rutishauser and his team believe that when the activity of event and boundary cells peak, after a hard boundary when both cells fire, the brain enters the state of initiating a new memory.
"'A boundary response is kind of like creating a new folder on your computer," said Rutishauser.
"'You can then deposit files in there. And when another boundary comes around, you close the first folder and create another one."
"When the brain needs to revisit a memory, it uses the peaks of neural activity at these boundaries to find the right folder.
***
"'Together, these findings suggest that boundary and event cells play two roles in episodic memory; they structure memories during encoding, and they serve as markers for periods of time that are later reinstated," say the authors.
***
"...event cells appear to help us establish the temporal order of our memories, whereas the boundary cells are more involved in recognizing the content of memories."
Comment: second story richer. It shows our brain is designed with neurons with specific functions for future use.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: False response. I can't provide a humanized God. My previous descriptions are vastly different, which you cannot deny. The only defense you have is distort my God!
dhw: Your analogy supported the concept of a free-for-all as opposed to a puppet show. Your own humanized God is a control freak who designs everything from weaverbird nest-building and the opossum “death” strategy to whale flippers and each enlargement of the human brain. You are sure he enjoys creating and is interested in what he sees, is too kind to create causes of suffering, tries to alleviate them but despite his omnipotence sometimes fails and leaves it to humans to find remedies he couldn’t design, and when asked what purpose your all-purposeful God might have had for designing us, you suggest he wants us to admire his work, and maybe have a relationship with him. But you “can’t provide a humanized God”.
DAVID: Your 'control freak' equals purposeful.
My creator of a free-for-all equals purposeful.
DAVID: I am not SURE of anything about God, but make guesses about His thinking for his purposes.
See the thread on your theory for the illogicality of your guesses about his thinking. But yes, we all make guesses.
DAVID: Illness, mistakes of metabolism all previously discussed.
See “immune system” under “cells”.
DAVID: 'Admire' and 'relationship' all the result of guessing. The only defense you have is to attack my God. Your desired humanized form of God is not in any way related to my view of a real god.
Yes, your guesses are just as humanizing as my guesses, so “humanizing” is no reason to dismiss them. What “defense”? I don’t have a problem with “admire” and “relationship”. I only attack your theory of evolution (see the relevant thread) for its illogicality, and I offer different alternative explanations of evolution’s history. I have no “desired” humanized form, but I appreciate the logic of your confident guess that he enjoys creation and is interested in what he creates. I have no idea what gives you the impression that you know the “real” God, and that none of my alternative versions (e.g. an experimental God, or one who likes to learn new things) can possibly be real.
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
DAVID: The article clearly shows giant sapiens brain advances long before any current needs and uses. Note the early appearance of "Broca's language area long before real language developed. All organized in advance for future use.
dhw: The quotes above [I have not reproduced them here] support my own theory: new CURRENT requirements would have led to the changes (including Broca). The author speculates that these may have been related to the need for “new capabilities and technologies” and for enhanced communication. This flatly contradicts your theory that the changes to the frontal lobe were unique to sapiens, and it directly supports the proposal that the changes RESULTED from current requirements./b] [dhw's bold] […]
DAVID: You continue a strange dichotomy of thought. Note the red phrase above. What agency responded to the new requirements? None was needed. Broca's area preceded language.
My theory is that the cells responded. The article suggests that the requirements for new abilities and technologies and enhanced communication (e.g. for hunting) led to changes in the frontal lobe. This is the direct opposite of two of your theories, as above. What is the dichotomy?
Dampwood termites
DAVID: Same old, same old. God designs and any resultant intelligent activity by any living organism comes from God's intelligent instructions in God's designed genomes.
dhw: Yes, it is same old, same old. Your God either preprogrammed the big eyes of potential kings and queens 3.8 billion years ago, or he popped in about 100 million years ago, to plant big-eye instructions in a few of the termites he’d just designed (in preparation for humans and their food). I propose that God – if he exists – might have given cells the ability to design their own responses to new requirements, but although there’s a 50/50 chance that intelligent behaviour denotes intelligence, you reject that possibility.
DAVID: Yes God MAY HAVE done anything. The 50/50 is my original point that from the outside those are the odds. When the insides are studied, it is all automatic. You totally reject that.
I reject your authoritative dismissal of a 50/50 possibility, and I remind you above of the two methods you have offered us, each of which stretches my own imagination beyond credulity.
Memory formation
DAVID: It shows our brain is designed with neurons with specific functions for future use.
I think the article describes how different memories are formed, but of course there would not be much point in forming memories if we didn’t have the means of remembering them in the future!
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 08, 2022, 22:21 (773 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Your 'control freak' equals purposeful.
dhw: My creator of a free-for-all equals purposeful.
Yes a personal purpose for entertainment.
See “immune system” under “cells”.
DAVID: 'Admire' and 'relationship' all the result of guessing. The only defense you have is to attack my God. Your desired humanized form of God is not in any way related to my view of a real god.
dhw: Yes, your guesses are just as humanizing as my guesses,...I have no “desired” humanized form, but I appreciate the logic of your confident guess that he enjoys creation and is interested in what he creates. I have no idea what gives you the impression that you know the “real” God, and that none of my alternative versions (e.g. an experimental God, or one who likes to learn new things) can possibly be real.
I started with research in how to think about God, as Adler instructed in his book. Based on that discussion and others, what you imagine about God is totally unrecognizable to me.
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.comDAVID: The article clearly shows giant sapiens brain advances long before any current needs and uses. Note the early appearance of "Broca's language area long before real language developed. All organized in advance for future use.
dhw: The quotes above [I have not reproduced them here] support my own theory: new CURRENT requirements would have led to the changes (including Broca). The author speculates that these may have been related to the need for “new capabilities and technologies” and for enhanced communication. This flatly contradicts your theory that the changes to the frontal lobe were unique to sapiens, and it directly supports the proposal that the changes RESULTED from current requirements./b] [dhw's bold] […]
DAVID: You continue a strange dichotomy of thought. Note the red phrase above. What agency responded to the new requirements? None was needed. Broca's area preceded language.
dhw: My theory is that the cells responded. The article suggests that the requirements for new abilities and technologies and enhanced communication (e.g. for hunting) led to changes in the frontal lobe. This is the direct opposite of two of your theories, as above. What is the dichotomy?
We always disagree about the ability of a group of existing neurons to form a whole new-sized brain.
Dampwood termitesDAVID: Yes God MAY HAVE done anything. The 50/50 is my original point that from the outside those are the odds. When the insides are studied, it is all automatic. You totally reject that.
dhw: I reject your authoritative dismissal of a 50/50 possibility, and I remind you above of the two methods you have offered us, each of which stretches my own imagination beyond credulity.
Yes, you deny a God exists. See today: Tuesday, March 08, 2022, 21:38 From my comment:
"Seeing something that seems to act intelligently doesn't mean it is intrinsically intelligent in and of itself. It may dimply be following instructions it has been given. Thermostats and robots are just that, looking as if they take intelligent actions and we understand how they do it by following built-in designed algorithms. So can cells and simple one-celled animals. To assume actual intelligence exists is a very thin analysis." Take note.
Memory formationDAVID: It shows our brain is designed with neurons with specific functions for future use.
dhw: I think the article describes how different memories are formed, but of course there would not be much point in forming memories if we didn’t have the means of remembering them in the future!
We came with memory ability, without which nothing could be accomplished. 
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: Your 'control freak' equals purposeful.
dhw: My creator of a free-for-all equals purposeful.
DAVID: Yes a personal purpose for entertainment.
And your ‘control freak’s’ purpose? To have us admire his work (one of your suggestions), which I could call ‘vanity’ if I wished to find a derogatory way of putting it.
DAVID: 'Admire' and 'relationship' all the result of guessing. The only defense you have is to attack my God. Your desired humanized form of God is not in any way related to my view of a real god.
dhw: Yes, your guesses are just as humanizing as my guesses,...I have no “desired” humanized form, but I appreciate the logic of your confident guess that he enjoys creation and is interested in what he creates. I have no idea what gives you the impression that you know the “real” God, and that none of my alternative versions (e.g. an experimental God, or one who likes to learn new things) can possibly be real.
DAVID: I started with research in how to think about God, as Adler instructed in his book. Based on that discussion and others, what you imagine about God is totally unrecognizable to me.
Then maybe you should extend your research, since your thoughts have led you to a theory of evolution which you yourself find incomprehensible (hence your advice to me to ask God for an explanation), but it’s good to hear that your research has led you to humanizing guesses about your God’s enjoyment, interest, thought patterns, emotions, logic, and even a desire for admiration from and relations with humans. Unrecognizable?
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
dhw: The article suggests that the requirements for new abilities and technologies and enhanced communication (e.g. for hunting) led to changes in the frontal lobe. This is the direct opposite of two of your theories, as above. What is the dichotomy?
DAVID: We always disagree about the ability of a group of existing neurons to form a whole new-sized brain.
What “whole new-sized brain” are you talking about? Existing brains complexified and then expanded in stages. You accept that complexification is autonomous, but you want your God popping in every time to add new cells when, or rather BEFORE they are required. The article refutes your proposal that 1) the complexities of the frontal lobe originated with sapiens, and 2) that the brain changes took place before they were required. What is the dichotomy?
Dampwood termites
DAVID: Yes God MAY HAVE done anything. The 50/50 is my original point that from the outside those are the odds. When the insides are studied, it is all automatic. You totally reject that.
dhw: I reject your authoritative dismissal of a 50/50 possibility, and I remind you above of the two methods you have offered us, each of which stretches my own imagination beyond credulity.
DAVID: Yes, you deny a God exists.
This is your most desperate argument of all, since you know perfectly well that the argument for intelligence allows for your God as the inventor of that intelligence. This is not lip service. I am not an atheist pretending to be an agnostic.
DAVID: See today: Tuesday, March 08, 2022, 21:38 From my comment:
"Seeing something that seems to act intelligently doesn't mean it is intrinsically intelligent in and of itself etc.”
See my response under “cellular intelligence”.
Memory formation
DAVID: It shows our brain is designed with neurons with specific functions for future use.
dhw: I think the article describes how different memories are formed, but of course there would not be much point in forming memories if we didn’t have the means of remembering them in the future!
DAVID: We came with memory ability, without which nothing could be accomplished.
Agreed. The same applies to all life forms. That does not mean that your God operated on pre-sapiens brains in order to give them extra cells that would not be used until some vague future time.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 09, 2022, 17:19 (772 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I started with research in how to think about God, as Adler instructed in his book. Based on that discussion and others, what you imagine about God is totally unrecognizable to me.
dhw: Then maybe you should extend your research, since your thoughts have led you to a theory of evolution which you yourself find incomprehensible (hence your advice to me to ask God for an explanation), but it’s good to hear that your research has led you to humanizing guesses about your God’s enjoyment, interest, thought patterns, emotions, logic, and even a desire for admiration from and relations with humans. Unrecognizable?
I find my view of my God as totally comprehensible. I find your god as totally unrecognizable. So our differences are huge.
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.comdhw: The article suggests that the requirements for new abilities and technologies and enhanced communication (e.g. for hunting) led to changes in the frontal lobe. This is the direct opposite of two of your theories, as above. What is the dichotomy?
DAVID: We always disagree about the ability of a group of existing neurons to form a whole new-sized brain.
dhw: What “whole new-sized brain” are you talking about? Existing brains complexified and then expanded in stages. You accept that complexification is autonomous, but you want your God popping in every time to add new cells when, or rather BEFORE they are required. The article refutes your proposal that 1) the complexities of the frontal lobe originated with sapiens, and 2) that the brain changes took place before they were required. What is the dichotomy?
So in your misinterpretation Broca's was ot present before speech?
Memory formationDAVID: It shows our brain is designed with neurons with specific functions for future use.
dhw: I think the article describes how different memories are formed, but of course there would not be much point in forming memories if we didn’t have the means of remembering them in the future!
DAVID: We came with memory ability, without which nothing could be accomplished.
dhw: Agreed. The same applies to all life forms. That does not mean that your God operated on pre-sapiens brains in order to give them extra cells that would not be used until some vague future time.
That is exactly now it works.
Introducing the brain: general
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
dhw: The article suggests that the requirements for new abilities and technologies and enhanced communication (e.g. for hunting) led to changes in the frontal lobe. This is the direct opposite of two of your theories, as above. What is the dichotomy?
DAVID: We always disagree about the ability of a group of existing neurons to form a whole new-sized brain.
dhw: What “whole new-sized brain” are you talking about? Existing brains complexified and then expanded in stages. You accept that complexification is autonomous, but you want your God popping in every time to add new cells when, or rather BEFORE they are required. The article refutes your proposal that 1) the complexities of the frontal lobe originated with sapiens, and 2) that the brain changes took place before they were required. What is the dichotomy? (dhw's bold)
DAVID: So in your misinterpretation Broca's was not present before speech?
Of course it was present. I reproduced the quote that said it was present, and what its function may have been: "She also notes that the Broca area is involved in tool-making, and that all this begs the question: What kind of selection pressure may have been responsible for the reorganization of the human frontal lobes? Good question."
She suggests that the pressures were related to the need for “new capabilities and technologies” and enhanced communication, and her article explicitly refutes your two proposals I have bolded above. What was supposed to be a “dichotomy”, and what have I misinterpreted?
Memory formation
DAVID: It shows our brain is designed with neurons with specific functions for future use.
dhw: I think the article describes how different memories are formed, but of course there would not be much point in forming memories if we didn’t have the means of remembering them in the future!
DAVID: We came with memory ability, without which nothing could be accomplished.
dhw: Agreed. The same applies to all life forms. That does not mean that your God operated on pre-sapiens brains in order to give them extra cells that would not be used until some vague future time.
DAVID: That is exactly how it works.
Ah well... I’d have thought it would make more sense for new cells to be created in response to new needs rather than just to stick around for a few thousand years doing nothing. (Or 7 million years – see under “our special genes”.) I wonder if all your ID-ers agree with this theory of yours.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Thursday, March 10, 2022, 19:50 (771 days ago) @ dhw
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
dhw: The article suggests that the requirements for new abilities and technologies and enhanced communication (e.g. for hunting) led to changes in the frontal lobe. This is the direct opposite of two of your theories, as above. What is the dichotomy?
DAVID: We always disagree about the ability of a group of existing neurons to form a whole new-sized brain.
dhw: What “whole new-sized brain” are you talking about? Existing brains complexified and then expanded in stages. You accept that complexification is autonomous, but you want your God popping in every time to add new cells when, or rather BEFORE they are required. The article refutes your proposal that 1) the complexities of the frontal lobe originated with sapiens, and 2) that the brain changes took place before they were required. What is the dichotomy? (dhw's bold)
DAVID: So in your misinterpretation Broca's was not present before speech?
dhw: Of course it was present. I reproduced the quote that said it was present, and what its function may have been: "She also notes that the Broca area is involved in tool-making, and that all this begs the question: What kind of selection pressure may have been responsible for the reorganization of the human frontal lobes? Good question."
She suggests that the pressures were related to the need for “new capabilities and technologies” and enhanced communication, and her article explicitly refutes your two proposals I have bolded above. What was supposed to be a “dichotomy”, and what have I misinterpreted?
Again we are back to interpretation. I am allowed to reinterpret Darwinist articles. Broca's area was there before speech is the point, not that it also had something to do with tools. of course , we agree, it did something before language developed. It was there prepared to handle future speech.
Memory formationDAVID: It shows our brain is designed with neurons with specific functions for future use.
dhw: I think the article describes how different memories are formed, but of course there would not be much point in forming memories if we didn’t have the means of remembering them in the future!
DAVID: We came with memory ability, without which nothing could be accomplished.
dhw: Agreed. The same applies to all life forms. That does not mean that your God operated on pre-sapiens brains in order to give them extra cells that would not be used until some vague future time.
DAVID: That is exactly how it works.
dhw: Ah well... I’d have thought it would make more sense for new cells to be created in response to new needs rather than just to stick around for a few thousand years doing nothing. (Or 7 million years – see under “our special genes”.) I wonder if all your ID-ers agree with this theory of yours.
Start following ID to see how they think. The preparatory cells do something before eventual intended use.
Introducing the brain: general
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
dhw: […] The article refutes your proposal that 1) the complexities of the frontal lobe originated with sapiens, and 2) that the brain changes took place before they were required. What is the dichotomy? (dhw's bold)
DAVID: So in your misinterpretation Broca's was not present before speech?
dhw: Of course it was present. I reproduced the quote that said it was present, and what its function may have been: "She also notes that the Broca area is involved in tool-making, and that all this begs the question: What kind of selection pressure may have been responsible for the reorganization of the human frontal lobes? Good question."
She suggests that the pressures were related to the need for “new capabilities and technologies” and enhanced communication, and her article explicitly refutes your two proposals I have bolded above. What was supposed to be a “dichotomy”, and what have I misinterpreted?
DAVID: Again we are back to interpretation. I am allowed to reinterpret Darwinist articles. Broca's area was there before speech is the point, not that it also had something to do with tools. of course , we agree, it did something before language developed. It was there prepared to handle future speech.
The point is firstly, that the complications of the frontal lobe, which you claimed were unique to sapiens, in fact go back millions of years, and secondly that according to the article they came into existence to meet new requirements. They were not inserted as preparation for unknown uses millions of years later.
Memory formation
DAVID: We came with memory ability, without which nothing could be accomplished.
dhw: Agreed. The same applies to all life forms. That does not mean that your God operated on pre-sapiens brains in order to give them extra cells that would not be used until some vague future time.
DAVID: That is exactly how it works.
dhw: Ah well... I’d have thought it would make more sense for new cells to be created in response to new needs rather than just to stick around for a few thousand years doing nothing. (Or 7 million years – see under “our special genes”.) I wonder if all your ID-ers agree with this theory of yours.
DAVID: Start following ID to see how they think. The preparatory cells do something before eventual intended use.
What does that mean? That meeting the requirements of the time is NOT their intended use? And ID-ers think that God preprogrammed or dabbled pre-sapiens brains millions of years in advance of their “intended” use?
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Saturday, March 12, 2022, 01:46 (770 days ago) @ dhw
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
DAVID: Again we are back to interpretation. I am allowed to reinterpret Darwinist articles. Broca's area was there before speech is the point, not that it also had something to do with tools. of course, we agree, it did something before language developed. It was there prepared to handle future speech.
dhw: The point is firstly, that the complications of the frontal lobe, which you claimed were unique to sapiens, in fact go back millions of years, and secondly that according to the article they came into existence to meet new requirements. They were not inserted as preparation for unknown uses millions of years later.
Broca's area is not frontal lobe.
Memory formationDAVID: We came with memory ability, without which nothing could be accomplished.
dhw: Agreed. The same applies to all life forms. That does not mean that your God operated on pre-sapiens brains in order to give them extra cells that would not be used until some vague future time.
DAVID: That is exactly how it works.
dhw: Ah well... I’d have thought it would make more sense for new cells to be created in response to new needs rather than just to stick around for a few thousand years doing nothing. (Or 7 million years – see under “our special genes”.) I wonder if all your ID-ers agree with this theory of yours.
DAVID: Start following ID to see how they think. The preparatory cells do something before eventual intended use.
dhw: What does that mean? That meeting the requirements of the time is NOT their intended use? And ID-ers think that God preprogrammed or dabbled pre-sapiens brains millions of years in advance of their “intended” use?
We've agreed the early cells don't just sit there with nothing to do, waiting for their expected future job. ID believes God designed the special sapiens brain, from teh less specialized Erectus brain.
Introducing the brain: rebooting after deep anesthesia
by David Turell , Saturday, March 12, 2022, 02:11 (770 days ago) @ David Turell
FMRI and other methods used:
https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-how-the-human-brain-reboots-itself-after-the-deep-s...
"It turns out that the brain switches back on one section at a time, rather than all at once – and abstract problem-solving capabilities, as handled by the prefrontal cortex, are the functions that come back online the quickest. Other brain areas, including those managing reaction time and attention, take longer.
"'Although initially surprising, it makes sense in evolutionary terms that higher cognition needs to recover early," said anesthesiologist Max Kelz, from the University of Pennsylvania.
"'If, for example, someone was waking up to a threat, structures like the prefrontal cortex would be important for categorizing the situation and generating an action plan."
"A variety of methods were used to measure what was happening in the brain, including electroencephalography (EEG) scans and cognitive tests before and after going under. These tests measured reaction speed, memory recall, and other skills.
"Analyzing the EEG readings, the researchers noted that the frontal regions of the brain – where functions including problem-solving, memory, and motor control are located – became particularly active as the brain began to recover.
"A comparison with the control group showed that it took about three hours for those who had been anesthetized to recover fully.
***
"Despite their widespread use, we don't really understand how anesthetics work in precise detail, even if we have figured out how to use them safely. There are plenty of ideas about how the brain deals with these drugs, but no concrete evidence as yet.
"The recent findings can not only help with treatments and patient care – after major operations involving anesthesia, for example – but also in giving scientists a better understanding of the brain and how it responds to disruption.
"'How the brain recovers from states of unconsciousness is important clinically but also gives us insight into the neural basis of consciousness itself," said anesthesiologist George Mashour, from the University of Michigan."
Comment: just of interest. It certainly doesn't tell us where consciousness comes from.
Introducing the brain: general
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
DAVID: Again we are back to interpretation. I am allowed to reinterpret Darwinist articles. Broca's area was there before speech is the point, not that it also had something to do with tools. of course, we agree, it did something before language developed. It was there prepared to handle future speech.
dhw: The point is firstly, that the complications of the frontal lobe, which you claimed were unique to sapiens, in fact go back millions of years, and secondly that according to the article they came into existence to meet new requirements. They were not inserted as preparation for unknown uses millions of years later.
DAVID: Broca's area is not frontal lobe.
See numerous websites, such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_area
"Broca's area, or the Broca area (/ˈbroʊkə/,[1][2][3] also UK: /ˈbrɒkə/, US: /ˈbroʊkɑː/[4]), is a region in the frontal lobe of the dominant hemisphere, usually the left, of the brain[5] with functions linked to speech production.
Memory formation
DAVID: We came with memory ability, without which nothing could be accomplished.
dhw: Agreed. The same applies to all life forms. That does not mean that your God operated on pre-sapiens brains in order to give them extra cells that would not be used until some vague future time.
DAVID: That is exactly how it works.
dhw: Ah well... I’d have thought it would make more sense for new cells to be created in response to new needs rather than just to stick around for a few thousand years doing nothing. (Or 7 million years – see under “our special genes”.) I wonder if all your ID-ers agree with this theory of yours.
DAVID: Start following ID to see how they think. The preparatory cells do something before eventual intended use.
dhw: What does that mean? That meeting the requirements of the time is NOT their intended use? And ID-ers think that God preprogrammed or dabbled pre-sapiens brains millions of years in advance of their “intended” use?
DAVID: We've agreed the early cells don't just sit there with nothing to do, waiting for their expected future job.
Yes, it took a while to get you to agree to that. Now tell us who or what “expects” their future job. Is it not possible that having come into existence to meet a particular requirement, the cells then complexify (or expand their number) to meet new requirements in an ongoing process of RESPONSE as opposed to anticipation?
DAVID: ID believes God designed the special sapiens brain, from teh less specialized Erectus brain.
You have just agreed that new cells respond to current requirements (they don’t just sit there with nothing to do), so do please tell me how your ID-ers explain why their God designed special areas of the brain millions of years in advance of their “intended” function.
Rebooting after deep anesthesia
The sting is in the tail:
QUOTE: How the brain recovers from states of unconsciousness is important clinically but also gives us insight into the neural basis of consciousness itself," said anesthesiologist George Mashour, from the University of Michigan."
One up for materialism versus dualism. But we needn’t reopen that discussion!
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Saturday, March 12, 2022, 18:21 (769 days ago) @ dhw
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
DAVID: Broca's area is not frontal lobe.
dhw:See numerous websites, such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_area
"Broca's area, or the Broca area (/ˈbroʊkə/,[1][2][3] also UK: /ˈbrɒkə/, US: /ˈbroʊkɑː/[4]), is a region in the frontal lobe of the dominant hemisphere, usually the left, of the brain[5] with functions linked to speech production.
My sloppiness. I was thinking of the prefrontal higher conceptualizing region. Broca's is in a back lower area of the whole frontal region.
Memory formationDAVID: We've agreed the early cells don't just sit there with nothing to do, waiting for their expected future job.
dhw: Yes, it took a while to get you to agree to that. Now tell us who or what “expects” their future job. Is it not possible that having come into existence to meet a particular requirement, the cells then complexify (or expand their number) to meet new requirements in an ongoing process of RESPONSE as opposed to anticipation?
Did our current uses occur 315,000 years ago? The neurons then anticipated the use today in eh sn ese they easily handle them now..
DAVID: ID believes God designed the special sapiens brain, from teh less specialized Erectus brain.dhw: You have just agreed that new cells respond to current requirements (they don’t just sit there with nothing to do), so do please tell me how your ID-ers explain why their God designed special areas of the brain millions of years in advance of their “intended” function.
It is what a designer obviously does.
Rebooting after deep anesthesiaThe sting is in the tail:
QUOTE: How the brain recovers from states of unconsciousness is important clinically but also gives us insight into the neural basis of consciousness itself," said anesthesiologist George Mashour, from the University of Michigan."
dhw: One up for materialism versus dualism. But we needn’t reopen that discussion!
I've already laughed at it.
Introducing the brain: general
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
DAVID: Broca's area is not frontal lobe.
dhw:See numerous websites, such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_area
"Broca's area […] is a region in the frontal lobe of the dominant hemisphere, usually the left, of the brain with functions linked to speech production."
DAVID: My sloppiness. I was thinking of the prefrontal higher conceptualizing region. Broca's is in a back lower area of the whole frontal region.
We all make mistakes, but in any case it doesn’t alter the fact that this article categorically opposes your theory that all the vital changes to the frontal lobe began with sapiens, and that the changes took place before they were required.
Memory formation
DAVID: Did our current uses occur 315,000 years ago? The neurons then anticipated the use today in the sense they easily handle them now.
Of course there have been new uses, and each new use – as would have been the case
with earlier brains until they needed additional cells – has resulted in complexification. You agree that new cells must have been used for something, as opposed to lying around doing nothing for thousands of years. Next, you’ll be telling us that God designed legs hundreds of millions of years ago in anticipation of humans wanting to play football. Once mechanisms are in place, they respond to new requirements as history marches on. Our brains respond by complexifying. I don’t know why you think they and earlier brains change/changed BEFORE they are/were required to do so.
Jumping spiders
QUOTE: Although these tiny arachnids have brains that could literally fit on the head of a pin, the work of Cross and other scientists suggests that they have capabilities we’d have no problem hailing as signs of intelligence if exhibited by animals with much larger brains, like dogs or human toddlers.
“'Jumping spiders are remarkably clever animals,” says visual ecologist Nathan Morehouse […]. “I always find it delightful when something like a humble jumping spider punctures our sense of biological superiority.”
DAVID: I'm educating everyone in ID. This article is from their website illustrating how the designer gives insect brains the ability to perform these feats.
As always, my thanks for presenting material which explicitly supports the case for insect intelligence – possibly designed by your designer – so vehemently denied by your own “large organisms chauvinism”.
DAVID: ID presented the recent book on insect brain algorithms: https://evolutionnews.org/2021/11/new-book-animal-algorithms-spells-fresh-trouble-for-d...
Of course you have the right also to support the case for your own algorithm theory.
multiple queen fire ant colony
QUOTE: …..the advantages of having multiple queens overrode the incompatibilities, and the genetic material repeatedly spread to other species from the one source species in which this new social form evolved.
DAVID: interesting new hybrid fire ant is old. Not true speciation.
I agree that it’s not true speciation, but it is still highly relevant to our discussion on the intelligent manner in which organisms discover and use new ways of improving their chances of survival.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Sunday, March 13, 2022, 16:02 (768 days ago) @ dhw
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
DAVID: Broca's area is not frontal lobe.
dhw:See numerous websites, such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_area
"Broca's area […] is a region in the frontal lobe of the dominant hemisphere, usually the left, of the brain with functions linked to speech production."
DAVID: My sloppiness. I was thinking of the prefrontal higher conceptualizing region. Broca's is in a back lower area of the whole frontal region.
dhw: We all make mistakes, but in any case it doesn’t alter the fact that this article categorically opposes your theory that all the vital changes to the frontal lobe began with sapiens, and that the changes took place before they were required.
Broca's area was there long before language. I'll bet Erectus had it.
Memory formationDAVID: Did our current uses occur 315,000 years ago? The neurons then anticipated the use today in the sense they easily handle them now.
dhw: Of course there have been new uses, and each new use – as would have been the case
with earlier brains until they needed additional cells – has resulted in complexification. You agree that new cells must have been used for something, as opposed to lying around doing nothing for thousands of years. Next, you’ll be telling us that God designed legs hundreds of millions of years ago in anticipation of humans wanting to play football. Once mechanisms are in place, they respond to new requirements as history marches on. Our brains respond by complexifying. I don’t know why you think they and earlier brains change/changed BEFORE they are/were required to do so.
Because I believe in God who designs new organisms prepared for their future uses.
Jumping spidersQUOTE: Although these tiny arachnids have brains that could literally fit on the head of a pin, the work of Cross and other scientists suggests that they have capabilities we’d have no problem hailing as signs of intelligence if exhibited by animals with much larger brains, like dogs or human toddlers.
“'Jumping spiders are remarkably clever animals,” says visual ecologist Nathan Morehouse […]. “I always find it delightful when something like a humble jumping spider punctures our sense of biological superiority.”DAVID: I'm educating everyone in ID. This article is from their website illustrating how the designer gives insect brains the ability to perform these feats.
dhw: As always, my thanks for presenting material which explicitly supports the case for insect intelligence – possibly designed by your designer – so vehemently denied by your own “large organisms chauvinism”.
Thank you.
DAVID: ID presented the recent book on insect brain algorithms: https://evolutionnews.org/2021/11/new-book-animal-algorithms-spells-fresh-trouble-for-d...dhw: Of course you have the right also to support the case for your own algorithm theory.
multiple queen fire ant colony
QUOTE: …..the advantages of having multiple queens overrode the incompatibilities, and the genetic material repeatedly spread to other species from the one source species in which this new social form evolved.DAVID: interesting new hybrid fire ant is old. Not true speciation.
dhw: I agree that it’s not true speciation, but it is still highly relevant to our discussion on the intelligent manner in which organisms discover and use new ways of improving their chances of survival.
Certainly more queens are better.
Introducing the brain: general
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
DAVID: Broca's area is not frontal lobe.
dhw:See numerous websites, such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_area
"Broca's area […] is a region in the frontal lobe of the dominant hemisphere, usually the left, of the brain with functions linked to speech production."
DAVID: My sloppiness. I was thinking of the prefrontal higher conceptualizing region. Broca's is in a back lower area of the whole frontal region.
dhw: We all make mistakes, but in any case it doesn’t alter the fact that this article categorically opposes your theory that all the vital changes to the frontal lobe began with sapiens, and that the changes took place before they were required.
DAVID: Broca's area was there long before language. I'll bet Erectus had it.
That was made clear by the article, and it therefore categorically refutes your earlier statements that the complexities of the frontal lobe are unique to sapiens. Now you are betting that this complexity was not unique to sapiens.
Memory formation
DAVID: Did our current uses occur 315,000 years ago? The neurons then anticipated the use today in the sense they easily handle them now.
dhw: […] Next, you’ll be telling us that God designed legs hundreds of millions of years ago in anticipation of humans wanting to play football. Once mechanisms are in place, they respond to new requirements as history marches on. Our brains respond by complexifying. I don’t know why you think they and earlier brains change/changed BEFORE they are/were required to do so.
DAVID: Because I believe in God who designs new organisms prepared for their future uses.
I know you do. Whether God designed each new set of cells or not, of course they were they were available for future use! So were legs! But now you have agreed that the new cells must have been used when they first arrived, i.e. they must have met a new requirement at the time. You have also agreed that earlier brains must have complexified before they expanded, and complexification takes place without your God's intervention. So even in your theory, your God provided the mechanism for autonomous change, and he did not provide new cells thousands of years before they were needed. What could this mechanism be, if it is not cellular intelligence? Or do you believe that 315,000 years ago he provided new cells with instructions on how to build centrally heated houses, write symphonies, invent nuclear weapons etc. (not to be opened for the next 314,000+ years)? As I see it, the only difference now between our theistic theories is that while accepting that your God gave cells an autonomous mechanism for complexification, you insist that he had to intervene personally when brains required new cells.
Jumping spiders
QUOTE: Although these tiny arachnids have brains that could literally fit on the head of a pin, the work of Cross and other scientists suggests that they have capabilities we’d have no problem hailing as signs of intelligence if exhibited by animals with much larger brains, like dogs or human toddlers.
“'Jumping spiders are remarkably clever animals,” says visual ecologist Nathan Morehouse […]. “I always find it delightful when something like a humble jumping spider punctures our sense of biological superiority.”
DAVID: I'm educating everyone in ID. This article is from their website illustrating how the designer gives insect brains the ability to perform these feats.
dhw: As always, my thanks for presenting material which explicitly supports the case for insect intelligence – possibly designed by your designer – so vehemently denied by your own “large organisms chauvinism”.
DAVID: Thank you.
Thank you for thanking me for thanking you for providing yet more evidence of insect intelligence.
multiple queen fire ant colony
QUOTE: …..the advantages of having multiple queens overrode the incompatibilities, and the genetic material repeatedly spread to other species from the one source species in which this new social form evolved.
DAVID: interesting new hybrid fire ant is old. Not true speciation.
dhw: I agree that it’s not true speciation, but it is still highly relevant to our discussion on the intelligent manner in which organisms discover and use new ways of improving their chances of survival.
DAVID: Certainly more queens are better.
It’s amazing what ants come up with – thereby not only proving how intelligent they are, but also illustrating the more general fact that speciation, life styles, econiches, natural wonders etc. are all geared to the same principle: improving chances of survival.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Monday, March 14, 2022, 14:54 (768 days ago) @ dhw
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
DAVID: Broca's area was there long before language. I'll bet Erectus had it.
dhw: That was made clear by the article, and it therefore categorically refutes your earlier statements that the complexities of the frontal lobe are unique to sapiens. Now you are betting that this complexity was not unique to sapiens.
My point is simply erectus' brain had a degree of complexity lesser than sapiens. hbilis even less
Memory formationDAVID: Because I believe in God who designs new organisms prepared for their future uses.
I know you do...So even in your theory, your God provided the mechanism for autonomous change, and he did not provide new cells thousands of years before they were needed. What could this mechanism be, if it is not cellular intelligence?
Brains before sapiens undoubtedly complexified using God-given instructions.
dhw: Or do you believe that 315,000 years ago he provided new cells with instructions on how to build centrally heated houses, write symphonies, invent nuclear weapons etc. (not to be opened for the next 314,000+ years)? As I see it, the only difference now between our theistic theories is that while accepting that your God gave cells an autonomous mechanism for complexification, you insist that he had to intervene personally when brains required new cells.
Our God-given cells came with the ability to conceptualize on our command. You have your neuron cell committees brilliantly doing their own designing. With no known natural source of designing intelligence.
multiple queen fire ant colonyQUOTE: …..the advantages of having multiple queens overrode the incompatibilities, and the genetic material repeatedly spread to other species from the one source species in which this new social form evolved.
DAVID: interesting new hybrid fire ant is old. Not true speciation.
dhw: I agree that it’s not true speciation, but it is still highly relevant to our discussion on the intelligent manner in which organisms discover and use new ways of improving their chances of survival.
DAVID: Certainly more queens are better.
dhw: It’s amazing what ants come up with – thereby not only proving how intelligent they are, but also illustrating the more general fact that speciation, life styles, econiches, natural wonders etc. are all geared to the same principle: improving chances of survival.
Agreed, survival is required.
Introducing the brain: general
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
DAVID: Broca's area was there long before language. I'll bet Erectus had it.
dhw: That was made clear by the article, and it therefore categorically refutes your earlier statements that the complexities of the frontal lobe are unique to sapiens. Now you are betting that this complexity was not unique to sapiens.
DAVID: My point is simply erectus' brain had a degree of complexity lesser than sapiens. hbilis even less
Then we are in agreement. It is inevitable that if new cells are added, there will be an increase in complexity. But that doesn’t mean that sapiens frontal lobe is totally different from earlier frontal lobes, or that your God added all the new cells thousands of years before they were needed.
Memory formation
DAVID: […]I believe in God who designs new organisms prepared for their future uses.
dhw: I know you do...So even in your theory, your God provided the mechanism for autonomous change, and he did not provide new cells thousands of years before they were needed. What could this mechanism be, if it is not cellular intelligence?
DAVID: Brains before sapiens undoubtedly complexified using God-given instructions.
But you have previously agreed that complexification takes place without God’s intervention! Are you telling us that God whispered in the ear of a pre-sapiens: “Now you’re gonna invent a weapon to kill your prey from a distance, and I’ll give you the extra cells to help you design it, make it an’ use it”?
dhw: […] do you believe that 315,000 years ago he provided new cells with instructions on how to build centrally heated houses, write symphonies, invent nuclear weapons etc. (not to be opened for the next 314,000+ years)? As I see it, the only difference now between our theistic theories is that while accepting that your God gave cells an autonomous mechanism for complexification, you insist that he had to intervene personally when brains required new cells.
DAVID: Our God-given cells came with the ability to conceptualize on our command. You have your neuron cell committees brilliantly doing their own designing. With no known natural source of designing intelligence.
I don’t want to reopen the dualism versus materialism debate, which will require a definition of what “we” means. The point here is that you agree that the mechanism which gives us our ability to design is autonomous. You believe your God designed it, so why can’t you believe that he could have designed this autonomous mechanism to add cells as well as complexify them?
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 15, 2022, 14:31 (767 days ago) @ dhw
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
DAVID: Broca's area was there long before language. I'll bet Erectus had it.
dhw: That was made clear by the article, and it therefore categorically refutes your earlier statements that the complexities of the frontal lobe are unique to sapiens. Now you are betting that this complexity was not unique to sapiens.
DAVID: My point is simply erectus' brain had a degree of complexity lesser than sapiens. habilis even less
dhw: Then we are in agreement. It is inevitable that if new cells are added, there will be an increase in complexity. But that doesn’t mean that sapiens frontal lobe is totally different from earlier frontal lobes, or that your God added all the new cells thousands of years before they were needed.
We agree in gradual complexity from hominin to homo. You can't deny the huge frontal lobes of sapiens was finally fully used 315.000 years after arrival.
Memory formationDAVID: […]I believe in God who designs new organisms prepared for their future uses.
dhw: I know you do...So even in your theory, your God provided the mechanism for autonomous change, and he did not provide new cells thousands of years before they were needed. What could this mechanism be, if it is not cellular intelligence?
DAVID: Brains before sapiens undoubtedly complexified using God-given instructions.
dhw: But you have previously agreed that complexification takes place without God’s intervention! Are you telling us that God whispered in the ear of a pre-sapiens: “Now you’re gonna invent a weapon to kill your prey from a distance, and I’ll give you the extra cells to help you design it, make it an’ use it”?
Kidneys, lungs, livers, etc. work without God. Why can't the brain?
dhw: […] do you believe that 315,000 years ago he provided new cells with instructions on how to build centrally heated houses, write symphonies, invent nuclear weapons etc. (not to be opened for the next 314,000+ years)? As I see it, the only difference now between our theistic theories is that while accepting that your God gave cells an autonomous mechanism for complexification, you insist that he had to intervene personally when brains required new cells.DAVID: Our God-given cells came with the ability to conceptualize on our command. You have your neuron cell committees brilliantly doing their own designing. With no known natural source of designing intelligence.
dhw: I don’t want to reopen the dualism versus materialism debate, which will require a definition of what “we” means. The point here is that you agree that the mechanism which gives us our ability to design is autonomous. You believe your God designed it, so why can’t you believe that he could have designed this autonomous mechanism to add cells as well as complexify them?
Why must God give off His designing ability? I have never understood your insistence on presenting this theory. Does it create a weaker God or stronger in your mind?
Introducing the brain: blood brain barrier controls
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 16, 2022, 21:15 (765 days ago) @ David Turell
Protects the brain from most everything except energy supply:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-03-blood-brain-barrier.html
"The brain is composed of billions of neurons—vulnerable cells that require a protective environment to function properly. This delicate environment is protected by 400 miles of specialized vasculature designed to limit which substances come into contact with the brain. This blood-brain barrier is essential for protecting the organ from toxins and pathogens. But in the context of neurological disease, the barrier "becomes your worst enemy," says Anne Eichmann, Ph.D., Ensign Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) and professor of cellular and molecular physiology, as it also blocks the passage of therapeutic drugs.
***
"The development and maintenance of the blood-brain barrier are dependent on what is called the Wnt signaling pathway, which regulates a number of crucial cellular processes. Eichmann's team sought to figure out whether this pathway could be modulated to open the barrier "on-demand."
"When Kevin Boyé, Ph.D., a postdoctoral associate at Yale and first author of the study, joined Eichmann's lab in 2017, he chose to study a molecule known as Unc5B, an endothelial membrane receptor expressed in the endothelial cells of capillaries. He found that if he knocked out this receptor in mice, they died early in their embryonic development because their vasculature failed to form properly, indicating that it was an important molecule in vascular development. He also discovered that a protein known as Claudin5—which is important for creating the tight junctions between the endothelial cells of the blood-brain barrier—was also significantly reduced. This made the team realize that the receptor could be important in maintaining this barrier.
"There was previously no known link between Unc5B and the Wnt signaling pathway. Through this new study, the team figured out that the Unc5B receptor controls the pathway, functioning as an upstream regulator.
"''It was quite a fascinating journey, especially the development of our blocking antibodies and seeing that we can open the blood-brain barrier in a very time-sensitive fashion to promote drug delivery,'' says Boyé.
"Boyé then went a step further and took the receptor out in adult mice with an already established blood-brain barrier, and found that the barrier remained open in the absence of the receptor. Next, he wanted to determine which ligands—which bind to receptors and send signals between or inside cells—were responsible for the barrier effect. He discovered that one ligand, Netrin-1, also caused a blood-barrier defect when it was removed.
"Next, the team developed an antibody that could block Netrin-1 from binding to its receptor. Upon injecting the antibody, the team was able disrupt the Wnt signaling pathway, causing the blood-brain barrier to open temporarily on demand."
Comment: I quote d this to show the protection pathway with its specific molecular control steps. Must be designed all at once at the time the first real brains appeared, or brained lifev would not have survived.
Introducing the brain: general
Yet again, my apologies. I thought I’d posted this yesterday, and I have no idea why I didn’t! I do have one or two theories, but I’ll keep them discreetly to myself.
New Study Changes Our Understanding of Human ... - Haaretz.com
DAVID: Broca's area was there long before language. I'll bet Erectus had it.
dhw: That was made clear by the article, and it therefore categorically refutes your earlier statements that the complexities of the frontal lobe are unique to sapiens. Now you are betting that this complexity was not unique to sapiens.
DAVID: My point is simply erectus' brain had a degree of complexity lesser than sapiens. habilis even less
dhw: Then we are in agreement. It is inevitable that if new cells are added, there will be an increase in complexity. But that doesn’t mean that sapiens frontal lobe is totally different from earlier frontal lobes, or that your God added all the new cells thousands of years before they were needed.
DAVID: We agree in gradual complexity from hominin to homo.
Things are looking up!
DAVID: You can't deny the huge frontal lobes of sapiens was finally fully used 315.000 years after arrival.
Of course I deny it. I believe the frontal lobes of sapiens (which did not suddenly appear out of the blue but evolved gradually) will continue to be used in new ways so long as sapiens survives. And I must repeat that I do not believe your God inserted them into a few pre-sapiens heads thousands of years before they were needed.
Memory formation
DAVID: Brains before sapiens undoubtedly complexified using God-given instructions.
dhw: But you have previously agreed that complexification takes place without God’s intervention! Are you telling us that God whispered in the ear of a pre-sapiens: “Now you’re gonna invent a weapon to kill your prey from a distance, and I’ll give you the extra cells to help you design it, make it an’ use it”?
DAVID: Kidneys, lungs, livers, etc. work without God. Why can't the brain?
Exactly. So why do you go on insisting that past brains could only complexify if God gave them instructions, and could only expand if he operated on them?
DAVID: Our God-given cells came with the ability to conceptualize on our command. You have your neuron cell committees brilliantly doing their own designing. With no known natural source of designing intelligence.
dhw: I don’t want to reopen the dualism versus materialism debate, which will require a definition of what “we” means. The point here is that you agree that the mechanism which gives us our ability to design is autonomous. You believe your God designed it, so why can’t you believe that he could have designed this autonomous mechanism to add cells as well as complexify them?
DAVID: Why must God give off His designing ability? I have never understood your insistence on presenting this theory. Does it create a weaker God or stronger in your mind?
The usual dodge of answering a question with a question. This website grew out of my typically human sense of curiosity. I want to know (even if I can’t) how we got here, what is the origin of consciousness, is there a God, and if there is, what might he be like? And so I look at what we do know, and I try to form some kind of explanatory pattern out of it. You have helped enormously in expanding my actual knowledge, but I find some of your conclusions extremely unconvincing, and I look for alternatives. Hence our discussions concerning the intelligent cell theory. I couldn’t care less whether you think this means a weaker or stronger God. The question is whether it might explain some of the mysteries of evolution. Would you now please answer my own bolded question.
Introducing the brain: dementia exposed
by David Turell , Thursday, March 17, 2022, 14:33 (765 days ago) @ dhw
Damage to the brain disrupts normal recognition of confusion:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/neurons-damaged-in-dementia-recognize-interr...
"The ability to sense regular patterns is fundamental to making sense of the world. Stimulus from the environment activates a group of neurons in the frontoparietal region of the brain called the multiple demand network (MDN) that’s known to be involved in the organization and control of cognitive functions and general intelligence. Both normal aging and brain diseases can affect the MDN’s ability to detect changes or deviations from regular patterns of sensory stimuli, such as noticing that a road sign is an unusual color while driving down the highway.
"New research published March 8 in The Journal of Neuroscience finds that disruption of the MDN is a common feature of various forms of dementia. According to the study, damage to any of the nodes of the MDN makes patients struggle to cope with changes in their environments, revealing a standard mechanism for this symptom.
***
"Dementia is a common multifactorial disease that grows increasingly likely as people age. There are several types of dementia, the most common being Alzheimer’s disease, and all can cause problems with memory, cognition, and language. Dementia can also lead to changes in mood, emotions, perception, and behavior. Although each kind of dementia is different, there are some standard features, including the loss of fundamental properties and capabilities of the brain. “Understanding the biology at the base of those similarities can help develop better treatments,” study coauthor and University of Cambridge clinical neuroscientist James Rowe tells The Scientist.
***
"The team combined their MEG data with MRI scans, allowing them to map out which brain structures were activated as they watched the documentary. In the healthy subjects, neurons in the MDN domain recognized changes in sound stimuli. However, in the patients with dementia, the reduction in the second neural response was associated with damage to the MDN. Crucially, these impairments were not driven by global atrophy in auditory brain regions, as confirmed by the lack of significant correlations between the MEG data and grey matter volume. Overall, the team found that neurodegeneration reduced the brain’s capacity to interpret external sensorial stimuli (in this case, sounds) to make suppositions about what is happening in the surrounding environment, which is a property associated with the affected multiple demand nodes."
Comment: this is about sensory confusion, not the higher levels of frontal lobe conceptualization abilities. From a materialism standpoint, many areas of the brain have important specific functions that will affect a state of consciousness but disordered consciousness remains What is amazing is that individuals exist with little brain and normal consciousness as shown here previously. Thus materialism alone cannot explain consciousness.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Thursday, March 17, 2022, 15:58 (764 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: We agree in gradual complexity from hominin to homo.
dhw: Things are looking up!
DAVID: You can't deny the huge frontal lobes of sapiens was finally fully used 315.000 years after arrival.
dhw: Of course I deny it. I believe the frontal lobes of sapiens (which did not suddenly appear out of the blue but evolved gradually) will continue to be used in new ways so long as sapiens survives. And I must repeat that I do not believe your God inserted them into a few pre-sapiens heads thousands of years before they were needed.
Simple different point of view as you don't believe in God.
Memory formationDAVID: Kidneys, lungs, livers, etc. work without God. Why can't the brain?
dhw: You believe your God designed it, so why can’t you believe that he could have designed this autonomous mechanism to add cells as well as complexify them?
DAVID: Why must God give off His designing ability? I have never understood your insistence on presenting this theory. Does it create a weaker God or stronger in your mind?
dhw: The usual dodge of answering a question with a question. This website grew out of my typically human sense of curiosity. I want to know (even if I can’t) how we got here, what is the origin of consciousness, is there a God, and if there is, what might he be like? And so I look at what we do know, and I try to form some kind of explanatory pattern out of it. You have helped enormously in expanding my actual knowledge, but I find some of your conclusions extremely unconvincing, and I look for alternatives. Hence our discussions concerning the intelligent cell theory. I couldn’t care less whether you think this means a weaker or stronger God. The question is whether it might explain some of the mysteries of evolution. Would you now please answer my own bolded question.
Answered over and over: a proper designer does not hand off his designing ability to secondhand designers. Elsewhere today I've called you out on cell committees signaling but no evidence of thinking capacity for complex design..
Introducing the brain: how hippocampal neurons work
by David Turell , Thursday, March 17, 2022, 18:49 (764 days ago) @ David Turell
Studied in these pyramidal neurons in mice:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-03-long-suspected-turbocharger-memory-brain-cells.html
"The cells we studied in this new work are in the hippocampus, the first area of the brain affected by Alzheimer's disease," said Franck Polleux, Ph.D., a principal investigator at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute. "Understanding the basic principles of what allows these brain cells to encode memory will provide tremendous insights into what goes wrong in this disease."
"The brain's ability to learn and remember—everything from our first words and steps to where we parked our car or left our keys—depends on the gaps where neurons connect to each other, called synapses. Synapses, through which cells exchange information, can be modified over time. This malleability to experience, known as plasticity, relies on how calcium ions flow within the brain.
"Nearly all research into the part that calcium plays in plasticity has focused on how it can rush into and out of a synapse through channels on the surfaces of neurons. For more than two decades, scientists have suspected that stockpiles of calcium within neurons might also play a major role in shaping plasticity. But until now, scientists had no way to investigate the effects that calcium discharged from these internal reservoirs had within the mammalian brain.
***
"In the new study of mice, the Polleux lab and the Losonczy lab focused on the hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped region of the brain central to memory. Specifically, the scientists analyzed pyramid-shaped neurons that can encode memories of locations, called place cells, in the hippocampal region known as CA1.
***
"Inside place cells, the researchers focused on a gene called Pdzd8. It encodes a protein that normally helps limit the amount of calcium released from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), an elaborate network of tubes within the cells.
"'The ER stores a huge amount of calcium," Dr. Polleux said. "It's like a calcium bomb inside all cells."
"The researchers deleted Pdzd8. This deletion removed the brakes on calcium release from the ER. The scientists next looked for changes in the activity of the place cells in both the cells' central bodies and their dendrites, the treelike branches with which cells receive signals from other cells.
***
"The scientists found that increasing the amount of calcium released within a place cell significantly widened the area to which it was attuned, increasing the size of the location it helped a mouse remember. Boosting intracellular calcium release also dramatically increased the duration that a place cell was attuned to a specific location.
"'Intracellular calcium release can act like a turbocharger for plasticity," Dr. Polleux said. "We found that it also makes place cells perhaps even too stable if left uncontrolled."
"The scientists also found the dendrites at the apex of each pyramid-shaped neuron in CA1 are normally all tuned to different places. Increasing the amount of calcium released within these neurons helped attune many of the dendrites at their apexes to a single place during learning but had less of an effect on dendrites at the base of the neurons. Discovering the ways in which all the components of these extraordinarily complex neurons change during learning could help researchers decipher how these cells work.
"'Dendrites have long been suspected to function as 'cells-within-cells' that can work independently or, when needed, together to enhance the computational power of single neurons," Dr. Losonczy said. "Our study not only shows that this is indeed the case, but it also provides a molecular mechanism for how this dendritic cooperation is regulated in the behaving brain."
"'Each potential place cell probably receives tens of thousands of inputs carrying information about a space," Dr. O'Hare said. "If you think about all this complexity, you can appreciate that even a single neuron in the brain is basically like a supercomputer.'" (my bold)
Comment: Each neuron is a supercomputer! Not by chance. Place memory is a required attribute always present from the beginning of each mammal form.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: We agree in gradual complexity from hominin to homo.
dhw: Things are looking up!
DAVID: You can't deny the huge frontal lobes of sapiens was finally fully used 315.000 years after arrival.
dhw: Of course I deny it. I believe the frontal lobes of sapiens (which did not suddenly appear out of the blue but evolved gradually) will continue to be used in new ways so long as sapiens survives. And I must repeat that I do not believe your God inserted them into a few pre-sapiens heads thousands of years before they were needed.
DAVID: Simple different point of view as you don't believe in God.
I don’t disbelieve in God, and these references to my agnosticism are a very poor response to rational arguments concerning the possible motives and methods of your God. This is especially so when your own arguments are so irrational that you can’t explain the logic behind your point of view.
Memory formation
DAVID: Kidneys, lungs, livers, etc. work without God. Why can't the brain?
dhw: Exactly. So why do you go on insisting that past brains could only complexify if God gave them instructions, and could only expand if he operated on them? (I have reinstated this response, as it relates more closely to your own question.)
DAVID: Why must God give off His designing ability?
You just gave us examples of organs that function without God, and then you asked exactly the question I keep asking: why can’t the brain also work without God?
DAVID: I have never understood your insistence on presenting this theory. Does it create a weaker God or stronger in your mind?
I needn’t repeat my answer, as it is irrelevant to the subject we are discussing. Previously, you have agreed that complexification takes place without your God’s intervention, and I keep asking why the same mechanism should not also be capable of adding new cells when needed (= expansion).
DAVID: Answered over and over: a proper designer does not hand off his designing ability to secondhand designers.
And I have answered over and over that if he can give humans the autonomous ability to do their own designing, why should he not give the same ability to other organisms if he wants to? You won’t even allow him to let the weaverbird design its own nest!
DAVID: Elsewhere today I've called you out on cell committees signaling but no evidence of thinking capacity for complex design.
And I answered: I agree that it doesn’t necessarily extend to innovations. That is why we only have a theory and not a fact.
Dementia
DAVID: this is about sensory confusion, not the higher levels of frontal lobe conceptualization abilities. From a materialism standpoint, many areas of the brain have important specific functions that will affect a state of consciousness but disordered consciousness remains. What is amazing is that individuals exist with little brain and normal consciousness as shown here previously. Thus materialism alone cannot explain consciousness.
I really don’t want us to reopen the thread on Dualism versus Materialism, as I‘m sure we covered every aspect of it in our earlier discussions. I agree that nobody can explain consciousness, but as with God’s existence, I can see both points of view. A materialist would certainly argue that dementia provides evidence that since damage to the brain also damages consciousness, the brain must be the source of consciousness. He would also say that in a little brain, the few cells are able to take on the additional functions of those that are missing. But these arguments still don’t explain how consciousness actually works, and they don’t take into account psychic phenomena and NDEs, which suggest that consciousness is NOT dependent on materials.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Friday, March 18, 2022, 19:07 (763 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Of course I deny it. I believe the frontal lobes of sapiens (which did not suddenly appear out of the blue but evolved gradually) will continue to be used in new ways so long as sapiens survives. And I must repeat that I do not believe your God inserted them into a few pre-sapiens heads thousands of years before they were needed.
DAVID: Simple different point of view as you don't believe in God.
dhw: I don’t disbelieve in God, and these references to my agnosticism are a very poor response to rational arguments concerning the possible motives and methods of your God. This is especially so when your own arguments are so irrational that you can’t explain the logic behind your point of view.
You are the one who brought up God again as He relates to the appearance of new brains.
Memory formationDAVID: Kidneys, lungs, livers, etc. work without God. Why can't the brain?
dhw: Exactly. So why do you go on insisting that past brains could only complexify if God gave them instructions, and could only expand if he operated on them? (I have reinstated this response, as it relates more closely to your own question.)
DAVID: Why must God give off His designing ability?
dhw: You just gave us examples of organs that function without God, and then you asked exactly the question I keep asking: why can’t the brain also work without God?
It does in the complexification process. By the way, if you lose a kidney the remaining one enlarges to handle the load. But a damaged brain can't do that, only consolidate what is left..
DAVID: I have never understood your insistence on presenting this theory. Does it create a weaker God or stronger in your mind?dhw: I needn’t repeat my answer, as it is irrelevant to the subject we are discussing. Previously, you have agreed that complexification takes place without your God’s intervention, and I keep asking why the same mechanism should not also be capable of adding new cells when needed (= expansion).
See above for facts.
Dementia
DAVID: this is about sensory confusion, not the higher levels of frontal lobe conceptualization abilities. From a materialism standpoint, many areas of the brain have important specific functions that will affect a state of consciousness but disordered consciousness remains. What is amazing is that individuals exist with little brain and normal consciousness as shown here previously. Thus materialism alone cannot explain consciousness.
dhw: I really don’t want us to reopen the thread on Dualism versus Materialism, as I‘m sure we covered every aspect of it in our earlier discussions. I agree that nobody can explain consciousness, but as with God’s existence, I can see both points of view. A materialist would certainly argue that dementia provides evidence that since damage to the brain also damages consciousness, the brain must be the source of consciousness. He would also say that in a little brain, the few cells are able to take on the additional functions of those that are missing. But these arguments still don’t explain how consciousness actually works, and they don’t take into account psychic phenomena and NDEs, which suggest that consciousness is NOT dependent on materials.
Agreed.
Introducing the brain: general
DAVID: You can't deny the huge frontal lobes of sapiens was finally fully used 315.000 years after arrival.
dhw: Of course I deny it. I believe the frontal lobes of sapiens (which did not suddenly appear out of the blue but evolved gradually) will continue to be used in new ways so long as sapiens survives. And I must repeat that I do not believe your God inserted them into a few pre-sapiens heads thousands of years before they were needed.
DAVID: Simple different point of view as you don't believe in God.
dhw: I don’t disbelieve in God, and these references to my agnosticism are a very poor response to rational arguments concerning the possible motives and methods of your God. This is especially so when your own arguments are so irrational that you can’t explain the logic behind your point of view.
DAVID: You are the one who brought up God again as He relates to the appearance of new brains.
You keep pretending that my non-belief (as opposed to disbelief) in God somehow invalidates all the rational THEISTIC arguments I offer on any of the issues we discuss. Bad idea.
Memory formation
DAVID: Kidneys, lungs, livers, etc. work without God. Why can't the brain?
dhw: Exactly. So why do you go on insisting that past brains could only complexify if God gave them instructions, and could only expand if he operated on them? (I have reinstated this response, as it relates more closely to your own question.)
DAVID: Why must God give off His designing ability?
dhw: You just gave us examples of organs that function without God, and then you asked exactly the question I keep asking: why can’t the brain also work without God?
DAVID: It does in the complexification process.
Thank you. So God “gives off His designing ability”. Now please tell me why he could not possibly have done the same when it came to brains needing additional cells (= expansion) for further complexification.
DAVID: By the way, if you lose a kidney the remaining one enlarges to handle the load. But a damaged brain can't do that, only consolidate what is left.
Interesting to learn how these organs which act independently of your God find their own solutions to new problems. Maybe the answer is that – if he exists – he gave them the intelligence to do so.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Saturday, March 19, 2022, 19:04 (762 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You are the one who brought up God again as He relates to the appearance of new brains.
dhw: You keep pretending that my non-belief (as opposed to disbelief) in God somehow invalidates all the rational THEISTIC arguments I offer on any of the issues we discuss. Bad idea.
The problem is from your position you invent a god I do not recognize. The personality is totally different as I have illustrated. You make all sorts of attempts to make them appear equally human but I've shown the differences and you carefully ignore them and quote my guesses about God's feelings as facts which they are not. God may or may not have any emotional reactions following His intended creations. My God creates with no expectation for
Himself. You devise a god who constantly seeks some form of enjoyment or personal expectation. God is not creating us for Himself but for us. Let's use a simple example. God creates, but it is a valid guess He does it with no dislike. Thus the fact that we might guess He enjoys it, does not imply a human style of enjoyment. In making that statement I certainly have not humanized him.
Memory formationDAVID: Kidneys, lungs, livers, etc. work without God. Why can't the brain?
dhw: Exactly. So why do you go on insisting that past brains could only complexify if God gave them instructions, and could only expand if he operated on them? (I have reinstated this response, as it relates more closely to your own question.)
DAVID: Why must God give off His designing ability?
dhw: You just gave us examples of organs that function without God, and then you asked exactly the question I keep asking: why can’t the brain also work without God?
DAVID: It does in the complexification process.
dhw: Thank you. So God “gives off His designing ability”. Now please tell me why he could not possibly have done the same when it came to brains needing additional cells (= expansion) for further complexification.
Complexification is not the brain designing anything new. It is simply a God-given mechanism to develop new axonal, synaptic connections within existing neurons. The neurons God designed come with the instructions of how to do it.
DAVID: By the way, if you lose a kidney the remaining one enlarges to handle the load. But a damaged brain can't do that, only consolidate what is left.dhw: Interesting to learn how these organs which act independently of your God find their own solutions to new problems. Maybe the answer is that – if he exists – he gave them the intelligence to do so.
The remaining kidney has God's instructions ready to follow if needed. And the kidney reacts intelligently following instructions. You recognize design and don't understand it all at once.
Introducing the brain: general
dhw: You keep pretending that my non-belief (as opposed to disbelief) in God somehow invalidates all the rational THEISTIC arguments I offer on any of the issues we discuss. Bad idea.
DAVID: The problem is from your position you invent a god I do not recognize. The personality is totally different as I have illustrated.
Most of what follows has been covered by my post on your theory of evolution. But you go one step further here:
DAVID: […] God is not creating us for Himself but for us. Let's use a simple example. God creates, but it is a valid guess He does it with no dislike. Thus the fact that we might guess He enjoys it, does not imply a human style of enjoyment. In making that statement I certainly have not humanized him.
Please explain what you mean by "creating us for us". I don’t know what “with no dislike” is supposed to mean, or what your criteria are for validity when nobody knows the truth. The two of us, to give a “simple example”, agree that he enjoys creating and is interested in his creations. When you used the words “enjoy” and “interested”, did you think they might meant “not disliking”, not having any feelings , not being interested? You are now making a mockery of language.
Memory formation
DAVID: Kidneys, lungs, livers, etc. work without God. Why can't the brain?
dhw: Exactly. So why do you go on insisting that past brains could only complexify if God gave them instructions, and could only expand if he operated on them?
DAVID: Why must God give off His designing ability?
dhw: You just gave us examples of organs that function without God, and then you asked exactly the question I keep asking: why can’t the brain also work without God?
DAVID: It does in the complexification process.
dhw: Thank you. So God “gives off His designing ability”. Now please tell me why he could not possibly have done the same when it came to brains needing additional cells (= expansion) for further complexification.
DAVID: Complexification is not the brain designing anything new. It is simply a God-given mechanism to develop new axonal, synaptic connections within existing neurons. The neurons God designed come with the instructions of how to do it.
Complexification works without God, but God provides instructions on how to complexify? I don’t understand your logic. Complexification takes place in response to new ideas, and I propose that expansion (the addition of cells) follows the same process. The new cells do not create the ideas: they come into existence when existing complexification cannot cope with new requirements. The source of the ideas themselves in most cases remains a mystery – hence the conflict between dualism and materialism. Since you are a dualist, you assume that the brain does NOT design anything new.
DAVID: By the way, if you lose a kidney the remaining one enlarges to handle the load. But a damaged brain can't do that, only consolidate what is left.
dhw: Interesting to learn how these organs which act independently of your God find their own solutions to new problems. Maybe the answer is that – if he exists – he gave them the intelligence to do so.
DAVID: The remaining kidney has God's instructions ready to follow if needed. And the kidney reacts intelligently following instructions. You recognize design and don't understand it all at once.
You wrote: “Kidneys, lungs, livers etc. work without God. Why can’t the brain?” Now apparently they don’t work without God – they merely follow his instructions. You recognize autonomy and you don’t recognize it all at once.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Sunday, March 20, 2022, 16:38 (761 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: […] God is not creating us for Himself but for us. Let's use a simple example. God creates, but it is a valid guess He does it with no dislike. Thus the fact that we might guess He enjoys it, does not imply a human style of enjoyment. In making that statement I certainly have not humanized him.
dhw: Please explain what you mean by "creating us for us".
We are a purposeful creation, with God not doing it for His own emotional needs
dhw: I don’t know what “with no dislike” is supposed to mean, or what your criteria are for validity when nobody knows the truth.
The valid point we both have made is God would not create if He disliked it.
Memory formation
dhw: You just gave us examples of organs that function without God, and then you asked exactly the question I keep asking: why can’t the brain also work without God?
DAVID: It does in the complexification process.
dhw: Thank you. So God “gives off His designing ability”. Now please tell me why he could not possibly have done the same when it came to brains needing additional cells (= expansion) for further complexification.
DAVID: Complexification is not the brain designing anything new. It is simply a God-given mechanism to develop new axonal, synaptic connections within existing neurons. The neurons God designed come with the instructions of how to do it.
dhw: Complexification works without God, but God provides instructions on how to complexify? I don’t understand your logic. Complexification takes place in response to new ideas, and I propose that expansion (the addition of cells) follows the same process. The new cells do not create the ideas: they come into existence when existing complexification cannot cope with new requirements. The source of the ideas themselves in most cases remains a mystery – hence the conflict between dualism and materialism. Since you are a dualist, you assume that the brain does NOT design anything new.
Complexification works because neurons contain in their DNA God's instructions of how to respond to new uses. Neurons cannot make new neurons except in the hippocampus by God's design. You don't follow the facts we have
DAVID: By the way, if you lose a kidney the remaining one enlarges to handle the load. But a damaged brain can't do that, only consolidate what is left.dhw: Interesting to learn how these organs which act independently of your God find their own solutions to new problems. Maybe the answer is that – if he exists – he gave them the intelligence to do so.
DAVID: The remaining kidney has God's instructions ready to follow if needed. And the kidney reacts intelligently following instructions. You recognize design and don't understand it all at once.
dhw: You wrote: “Kidneys, lungs, livers etc. work without God. Why can’t the brain?” Now apparently they don’t work without God – they merely follow his instructions. You recognize autonomy and you don’t recognize it all at once.
The autonomy is because the instructions exist from God in all organs working automatically. Twist and turn all you wish, but m ost of hour body runs autonomously under God's design.
Introducing the brain: experimental three days of blindness
by David Turell , Sunday, March 20, 2022, 22:07 (761 days ago) @ David Turell
The brain does amazing things:
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2022/03/17/weird_things_happen_when_people_are_bl...
"Alvaro Pascual-Leone, a Professor of Neurology, led a team that blindfolded thirteen healthy young adults for 96 hours straight. During that time, as part of a broader study, participants were taught braille for four hours a day, engaged in tactile stimulation activities like puzzles and clay modeling, took daily brain scans, and otherwise lived their lives – they got dressed, they ate, they walked around, and they went to the gym, all in total, numbing darkness.
***
"During their time deprived of vision, the subjects documented their thoughts, feelings, and perceptions with an audio recorder. The researchers were amazed when they listened to the recordings and learned what participants experienced.
"Ten of the thirteen witnessed sudden, uncontrollable visual hallucinations that generally began between the first and second day. A 29-year-old woman saw a terrifying green face with big eyes when standing in front of what she knew to be a mirror. A 24-year-old man saw mirrors, lamps, trees, and full, bright landscapes. A 24-year-old woman saw a splotch of light "in the exact form of Elvis Presley". A 23-year-old man witnessed outlines of moving puzzle pieces that "warped into other amorphous shapes". A 20-year-old woman reported seeing a "butterfly that became a sunset, an otter, and finally a flower. She also reported seeing "cities, skies, kaleidoscopes, lions, and sunsets". The vast majority of the subjects who hallucinated also saw flashing lights at various times.
"All of the hallucinations occurred when subjects were awake. Their blindfolding did not seem to affect their sleep nor their dreams.
"Pascual-Leone actually wasn't surprised at hearing of the vivid hallucinations. "This is what the brain does. It makes up stories; it conjures up imagery. Our brain plays with us continually," he told science communicator Jackie Higgins for her new book Sentient: How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of Our Human Senses.
He was more surprised, however, at the results of subjects' brain scans.
"By day two, the scans showed that the volunteers’ brains were already starting to change. By day five, touch was stimulating the brain’s visual cortex," Higgins described.
"The brain was learning to rely more on touch than sight.
"'They were seeing with the tip of their finger," Pascual-Leone recalled. "I was expecting changes, but not this rapid."
'As Higgins wrote in Sentient:
"He surmises that the connections must have already been there and that the experiment simply unmasked them – evidence not merely in favor of exceptional neuroplasticity but of a whole new way of looking at the brain. What neuroscientists have called the visual cortex for the past century seems not to be devoted exclusively to the eyes. Pascual-Leone wonders whether it might more accurately be defined as the area of the brain best able to discriminate spatial relationships and that it will use any relevant sensory input.
"This is further evidence that the brain's overarching function is to interpret reality, and it will rapidly reorganize itself to accomplish this goal no matter where the external information comes from, whether sight, sound, or touch."
Comment: the brain will shift areas as needed waking up circuits to be used differently. The study helps us understand complexification works. No new neurons, just changed circuitry. Yes, the areas thicken, but only with new axon circuits.
Introducing the brain: deaf blind brain person's scan
by David Turell , Sunday, March 20, 2022, 22:16 (761 days ago) @ David Turell
Helen Keller never was studied:
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2022/03/07/what_did_helen_kellers_brain_look_like...
"In her new book, Sentient: How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of Our Human Senses, veteran science communicator Jackie Higgins dedicates a section to Keller's story, focusing specifically on Keller's remarkable sense of touch.
"Touch, after all, was how Keller interacted with the world. Bereft of vision and hearing, "Keller experienced and connected with reality through her fingertips," Higgins wrote.
"'I let [Helen] see, by putting her hand on my face, how we talked with our mouths," Sullivan explained in 1928. "The thumb resting on the throat, right at the larynx, the first finger on the lips, the second on the nose, we found that she could feel the vibrations of the spoken word.
"Keller's sense of touch must have been remarkable for her to learn language solely through feeling it. McMaster University neuroscientist Daniel Goldreich, who studies how touch is interpreted by the brain, has repeatedly found that blind people outperform sighted people in tests of tactile acuity. Lacking one sense, their ability to touch seems to strengthen. Deprived of two senses, Keller's sense of touch must have been even stronger.
"Goldreich told Higgins that when the regions of the brain that process visual and auditory stimuli go unused, they can gradually be co-opted to process tactile stimuli, hence boosting a person's touch 'resolution'.
"It's a pity that functional MRI brain-scanning technology wasn't invented until 1991, well after Keller's death.
"'A scan of Keller's brain would be fascinating," Alvaro Pascual-Leone, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, told Higgins. "Her visual cortex must surely have been taken over, and perhaps her auditory cortex too."
"A brain scan study of one deafblind person conducted in 2004 found that his brain activation greatly differed from that of healthy volunteers when presented with tactile stimuli, making use of the auditory cortex, among many other regions. Fascinatingly, after he received a cochlear implant two years later, which restored his hearing, his brain's auditory cortex stopped being activated in response to touch, just like healthy control subjects."
Comment: the brain can make amazing accommodations following God's DNA instructions.
Introducing the brain: general
Memory formation
dhw: You just gave us examples of organs that function without God, and then you asked exactly the question I keep asking: why can’t the brain also work without God?
DAVID: It does in the complexification process.
dhw: Thank you. So God “gives off His designing ability”. Now please tell me why he could not possibly have done the same when it came to brains needing additional cells (= expansion) for further complexification. […]
DAVID: […] Complexification works because neurons contain in their DNA God's instructions of how to respond to new uses.
So when you say the kidneys and complexification work without God, you actually mean they follow God’s instructions. For instance, when illiterate women learn to read, God has provided an instruction about which neurons are to form what new connection in response to the demands of reading. Theoretically, there will be a limitless number of new uses, and so your God has issued a theoretically limitless number of instructions. Won’t you just allow for the possibility that instead of such a list, he has endowed the cells with the intelligence to work out their own connections, i.e. to work autonomously?
DAVID: Neurons cannot make new neurons except in the hippocampus by God's design. You don't follow the facts we have.
If your God designed a means whereby neurons can make new neurons in the hippocampus, why do you think the same mechanism could not have existed in the days when neurons in other areas also needed to do the same because existing neurons could not complexify sufficiently to deal with new requirements?
You have posted two wonderful articles that show how the brain cells adapt to conditions of blindness and deafness. A few highly relevant quotes:
"By day two, the scans showed that the volunteers’ brains were already starting to change. By day five, touch was stimulating the brain’s visual cortex," Higgins described.
"The brain was learning to rely more on touch than sight."
"This is further evidence that the brain's overarching function is to interpret reality, and it will rapidly reorganize itself to accomplish this goal no matter where the external information comes from, whether sight, sound, or touch."
"Goldreich told Higgins that when the regions of the brain that process visual and auditory stimuli go unused, they can gradually be co-opted to process tactile stimuli, hence boosting a person's touch 'resolution'
DAVID: the brain can make amazing accommodations following God's DNA instructions.
Once more you have your God issuing instructions for every single new requirement in the history of the brain! And so once again, I suggest to you that a far more likely method would be for your God to have given brain cells the autonomous intelligence to make these amazing accommodations themselves. I’m sure Ockham would have approved!
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Monday, March 21, 2022, 14:58 (761 days ago) @ dhw
Memory formation
DAVID: […] Complexification works because neurons contain in their DNA God's instructions of how to respond to new uses.
dhw: So when you say the kidneys and complexification work without God, you actually mean they follow God’s instructions. For instance, when illiterate women learn to read, God has provided an instruction about which neurons are to form what new connection in response to the demands of reading. Theoretically, there will be a limitless number of new uses, and so your God has issued a theoretically limitless number of instructions. Won’t you just allow for the possibility that instead of such a list, he has endowed the cells with the intelligence to work out their own connections, i.e. to work autonomously?
They work autonomously following he guide lines God gave them in their DNA
DAVID: Neurons cannot make new neurons except in the hippocampus by God's design. You don't follow the facts we have.dhw: If your God designed a means whereby neurons can make new neurons in the hippocampus, why do you think the same mechanism could not have existed in the days when neurons in other areas also needed to do the same because existing neurons could not complexify sufficiently to deal with new requirements?
Your usual hopeful theory. I base my thoughts on the evidence in our current brain which evolved from previous similar brains
dhw: You have posted two wonderful articles that show how the brain cells adapt to conditions of blindness and deafness. A few highly relevant quotes:
"By day two, the scans showed that the volunteers’ brains were already starting to change. By day five, touch was stimulating the brain’s visual cortex," Higgins described.
"The brain was learning to rely more on touch than sight."
"This is further evidence that the brain's overarching function is to interpret reality, and it will rapidly reorganize itself to accomplish this goal no matter where the external information comes from, whether sight, sound, or touch."
"Goldreich told Higgins that when the regions of the brain that process visual and auditory stimuli go unused, they can gradually be co-opted to process tactile stimuli, hence boosting a person's touch 'resolution'
DAVID: the brain can make amazing accommodations following God's DNA instructions.
dhw: Once more you have your God issuing instructions for every single new requirement in the history of the brain! And so once again, I suggest to you that a far more likely method would be for your God to have given brain cells the autonomous intelligence to make these amazing accommodations themselves. I’m sure Ockham would have approved!
Occam would agree to one simple step by acknowledging God's work in instructing the neurons in how to adapt. Occam was a priest!
Introducing the brain: vagus nerve organ signals
by David Turell , Monday, March 21, 2022, 15:43 (760 days ago) @ David Turell
You can't live without them; the automaticity is necessary:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-03-revealing-brain-body.html
"The human brain is a busy organ—detecting signals from all over the body as it undergoes change throughout the day. When the lungs inhale an irritant, the body knows to cough. Or when the stomach ingests toxins, it induces vomiting. The brain plays a role in both.
"Now, in a new study that aims to understand how different signals in the body are coded in the vagus nerve—the cranial nerve that sends information to and from the brain about internal organ function—Yale researchers have found that the signals have three key features that are independently coded by vagal sensory neurons. They are: which organ a signal is coming from, which tissue layer within the organ the signal is coming from, and what the stimulus is. This coding enables the high precision achieved by the brain.
"The body's ability to sense changes within itself is called interoception, a process that is essential to survival. This body-to-brain connection is made through the vagus nerve, and the signals received by that nerve are coded independently by specialized vagal sensory neurons.
"'This is the first time we actually know how different body signals are being represented through the vagal interoception system to the brain in a very precise and accurate manner," says Chang. "We know that the brain can very precisely discriminate signals, but what is the biological reason for that discrimination?"
"'By looking at the genetic signature of the vagus nerve, we were able to know which organ each neuron projected to along the body's rostro-caudal axis," says Chang. "So in summary, our first finding is that there are genetic codes for visceral organ information in the vagus nerve." (my bold)
"Furthermore, each of our organs is made up of individual components that have different functions. The stomach, for example, consists of tissue layers including the surface connective tissue layer, the muscular layer, and the innermost mucosa layer. The researchers also discovered distinct genetic coding guiding the vagal sensory neurons to the different tissue layers. This coding is entirely independent of the genetic coding for organs.
"The researchers also discovered distinct genetic coding guiding the vagal sensory neurons to the different tissue layers. This coding is entirely independent of the genetic coding for organs.
***
"'Our second finding is really surprising. No one in previous studies had even considered this," says Chang. "By knowing these two codes, you know precisely where a particular neuron in the vagus nerve projects in the body."
***
"'We learned that some neurons in the vagus nerve can respond to lung stretch, others respond to stomach stretch, and others can respond to intestinal nutrient perfusion," says Chang. "For neurons that are designed to detect stretch, for example, it doesn't matter where the stretch happened—it could be from the lung, stomach or small intestine. In other words, neurons with the same 'stretch' code respond to stretches regardless of organs or tissue layers—it's an independent, third dimension."
Comment: the word 'code' is used over and over. Code simply stands for information. This exquisite design was set up in animals when they first appeared with complexity. i think it must have started with the Cambrian organisms. Such automaticity is required for living freely.
Introducing the brain: general
Memory formation
DAVID: […] Complexification works because neurons contain in their DNA God's instructions of how to respond to new uses.
dhw: So when you say the kidneys and complexification work without God, you actually mean they follow God’s instructions. […]
DAVID: They work autonomously following the guide lines God gave them in their DNA.
Yes, that’s what I’ve just objected to. “Autonomy” is the exact opposite of obeying instructions, even if you change the word “instructions” to “guidelines”.
DAVID: Neurons cannot make new neurons except in the hippocampus by God's design. You don't follow the facts we have.
dhw: If your God designed a means whereby neurons can make new neurons in the hippocampus, why do you think the same mechanism could not have existed in the days when neurons in other areas also needed to do the same because existing neurons could not complexify sufficiently to deal with new requirements?
DAVID: Your usual hopeful theory. I base my thoughts on the evidence in our current brain which evolved from previous similar brains.
What a coincidence! So do I! I think previous brains complexified like ours, and added new cells when required, as ours have done with the hippocampus, although otherwise complexification has now taken over completely. And forgive me if my memory is at fault, but I thought you thought your God had to operate on a special group of pre-sapiens in order to do some redesigning, as opposed to our brain evolving from previous similar brains.
dhw: You have posted two wonderful articles that show how the brain cells adapt to conditions of blindness and deafness.
DAVID: the brain can make amazing accommodations following God's DNA instructions.
dhw: Once more you have your God issuing instructions for every single new requirement in the history of the brain! And so once again, I suggest to you that a far more likely method would be for your God to have given brain cells the autonomous intelligence to make these amazing accommodations themselves. I’m sure Ockham would have approved!
DAVID: Occam would agree to one simple step by acknowledging God's work in instructing the neurons in how to adapt. Occam was a priest!
One simple step would be for your God to give brain cells the intelligence to make their own decisions. How can your God give/have given just one instruction to cover the vast variety of decisions that brains have taken and will take over millions of years? I know Ockham was a priest. My theory does not exclude God.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 23, 2022, 00:57 (759 days ago) @ dhw
Memory formation
DAVID: […] Complexification works because neurons contain in their DNA God's instructions of how to respond to new uses.
dhw: So when you say the kidneys and complexification work without God, you actually mean they follow God’s instructions. […]
DAVID: They work autonomously following the guide lines God gave them in their DNA.
dhw: Yes, that’s what I’ve just objected to. “Autonomy” is the exact opposite of obeying instructions, even if you change the word “instructions” to “guidelines”.
The cells use the info, don't they? That makes them autonomous in the use.
DAVID: Neurons cannot make new neurons except in the hippocampus by God's design. You don't follow the facts we have.dhw: If your God designed a means whereby neurons can make new neurons in the hippocampus, why do you think the same mechanism could not have existed in the days when neurons in other areas also needed to do the same because existing neurons could not complexify sufficiently to deal with new requirements?
DAVID: Your usual hopeful theory. I base my thoughts on the evidence in our current brain which evolved from previous similar brains.
dhw: What a coincidence! So do I! I think previous brains complexified like ours, and added new cells when required, as ours have done with the hippocampus, although otherwise complexification has now taken over completely. And forgive me if my memory is at fault, but I thought you thought your God had to operate on a special group of pre-sapiens in order to do some redesigning, as opposed to our brain evolving from previous similar brains.
I haven't changed my belief, a designing God makes bigger more complex brains.
dhw: You have posted two wonderful articles that show how the brain cells adapt to conditions of blindness and deafness.DAVID: the brain can make amazing accommodations following God's DNA instructions.
dhw: Once more you have your God issuing instructions for every single new requirement in the history of the brain! And so once again, I suggest to you that a far more likely method would be for your God to have given brain cells the autonomous intelligence to make these amazing accommodations themselves. I’m sure Ockham would have approved!
DAVID: Occam would agree to one simple step by acknowledging God's work in instructing the neurons in how to adapt. Occam was a priest!
dhw: One simple step would be for your God to give brain cells the intelligence to make their own decisions. How can your God give/have given just one instruction to cover the vast variety of decisions that brains have taken and will take over millions of years? I know Ockham was a priest. My theory does not exclude God.
Neurons do have the instructions to make new decisions and have DNA instructions to properly complexify.
Introducing the brain: general
Memory formation
DAVID: […] Complexification works because neurons contain in their DNA God's instructions of how to respond to new uses.
dhw: So when you say the kidneys and complexification work without God, you actually mean they follow God’s instructions. […]
DAVID: They work autonomously following the guide lines God gave them in their DNA.
dhw: That’s what I’ve just objected to. “Autonomy” is the exact opposite of obeying instructions, even if you change the word “instructions” to “guidelines”.
DAVID: The cells use the info, don't they? That makes them autonomous in the use.
What info are you referring to? Autonomy means that whatever the new requirements may be, cells process the info and act on it independently of your God. He does not give them instructions on what to do in each and every situation. Assuming he exists, he has provided them with an autonomous means of processing and acting. What else could this means be if it is not some form of intelligence?
DAVID: I base my thoughts on the evidence in our current brain which evolved from previous similar brains.
dhw: What a coincidence! So do I! I think previous brains complexified like ours, and added new cells when required, as ours have done with the hippocampus, although otherwise complexification has now taken over completely. And forgive me if my memory is at fault, but I thought you thought your God had to operate on a special group of pre-sapiens in order to do some redesigning, as opposed to our brain evolving from previous similar brains.
DAVID: I haven't changed my belief, a designing God makes bigger more complex brains.
So your God has created a mechanism which allows for autonomous complexification and the autonomous addition of cells to the hippocampus, but earlier additions required special surgery on groups of homos to insert brand new bits and pieces their brains didn’t have before. And you reckon my intelligent cell theory is a just-so story.
dhw: You have posted two wonderful articles that show how the brain cells adapt to conditions of blindness and deafness.
DAVID: the brain can make amazing accommodations following God's DNA instructions.
dhw: Once more you have your God issuing instructions for every single new requirement in the history of the brain! And so once again, I suggest to you that a far more likely method would be for your God to have given brain cells the autonomous intelligence to make these amazing accommodations themselves. […]
DAVID: Neurons do have the instructions to make new decisions and have DNA instructions to properly complexify.
I’d appreciate clarification of this. Are you saying that your God simply tells the neurons that they must make new decisions, and tells the DNA to complexify properly? Or are you saying that he provides the decisions and directs each complexification? If it’s the former, you might just as well agree to the theory that he actually provides them with the means of making decisions/complexifying properly (i.e. intelligence) and tells them to use it.
Introducing the brain: neuron density evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 23, 2022, 15:04 (759 days ago) @ dhw
New views about neurons in studying brain evolution:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/reptiles-are-the-real-bird-brains-69818?_hsm...
A research group argues that a species’ number of neurons, rather than brain volume, should serve as indicator of cognitive capacity when studying brain evolution, but some experts voice doubts.
Mammals and birds have dramatically more neurons in their forebrain and cerebellum than reptiles, and neuron numbers have scaled up significantly only four times in more than 300 million years of brain evolution in the clade that includes reptiles, birds, and mammals, according to a study published in PNAS on March 7. Instead of brain volume, which has long been used as a proxy for brain complexity, the study’s authors used the number of neurons typically found in species’ brains as an indicator of smarts. (my bold)
***
Němec adds that it would be even better to combine neuronal number with the number of synapses to estimate complexity, “but we currently don’t have a tool to measure the number of synapses precisely, and definitely not across many species.” (my bold)
***
With a phylogenetic analysis in the current study, the researchers show that the relationship between neuron number and brain size changed in a major way only four times in the evolution of land vertebrates. “With the appearance of birds and mammals, brains not only enlarged, but also density increased a lot,” says Němec. Within mammals, previous studies had established that primates have higher neuronal density. Within birds, the new study finds that so-called core land birds, a group that includes woodpeckers, falcons, and parrots, also have relatively large brain sizes and densities in the brain. “The appearance of birds and mammals, and within these groups independently the two crown groups [core land birds and primates] . . . increased processing power significantly,” says Němec. “One highly surprising finding is that it was actually very rare, such occasions. We expected that it would be changing within evolution, going up and down all the time. This is partly true, but these really big changes are extremely rare.” (my bold)
***
“Neuron number is certainly an important variable, but my guess is that it will be most useful if combined with other variables, such as relative brain size,” Font writes. Němec agrees that additional variables would be useful. “You might have different sizes of neurons, different numbers of cortical connections. But this data is simply not available and certainly not available for many species.” In studying vertebrate brain evolution on a large scale, neuron number would be a good proxy, he argues. “If an animal has billions of neurons, it’s definitely more clever than an animal that has millions of neurons. But I would not say that it is a very tight correlation.”
Comment: this study is in the same point of view when I point out the very special arrangement of the human five layer prefrontal cortex. Neuronal density with synaptic connectivity is the key to high mental process ability. We and birds (clever corvids) have it. Also note my bold regarding its evolution as most unusually "sudden and rare." Not Darwinian in any way but highly supportive of the actions of a designer.
Introducing the brain: looking at Libet's time gap
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 23, 2022, 20:41 (758 days ago) @ David Turell
Dopamine study:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/brain-chemical-helps-signal-to-neurons-when-to-start-a-m...
"Every time you reach for your coffee mug, a neuroscientific mystery takes shape. Moments before you voluntarily extend your arm, thousands of neurons in the motor regions of your brain erupt in a pattern of electrical activity that travels to the spinal cord and then to the muscles that power the reach. But just prior to this massively synchronized activity, the motor regions in your brain are relatively quiet. For self-driven movements like reaching for your coffee, the “go” signal that tells the neurons precisely when to act — instead of the moment just before or after — has yet to be found.
"In a recent paper in eLife, a group of neuroscientists led by John Assad at Harvard Medical School finally reveals a key piece of the signal. It comes in the form of the brain chemical known as dopamine, whose slow ramping up in a region lodged deep below the cortex closely predicted the moment that mice would begin a movement — seconds into the future.
Dopamine is commonly known as one of the brain’s neurotransmitters, the fast-acting chemical messengers that are shuttled between neurons. But in the new work, dopamine is acting as a neuromodulator. It’s a term for chemical messengers that slightly alter neurons to cause longer-lasting effects, including making a neuron more or less likely to electrically communicate with other neurons.
***
"But whenever the movement occurred, the researchers found that it followed almost immediately after the rising level of dopamine in the fluid-filled space around neurons seemed to reach a certain threshold. When dopamine rose very quickly, the movement happened early in the response period; when dopamine rose slowly, the movement happened later.
***
"Dopamine was a major component of the signal that told the mice exactly when to move in this case, but other neuromodulators and neural activity that play a role in the “go” signal for movement still need further investigation.
***
"The new paper shows that dopamine levels are also slowly evolving over many seconds to directly influence the decision about not just whether to move but exactly when to do it. It could help explain why patients with Parkinson’s disease — a movement disorder in which dopamine levels are reduced — have trouble initiating movements with proper timing: Their slowly evolving dopamine levels may rarely reach the critical threshold.
***
"As for why a neuromodulator like dopamine would be involved in deciding when to move, it’s possible that slowly varying neuromodulatory signals could allow the brain to adapt to its environment. Such flexibility wouldn’t be afforded by a signal that always led to movement at the exact same time. “The animal is always uncertain, to some extent, about what the true state of the world is,” said Hamilos. “You don’t want to do things the same way every single time — that could be potentially disadvantageous.” (my bold)
***
"The neuromodulatory system [is] the most brilliant hack you can imagine,” said Mac Shine, a neurobiologist at the University of Sydney. “Because what you’re doing is you’re sending a very, very diffuse signal … but the effects are precise.” (my bold)
***
"It was widely believed that acetylcholine always increased alertness by making neurons more independent of the activity in their circuits. Cardin’s team found that this holds true in small circuits with only hundreds to thousands of neurons. But in networks with billions of neurons the opposite occurs: Higher levels of acetylcholine lead to more synchronization of activity patterns. Yet the amount of synchronization also depends on the region of the brain and the arousal level, painting the picture that acetylcholine does not have uniform effects everywhere. (my bold)
***
"Researchers are also looking at evidence that that some neuromodulators modulate one another. For example, endocannabinoids, the neuromodulators that bind to the same receptors as the active component in marijuana, seem to help keep the amount of neuromodulators released by individual neurons within an optimal range.
"That’s why endocannabinoids are “crucial to our survival,” said Joseph Cheer, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who has been studying their impact on dopamine for nearly 20 years. “We have these little molecules that are fine-tuning most synapses in our brain.”
"To Marder, studying neuromodulators in isolation is “akin to looking under the lightbulb for your keys just because that’s where there’s light,” she said. “Nothing about modulation is ever linear or simple.'”
Comment: note my bolds. The brain is designed to help us, not restrict our free will. The complexity requires a designer.
Introducing the brain: long term memory
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 23, 2022, 20:57 (758 days ago) @ David Turell
A new modifying required molecule found:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-03-neuroscientists-mechanism-long-term-memory-stora...
While working to understand how memories are formed and stored in the brain, the team identified a novel protein folding mechanism in the endoplasmic reticulum that is essential for long-term memory storage. They further demonstrated that this mechanism is impaired in a tau-based mouse model of Alzheimer's disease and that restoring this protein folding mechanism reverses memory impairment in this mouse model for the study of dementia.
***
"The Abel lab has previously shown that the Nr4a family of transcription factors is essential for long-term memory consolidation. This study identified chaperone proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum, which are regulated by Nr4a.
"'The role of protein folding machinery in long-term memory has been overlooked for decades," Chatterjee says. "We know that gene expression and protein synthesis are essential for long-term memory consolidation, and following learning a large number of proteins are synthesized. For proteins to be functionally active they need to be folded correctly. Our work demonstrates the conceptual idea that these chaperone proteins are the ones that actually fold the proteins to impact synaptic function and plasticity."
"The team also used gene therapy to reactivate the chaperone protein in a mouse model and found that the memory deficit was reversed, confirming that the protein folding machinery acts as a molecular switch for memory.
"'Identifying this protein folding mechanism is a crucial step toward understanding how memories are stored and what goes wrong in diseases associated with memory impairment," Abel says. "Even though we are not yet at a point of translating this to patient care, understanding this pathway is essential to one day being able to prevent and treat neurodegenerative disease.'"
Comment: more complexity requiring design. Makes the usual point: memory is extremely important for survival in the wild. It has to be designed into brains as each new species appeared. Cannot happen by chance
Introducing the brain: missing temporal. lobe
by David Turell , Thursday, April 14, 2022, 20:41 (736 days ago) @ David Turell
And she and her sister are totally normal in language action:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-woman-left-temporal-lobe-language.html
"A team of researchers with members affiliated with MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, UCLA and Harvard University has found that a woman without a left temporal lobe developed a language network in the right side of her brain that allowed her to communicate normally. The group published their study of her brain in the journal Neuropsychologia.
"In 2016, a woman in her fifties who has chosen to be known only as EG, contacted brain scientists at MIT regarding what she described as her "interesting brain." She had no left temporal lobe. The team at MIT referred her to cognitive neuroscientist, Evelina Fedorenko at Harvard University who welcomed the opportunity to study such an "interesting brain."
"EG told Fedorenko and her team that she only came to realize she had an unusual brain by accident—her brain was scanned in 1987 for an unrelated reason. Prior to the scan she had no idea she was different. By all accounts she behaved normally and had even earned an advanced degree. She also excelled in languages—she speaks fluent Russian—which is all the more surprising considering the left temporal lobe is the part of the brain most often associated with language processing.
"Eager to learn more about the woman and her brain, the researchers accepted her into a study that involved capturing images of her brain using an fMRI machine while she was engaged in various activities, such as language processing and math. In so doing, they found no evidence of language processing happening in the left part of her brain; it was all happening in the right. They found that it was likely the woman had lost her left temporal lobe as a child, probably due to a stroke. The area where it had been had become filled with cerebrospinal fluid. To compensate, her brain had developed a language network in the right side of her brain that allowed her to communicate normally. The researchers also learned that EG had a sister who was missing her right temporal lobe, and who also had no symptoms of brain dysfunction—an indication, the researchers suggest, that there is a genetic component to the stroke and recovery process in the two women."
Comment: a great example of brain plasticity
Introducing the brain: looking at Libet's time gap II
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 23, 2022, 21:28 (758 days ago) @ David Turell
Another different look (study):
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220314181502.htm
"Planned movement is essential to our daily lives, and it often requires delayed execution. As children, we stood crouched and ready but waited for the shout of 'GO!' before sprinting from the starting line. As adults, we wait until the traffic light turns green before making a turn. New research explores how cues in our environment can trigger planned movement.
***
"Planned movement is essential to our daily lives, and it often requires delayed execution. As children, we stood crouched and ready but waited for the shout of "GO!" before sprinting from the starting line. As adults, we wait until the traffic light turns green before making a turn. In both situations, the brain has planned our precise movements but suppresses their execution until a specific cue (e.g., the shout of "GO!" or the green light). Now, scientists have discovered the brain network that turns plans into action in response to this cue.
***
"The researchers found brain activity occurring immediately after the go cue and during the switch between motor planning and execution. This brain activity arose from a circuit of neurons in the midbrain, thalamus, and cortex.
***
"This work by Dr. Inagaki and his colleagues identified a neural circuit critical for triggering movement in response to environmental cues. Dr. Inagaki explains how their findings demonstrate generalizable features of behavioral control. "We have found a circuit that can change the activity of the motor cortex from motor planning to execution at the appropriate time. This gives us insight into how the brain orchestrates neuronal activity to produce complex behavior. Future work will focus on understanding how this circuit and others reorganize neuronal activity across many brain regions.'"
Comment: So it is set up and go when triggered. Explains why Libet found his gaps. And again confirms the view the brain is always prepared to help us by being set up in advance. Since we plan the movement in our brain, the brain knows the future activity before it happens. Quite a marvelous design. Could never appear by chance.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 23, 2022, 20:09 (758 days ago) @ dhw
Memory formation
DAVID: The cells use the info, don't they? That makes them autonomous in the use.
dhw: What info are you referring to? Autonomy means that whatever the new requirements may be, cells process the info and act on it independently of your God. He does not give them instructions on what to do in each and every situation. Assuming he exists, he has provided them with an autonomous means of processing and acting. What else could this means be if it is not some form of intelligence?
Let's use a self-driving car to understand my view of the word:
https://www.synopsys.com/automotive/what-is-autonomous-car.html\
"An autonomous car is a vehicle capable of sensing its environment and operating without human involvement. A human passenger is not required to take control of the vehicle at any time, nor is a human passenger required to be present in the vehicle at all. An autonomous car can go anywhere a traditional car goes and do everything that an experienced human driver does". I view cells in the same way!
DAVID: I haven't changed my belief, a designing God makes bigger more complex brains.
dhw: So your God has created a mechanism which allows for autonomous complexification and the autonomous addition of cells to the hippocampus, but earlier additions required special surgery on groups of homos to insert brand new bits and pieces their brains didn’t have before. And you reckon my intelligent cell theory is a just-so story.
That is your weird interpretation. My view is still all past brains could complexify to their level of ability. God added complexity and size to each new better thinking species. See today's new entry on the brain.
DAVID: Neurons do have the instructions to make new decisions and have DNA instructions to properly complexify.dhw: I’d appreciate clarification of this. Are you saying that your God simply tells the neurons that they must make new decisions, and tells the DNA to complexify properly? Or are you saying that he provides the decisions and directs each complexification? If it’s the former, you might just as well agree to the theory that he actually provides them with the means of making decisions/complexifying properly (i.e. intelligence) and tells them to use it.
Complexification occurs when a brain is used in a new capacity, as in Italian women reading.
The neurons have instructions in their DNA to add new axon branches and synapses to handle this new load of thought. God obviously not needed as they do it. They ARE FULLY PRWPARED BY PREVIUS DESIGN.
Introducing the brain: general
Memory formation
DAVID: The cells use the info, don't they? That makes them autonomous in the use.
dhw: What info are you referring to? Autonomy means that whatever the new requirements may be, cells process the info and act on it independently of your God.[…]. Assuming he exists, he has provided them with an autonomous means of processing and acting. What else could this means be if it is not some form of intelligence?
DAVID: Let's use a self-driving car to understand my view of the word:
ttps://www.synopsys.com/automotive/what-is-autonomous-car.html\
QUOTE: "An autonomous car is a vehicle capable of sensing its environment and operating without human involvement. A human passenger is not required to take control of the vehicle at any time, nor is a human passenger required to be present in the vehicle at all. […]". I view cells in the same way!
So do I: an autonomous cell is a a living entity capable of sensing its environment and operating without God’s involvement. God is not required to take control of the cell or to be present in the cell at all. I propose (theistic version) that just as humans designed the autonomous car, your God designed the autonomous cell. Thank you for this analogy.
DAVID: I haven't changed my belief, a designing God makes bigger more complex brains.
dhw: So your God has created a mechanism which allows for autonomous complexification and the autonomous addition of cells to the hippocampus, but earlier additions required special surgery on groups of homos to insert brand new bits and pieces their brains didn’t have before. And you reckon my intelligent cell theory is a just-so story.
DAVID: That is your weird interpretation. My view is still all past brains could complexify to their level of ability.
That is also my view.
DAVID: God added complexity and size to each new better thinking species. […]
You have several times agreed that complexification takes place without your God’s intervention, and I keep asking why the same autonomous mechanism should not also have been capable of increasing the number of cells when needed. Your answer is always the same: God did it. You never say why God could not have given cells that same autonomous ability.
DAVID: Neurons do have the instructions to make new decisions and have DNA instructions to properly complexify.
dhw: I’d appreciate clarification of this. Are you saying that your God simply tells the neurons that they must make new decisions, and tells the DNA to complexify properly? Or are you saying that he provides the decisions and directs each complexification? […]
DAVID: Complexification occurs when a brain is used in a new capacity, as in Italian women reading.
Precisely (though they were Indian).
DAVID: The neurons have instructions in their DNA to add new axon branches and synapses to handle this new load of thought. God obviously not needed as they do it. They ARE FULLY PRWPARED BY PREVIUS DESIGN.
WHAT ARE THE INSTRUCTIONS? If God designed the mechanism (theistic version) whereby new connections are autonomously created, the only further instruction I can think of is God saying: “Now use it.” As if the cells would need reminding!
neuron density
QUOTE: “If an animal has billions of neurons, it’s definitely more clever than an animal that has millions of neurons. But I would not say that it is a very tight correlation.”
DAVID: this study is in the same point of view when I point out the very special arrangement of the human five layer prefrontal cortex. Neuronal density with synaptic connectivity is the key to high mental process ability. We and birds (clever corvids) have it. Also note my bold regarding its evolution as most unusually "sudden and rare." Not Darwinian in any way but highly supportive of the actions of a designer.
There is no disagreement that enhanced complexity accompanies greater intelligence. Since intelligence is relative, I’m not entirely convinced by the claim of rarity - insects have been shown to solve problems set by us humans. I don’t know where you found the word “sudden” in the article. Even human intelligence has evolved very gradually. Nor do I know why you have brought Darwin into it. I accept that all forms of intelligence suggest design.
Libert’s timer gaps
QUOTE: As adults, we wait until the traffic light turns green before making a turn. In both situations, the brain has planned our precise movements but suppresses their execution until a specific cue (e.g., the shout of "GO!" or the green light).
DAVID: So it is set up and go when triggered. Explains why Libet found his gaps. And again confirms the view the brain is always prepared to help us by being set up in advance. Since we plan the movement in our brain, the brain knows the future activity before it happens. Quite a marvelous design. Could never appear by chance.
What happened to memory? We learn that green means go, and from then on we remember the lesson. We have already planned to go, otherwise we wouldn’t be on our way, would we? So “going” is not “triggered” by the green light and our brain looking into the future. Our brain simply reminds us that we mustn’t continue our “going” until the light is green. is that too simple an explanation?
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Thursday, March 24, 2022, 18:51 (757 days ago) @ dhw
Memory formation
DAVID: Let's use a self-driving car to understand my view of the word:
ttps://www.synopsys.com/automotive/what-is-autonomous-car.html\
QUOTE: "An autonomous car is a vehicle capable of sensing its environment and operating without human involvement. A human passenger is not required to take control of the vehicle at any time, nor is a human passenger required to be present in the vehicle at all. […]". I view cells in the same way!dhw:So do I: an autonomous cell is a a living entity capable of sensing its environment and operating without God’s involvement. God is not required to take control of the cell or to be present in the cell at all. I propose (theistic version) that just as humans designed the autonomous car, your God designed the autonomous cell. Thank you for this analogy.
But you've complained about my use of the word autonomous. The car follows a computer program just as autonomous cells are following God's instructions.
DAVID: My view is still all past brains could complexify to their level of ability.
dhw: That is also my view.
DAVID: God added complexity and size to each new better thinking species. […]
dhw: You have several times agreed that complexification takes place without your God’s intervention, and I keep asking why the same autonomous mechanism should not also have been capable of increasing the number of cells when needed. Your answer is always the same: God did it. dhw: You never say why God could not have given cells that same autonomous ability.
Remember my objection to second hand design? Not never!
DAVID: The neurons have instructions in their DNA to add new axon branches and synapses to handle this new load of thought. God obviously not needed as they do it. They ARE FULLY PREPARED BY PREVIUS DESIGN.dhw: WHAT ARE THE INSTRUCTIONS? If God designed the mechanism (theistic version) whereby new connections are autonomously created, the only further instruction I can think of is God saying: “Now use it.” As if the cells would need reminding!
The neurons have a full set of instructions
neuron densityQUOTE: “If an animal has billions of neurons, it’s definitely more clever than an animal that has millions of neurons. But I would not say that it is a very tight correlation.”
DAVID: this study is in the same point of view when I point out the very special arrangement of the human five layer prefrontal cortex. Neuronal density with synaptic connectivity is the key to high mental process ability. We and birds (clever corvids) have it. Also note my bold regarding its evolution as most unusually "sudden and rare." Not Darwinian in any way but highly supportive of the actions of a designer.
There is no disagreement that enhanced complexity accompanies greater intelligence. Since intelligence is relative, I’m not entirely convinced by the claim of rarity - insects have been shown to solve problems set by us humans. I don’t know where you found the word “sudden” in the article. Even human intelligence has evolved very gradually. Nor do I know why you have brought Darwin into it. I accept that all forms of intelligence suggest design.
Sudden and rare is in the article, as an expressed opinion..
Libert’s timer gapsQUOTE: As adults, we wait until the traffic light turns green before making a turn. In both situations, the brain has planned our precise movements but suppresses their execution until a specific cue (e.g., the shout of "GO!" or the green light).
DAVID: So it is set up and go when triggered. Explains why Libet found his gaps. And again confirms the view the brain is always prepared to help us by being set up in advance. Since we plan the movement in our brain, the brain knows the future activity before it happens. Quite a marvelous design. Could never appear by chance.
dhw: What happened to memory? We learn that green means go, and from then on we remember the lesson. We have already planned to go, otherwise we wouldn’t be on our way, would we? So “going” is not “triggered” by the green light and our brain looking into the future. Our brain simply reminds us that we mustn’t continue our “going” until the light is green. is that too simple an explanation?
No. It seems you repeated what is in the article with a strange twist. Let's just see how it explains Libet's findings of microseconds delays!
Introducing the brain: general
Memory formation
DAVID (quoting): "An autonomous car is a vehicle capable of sensing its environment and operating without human involvement. A human passenger is not required to take control of the vehicle at any time, nor is a human passenger required to be present in the vehicle at all. […]". I view cells in the same way!
dhw: So do I: an autonomous cell is a a living entity capable of sensing its environment and operating without God’s involvement. God is not required to take control of the cell or to be present in the cell at all. I propose (theistic version) that just as humans designed the autonomous car, your God designed the autonomous cell. Thank you for this analogy.
DAVID: But you've complained about my use of the word autonomous. The car follows a computer program just as autonomous cells are following God's instructions.
The analogy was of car and cell acting without human/divine involvement. Now you want to change it to the car/cell acting on instructions. Instructions are a form of involvement! Here is a better analogy: you think your God designed humans with the freedom to take their own decisions and do their own designing without his instructions. I suggest that he gave the same freedom to cells.
dhw: You have several times agreed that complexification takes place without your God’s intervention, and I keep asking why the same autonomous mechanism should not also have been capable of increasing the number of cells when needed. […] You never say why God could not have given cells that same autonomous ability.
DAVID: Remember my objection to second hand design? Not never!
That simply means he would not give cells the mechanism to add new cells. Calling it “second-hand design” doesn’t change the meaning. Or should I change the question: if God gave cells an autonomous mechanism to do second-hand complexification, why would he not give cells the same ability to do second-hand expansion?
DAVID: The neurons have instructions in their DNA to add new axon branches and synapses to handle this new load of thought. God obviously not needed as they do it. They ARE FULLY PREPARED BY PREVIUS DESIGN.
dhw: WHAT ARE THE INSTRUCTIONS? If God designed the mechanism (theistic version) whereby new connections are autonomously created, the only further instruction I can think of is God saying: “Now use it.” As if the cells would need reminding!
DAVID: The neurons have a full set of instructions.
To do what? Tell themselves to remember to use the mechanism your God gave them? Or instructions on how to tackle each and every problem that will arise for the rest of time?
neuron density
QUOTE: “If an animal has billions of neurons, it’s definitely more clever than an animal that has millions of neurons. But I would not say that it is a very tight correlation.”
DAVID: […]. Neuronal density with synaptic connectivity is the key to high mental process ability. We and birds (clever corvids) have it. Also note my bold regarding its evolution as most unusually "sudden and rare."
dhw: There is no disagreement that enhanced complexity accompanies greater intelligence. Since intelligence is relative, I’m not entirely convinced by the claim of rarity - insects have been shown to solve problems set by us humans. I don’t know where you found the word “sudden” in the article. Even human intelligence has evolved very gradually. […]
DAVID: Sudden and rare is in the article, as an expressed opinion.
Rare is in it, and I have commented above. Sudden is not in it. Do you regard human intelligence as a sudden novelty or a gradual development?
Libet’s timer gaps
QUOTE: As adults, we wait until the traffic light turns green before making a turn. In both situations, the brain has planned our precise movements but suppresses their execution until a specific cue (e.g., the shout of "GO!" or the green light).
DAVID: So it is set up and go when triggered. Explains why Libet found his gaps. And again confirms the view the brain is always prepared to help us by being set up in advance. Since we plan the movement in our brain, the brain knows the future activity before it happens. […]
dhw: What happened to memory? We learn that green means go, and from then on we remember the lesson. We have already planned to go, otherwise we wouldn’t be on our way, would we? So “going” is not “triggered” by the green light and our brain looking into the future. Our brain simply reminds us that we mustn’t continue our “going” until the light is green. is that too simple an explanation?
DAVID: No. It seems you repeated what is in the article with a strange twist. Let's just see how it explains Libet's findings of microseconds delays!
I’m lost. Please explain why it is so important (and even surprisng) to know that it takes a fraction of a second for a feeling to pass from skin to brain, and how on earth this denotes the brain knowing the future, which would have to be the other way round – brain knowing before touch happening? And please explain what is strange in my comment.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Friday, March 25, 2022, 16:14 (756 days ago) @ dhw
Memory formation
DAVID: But you've complained about my use of the word autonomous. The car follows a computer program just as autonomous cells are following God's instructions.
dhw: The analogy was of car and cell acting without human/divine involvement. Now you want to change it to the car/cell acting on instructions. Instructions are a form of involvement!
You have totally twisted my analogy. The car is programmed for automatic action nd can drive autonomously as a result, by human input in the programming. God's input is in the autonomously acting cell. Perfect explanation of how I correctly use the word 'autonomously' in a different sense than you insisted upon.
dhw: You have several times agreed that complexification takes place without your God’s intervention, and I keep asking why the same autonomous mechanism should not also have been capable of increasing the number of cells when needed. […] You never say why God could not have given cells that same autonomous ability.DAVID: Remember my objection to second hand design? Not never!
dhw: That simply means he would not give cells the mechanism to add new cells. Calling it “second-hand design” doesn’t change the meaning. Or should I change the question: if God gave cells an autonomous mechanism to do second-hand complexification, why would he not give cells the same ability to do second-hand expansion?
Cells do not have insight into future needs. Only designing minds do. Fully covered before.
DAVID: The neurons have a full set of instructions.
dhw: To do what? Tell themselves to remember to use the mechanism your God gave them? Or instructions on how to tackle each and every problem that will arise for the rest of time?
Just like the self-driving car.
neuron densityQUOTE: “If an animal has billions of neurons, it’s definitely more clever than an animal that has millions of neurons. But I would not say that it is a very tight correlation.”
DAVID: […]. Neuronal density with synaptic connectivity is the key to high mental process ability. We and birds (clever corvids) have it. Also note my bold regarding its evolution as most unusually "sudden and rare."
dhw: There is no disagreement that enhanced complexity accompanies greater intelligence. Since intelligence is relative, I’m not entirely convinced by the claim of rarity - insects have been shown to solve problems set by us humans. I don’t know where you found the word “sudden” in the article. Even human intelligence has evolved very gradually. […]
DAVID: Sudden and rare is in the article, as an expressed opinion.
dhw: Rare is in it, and I have commented above. Sudden is not in it. Do you regard human intelligence as a sudden novelty or a gradual development?
A sudden major advance in erectus;
Libet’s timer gapsQUOTE: As adults, we wait until the traffic light turns green before making a turn. In both situations, the brain has planned our precise movements but suppresses their execution until a specific cue (e.g., the shout of "GO!" or the green light).
DAVID: So it is set up and go when triggered. Explains why Libet found his gaps. And again confirms the view the brain is always prepared to help us by being set up in advance. Since we plan the movement in our brain, the brain knows the future activity before it happens. […]
dhw: What happened to memory? We learn that green means go, and from then on we remember the lesson. We have already planned to go, otherwise we wouldn’t be on our way, would we? So “going” is not “triggered” by the green light and our brain looking into the future. Our brain simply reminds us that we mustn’t continue our “going” until the light is green. is that too simple an explanation?
DAVID: No. It seems you repeated what is in the article with a strange twist. Let's just see how it explains Libet's findings of microseconds delays!
dhw: I’m lost. Please explain why it is so important (and even surprisng) to know that it takes a fraction of a second for a feeling to pass from skin to brain, and how on earth this denotes the brain knowing the future, which would have to be the other way round – brain knowing before touch happening? And please explain what is strange in my comment.
All I've done is present new explanations for Libet's time gap which Romansh and Matt used to tell us the brain runs us and there is no free will. Why are you looking for an argument? Have you forgotten the past discussions here?
Introducing the brain: general
Memory formation
DAVID: But you've complained about my use of the word autonomous. The car follows a computer program just as autonomous cells are following God's instructions.
dhw: The analogy was of car and cell acting without human/divine involvement. Now you want to change it to the car/cell acting on instructions. Instructions are a form of involvement!
DAVID: You have totally twisted my analogy. The car is programmed for automatic action nd can drive autonomously as a result, by human input in the programming. God's input is in the autonomously acting cell. Perfect explanation of how I correctly use the word 'autonomously' in a different sense than you insisted upon.
The quote made no mention of a programme for “automatic” action, but I am quite happy with the second part of your analogy: “God’s input is in the autonomously acting cell.” Once he has “programmed” it (i.e. given it the intelligence) to act without his intervention, it acts without his intervention, i.e. he does not programme its actions but provides it with the intelligence to decide what to do and when to do it. Autonomy entails "the ability to make decisions by yourself without being controlled by anyone else" (Longman) - the exact opposite of obeying instructions.
dhw: You have several times agreed that complexification takes place without your God’s intervention, and I keep asking why the same autonomous mechanism should not also have been capable of increasing the number of cells when needed.
DAVID: Remember my objection to second hand design?
dhw: That simply means he would not give cells the mechanism to add new cells. Calling it “second-hand design” doesn’t change the meaning. Or should I change the question: if God gave cells an autonomous mechanism to do second-hand complexification, why would he not give cells the same ability to do second-hand expansion?
DAVID: Cells do not have insight into future needs. Only designing minds do. Fully covered before.
And answered a hundred times: cells RESPOND to current needs. They don’t gaze into a crystal ball to forecast possible future needs. In some cases, their RESPONSE to current needs and conditions is what enables them actually to have a future. That process is called adaptation.
DAVID: The neurons have a full set of instructions.
dhw: To do what? Tell themselves to remember to use the mechanism your God gave them? Or instructions on how to tackle each and every problem that will arise for the rest of time?
DAVID: Just like the self-driving car.
At least a car will be limited to what cars can do. Imagine a programme that gives precise instructions on how all brains are to cope with every single situation in every context for the rest of life’s history! Do you really believe there could be such a programme?
neuron density
dhw: I don’t know where you found the word “sudden” in the article. Even human intelligence has evolved very gradually. […]
DAVID: A sudden major advance in erectus;
He was around for about 2 million years, during which his brain size increased from about 900cc to about 1200 cc. “Sudden”? The word was not used in the article.
Libet’s timer gaps
dhw: What happened to memory? We learn that green means go, and from then on we remember the lesson. We have already planned to go, otherwise we wouldn’t be on our way, would we? So “going” is not “triggered” by the green light and our brain looking into the future. Our brain simply reminds us that we mustn’t continue our “going” until the light is green. is that too simple an explanation?
DAVID: No. It seems you repeated what is in the article with a strange twist. Let's just see how it explains Libet's findings of microseconds delays!
dhw: I’m lost. Please explain why it is so important (and even surprising) to know that it takes a fraction of a second for a feeling to pass from skin to brain, and how on earth this denotes the brain knowing the future, which would have to be the other way round – brain knowing before touch happening? And please explain what is strange in my comment.
DAVID: All I've done is present new explanations for Libet's time gap which Romansh and Matt used to tell us the brain runs us and there is no free will. Why are you looking for an argument? Have you forgotten the past discussions here?
It seems quite logical to me that there should be a tiny interval between the moment of contact and the brain’s awareness of it, so I don’t understand why it is so important. And I don’t see how that conveys the idea of the brain “knowing the future”. And I can see no connection at all between this purely chemical process and the subject of free will. I am not looking for an argument. I am asking you to explain something I don’t understand. You raised the subject, but if you can’t explain it, then let’s drop it.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Saturday, March 26, 2022, 16:42 (755 days ago) @ dhw
Memory formation
DAVID: You have totally twisted my analogy. The car is programmed for automatic action nd can drive autonomously as a result, by human input in the programming. God's input is in the autonomously acting cell. Perfect explanation of how I correctly use the word 'autonomously' in a different sense than you insisted upon.
dhw: The quote made no mention of a programme for “automatic” action, but I am quite happy with the second part of your analogy: “God’s input is in the autonomously acting cell.” Once he has “programmed” it (i.e. given it the intelligence) to act without his intervention, it acts without his intervention, i.e. he does not programme its actions but provides it with the intelligence to decide what to do and when to do it. Autonomy entails "the ability to make decisions by yourself without being controlled by anyone else" (Longman) - the exact opposite of obeying instructions.
Usual distortion of my analogy. The cell has the God-given ability to read and use His onboard instructions. That is exactly what a self-driving car does. Don't deny it!
DAVID: Cells do not have insight into future needs. Only designing minds do. Fully covered before.dhw: And answered a hundred times: cells RESPOND to current needs. They don’t gaze into a crystal ball to forecast possible future needs. In some cases, their RESPONSE to current needs and conditions is what enables them actually to have a future. That process is called adaptation.
Yes, and adaptations are tiny-step responses only to the immediate need. Erectus and sapiens were prepared for enormous steps into the future
DAVID: The neurons have a full set of instructions.dhw: To do what? Tell themselves to remember to use the mechanism your God gave them? Or instructions on how to tackle each and every problem that will arise for the rest of time?
DAVID: Just like the self-driving car.
dhw: At least a car will be limited to what cars can do. Imagine a programme that gives precise instructions on how all brains are to cope with every single situation in every context for the rest of life’s history! Do you really believe there could be such a programme?
Somehow our 315,000-year-old brains got us here.
Libet’s time gapsDAVID: All I've done is present new explanations for Libet's time gap which Romansh and Matt used to tell us the brain runs us and there is no free will. Why are you looking for an argument? Have you forgotten the past discussions here?
dhw: It seems quite logical to me that there should be a tiny interval between the moment of contact and the brain’s awareness of it, so I don’t understand why it is so important. And I don’t see how that conveys the idea of the brain “knowing the future”. And I can see no connection at all between this purely chemical process and the subject of free will. I am not looking for an argument. I am asking you to explain something I don’t understand. You raised the subject, but if you can’t explain it, then let’s drop it.
All i wanted to show is the brain's timing gap is solved. Dropped.
Introducing the brain: general
Memory formation
DAVID: You have totally twisted my analogy. The car is programmed for automatic action nd can drive autonomously as a result, by human input in the programming. God's input is in the autonomously acting cell. Perfect explanation of how I correctly use the word 'autonomously' in a different sense than you insisted upon.
dhw: The quote made no mention of a programme for “automatic” action, but I am quite happy with the second part of your analogy: “God’s input is in the autonomously acting cell.” Once he has “programmed” it (i.e. given it the intelligence) to act without his intervention, it acts without his intervention, i.e. he does not programme its actions but provides it with the intelligence to decide what to do and when to do it. Autonomy entails "the ability to make decisions by yourself without being controlled by anyone else" (Longman) - the exact opposite of obeying instructions.
DAVID: Usual distortion of my analogy. The cell has the God-given ability to read and use His onboard instructions. That is exactly what a self-driving car does. Don't deny it!
It is not a distortion of the analogy, because the quote never mentioned any instructions – only the fact that the car operated “without human involvement”, which for the cell = without God’s involvement, which = autonomy. If you had proposed an analogy in which the car operated on the instructions of humans, I would have said straight away that that is the very opposite of autonomy, as it is in the case of cells doing what they are told to do. Your analogy can be made to fit either theory, so forget it.
DAVID: Cells do not have insight into future needs. Only designing minds do. Fully covered before.
dhw: And answered a hundred times: cells RESPOND to current needs. They don’t gaze into a crystal ball to forecast possible future needs. In some cases, their RESPONSE to current needs and conditions is what enables them actually to have a future. That process is called adaptation.
DAVID: Yes, and adaptations are tiny-step responses only to the immediate need. Erectus and sapiens were prepared for enormous steps into the future.
I am arguing that cells do not act in preparation for requirements which do not yet exist. They act in response to existing conditions. In all earlier brains, the brain would have expanded, and the same cells would have complexified for every new requirement until their capacity for complexification was reached. Then they would have needed new cells again for the next new requirement. I find this theory considerably more convincing than the theory that whenever the capacity had been reached, your God peeped into his crystal ball and said “In a few thousand years’ time you’re gonna need some more cells to cope with ideas/inventions/conditions that don’t yet exist, so I'll give 'em to you now.”
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Sunday, March 27, 2022, 16:40 (754 days ago) @ dhw
Memory formation
DAVID: Usual distortion of my analogy. The cell has the God-given ability to read and use His onboard instructions. That is exactly what a self-driving car does. Don't deny it!
dhw: It is not a distortion of the analogy, because the quote never mentioned any instructions – only the fact that the car operated “without human involvement”, which for the cell = without God’s involvement, which = autonomy. If you had proposed an analogy in which the car operated on the instructions of humans, I would have said straight away that that is the very opposite of autonomy, as it is in the case of cells doing what they are told to do. Your analogy can be made to fit either theory, so forget it.
All of us know the self-driving car runs on a computer program! It is autonomous, making intelligent decisions as required. The initial instructions are purely from humans who designed the programs. Exactly how cells work on God-given instructions
DAVID: Cells do not have insight into future needs. Only designing minds do. Fully covered before.dhw: And answered a hundred times: cells RESPOND to current needs. They don’t gaze into a crystal ball to forecast possible future needs. In some cases, their RESPONSE to current needs and conditions is what enables them actually to have a future. That process is called adaptation.
DAVID: Yes, and adaptations are tiny-step responses only to the immediate need. Erectus and sapiens were prepared for enormous steps into the future.
dhw: I am arguing that cells do not act in preparation for requirements which do not yet exist. They act in response to existing conditions. In all earlier brains, the brain would have expanded, and the same cells would have complexified for every new requirement until their capacity for complexification was reached. Then they would have needed new cells again for the next new requirement. I find this theory considerably more convincing than the theory that whenever the capacity had been reached, your God peeped into his crystal ball and said “In a few thousand years’ time you’re gonna need some more cells to cope with ideas/inventions/conditions that don’t yet exist, so I'll give 'em to you now.”
I know your theory. Still, all I see from it is tiny step adaptations for the present problems, never the possibility for true speciation. You are left with magic.
Introducing the brain: general
Memory formation
DAVID: Usual distortion of my analogy. The cell has the God-given ability to read and use His onboard instructions. That is exactly what a self-driving car does. Don't deny it!
dhw: It is not a distortion of the analogy, because the quote never mentioned any instructions – only the fact that the car operated “without human involvement”, which for the cell = without God’s involvement, which = autonomy. If you had proposed an analogy in which the car operated on the instructions of humans, I would have said straight away that that is the very opposite of autonomy, as it is in the case of cells doing what they are told to do. Your analogy can be made to fit either theory, so forget it.
DAVID: All of us know the self-driving car runs on a computer program! It is autonomous, making intelligent decisions as required. The initial instructions are purely from humans who designed the programs. Exactly how cells work on God-given instructions.
I really don’t see the point in labouring this analogy. I propose (theistic version) that your God gave cells the intelligence to make decisions and designs on their own, without any instructions or interference by himself. That conforms to the normal definition of autonomy (the ability to make decisions that are not controlled by anyone else). You say that cells are automatons that have no minds of their own and merely obey God’s instructions. Mindless obedience is the exact opposite of autonomy.
DAVID: Cells do not have insight into future needs. Only designing minds do. Fully covered before.
dhw: And answered a hundred times: cells RESPOND to current needs. They don’t gaze into a crystal ball to forecast possible future needs. In some cases, their RESPONSE to current needs and conditions is what enables them actually to have a future. That process is called adaptation.
DAVID: Yes, and adaptations are tiny-step responses only to the immediate need. Erectus and sapiens were prepared for enormous steps into the future.
dhw: I am arguing that cells do not act in preparation for requirements which do not yet exist. They act in response to existing conditions. In all earlier brains, the brain would have expanded, and the same cells would have complexified for every new requirement until their capacity for complexification was reached. Then they would have needed new cells again for the next new requirement. I find this theory considerably more convincing than the theory that whenever the capacity had been reached, your God peeped into his crystal ball and said “In a few thousand years’ time you’re gonna need some more cells to cope with ideas/inventions/conditions that don’t yet exist, so I'll give 'em to you now.”
DAVID: I know your theory. Still, all I see from it is tiny step adaptations for the present problems, never the possibility for true speciation. You are left with magic.
In this exchange, we are discussing your theory that your God added new cells in preparation for future needs, whereas I propose that new cells are needed to cope with current requirements. Nothing to do with cellular intelligence as the designer of speciation, which is dealt with elsewhere.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Monday, March 28, 2022, 16:44 (753 days ago) @ dhw
Memory formation
DAVID: All of us know the self-driving car runs on a computer program! It is autonomous, making intelligent decisions as required. The initial instructions are purely from humans who designed the programs. Exactly how cells work on God-given instructions.
dhw: I really don’t see the point in labouring this analogy. I propose (theistic version) that your God gave cells the intelligence to make decisions and designs on their own, without any instructions or interference by himself. That conforms to the normal definition of autonomy (the ability to make decisions that are not controlled by anyone else). You say that cells are automatons that have no minds of their own and merely obey God’s instructions. Mindless obedience is the exact opposite of autonomy.
But that is exactly what a self-driving autonomous car does! Follows programmed directions. Your 'normal definition' fits only certain forms of automaticity. I see cells as exactly like those cars. Your tortured definitions don't destroy that exact analogy. You've lost this debate.
dhw: I am arguing that cells do not act in preparation for requirements which do not yet exist. They act in response to existing conditions. In all earlier brains, the brain would have expanded, and the same cells would have complexified for every new requirement until their capacity for complexification was reached. Then they would have needed new cells again for the next new requirement. I find this theory considerably more convincing than the theory that whenever the capacity had been reached, your God peeped into his crystal ball and said “In a few thousand years’ time you’re gonna need some more cells to cope with ideas/inventions/conditions that don’t yet exist, so I'll give 'em to you now.”DAVID: I know your theory. Still, all I see from it is tiny step adaptations for the present problems, never the possibility for true speciation. You are left with magic.
dhw: In this exchange, we are discussing your theory that your God added new cells in preparation for future needs, whereas I propose that new cells are needed to cope with current requirements. Nothing to do with cellular intelligence as the designer of speciation, which is dealt with elsewhere.
Yep! I propose God for speciation.
Introducing the brain: general
Memory formation
dhw: Mindless obedience is the exact opposite of autonomy.
DAVID: But that is exactly what a self-driving autonomous car does! Follows programmed directions. […]
You have twisted the quote (which only mentioned the non-involvement of humans) in order to draw an analogy between programmed cars and your concept of programmed cells. I reject the analogy, (a) because I propose that cells are not programmed, and (b) because I challenge you to find a definition of the word “autonomous” which includes preprogramming and obeying instructions. You are making a mockery of language.
dhw: I am arguing that cells do not act in preparation for requirements which do not yet exist. They act in response to existing conditions. […]
DAVID: I know your theory. Still, all I see from it is tiny step adaptations for the present problems, never the possibility for true speciation. You are left with magic.
dhw: In this exchange, we are discussing your theory that your God added new cells in preparation for future need […] . Nothing to do with cellular intelligence as the designer of speciation, which is dealt with elsewhere.
DAVID: Yep! I propose God for speciation.
Since you wish to change the subject, I shall assume that at last you have agreed that new cells are added in order to meet current new requirements and not to meet requirements that will not exist until thousands of years later.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 29, 2022, 17:08 (752 days ago) @ dhw
Memory formation
dhw: Mindless obedience is the exact opposite of autonomy.
DAVID: But that is exactly what a self-driving autonomous car does! Follows programmed directions. […]
dhw: You have twisted the quote (which only mentioned the non-involvement of humans) in order to draw an analogy between programmed cars and your concept of programmed cells. I reject the analogy, (a) because I propose that cells are not programmed, and (b) because I challenge you to find a definition of the word “autonomous” which includes preprogramming and obeying instructions. You are making a mockery of language.
It is common usage. Self-driving cars have been referred to as 'automatic' which means autonomously to me. Cells run just as the cars do is my point, whatever the words are that we use..
Introducing the brain: general
dhw: Mindless obedience is the exact opposite of autonomy.
DAVID: But that is exactly what a self-driving autonomous car does! Follows programmed directions. […]
dhw: You have twisted the quote (which only mentioned the non-involvement of humans) in order to draw an analogy between programmed cars and your concept of programmed cells. I reject the analogy, (a) because I propose that cells are not programmed, and (b) because I challenge you to find a definition of the word “autonomous” which includes preprogramming and obeying instructions. You are making a mockery of language.
DAVID: It is common usage. Self-driving cars have been referred to as 'automatic' which means autonomously to me. Cells run just as the cars do is my point, whatever the words are that we use.
QUOTE (from “King’s English”): “A truly autonomous car would decide on destination and route as well as control within the lanes. An automated car would follow orders about destination and route, and may only adopt some lane-keeping or car-following guidance.” (dhw's bold)
"Nevertheless, I do not believe these differences can be preserved linguistically, even within the profession, the broad misuse and confusion will drown small differences of meaning."
DAVID: Our real battle is about cells and how they work, as you note. My analogy fits my side.
Thank you for these two clarifications, which to some extent explain the confusion. Since the motor industry has its own special jargon, I take back my vehement disapproval of your use of language. However, what may be “small differences” in the motor industry are colossal differences in the context of our discussion: either cells follow instructions (= automated) or they make their own decisions (autonomous).The one is the exact opposite of the other. I suggest we scrap the analogy!
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 30, 2022, 16:45 (751 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Mindless obedience is the exact opposite of autonomy.
DAVID: But that is exactly what a self-driving autonomous car does! Follows programmed directions. […]
dhw: You have twisted the quote (which only mentioned the non-involvement of humans) in order to draw an analogy between programmed cars and your concept of programmed cells. I reject the analogy, (a) because I propose that cells are not programmed, and (b) because I challenge you to find a definition of the word “autonomous” which includes preprogramming and obeying instructions. You are making a mockery of language.
DAVID: It is common usage. Self-driving cars have been referred to as 'automatic' which means autonomously to me. Cells run just as the cars do is my point, whatever the words are that we use.
QUOTE (from “King’s English”): “A truly autonomous car would decide on destination and route as well as control within the lanes. An automated car would follow orders about destination and route, and may only adopt some lane-keeping or car-following guidance.” (dhw's bold)
"Nevertheless, I do not believe these differences can be preserved linguistically, even within the profession, the broad misuse and confusion will drown small differences of meaning."DAVID: Our real battle is about cells and how they work, as you note. My analogy fits my side.
dhw: Thank you for these two clarifications, which to some extent explain the confusion. Since the motor industry has its own special jargon, I take back my vehement disapproval of your use of language. However, what may be “small differences” in the motor industry are colossal differences in the context of our discussion: either cells follow instructions (= automated) or they make their own decisions (autonomous).The one is the exact opposite of the other. I suggest we scrap the analogy!
I've made my point and you yours. They can't think but can communicate with molecules. The only message a molecule can bring is its function, so when it arrives at a new cell it says use me if you wish. The recipient cell recognizes the useful molecule and has an onboard molecule react with it. All rapidly automatic, occurring in millionths of a second, a trillion of times in the body simultaneously, which creates an energy need and life's homeostasis. And the energy arrives by eating something. dhw's wishful God must produce a pacifistic life form. That means theoretically starting with plants, not animals. I leave it to dhw to give us a followup scenario to reach humans as history shows.
Introducing the brain: general
QUOTE (from “King’s English”): “A truly autonomous car would decide on destination and route as well as control within the lanes. An automated car would follow orders about destination and route, and may only adopt some lane-keeping or car-following guidance.” (dhw's bold)
"Nevertheless, I do not believe these differences can be preserved linguistically, even within the profession, the broad misuse and confusion will drown small differences of meaning."
DAVID: Our real battle is about cells and how they work, as you note. My analogy fits my side.
dhw: Thank you for these two clarifications, which to some extent explain the confusion. Since the motor industry has its own special jargon, I take back my vehement disapproval of your use of language. However, what may be “small differences” in the motor industry are colossal differences in the context of our discussion: either cells follow instructions (= automated) or they make their own decisions (autonomous).The one is the exact opposite of the other. I suggest we scrap the analogy!
DAVID: I've made my point and you yours. They can't think but can communicate with molecules. The only message a molecule can bring is its function, so when it arrives at a new cell it says use me if you wish. The recipient cell recognizes the useful molecule and has an onboard molecule react with it. All rapidly automatic, occurring in millionths of a second, a trillion of times in the body simultaneously, which creates an energy need and life's homeostasis. And the energy arrives by eating something. dhw's wishful God must produce a pacifistic life form. That means theoretically starting with plants, not animals. I leave it to dhw to give us a followup scenario to reach humans as history shows.
For some reason, you have switched the focus from the distinction between automatic and autonomous to God’s choice of war over peace. Nobody would ever dispute that life needs energy. Do you consider it was beyond the powers of your all-powerful God to design plants before animals? In any case, the exact order of their respective evolutions doesn’t seem to be clear, judging by some of the websites I’ve consulted.
Introducing the brain: general
by David Turell , Thursday, March 31, 2022, 17:11 (750 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Our real battle is about cells and how they work, as you note. My analogy fits my side.
dhw: Thank you for these two clarifications, which to some extent explain the confusion. Since the motor industry has its own special jargon, I take back my vehement disapproval of your use of language. However, what may be “small differences” in the motor industry are colossal differences in the context of our discussion: either cells follow instructions (= automated) or they make their own decisions (autonomous).The one is the exact opposite of the other. I suggest we scrap the analogy!
DAVID: I've made my point and you yours. They can't think but can communicate with molecules. The only message a molecule can bring is its function, so when it arrives at a new cell it says use me if you wish. The recipient cell recognizes the useful molecule and has an onboard molecule react with it. All rapidly automatic, occurring in millionths of a second, a trillion of times in the body simultaneously, which creates an energy need and life's homeostasis. And the energy arrives by eating something. dhw's wishful God must produce a pacifistic life form. That means theoretically starting with plants, not animals. I leave it to dhw to give us a followup scenario to reach humans as history shows.
dhw: For some reason, you have switched the focus from the distinction between automatic and autonomous to God’s choice of war over peace. Nobody would ever dispute that life needs energy. Do you consider it was beyond the powers of your all-powerful God to design plants before animals? In any case, the exact order of their respective evolutions doesn’t seem to be clear, judging by some of the websites I’ve consulted.
Well, we scrapped the analogy, so why not go elsewhere? Bacteria, animals, are first. But I agree algae and other early plant forms existed. There was parallel evolution with Cambrian explosion at 530 byo and Darwin's 'plant bloom' at 240 byo. Plants peacefully absorb energy and animals attack each other. Tell me how totally peaceful animals would be in your God's world. Would they all eat veggies? Including how would bacteria eat?
Introducing the brain: general: Part 11 reply
by David Turell , Saturday, March 05, 2022, 16:40 (776 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Note design in preparation:
https://www.the-scientist.com/the-literature/termite-brains-anticipate-future-visual-ch...QUOTE: "Dampwood termites with the potential to leave the colony have larger optic lobes before ever being exposed to different visual environments, an example of predictive brain plasticity."
dhw: [...] I would guess that the origin of this particular variation is that if new colonies were to be founded, as the article says, it was essential that the founder should be able to cope with brighter conditions when leaving the nest (i.e. the ability first arose in response to a new requirement). Such is the nature of “castes” in termite society that this ability was passed on, just as other abilities were passed on to other castes. Of course this means the brain is plastic, but I don’t see the origin of the ability as being predictive: the ability would have arisen in response to an immediate need. To understand the whole history, we would need fossils of every stage of termite development. I doubt if we’ll find them.
DAVID: What a weak response. All you have done is insert your bias and refuted the point the author's made. A brain in anticipation of need!
dhw: The author makes no attempt to explain how such an ability originated.
Why should he? He is a Darwinist who assumes natural selection easily saw the future and prepared for it.
dhw: I see it as precisely the same process as pre-whale legs turning into flippers. You presumably have your God popping in to perform an operation on a few termites to prepare their eyes for the day when they will leave their nests to search outside in the light for a new location. (And somehow also in preparation for when humans will arrive a hundred million years or so later.) I have the termites realizing that accommodation is getting crowded, and they need to go and search. Over time, just as over generations legs turn into flippers from repeated usage in the water, the eyesight of the kings and queens improves over generations. The termite brain is plastic – it responds to new needs, just like ours. Please tell me why you find this explanation less believable than the divine one outlined above.
The point is clear. You must disregard Darwinist interpretation if it doesn't fit you enormous bias.
Introducing the brain: neurons may make future plans
by David Turell , Thursday, February 24, 2022, 19:40 (785 days ago) @ dhw
A very new development:
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-02-individual-neurons-future.html
"Researchers at the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience in Lethbridge, Canada have recently carried out a study investigating how individual neurons learn and make predictions about the future.
***
"Using mathematical equations, Luczak and his colleagues demonstrated that the predictive capabilities of individual neurons could provide a new learning mechanism, which could ultimately be replicated in machines. According to the researchers, this learning process could have a metabolic origin, as neurons might need to minimize their own synaptic activity, while maximizing their impact on local blood supply by recruiting other neurons.
"'Similarly, neurons may be able to learn that X amount of input activity is usually followed by Y amount of activity. By adjusting synapses to minimize surprise—that is, the difference between actual and expected activity—neurons can save energy by being active only as much as necessary. We showed that the predictive learning rule arises naturally, as a consequence of maximizing metabolic energy by a neuron."
"In their paper, Luczak refers to this learning mechanism as the "lazy neuron principle." The team is still unsure about the exact mechanisms that might allow a single neuron to make predictions, but they believe that they could be linked to calcium signaling (i.e., a process that entails the use of calcium ions to communicate and drive intercellular processes).
"'Interestingly, our results also suggest that spontaneous brain activity (e.g., during sleep) provides 'training data' for neurons to learn to predict X from Y," Luczak said."
Comment: I view this as an attempt to understand complexification.
Introducing the brain: cerebellar appetite control
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 09, 2022, 20:35 (772 days ago) @ David Turell
Recently found:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-brain-curbs-overeating/
"Chen and his team noticed they could make mice stop eating by activating small pockets of neurons in regions known as the anterior deep cerebellar nuclei (aDCN), within the cerebellum. Intrigued, the researchers contacted collaborators at Harvard Medical School. Scientists there had gathered data using functional MRI to compare brain activity in 14 people who had Prader-Willi syndrome with activity in 14 unaffected people while each subject viewed images of food—either immediately following a meal or after fasting for at least four hours.
"New analysis of these scans revealed that activity in the same regions Chen’s group had pinpointed in mice, the aDCN, appeared to be significantly disrupted in humans with Prader-Willi syndrome. In healthy individuals, the aDCN were more active in response to food images while fasting than just after a meal, but no such difference was identifiable in participants with the disorder. The result suggested that the aDCN were involved in controlling hunger. Further experiments on mice, conducted by researchers from several different institutions, demonstrated that activating the animals’ aDCN neurons dramatically reduced food intake by blunting how the brain’s pleasure center responds to food. The findings were recently detailed in Nature.
***
"Multiple colleagues of Chen’s are now planning to test whether they can manipulate this circuit in healthy people by using a noninvasive intervention known as transcranial magnetic stimulation. If that is successful, Chen says, the researchers hope to eventually conduct a clinical trial."
Comment: appetite control was thought to be in the hypothalamus, so this is a big change.
Introducing the brain: electrical synapses
by David Turell , Tuesday, April 05, 2022, 21:30 (745 days ago) @ David Turell
Not the chemical ones, are poorly understood but they are numerous:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-team-electrical-synapses-brain-individual.html
"Electrical synapses are omnipresent and yet hardly explored. They are part of the brain of almost every animal species, yet they remain usually invisible even under the electron microscope.
"'Electrical synapses are like the dark matter of the brain," says Alexander Borst, director at the MPI for Biological Intelligence, in foundation (i.f). Now a team from his department has published a study in Current Biology that has taken a closer look at this rarely explored brain component: In the brain of the fruit fly Drosophila, they were able to show that electrical synapses occur in almost all brain areas and can influence the function and stability of individual nerve cells.
"Neurons communicate via synapses, small contact points at which chemical messengers transmit a stimulus from one cell to the next. We may remember this from biology class. However, that is not the whole story. In addition to the commonly known chemical synapses, there is a second, little-known type of synapse: the electrical synapse. "Electrical synapses are much rarer and are hard to detect with current methods. That's why they have hardly been researched so far," explains Georg Ammer, who has long been fascinated by these hidden cell connections. "In most animal brains, we therefore don't know even basic things, such as where exactly electrical synapses occur or how they influence brain activity."
"An electrical synapse connects two neurons directly, allowing the electrical current that neurons use to communicate, to flow from one cell to the next without a detour. Except in echinoderms, this particular type of synapse occurs in the brain of every animal species studied so far. "Electrical synapses must therefore have important functions; we just do not know which ones," says Georg Ammer.
***
"By selectively switching off the electrical synapses in the area of visual processing, the researchers could show that the affected neurons' reaction to certain stimuli is much weaker. Furthermore, without electrical synapses, some nerve cell types became unstable and began to oscillate spontaneously.
"'The results suggest that electrical synapses are important for diverse brain functions and can play very different functional roles, depending on the type of neuron," Ammer summarizes. "These synapses should therefore also be integrated in connectome studies." The connectome is a map of all neurons and their connections in a brain or brain area. Often, this information is reconstructed from electron microscope images—where electrical synapses are largely invisible. How these can be integrated into connectome investigations and what other secrets electrical synapses hold is a subject for further studies."
Comment: Obviously we've gpt lots more to learnn about basic brain function.
Introducing the brain: navigation controls
by David Turell , Wednesday, April 20, 2022, 15:15 (731 days ago) @ David Turell
A specific frontal lobe module:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-internal-compass-modular-brain.html
"...an internal compass, thought to be supported by specialized neurons in the brain—called "head-direction" cells. These neurons respond to direction, and there are still many unsolved puzzles as to how they work. A team of neuroscientists at the University of Tübingen has established exactly where they are located, how they are connected to other parts of the brain, and which mechanisms support their activity. The researchers believe they may have found the location in the brain where the information from the internal compass meets inputs about external landmarks.
***
"'The existence of head-direction cells was documented more than 30 years ago in rodents. Much like a compass, these neurons follow the movement of the animal in its environment, thus giving rise to an internal representation of direction in the brain," Dr. Patricia Preston-Ferrer explains. "If you are to understand how neurons work in the brain, you first need to make them visible," she adds. In order to understand information processing in the brain—the software—you need to resolve the underlying brain circuits—the hardware. As early as 2016, the team established an experimental approach for making head-direction neurons visible under the microscope.
"Head-direction neurons are known to be preferentially located in the presubiculum, a specialized area of the cortex. "We were very surprised by finding that the mouse presubiculum was not homogeneous, but clearly divided into modules," says CIN researcher Giuseppe Balsamo. "We identified two different types of modules which were molecularly distinct, and were differently interconnected with other parts of the brain." The team found that these modules were present not only in the rodent brain, but also in the human brain.
"By labeling individual head-direction neurons, the authors made two striking observations. Firstly, head-direction neurons were found only in one cortical module, pointing to a precise structure-function organization of the presubicular cortex. Second, this module type was densely innervated by one particular nucleus of the thalamus, which is involved in the processing of visual landmark information. "We know that efficient navigation relies on the use of an internal compass, plus external visual landmark information," says Professor Andrea Burgalossi, head of a CIN research unit. "We may have found the place in the brain where the internal sense of direction and visual information are combined to support navigation."
"The team also found that, whenever they artificially perturbed the activity of the cortical modules, head-direction neurons became suddenly silent. "It seemed that our manipulation had switched off the internal compass," says Dr. Eduardo Blanco-Hernandez. Yet not all head-direction neurons were silenced. "We currently do not know whether silenced and stable head-direction neurons serve different functions during behavior, but clearly the internal compass has a more complex structure than previously assumed.'"
Comment: All independently active animals need a fine sense of direction. Once again this shows how the brain is designed to help us automatically
Introducing the brain: precise synapse controls
by David Turell , Wednesday, April 20, 2022, 15:26 (731 days ago) @ David Turell
Signals very carefully modulated:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-enzyme-brain.html
"Almost 100 billion nerve cells perform their service in the human brain. Each of these has an average of 1,000 contacts with other neurons. At these so-called synapses, information is passed on between the nerve cells.
"However, synapses are much more than simple wiring. This can already be seen in their structure: They consist of a kind of transmitter device, the presynapse, and a receiver structure, the postsynapse. Between them lies the synaptic cleft. This is actually very narrow. Nevertheless, it prevents the electrical impulses from being easily transmitted. Instead, the neurons in a sense shout their information to each other across the gap.
"For this purpose, the presynapse is triggered by incoming voltage pulses to release certain neurotransmitters. These cross the synaptic cleft and dock to specific "antennae" on the postsynaptic side. This causes them to also trigger electrical pulses in the receiver cell. "However, the amount of neurotransmitter released by the presynapse and the extent to which the postsynapse responds to it are strictly regulated in the brain," explains Prof. Dr. Susanne Schoch McGovern of the Department of Neuropathology at University Hospital Bonn.
***
"'We have now shown that a protein called RIM1 plays a key role in this process," says Schoch McGovern. RIM1 is clustered in the so-called "active zone" of the presynapse—the area where neurotransmitters are released.
"Like any protein, RIM1 consists of a large number of contiguous amino acids. The researchers have now shown that some of these amino acids are linked by an enzyme to a chemical compound, a phosphate group. Depending on which amino acid is modified in this way, the presynapse can subsequently release more or less neurotransmitter. The phosphate groups form the "memory" of the synapses, so to speak, with which they remember the current activity level. "In the presynapse, transmitter-filled vesicles stand ready to be fired like the arrows of a taut bow," Dietrich says. "As soon as a voltage pulse comes in, they are released at lightning speed. Phosphorylation changes the number of these vesicles.'" (my bold)
***
"This means that the brain can presumably adjust the activity of individual synapses very precisely via RIM1. Another key role is played by the enzyme SRPK2: It attaches the phosphate groups to the amino acids of RIM1. However, there are also other players, such as enzymes that remove the phosphate groups again if necessary. "We assume that there is a whole network of enzymes that act on RIM1 and that these enzymes also control each other's activity," Dietrich explains."
Comment: as usual, we see very fine tuning to modulate brain activity as my bold shows. Only a designer can create such a system with individual amino acids precisely changed or modified
Introducing the brain: it's abilites prove God
by David Turell , Wednesday, April 20, 2022, 21:24 (730 days ago) @ David Turell
Egnor, Feser and Taylor each using the other:
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-mind-matters-news-yes-there-is-eviden...
"To see how this points to intelligent design of the brain, consider a very compelling argument for God’s existence proposed by philosopher Richard Taylor (1919–2003) in his book Metaphysics. Thomist philosopher Edward Feser has a nice synopsis and commentary here. I paraphrase Taylor’s argument:
"Imagine that you are on a train in England and you see a collection of stones on a hillside that says THE BRITISH RAILWAYS WELCOMES YOU TO WALES.
***
"Now you could believe, based on the stones, either that you were in fact entering Wales or you could not believe that. Whichever you believe is also irrelevant to the argument. Taylor’s point is that you could not justifiably believe that the stones came to be by random arrangement and at the same time believe that they were conveying the message that you are entering Wales. That is, you are only justified in believing semantic content conveyed by matter if the arrangement of the matter is intelligently designed.
***
"Taylor now draws an analogy to the neurological processes of our brain. We believe the messages conveyed by our neurophysiology — by the arrangement of our neurotransmitters and our neurons. If these brain functions evolved by Darwinian evolution — that is, they came to exist as a result of unintelligent, random, heritable variation and natural selection — then you could have no justified belief that the perceptions and concepts generated via your brain have genuine meaning. It would be irrational to ascribe semantic content to a material process that lacks an intelligent designer.
"Taylor uses this argument to argue for God’s existence. When we believe that our perceptions and concepts point to the truth, we implicitly acknowledge the existence of God who designed them. If the neurophysiology that generates our perceptions and concepts were not intelligently designed, we would have no justified reason to believe that they point to truth, anymore than we would have justified reason to believe that and unintelligent conglomeration of stones tells us where we are in England. It is a quite good argument for God’s existence, and of course it is also a good argument for the intelligent design of the brain.
"Note that this argument puts those who deny God’s existence in a difficult rhetorical position — if they deny God’s existence, they cannot believe that their perceptions and concepts have any orientation to reality.
"Ed Feser in his commentary on Taylor’s argument discusses a number of objections that might be raised to Taylor’s analogy. He points out that none of the expected arguments succeeds. For example, an atheist might argue that we have justifiable inductive reasons for trusting our senses and concepts, even if our brains are not intelligently designed because we have daily experience that our perceptions and concepts correlate with reality...If our brain is not intelligently designed to begin with, we have no justification for trusting our inductive reasoning process or perceptions.
"Taylor’s argument for God’s existence is also a good argument for intelligent design of the brain. As I noted, the evidence for intelligent design of the brain is massive and undeniable, just as it is for all aspects of biology. The nice thing about Taylor’s argument is that it logically compels atheists and others who deny intelligent design to also deny their capacity to know reality and truth. Of course, the lack of the capacity to understand reality and know truth is a hallmark of atheism and of the denial of intelligent design, and Taylor’s argument provides a clear and quite clever way of pointing that out.
"Feser's arguments are here:
"https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2022/02/taylor-on-cognition-teleology-and-god.html
"I hasten to emphasize again that Taylor’s point has nothing whatsoever to do with probabilities, and in particular nothing to do with how likely or unlikely it is for arrangements of the kind in question to form via natural processes. He allows, for the purposes of the argument, that that could happen. His point is rather that, no matter how complex and orderly are the arrangements of physical components that might be generated by purely impersonal and purposeless natural processes, they could never by themselves generate something with intentional or semantic content... This is not a point about probabilities, but rather a conceptual and metaphysical truth. Neither stones nor marks on a rock have any inherent connection with any semantic content we might decide to convey through them. The content they might have must derive from a mind which uses them for the purpose of conveying such content. Delete such a mind from an explanation of the arrangements of stones or marks, and you delete the semantic content along with it.
***
"Notice that, though Taylor is not explicit about it, this is compatible with an evolutionary story about the origin of our cognitive faculties. It just isn’t compatible with a materialistic-and-mechanistic evolutionary story about the origin of our cognitive faculties – one that entirely excludes mind and purpose from the story."
Comment: purely, our brain is designed to present thoughtful perceptions of reality: conclusion there is a designer
Introducing the brain: modulating glutamate
by David Turell , Thursday, April 21, 2022, 16:49 (729 days ago) @ David Turell
More precise snapse control found:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220420170503.htm
"The new research takes a close look at glutamate, the most prevalent neurotransmitter in the brain. Glutamate binds to receptors on brain cells, which opens a channel into the cell, allowing ions to pass through to propagate an electrical signal.
***
"Each receptor can bind up to four molecules of glutamate and produce four different levels of conductivity. Previous studies had linked binding to conductivity in a simple stepwise fashion, in which binding each additional glutamate molecule increased the conductivity another step.
***
"These images reveal that glutamate binds to the subunits of its receptor only in specific patterns. That overturns the prevailing view that each subunit binds glutamate independently and points toward new levels of complexity in neuronal signaling and drug responses.
"Instead of straightforward stepwise transitions, Sobolevsky and his colleagues found that a glutamate molecule must bind to one of two specific receptor subunits before any glutamates can bind to the other two subunits. In addition, the conductivity levels of the receptor didn't correlate directly to the number of glutamates bound to it; a receptor could have two or more glutamates attached but still only reach the first level of conductivity.
"The results open an entirely new line of investigation, and the team is now probing how different accessory molecules on neurons affect the interaction. Learning more about the glutamate receptors' specific activation states may aid the development of better drugs for conditions that involve glutamate receptors, such as depression, dementia, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, and stroke."
Comment: these fine-tuned controls must be designed to work properly from the beginning.
Introducing the brain: modulating synapses
by David Turell , Saturday, April 23, 2022, 19:30 (727 days ago) @ David Turell
Another finding:
https://www.sciencealert.com/proteins-that-keeps-your-brain-under-control-could-help-ex...
"The two proteins – Rab3-interacting molecule 1 (RIM1) and an enzyme called serine arginine protein kinase 2 (SRPK2) – work together to modify the transmission of information across the gaps between nerves called synapses.
"Without their efficient policing of neural activity, messages could either get lost due to insufficient signal, or flood important junctions, overwhelming key networks and burying important signals in a cacophony of noise.
***
"They found the enzyme SRPK2 modifies RIM1 by adding molecules with phosphate groups onto specific links of its amino-acid structure, increasing or decreasing the number of neurotransmitter bubbles that are released into the synapse.
"'Which effect occurs depends on the phosphorylated amino acid," says Johannes Alexander Müller, a neurophysiologist at University Hospital Bonn.
"What happens to the phosphorylated RIM1 proteins after they've done their job isn't clear, leaving room for a range of other enzymes to be at work, further fine-tuning the process.
"As with any biological function, it can be just as handy knowing what happens when it doesn't all go according to plan. There are already genetic hints that RIM1 could be involved in conditions such as autism and schizophrenia.
"'We now want to further elucidate these relationships," says McGovern.
"'Perhaps new therapeutic options for these diseases will emerge from our findings in the long term, although there is certainly a long way to go before that happens.'"
Comment: We all recognize the last point; free-floating molecules can make mistakes. But this is a classic example of careful design for precise control
Introducing the brain: another way to process
by David Turell , Sunday, April 24, 2022, 01:26 (727 days ago) @ David Turell
A new process found:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220422161527.htm
"...a new study led by Salk Professor Thomas Albright and Staff Scientist Sergei Gepshtein shows that there's also a second, very different way that the brain parses information: through the interactions of waves of neural activity.
***
"This traditional model of the brain, however, couldn't explain how a single sensory cell can react so differently to the same thing under different conditions. A cell, for instance, might become activated in response to a quick flash of light when an animal is particularly alert, but will remain inactive in response to the same light if the animal's attention is focused on something else.
***
"'The traditional view of brain function describes brain activity as an interaction of neurons. Since every neuron is confined to a specific location, this view is akin to the description of light as a particle," says Gepshtein, director of Salk's Collaboratory for Adaptive Sensory Technologies. "We've found that in some situations, brain activity is better described as interaction of waves, which is similar to the description of light as a wave. Both views are needed for understanding the brain."
***
"The best way to explain how the neurons were behaving, they discovered, was through interaction of microscopic waves of activity rather than interaction of individual neurons. Rather than a flash of light activating specialized sensory cells, the researchers showed how it creates distributed patterns: waves of activity across many neighboring cells, with alternating peaks and troughs of activation -- like ocean waves.
"When these waves are being simultaneously generated in different places in the brain, they inevitably crash into one another. If two peaks of activity meet, they generate an even higher activity, while if a trough of low activity meets a peak, it might cancel it out. This process is called wave interference.
"To test their mathematical model of how neural waves occur in the brain, the team designed an accompanying visual experiment. Two people were asked to detect a thin faint line ("probe") located on a screen and flanked by other light patterns. How well the people performed this task, the researchers found, depended on where the probe was. The ability to detect the probe was elevated at some locations and depressed at other locations, forming a spatial wave predicted by the model.
"The discovery of how neural waves interact is much more far-reaching than explaining this optical illusion. The researchers hypothesize that the same kinds of waves are being generated -- and interacting with each other -- in every part of the brain's cortex, not just the part responsible for the analysis of visual information. That means waves generated by the brain itself, by subtle cues in the environment or internal moods, can change the waves generated by sensory inputs.
This may explain how the brain's response to something can shift from day to day, the researchers say.
***
"The discovery of how neural waves interact is much more far-reaching than explaining this optical illusion. The researchers hypothesize that the same kinds of waves are being generated -- and interacting with each other -- in every part of the brain's cortex, not just the part responsible for the analysis of visual information. That means waves generated by the brain itself, by subtle cues in the environment or internal moods, can change the waves generated by sensory inputs.
"This may explain how the brain's response to something can shift from day to day, the researchers say."
Comment: brain waves do travel all over the place as EEG's show. Ther must be interference controls, and the designer's solution is partially shown now.
Introducing the brain: identifying different neuron function
by David Turell , Monday, April 25, 2022, 20:35 (725 days ago) @ David Turell
By analyzing genome processing in individual neurons, new ones are discovered:
https://www.the-scientist.com/modus-operandi/crack-method-reveals-novel-neuron-type-in-...
"...in his lab at Boston University, biologist and biomedical engineer Jerry Chen has developed a technique that allows researchers to do both, mapping neurons within a living mouse’s brain and then assessing their gene expression.
"The new technique, called comprehensive readout of activity and cell type markers (CRACK), combines calcium imaging microscopy with a variation on a DNA labeling approach called hybridization chain reaction–fluorescence in situ hybridization (HCR-FISH) to label and track mRNA. CRACK allows researchers to first observe the electrical firing of neurons in the brain of a live mouse during a behavioral task, and then track the expression of specific genes in slices of the animal’s brain, ultimately linking specific cells and their molecular activities to particular behaviors.
***
"The paper describes how the team used CRACK to identify a previously overlooked neuron type, the Baz1a cell, in the primary somatosensory cortex of the mouse brain. According to Chen’s findings, Baz1a cells help coordinate neural activity related to learning in response to tactile sensations on mouse whiskers. Chen says that even though they created CRACK for this specific experiment, they’ve just scratched the surface of how the methodology could be used.
“'Now, if you have a tissue of a thousand neurons, you can actually start to label all eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen different types of neurons that we know exist,” Chen says. “Then you can ask: How does cell type A communicate with cell type B?” Chen envisions several possible uses for CRACK, including studying the neural function of species beyond mice and humans for which tailored neuroscience tools may not be available, or answering “any question that involves trying to marry molecular information with dynamics—functional information” on the behavior of neurons.
"University of California, San Diego, neuroscientist Takaki Komiyama tells The Scientist that the main benefit of the technique is being able to “define the expression of dozens of genes in a given neuron.” With CRACK, “you can record hundreds of neurons’ activity and pretty precisely identify the cell type of each of those hundreds of neurons,” adds Komiyama, who didn’t work on the paper but helped pioneer the use of calcium imaging over the past two decades."
Comment: we know about 80-100 billion neurons exist in the human brain. If they can have different functions for different processes, that is really like having the equivalent of a trillion neurons or more. No wonder our brain acts like it does. This design is not by chance.
Introducing the brain: new astrocyte functions
by David Turell , Thursday, April 28, 2022, 22:25 (722 days ago) @ David Turell
Not a neuron but contributes:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-function-brain-cells.html
"Until now, scientists believed astrocytes were important, but lesser cast members in this activity. Astrocytes guide the growth of axons, the long, slender projection of a neuron that conducts electrical impulses. They also control neurotransmitters, chemicals that enable the transfer of electrical signals throughout the brain and nervous system. In addition, astrocytes build the blood-brain barrier and react to injury.
"But they did not seem to be electrically active like the all-important neurons—until now.
"'The electrical activity of astrocytes changes how neurons function," says Chris Dulla, associate professor of neuroscience at the School of Medicine and Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and corresponding author on a paper published today published today by Nature Neuroscience. "We have discovered a new way that two of the most important cells in the brain talk to each other. Because there is so much unknown about how the brain works, discovering new fundamental processes that control brain function is key to developing novel treatments for neurological diseases."
***
"Dulla describes astrocytes as "making sure everything is copacetic in the brain, and if something goes wrong, if there's an injury or viral infection, they detect it, try to respond, and then try to protect the brain from insult. What we want to do next is determine how astrocytes change when these insults happen."
"Neuron-to-neuron communication occurs through the release of packets of chemicals called neurotransmitters. Scientists knew that astrocytes control neurotransmitters, helping to make sure that neurons stay healthy and active. But the new study reveals that neurons also release potassium ions, which change the electrical activity of the astrocyte and how it controls the neurotransmitters.
"'So the neuron is controlling what the astrocyte is doing, and they are communicating back and forth. Neurons and astrocytes talk with each other in a way that has not been known about before," he says.
***
"The researchers are now screening existing drugs to see if they can manipulate the neuron-astrocyte interactions. "By doing so, can we one day help people learn faster or better? Can we repair a brain injury when it occurs?" Dulla asks.
"The new technology used to make this discovery not only opens up new ways to think about astrocyte activity, it also provides new approaches for imaging activity through the brain. Before now, there was no way to image potassium activity in the brain, for example, or study how potassium is involved in sleep, metabolism, or injury and infection in the brain."
Comment: the brain is so complex, the research has to peck away bit by bit. Previously we have seen another method of synapse modulation. Each modulation step increases the abilities of individual neurons to influence brain activity in several ways enlarging their influence. It is as if 100 billion act like 120 billion or more. Only design explains this.
Introducing the brain: new sleep control protein
by David Turell , Friday, April 29, 2022, 19:12 (721 days ago) @ David Turell
More than just melatonin:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-molecule-complex-machinery.html
"When brain scientist Birgitte Kornum from the Department of Neuroscience recently arrived in Rome for one of the largest sleep conferences in the world, she was completely taken aback. There were pharmaceutical companies everywhere—with stands, information material and campaigns.
"They all wanted to treat daytime sleepiness or to turn off the brain at night. And a lot of them focused on hypocretin, which is a protein found in brain cells and which has recently attracted a lot of attention within sleep research.
"This is because hypocretin is suspected to play a role in both insomnia, which is a decreased ability to fall asleep at night, and in narcolepsy, which is a decreased ability to stay awake during the day. People suffering from insomnia may have too much hypocretin in the brain, while people suffering from narcolepsy have too little. Researchers also suspect hypocretin to play a role in depression, ADHD and other mental disorders.
***
"The team of researchers have spent several years studying one of the cellular mechanisms that affect hypocretin levels. Here they have focused on a small molecule called microRNA-137 (miR-137).
"'We discovered that miR-137 helps regulate hypocretin. To experience normal sleep, you need to have the right amount of hypocretin in the brain at the right time, and miR-137 helps with that. Though MiR-137 is also found in other parts of the body, it is especially pronounced in the brain," Birgitte Kornum says about the new study, which she has headed together with Assistant Professor Anja Holm from Aalborg University.
***
"Previously, the scientists knew very little about the role played by miR-137 in the brain, but now Birgitte Kornum's research team has demonstrated that it is associated with hypocretin regulation and thus with sleep.
"'This is the first time a microRNA is associated with sleep regulation. Drawing on the UK Biobank, we discovered some genetic mutations in miR-137 which cause daytime sleepiness. The study demonstrates this connection in both mice and zebrafish, and we are able to prove the connection with hypocretin. Our discovery shows just how complex the machinery of sleep is. Imagine inheriting a variant of miR-137 that puts you at higher risk of feeling sleepy during the day," says Birgitte Kornum.
"Hypocretin, which has caught the attention of the pharmaceutical companies, also affects the order of the sleep stages.
"Our sleep is usually divided into four stages. The stages follow a specific order, and this order is vital to the quality of our sleep.
"'Narcolepsy patients suffering from low levels of hypocretin experience muddled sleep stages. We know this from mice tests demonstrating that hypocretin affects the order of these stages," explains Anja Holm from Aalborg University, who is first author of the study and who did the tests together with Birgitte Kornum.
"Existing research suggests that to solve the problem we need to gain more knowledge of hypocretin regulation. And here the Danish researchers point to a different, but equally important piece of the puzzle, namely the immune system.
"'Most people know that when you are ill you often feel tired. And when you have a fever and the immune system is hard at work, you often suffer from poor sleep. So we know that something happens to the hypocretin level when the body is trying to fight off a virus infection, for example, and we are trying to understand this process," says Birgitte Kornum.
"'In the study, we show that one of the immune system's transmitter substances, IL-13, has a special effect on hypocretin. We can tell that when we add IL-13, it affects miR-137 and thus also the level of hypocretin in the body. We still do not know why, though, but we are currently doing tests that may be able to give us an answer.'"
Comment: the more research is done the more complexity in the brain is found. This is still to be fully unraveled. Only design fits
Introducing the brain: new sleep control protein
QUOTE: hypocretin is suspected to play a role in both insomnia, which is a decreased ability to fall asleep at night, and in narcolepsy, which is a decreased ability to stay awake during the day. People suffering from insomnia may have too much hypocretin in the brain, while people suffering from narcolepsy have too little.
As someone who sleeps very little at night and frequently nods off during the day, I shall be delighted to tell my family that it’s because I am hypocretin plus at night and hypocretin minus by day. But I suspect they will tell me I am a cretin all the time.
Introducing the brain: new sleep control protein
by David Turell , Saturday, April 30, 2022, 15:17 (721 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: hypocretin is suspected to play a role in both insomnia, which is a decreased ability to fall asleep at night, and in narcolepsy, which is a decreased ability to stay awake during the day. People suffering from insomnia may have too much hypocretin in the brain, while people suffering from narcolepsy have too little.
dhw: As someone who sleeps very little at night and frequently nods off during the day, I shall be delighted to tell my family that it’s because I am hypocretin plus at night and hypocretin minus by day. But I suspect they will tell me I am a cretin all the time.
Add iodine to your sleep potions. You are comparable to Edison in habits of sleep and just as productive judging by your curriculum vitae.
Introducing the brain: floating cells
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 03, 2022, 16:08 (717 days ago) @ David Turell
Brain cells float in fluid:
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/PT.3.4999
"It’s now known that every cell in the brain is separated from its neighbor by a fluid-filled extracellular space (ECS), which forms sheets and tunnels, as shown on page 26 in a computer reconstruction of the ECS in a rat’s brain. That interstitial fluid is predominantly an aqueous solution of sodium chloride with small concentrations of many other essential substances, such as potassium, calcium, and several amino acids and peptides. The ECS also hosts a sparse extracellular matrix of larger molecules. The space between cells is exceedingly narrow—much of it only tens of nanometers wide—and thus one of the most difficult domains of the brain to study in the living state. But without the ECS, electrical signals wouldn’t pass between neurons, metabolic substances and chemical signals wouldn’t disseminate, and drugs wouldn’t reach their targets. The long journey to finally observe and understand the ECS was made possible by innovations in the analysis of molecular diffusion.
***
"The possibility of flow in the ECS has since received further support. Recent work suggested that the flow originates in the perivascular spaces, which form a sheath around the many blood vessels that penetrate the brain. Cerebrospinal fluid enters the sheaths surrounding arteries near the brain surface and then moves into the brain. The proposed idea is that some of that fluid leaves the perivascular spaces and moves through the ECS to exit at the perivascular space around veins. Flow in the perivascular space has been established, but flow in the ECS is not yet confirmed.
***
"Why does brain tissue have so much ECS? One answer is that, in order to exchange electrical signals, nerve cells maintain a potential difference between their insides and outsides. That potential arises from a difference in ionic concentrations across the ion-selective cell membrane that creates a battery. So there must be a reservoir of ions external to the membrane, which is maintained by active transport of ions across cell membranes.
Another reason for the ECS is that substances need to diffuse between cells. Some of those substances, such as glucose, are involved in cellular metabolism, and some are waste products of metabolism. Those substances move to and from the vast network of blood vessels that permeate the brain. Other substances are signaling molecules that pass between cells. That chemical communication channel has long been discussed14 and today is widely accepted and commonly called volume transmission.
***
"Finally, dramatic changes in ECS volume have been shown to occur in pathological conditions, such as ischemia or stroke, when the local blood flow is cut off to part or all of the brain. The resulting lack of oxygen and glucose causes cells to rapidly swell and thus shrink the ECS volume fraction as some of the interstitial fluid’s salt enters cells and water follows suit to maintain osmotic balance. In that process, the ECS volume fraction drops as low as 5%, and the tortuosity increases2 to around 2.0. Similar changes occur in what’s known as spreading depression or spreading depolarization—a condition thought to underly some types of migraine headache—when diffusion appears to briefly stop altogether.
***
"In addition to being 3D, the ECS is a dynamic structure that varies on multiple timescales. The change in volume fraction between sleeping and waking states shows variance sustained over hours,13 while an analysis of spreading depression saw dramatic changes in volume fraction over tens of seconds or minutes.6 Recently, rapid extracellular volume pulsations lasting a second or so have been detected during epileptiform activity."
Comment: the brain turns out to have an extremely complex design at the cellular level which adds to our knowledge of how it works. No other organ has each cell floating in a special fluid.
Introducing the brain: brain speech controls more complex
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 04, 2022, 22:36 (716 days ago) @ David Turell
New findings indicate diffuse control areas:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-05-neuroscientists-multiple-brain-regions-speech.html
"Neurobiologists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine give new meaning to the term "motor mouth" in a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. By carefully mapping neural networks in marmoset and macaque monkeys, they determined that multiple areas in the brain's frontal lobe control the muscles of vocalization and could provide a foundation for complex speech.
"The findings—which could lead to a better understanding of speech disorders—refute a long-existing presumption that only the primary motor cortex, nicknamed M1, directly influences the larynx or voice box, said principal investigator Peter L. Strick, Ph.D., Thomas Detre Professor and chair of neurobiology at Pitt. Instead, several cortical regions send signals to laryngeal muscles to create greater vocal finesse in some nonhuman primates.
"'This kind of parallel processing in our neural wiring might explain why humans are capable of highly sophisticated language that allows us to share information, express and perceive emotion, and tell memorable stories," said Strick. "Our remarkable speech skills are due to more evolved brains, not better muscles."
***
"In addition to M1, both kinds of monkeys had multiple premotor areas in the frontal lobe that send descending command signals to the cricothyroid muscle. But two of the premotor areas provided a substantially larger source of descending output in marmosets, leading the researchers to propose that the enhanced vocal motor skills of marmosets are due, in part, to the expansion of neural signaling from these premotor areas.
"'This result challenges the long-held view that improvements in motor skills of vocalization are due largely to changes in the output from M1, the primary motor cortex," Strick said. "It appears there is no single control center, but rather parallel processing sites that enable complex vocalization and, ultimately, speech.'"
Comment: if monkeys have this complex arrangement, we have it. As usual the past in evolution always prepares for the future. God designs evolution in that fashion. Finally, dhw might come to recognize it as a form of common descent not described by Darwin
Introducing the brain: immune protection from the skull
by David Turell , Sunday, May 08, 2022, 15:57 (713 days ago) @ David Turell
Tiny bone channels allow the marrow to monitor for trouble:
https://www.sciencealert.com/there-are-tiny-channels-in-the-human-skull-that-could-be-c...
"A shortcut between the skull and the brain could be a possible way for the human immune system to bypass the blood-brain barrier.
"Researchers recently discovered a series of tiny channels in mice and human skulls, and in mice at least, these little pathways represent an unexpected source of brain immunity.
***
"Last year, researchers found a whole host of immune cells hidden in the bone marrow of the mouse cranium. When confronted with a virus or tumor in the brain, these cells traveled through the skull channels and into the cerebrospinal fluid.
"Now, it seems that this secret path is actually a two-way street.
"Not only can immune cells in the skull cap flow to the brain, researchers found that cerebrospinal fluid can also seep through to the skull.
"Experts think it works sort of like an immune pit stop.
"Last year, researchers found a whole host of immune cells hidden in the bone marrow of the mouse cranium. When confronted with a virus or tumor in the brain, these cells traveled through the skull channels and into the cerebrospinal fluid.
"Now, it seems that this secret path is actually a two-way street.
"Not only can immune cells in the skull cap flow to the brain, researchers found that cerebrospinal fluid can also seep through to the skull.
"Experts think it works sort of like an immune pit stop.
***
"'Now we know that the brain can signal to this hub of immunity – in other words, cry for help in case things go wrong, such as during infection and inflammation," says Matthias Nahrendorf, who works at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University.
"'Cells in the skull's bone marrow are surveilling the cerebrospinal fluid that exits the brain through the skull channels we discovered earlier."
***
"'Constant sampling of [cerebrospinal fluid] outflow suggests that the skull marrow state may reflect brain health and that the skull marrow has a prominent role in regulating [central nervous system] inflammation."
"A closer look with immunostaining revealed that bone marrow in the mouse skull had a slightly different composition of immune cells than bone marrow from the mouse tibia.
"In the skull, neutrophils, which are the immune system's first line of defense, and monocytes, which kill invaders or alert other blood cells to action, were significantly enriched after injecting the mouse brain with bacteria. These immune cells were also clustered near sinuses where cerebrospinal fluid flows and bone marrow is rich.
"The results suggest that cerebrospinal fluid has direct access to the skull bone marrow. What's more, immune cells can exit the skull bone marrow in response to cues from the cerebrospinal fluid.
"Most of the time, this pathway is helpful. By consistently checking cerebrospinal fluid for invaders and responding accordingly, the skull's immune system keeps the mammalian brain healthy.
***
"While the findings have not yet been replicated among humans, it's likely that our brains show a similar system that bypasses the blood-brain barrier. Using micro CT scans, the authors have already found similar tiny channels connecting the human skull to the brain's meninges, each about 1.5 millimeters in diameter.
"Whether white blood cells and cerebrospinal fluid also flow through these channels in our own species is unclear."
Comment: wow, design with obvious purpose. Our brain floats in a fluid layer to protect it from severe skull bumps. Now we see the fluid acting to protect it tied to bone marrow where fighting white cells are made.
Introducing the brain: spatial memory in thalamus
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 18, 2022, 15:46 (703 days ago) @ David Turell
From mouse maze studies:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/05/220512092709.htm
"Researchers have identified a circuit in the anterior thalamus that is necessary for remembering how to navigate a maze. This region could offer a promising target for treatments that could help reverse memory loss in older people, without affecting other parts of the brain.
"As people age, their working memory often declines, making it more difficult to perform everyday tasks. One key brain region linked to this type of memory is the anterior thalamus, which is primarily involved in spatial memory -- memory of our surroundings and how to navigate them.
***
"The thalamus, a small structure located near the center of the brain, contributes to working memory and many other executive functions, such as planning and attention. Feng's lab has recently been investigating a region of the thalamus known as the anterior thalamus, which has important roles in memory and spatial navigation.
"Previous studies in mice have shown that damage to the anterior thalamus leads to impairments in spatial working memory. In humans, studies have revealed age-related decline in anterior thalamus activity, which is correlated with lower performance on spatial memory tasks.
***
"This suggests that the AV neurons are most important for keeping information in mind while it is needed for a task. In contrast, inhibiting the AD neurons disrupted performance during the sample phase but had little effect during the delay phase. This finding was consistent with the research team's earlier study showing that AD neurons are involved in forming memories of a physical space.
"'The anterior thalamus in general is a spatial learning region, but the ventral neurons seem to be needed in this maintenance period, during this short delay," Roy says. "Now we have two subdivisions within the anterior thalamus: one that seems to help with contextual learning and the other that actually helps with holding this information."
***
"The researchers then tested the effects of age on this circuit. They found that older mice (14 months) performed worse on the T-maze task and their AV neurons were less excitable. However, when the researchers artificially stimulated those neurons, the mice's performance on the task dramatically improved.
"Another way to enhance performance in this memory task is to stimulate the prefrontal cortex, which also undergoes age-related decline. However, activating the prefrontal cortex also increases measures of anxiety in the mice, the researchers found.
"'If we directly activate neurons in medial prefrontal cortex, it will also elicit anxiety-related behavior, but this will not happen during AV activation," Zhang says. "That is an advantage of activating AV compared to prefrontal cortex.'"
Comment: it is important to know where certain types of mentation are handled in the brain. Geographic sense can be lost. An example is man who impregnated our cows for us. He had a stroke and could travel a short distance from his home to us or to his families' dairy ranch, but had to be driven twenty miles into Houston. This shows all neurons may look alike but have different functions in different brain regions. This has to be designed for proper organization of thought. A chance collection of neurons cannot do this.
Introducing the brain: how the brain perceives reality
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 08, 2022, 21:41 (681 days ago) @ David Turell
A neurology researcher has an idea:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-brain-constructs-the-outside-world/
"The challenge for me and other neuroscientists involves the weighty question of what, exactly, is the mind. Ever since the time of Aristotle, thinkers have assumed that the soul or the mind is initially a blank slate, a tabula rasa on which experiences are painted. This view has influenced thinking in Christian and Persian philosophies, British empiricism and Marxist doctrine. In the past century it has also permeated psychology and cognitive science. This “outside-in” view portrays the mind as a tool for learning about the true nature of the world. The alternative view—one that has defined my research—asserts that the primary preoccupation of brain networks is to maintain their own internal dynamics and perpetually generate myriad nonsensical patterns of neural activity. When a seemingly random action offers a benefit to the organism's survival, the neuronal pattern leading to that action gains meaning.
***
"An implicit practical implication of the outside-in framework is that the next frontier for progress in contemporary neuroscience should be to find where the putative central processor resides in the brain and systematically elaborate the neuronal mechanisms of decision-making. Indeed, the physiology of decision-making has become one of the most popular focuses in contemporary neuroscience. Higher-order brain regions, such as the prefrontal cortex, have been postulated as the place where “all things come together” and “all outputs are initiated.” When we look more closely, however, the outside-in framework does not hold together.
***
"In other words, neurons in sensory cortical areas and even in the hypothetical central processor cannot “see” events that happen in the world. There is no interpreter in the brain to assign meaning to these changes in neuronal firing patterns. Short of a magical homunculus watching the activities of all the neurons in the brain with the omniscience of the experimenter, the neurons that take this all in are unaware of the events that caused these changes in their firing patterns. Fluctuations in neuronal activity are meaningful only for the scientist who is in the privileged position of observing both events in the brain and events in the outside world and then comparing the two perspectives.
***
"The contrast between outside-in and inside-out approaches becomes most striking when used to explain the mechanisms of learning. A tacit assumption of the blank slate model is that the complexity of the brain grows with the amount of experience. As we learn, the interactions of brain circuits should become increasingly more elaborate. In the inside-out framework, however, experience is not the main source of the brain's complexity.
"Instead the brain organizes itself into a vast repertoire of preformed patterns of firing known as neuronal trajectories. This self-organized brain model can be likened to a dictionary filled initially with nonsensical words. New experience does not change the way these networks function—their overall activity level, for instance. Learning takes place, rather, through a process of matching the preexisting neuronal trajectories to events in the world.
***
"The inside-out model:...The way the brain strikes this balance relates to vast differences in the connection strength of different groups of neurons. Connections among neurons exist on a continuum. Most neurons are only weakly connected to others, whereas a smaller subset retains robust links. The strongly connected minority is always on the alert. It fires rapidly, shares information readily within its own group, and stubbornly resists any modifications to the neurons' circuitry. Because of the multitude of connections and their high communication speeds, these elite subnetworks, sometimes described as a “rich club,” remain well informed about neuronal events throughout the brain.
***
"During the course of natural selection, organisms adapt to the ecological niches in which they live and learn to predict the likely outcomes of their actions in those niches. As brain complexity increases, more intricate connections and neuronal computations insert themselves between motor outputs and sensory inputs. This investment enables the prediction of planned actions in more complex and changing environments and at lengthy time scales far in the future. More sophisticated brains also organize themselves to allow computations to continue when sensory inputs vanish temporarily and an animal's actions come to a halt.
***
"In addition to its theoretical implications, the inside-out approach has a number of practical applications...In real brains, neural processes that operate through disengagement from the senses go hand in hand with mechanisms that promote interactions with the surrounding world. All brains, simple or complex, use the same basic principles. Disengaged neural activity, calibrated simultaneously by outside experience, is the essence of cognition.
Comment: nothing we do not know already. From birth the brain learns to know reality and anticipate how it can help us be prepared for action. Reference Libet.
Introducing the brain: synapse controls
by David Turell , Monday, June 13, 2022, 20:21 (676 days ago) @ David Turell
New findings:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220613140733.htm
"There are many different types of synapses that form between neurons, including "excitatory" or "inhibitory," and the exact mechanisms by which these structures are generated remain unclear to scientists. A Colorado State University biochemistry lab has uncovered a major insight into this question by showing that the types of chemicals released from synapses ultimately guide which kinds of synapses form between neurons.
***
"In the lab, Chanda and colleagues were able to make synapses changes between excitatory and inhibitory types, using only enzymes, by making the neurons express just a few genes that induced a cascade of changes in the synapses' machinery. Such a breakthrough could have major implications for treating brain diseases that are caused by malfunctions in synaptic information processing and exchange.
***
"Their results show that the cell-adhesion proteins expressed in the synaptic junction area are not the only purveyors of the synapses' function, as some have thought; rather, chemicals called neurotransmitters that are released from the presynaptic site (where the information is coming from) also seem to play a major role in controlling which types of synapses form, and where.
***
"'Synapses need lots of other machinery; the neurons took care of all that and turned excitatory synapses into inhibitory ones -- a fundamental change in their identity," Xu-Friedman said."
Comment: the important information is that synapses also have enzyme controls. Because enzyme molecules are so huge and complex, this adds another layer to the design of the brain's functions.
Introducing the brain: neurons not just fire away
by David Turell , Monday, June 13, 2022, 23:45 (676 days ago) @ David Turell
They are lots more complex:
https://mindmatters.ai/2022/05/new-learning-model-for-brain-overturns-70-years-of-theory/
"According to new research, when learning takes place, it’s not just the synapses (by which neurons send signals to each other) but the whole communication structure (the dendrites) of the neuron that changes. The researchers compare the synapses to leaves and the dendrites to a tree.
***
"In an article published today in Scientific Reports, researchers from Bar-Ilan University in Israel reveal that the brain learns completely differently than has been assumed since the 20th century. The new experimental observations suggest that learning is mainly performed in neuronal dendritic trees, where the trunk and branches of the tree modify their strength, as opposed to modifying solely the strength of the synapses (dendritic leaves), as was previously thought. These observations also indicate that the neuron is actually a much more complex, dynamic and computational element than a binary element that can fire or not. Just one single neuron can realize deep learning algorithms, which previously required an artificial complex network consisting of thousands of connected neurons and synapses.
***
"Incidentally, they also note, “The brain’s clock is a billion times slower than existing parallel GPUs, but with comparable success rates in many perceptual tasks.” That suggests that there is a lot else we don’t know."
Comment: not surprising. There is alot more to learn about the complexities of the brain. There is no way this happened by chance
Introducing the brain: missing a part doen't matter
by David Turell , Monday, June 13, 2022, 23:56 (676 days ago) @ David Turell
Another part of the brain takes over:
https://mindmatters.ai/2022/05/woman-missing-key-language-part-of-brain-scores-98-in-vo...
"For EG, who is in her fifties and grew up in Connecticut, missing a large chunk of her brain has had surprisingly little effect on her life. She has a graduate degree, has enjoyed an impressive career, and speaks Russian—a second language–so well that she has dreamed in it. She first learned her brain was atypical in the autumn of 1987, at George Washington University Hospital, when she had it scanned for an unrelated reason. The cause was likely a stroke that happened when she was a baby; today, there is only cerebro-spinal fluid in that brain area. For the first decade after she found out, EG didn’t tell anyone other than her parents and her two closest friends. “It creeped me out,” she says. Since then, she has told more people, but it’s still a very small circle that is aware of her unique brain anatomy.
***
"EG has since become the subject of a paper published this month in Neuropsychologia by MIT cognitive neuroscientist Evelina Fedorenko and her team.
"Study of EG has proceeded on the assumption that other regions of her brain had taken up the task of processing language. That’s not as unusual as it sounds; the brain is a living organ, not a machine. Given an opportunity, it can shift burdens around (neuroplasticity.) This is especially true if, as in EG’s case, the damage occurred when she was a baby. Children’s brains appear more neuroplastic than those of adults, probably because many thinking tasks have not yet been assigned.
"Among people with intact brains the left hemisphere usually processes language. But left-handed people are more likely than others to have the right hemisphere doing that job. In EG’s case, the researchers concluded, based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), that language processing had shifted to her right hemisphere. Her left frontal cortex could still do math tasks, however.
***
"Indeed. Except for the advent of fMRI, no one would ever have known about her brain abnormality — a sobering thought when we realize how many definitive judgments are made on the basis of the merely partial understanding that a new technology often provides.
"In reality, the human brain is remarkable not only for its complexity but for its adaptations to adversity, especially early in life.
"Here Are some other stories of people living with partial or split brains:
"Yes, split brains are weird, but not the way you think. Scientists who dismiss consciousness and free will ignore the fact that the higher faculties of the mind cannot be split even by splitting the brain in half.
"Some people think and speak with only half a brain. A new study sheds light on how they do it.
"Boy born with 2% of brain does maths, loves science. Noah Wall’s story raises intriguing questions about the relationship between the brain and the mind
and
"Four researchers whose work sheds light on the reality of the mind The brain can be cut in half, but the intellect and will cannot, says Michael Egnor. The intellect and will are metaphysically simple."
Comment: all of this absent brain ability has been presented here in the past. Not by chance.
Introducing the brain: seratonin complex controls
by David Turell , Sunday, June 19, 2022, 00:55 (671 days ago) @ David Turell
Neuropeptides have varying controls over the brain, depending upon the receptors they become attached to. This is in addition to neuron web complexities and intraoneuron individual activities:
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-scientists-breakthrough-serotonin-receptors.html
"Serotonin (5-HT) is one of the main neurotransmitters in the human central nervous system and peripheral nervous system. It helps regulate appetite, memory, cognition and mood through serotonin receptors (5-HTR).
"A group of international scientists recently made a breakthrough in understanding the structure and function of serotonin receptors. This is the first time researchers have reported the structures of the 5-HT4, 5-HT6, and 5-HT7 receptors, and resolved the structures of all 12 5-HT receptor subtypes.
***
"Researchers...ystematically revealed the structural basis for the recognition of serotonin receptor subtypes by the small-molecule ligands 5-HT and 5-CT. They also elucidated the molecular mechanism for the selective coupling of Gs and Gi proteins by serotonin receptors.
"The serotonin receptor family is one of the most complex subfamilies in the G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) superfamily and contains 12 subtypes. Different receptor subtypes play different physiological roles in the human body and are coupled with different kinds of G proteins. Among them, the 5-HT4, 5-HT6, and 5-HT7 receptors are mainly coupled to downstream Gs proteins, and the 5-HT1 and 5-HT5 receptors are mainly coupled to downstream Gi proteins.
"Through structural comparison of these three Gs-coupled serotonin receptors to the Gi/o-coupled serotonin receptors, and to 19 additional Gs- and Gi/o-coupled class A receptor structures, the team uncovered a class-wide G protein selectivity mechanism that uses TM5 and TM6 switches.
"'These findings advance the fundamental understanding of how serotonin receptors, the largest subfamily of class A GPCRs activated by the same endogenous ligand, create their wide diversity of cellular responses," said Xu, corresponding author of the study.
"Furthermore, these structural insights into ligand recognition provide the foundation for rational structure-based drug design targeting the 5-HT4, 5-HT6, and 5-HT7 receptors. These insights also help clarify how to achieve ligand selectivity within the complex serotonergic system.
"The achievement not only revealed the molecular mechanism of the selective coupling of G-proteins by class A GPCRs but also filled in the last gap in the structural analysis of 5-HT family receptors, according to the researchers.
"These systematic studies of serotonin receptors have greatly enriched our understanding of the structure and function of the serotonin system. Since depression, schizophrenia, and migraine may be linked to serotonin, this research may also contribute to treatments for these conditions."
Comment: This discovery increases our knowledge of brain complexity by demonstrating that different seratoin actions depend upon which receptor is attached. What is most fascinating is to imagine a person in thought driving these selections. We have no idea how the brain controls these selections of seratonin docking. At this level of analysis of study results it is still a black box to us. No chance this appeared through chance.
Introducing the brain: octopus 'jumping genes'
by David Turell , Friday, June 24, 2022, 20:48 (665 days ago) @ David Turell
We both have them in the brain:
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-octopus-brain-human-genes.html
"The octopus is an exceptional organism with an extremely complex brain and cognitive abilities that are unique among invertebrates. So much so that in some ways it has more in common with vertebrates than with invertebrates. The neural and cognitive complexity of these animals could originate from a molecular analogy with the human brain, as discovered by a research paper recently published in BMC Biology and coordinated by Remo Sanges from SISSA of Trieste and by Graziano Fiorito from Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn of Naples.
"The research shows that the same "jumping genes" are active both in the human brain and in the brain of two species, Octopus vulgaris, the common octopus, and Octopus bimaculoides, the Californian octopus. This discovery could help us understand the secret of the intelligence of these fascinating organisms.
"Sequencing the human genome revealed as early as 2001 that over 45% of it is composed of sequences called transposons, so-called "jumping genes" that, through molecular copy-and-paste or cut-and-paste mechanisms, can "move" from one point to another of an individual's genome, shuffling or duplicating. In most cases, these mobile elements remain silent: they have no visible effects and have lost their ability to move. Some are inactive because they have, over generations, accumulated mutations; others are intact, but blocked by cellular defense mechanisms. From an evolutionary point of view, even these fragments and broken copies of transposons can still be useful, as "raw matter" that evolution can sculpt. [Encode has shown they are active in certain situations]
"Among these mobile elements, the most relevant are those belonging to the so-called LINE (Long Interspersed Nuclear Elements) family, found in a hundred copies in the human genome and still potentially active. It has been traditionally thought that LINEs' activity was just a vestige of the past, a remnant of the evolutionary processes that involved these mobile elements, but in recent years new evidence emerged showing that their activity is finely regulated in the brain. There are many scientists who believe that LINE transposons are associated with cognitive abilities such as learning and memory: they are particularly active in the hippocampus, the most important structure of our brain for the neural control of learning processes.
"The octopus' genome, like ours, is rich in "jumping genes," most of which are inactive. Focusing on the transposons still capable of copy-and-paste, the researchers identified an element of the LINE family in parts of the brain crucial for the cognitive abilities of these animals.
***
"'The discovery of an element of the LINE family, active in the brain of the two octopuses species, is very significant because it adds support to the idea that these elements have a specific function that goes beyond copy-and-paste," explains Remo Sanges, director of the Computational Genomics laboratory at SISSA.
***
"'I literally jumped on the chair when, under the microscope, I saw a very strong signal of activity of this element in the vertical lobe, the structure of the brain which in the octopus is the seat of learning and cognitive abilities, just like the hippocampus in humans," tells Giovanna Ponte.
***
"According to Giuseppe Petrosino from Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn and Stefano Gustincich from Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, "This similarity between man and octopus that shows the activity of a LINE element in the seat of cognitive abilities could be explained as a fascinating example of convergent evolution, a phenomenon for which, in two genetically distant species, the same molecular process develops independently, in response to similar needs."
"'The brain of the octopus is functionally analogous in many of its characteristics to that of mammals," says Graziano Fiorito, director of the Department of Biology and Evolution of Marine Organisms of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn. "For this reason, also, the identified LINE element represents a very interesting candidate to study to improve our knowledge on the evolution of intelligence.'"
Comment: this study shows the availability of certain genes for direct use can create convergence. My point is simple: once useful biochemistry is developed/evolved, it can then be used in many new parallel developments, and certainly gaps in phenotypes. This view of common descent is not Darwinian, since he knew nothing about biochemistry. Remember, comparative anatomy shows common descent.
Introducing the brain: neurons control new connections
by David Turell , Monday, June 27, 2022, 19:28 (662 days ago) @ David Turell
With new learning neuron changes are followed and show neurons control new connections:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-06-framework-formation-learning-related-dendritic-s...
"Neuroscience studies showed that learning ultimately leads to the formation of new dendritic spines, small protrusions emerging from a neuron's dendrites (i.e., complex, branch-shaped extensions of cells). While this finding is widely documented, the functions of these newly formed, learning-related dendritic spines is still poorly understood.
"Researchers at University of California, San Diego have recently carried out a study investigating how learning affects the genesis and development of dendritic spines in more depth. Their findings, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggest that the formation of new spines during learning could in fact be guided by the potentiation of some functionally divided, pre-existing spines.
***
"'This approach also allowed us access to information about the inputs to synapses; in other words, what kinds of connections they make," Hedrick said. "With the collective of these technologies, we showed that new synapses conform to the functional organization of synapses already present on a neuron through a game of cellular trial and error: when the neuron detects a synchronized cluster, it locally samples other nearby inputs until it finds one that is also in sync and gets rid of any new synapses that don't meet these requirements."
***
"'Our findings are even more incredible when considering that all the events described in this paper likely happen over a very small domain of a single neuron, suggesting that neurons must have a way to differentiate events occurring in one place on their dendrites vs. another," Hedrick said. "This is consistent with my Ph.D. work, which showed very specific and spatially patterned control of biochemical factors involved in the induction of structural changes to synapses." (my bold)
***
"While Hedrick and his colleagues were able to find some examples of the "cable-sharing" structure that they hypothesized in their data, they rarely observed a similar organization for new synapses. Instead, they found that the axons of newly formed synapses almost never appeared to connect with anything else on the same dendrite.
""This is an amazing result, as it suggests that the locally synchronized activity that new synapses display probably corresponds to separate—but nonetheless synchronized—upstream neurons," Hedrick said. "Essentially, we think that new synapses are truly binding separate information streams together on single dendrites."
"As the function of individual neurons is known to be related to how its synaptic information is linked together, the results gathered by this team of researchers could pave the way towards a better understanding of how neurons optimize their function-related behavior during learning. In their next works, Hedrick and his colleagues hope to identify the brain areas from which axons associated with new synapses originate. This would shed further light on their unique functions.
""For example, if these new synaptic connections originate from a sensory area, while their clustered, synchronized neighbors come from motor planning regions, this might suggest that sensory information is mixed with information about movement plans to guide learning," Hedrick added. "This is one of many possible outcomes, all of which will provide critical information about the basics of information processing in the brain, and how such processing can flexibly change in the learning brain.'"
Comment: neurons must know how to do this from the very beginning of brain function, or the brain could not learn. Fits the definition of irreducibly complex and therefore must have been designed.
Introducing the brain: recovery from damage
by David Turell , Saturday, July 02, 2022, 15:39 (658 days ago) @ David Turell
A new mouse study:
https://www.sciencealert.com/stunning-maps-reveal-how-head-injuries-reconfigure-brain-w...
"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.
Introducing the brain: human only networks
by David Turell , Saturday, July 02, 2022, 16:06 (657 days ago) @ David Turell
Neuron networks found in humans but not mice:
https://mindmatters.ai/2022/06/the-human-brain-has-neural-networks-not-found-in-lab-mice/
"the researchers examined human tissue removed by neurosurgeons during operations. Studying it, they discover neuron networks (connectomes) unknown in mouse brains:
"Helmstaedter and his team have discovered that human cortical networks have evolved a novel neuronal network type that is essentially absent in mice. This neuronal network relies on abundant connections between inhibitory interneurons… “This suggests to us an almost ten-fold expansion of an interneuron-to-interneuron network,” says Sahil Loomba, one of the studies’ lead authors.
"The interesting part is that this network exists mainly in order to silence other neurons:
”'Interneurons make about a fourth to a third of cortical nerve cells that behave in a very peculiar way: they are highly active, however, not to activate other neurons, rather to silence them. Just like kindergarten caretakers, or guards in the museum: their very laborious and highly energy consuming activity is to keep others peaceful, quiet,” explains Helmstaedter. “Now imagine a room full of museum guards, all mutually silencing each other. This is what the human brain has developed!”
"Researchers theorize that these networks of silencers may expand the working memory of the human brain, making it easier for us to address more complex tasks. They hope their find might help shed light on neuropsychiatric disorders. Maybe some neurons are not being silenced that should be?"
Comment: Not a surprising finding considering what we know our brain can do compared to mice. The original article source:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220623140518.htm
Introducing the brain: newborn brain and speech sounds
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 19, 2022, 18:37 (640 days ago) @ David Turell
Amazing finding:
https://www.sciencealert.com/babies-can-learn-language-sounds-in-the-first-few-hours-of...
"We often think of babies as blank canvases with little ability to learn during the first few weeks of life. But babies actually start processing language and speech incredibly early. Even while in the womb, they learn to discern voices, along with some speech sounds. At birth, they already prefer speech sounds over other types of non-language sounds.
***
"We collaborated with a neonatal research team in China, who fitted babies' heads with a small cap covered in sophisticated light emitting devices designed to measure tiny changes in oxygen levels in the babies' brains. Detectors in the cap could help us determine which areas of the brain were active over time.
***
"Within three hours of being born, all babies were exposed to pairs of sounds that most researchers would predict they should be able to distinguish. This included vowels (such as "o") and these same vowels played backwards.
***
"...we were stunned to discover that after listening to these sounds for five hours, newborns started differentiating between these forwards and backwards vowels. First, their response to forwards vowels became faster than to backwards vowels. And after a further two hours, during which they mostly slept, their brain responded to forwards vowels not only faster but also more strongly compared with babies trained with different vowels or babies who remained in silence.
"This means that in the first day of life, it takes only a few hours for the baby's brain to learn the subtle difference between natural and slightly unnatural speech sounds.
"We were further able to see that brain regions of the superior temporal lobe (a part of the brain associated with auditory processing) and of the frontal cortex (involved in planning complex movements) were involved in processing the vowel sounds, especially in the left hemisphere. That's similar to the pattern that underpins language comprehension and production in adults.
"And even more fascinating, we were able to detect cross-talk (communication between different brain areas) between these regions in both the group of baby participants that were exposed to speech sounds, but not in those who had not experienced any training. In other words, neurons of the trained babies were having a "conversation" across the brain in a way that was not seen in babies who remained in silence during the same period.
***
"We can also consider these findings in the context of a trendy concept in neuroscience today, namely embodiment theory. Embodiment is the idea that our thoughts and mental operations are not pre-programmed or operate mysteriously from some inherited, genetic code but rather build upon direct experience of the world around us, through the sensory channels that start operating from birth, such as hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling and touching.
"Even though our brain has a predisposition to learn based on its organization and function defined by the genetic code inherited from our parents, it is also able to feel the environment as soon as it is born, and this immediately helps our internal representations of the world around us."
Comment: more evidence of how our brain is designed to absorb information. It is the most complex development of evolution, and the most complex in the universe. Not by chance.
Introducing the brain: a prediction machine
by David Turell , Thursday, August 04, 2022, 20:18 (624 days ago) @ David Turell
New investigation into how it works:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220804102557.htm
"Our brain works a bit like the autocomplete function on your phone -- it is constantly trying to guess the next word when we are listening to a book, reading or conducting a conversation. Contrary to speech recognition computers, our brains are constantly making predictions at different levels, from meaning and grammar to specific speech sounds. This is what researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and Radboud University's Donders Institute discovered in a new study.
***
"The researchers analysed the brain activity of people listening to stories by Hemingway or about Sherlock Holmes. At the same time, they analysed the texts of the books using computer models, so called deep neural networks. This way, they were able to calculate for each word how unpredictable it was.
"For each word or sound, the brain makes detailed statistical expectations and turns out to be extremely sensitive to the degree of unpredictability: the brain response is stronger whenever a word is unexpected in the context. "By itself, this is not very surprising: after all, everyone knows that you can sometimes predict upcoming language. For example, your brain sometimes automatically 'fills in the blank' and mentally finishes someone else's sentences, for instance if they start to speak very slowly, stutter or are unable to think of a word. But what we have shown here is that this happens continuously. Our brain is constantly guessing at words; the predictive machinery is always turned on."
"'In fact, our brain does something comparable to speech recognition software. Speech recognisers using artificial intelligence are also constantly making predictions and are allowing themselves to be guided by their expectations, just like the autocomplete function on your phone. Nevertheless, we observed a big difference: brains predict not only words, but make predictions on many different levels, from abstract meaning and grammar to specific sounds.'"
Comment: the activity is recognized, but the exact brain mechanism processes are still unknown. As in the past I've always noted the brain is designed to help us use it.
Introducing brain: new studies on our different cerebellum
by David Turell , Sunday, August 21, 2022, 16:04 (608 days ago) @ David Turell
Still not much known, but it seems to many controls beyond motor coordination:
https://www.the-scientist.com/features/the-multitasking-cerebellum-roles-in-cognition-e...
"For Henrietta Leiner, a neuroscientist working in the 1980s and initially trained in mathematics, physics, and computer science, it was the cerebellum’s large size in humans compared with other animals that made her question whether its role was exclusively confined to motor functions. The surface area of the human cerebellum, with its tightly wound folds, is a whopping 80 percent of that of the cerebral cortex. In 1986, before this fact was established, Leiner and her colleagues published a paper proposing that the most recently evolved parts of the cerebellum contributed to higher-level mental functions, thus enabling “mental dexterity” in addition to the “motor dexterity” the “little brain” was already known for." (my bold)
***
"Other early clues for the cerebellum’s wide-ranging functional repertoire came from studies implicating the brain region’s contributions to neuropsychiatric disorders, particularly schizophrenia and autism. For both conditions, research dating back decades has documented evidence of anatomical abnormalities within the cerebellum. These clinical observations jibed with the work of Schmahmann and others back in the 1990s, when they identified anatomical connections in the brains of monkeys that linked the cerebellum with parts of the cerebral cortex involved in memory, attention, and other high-order functions. Years later, in 2009, neuroscientists using functional magnetic resonance imaging in humans found that the cerebellum was activated during tasks involving language, memory, and emotional processing. This work also showed that in most of the cerebellum, neural activity was in sync with that of regions of the cerebral cortex responsible for these nonmotor functions.
"Together, these findings indicated that the cerebellum was potentially involved in a multitude of functions, and that pathways linked the cerebellum to the cerebral cortex, providing a putative neural infrastructure for this functionality. What was still missing was the mechanism—the details of how and when we need the cerebellum for high-order processes such as cognition, says Catherine Stoodley, professor of psychology at American University. “There’s a lot of interest from the experimental side where researchers are saying, ‘Okay, we’re buying the idea now that the cerebellum is involved in cognition—but what is it doing?’”
***
"Although the cerebellum appears small from the outside, the structure’s many coral-like branches give it a surface area that is 80 percent of the surface area of the larger cerebral cortex.
"Illustration showing how the cerebellum can be divided into specific regions linked specifically to motor, cognitive, and emotion-related functions.
"Functional MRI studies suggest that the cerebellum can be divided into specific regions linked specifically to motor, cognitive, and emotion-related functions.
"The specific mechanisms behind the cerebellum’s multitude of functions remains a mystery, but the orderly arrangement of the neurons within the structure indicate that it may carry out a single computation—or set of computations—that it applies across its many roles.
"Training a high-powered microscope on a slice of the cerebellum will reveal large, densely packed Purkinje cells arranged in an orderly, grid-like pattern. This unique architecture, which is much simpler and more uniform than that of the rest of the brain, led some researchers to propose that the cerebellum carries out a single computation—what Schmahmann calls the universal cerebellar transform—that is generally applied across its many functions, both motor and nonmotor. Jennifer Raymond, a neuroscientist at Stanford University, is one of many researchers who agree with this idea. Given how stereotyped the architecture is, she says, there must be some specific computation or set of computations that this anatomy is good for.
***
"In the case of schizophrenia, researchers have shown that stimulating a specific cerebellar circuit with TMS can alleviate the “negative” symptoms of the disorder, such as the lack of motivation or the inability to feel pleasure, in a small sample of patients. Those findings are now being explored in a larger clinical trial. Roscoe Brady, a psychiatrist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston who was involved in that research, says that he and his colleagues now have evidence that stimulating another, distinct cerebellar circuit can also reduce hallucinations. In addition, the team has pinpointed a third circuit linked specifically to cognitive deficits, Brady adds. “Our plan for the future is to try and determine if that circuit can be modulated by TMS as well.'”
Comment: our large cerebellum, compared to other organisms is finally studied. It arrived 315,000 years ago and performs its duties, and we are now trying to find out how much it does for us. Note my bold. The folding of the cerebellar surface is 80% the size of the cerebral surface. Based on this review article there is lots to learn. Read the entire article to see how much is known. To large to present here.
Introducing the brain: neurons in fat signal the brain
by David Turell , Thursday, September 01, 2022, 22:30 (596 days ago) @ David Turell
Latest new finding:
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-discover-a-secret-messenger-between-fat-and-the...
"It turns out we have a whole sensory system dedicated to carrying messages from our fat tissues (adipose) to our brains.
"'The discovery of these neurons suggests for the first time that your brain is actively surveying your fat, rather than just passively receiving messages about it," says Scripps Research Institute neuroscientist Li Ye.
"'The implications of this finding are profound."
Understanding this system could one day help the growing numbers of us struggling with weight and its associated health problems like heart disease and diabetes.
"It adds yet another layer to the already complicated interplay between our genes, environments, diet, and microbiome, which all contribute to our levels of these important insulating energy stores.
***
"The resulting visualizations allowed Wang and team to clearly see that almost half of the adipose neurons didn't connect to the sympathetic nervous system but to the sensory nervous system instead.
"They then used ROOT (retrograde vector optimized for organ tracing) to selectively target and destroy different subsets of the neurons in mice.
"Losing the sensory neuron signal led to more fat in mice, with particularly high levels of brown fat. The mice also had higher body temperatures, which makes sense because brown fat helps our bodies convert other fats and sugar into heat.
"The researchers concluded their newly identified sensory neuron system must be acting to regulate the signals from the sympathetic nervous system, instructing the body to burn our fat – turning them down or off.
"'This tells us that there's not just a one-size-fits-all instruction that [the] brain sends adipose tissue," says Li.
"'It's more nuanced than that; these two types of neurons are acting like a gas pedal and a brake for burning fat."
"The team suspect these nerves might also play a crucial role in interoception – the perceptions of sensation coming from within our bodies, as this is the case with similar neurons found inside other organs. But they've yet to look into this, and are keen to investigate this system further."
Comment: the design of our body leaves nothing to chance. It is obvious the brain must know about every system in our body, and we need to keep finding them. God's careful controls designs.
Introducing the brain: neurons in fat signal the brain
QUOTE: "It adds yet another layer to the already complicated interplay between our genes, environments, diet, and microbiome, which all contribute to our levels of these important insulating energy stores”
It’s not just energy stores that are involved in this interplay. It’s life itself and evolution. Our bodies are a community of communities, all working together, and all responding to the external conditions in which they live.
DAVID: the design of our body leaves nothing to chance. It is obvious the brain must know about every system in our body, and we need to keep finding them. God's careful controls designs.
Firstly, we should note that this research is being done on mice. The basic processes resulting from the above interplay are not confined to us humans. (I am simply pointing this out – it is not a criticism of your comment.) The interplay and cooperation are clearly not the result of chance: an analogy might be found in other types of community, such as ants, who cooperate in designing complex cities and social structures that enable them to make best use of the environment in which they live. Mice, humans and ants form Chapter 2 in the history of life, and in all our discussions, the focus is not on chance versus design, but on what does the designing. You believe in divine preprogramming 3.8 billion years ago or divine dabbling ad hoc; I propose (belief is too strong a word for me) that micro- as well as macro-organisms have the autonomous ability to do their own designing. Chapter 1 concerns the origin of life and of this possible autonomous ability. You believe the origin (first cause) is the unknown and unknowable, eternal, conscious being you call God. Another possibility is a chance combination resulting from the endless interplay between eternal, unconscious matter and energy (first cause). I find each of these proposals equally difficult to accept. More fool me, since one of them must be correct.
Introducing the brain: neurons in fat signal the brain
by David Turell , Friday, September 02, 2022, 19:11 (595 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: "It adds yet another layer to the already complicated interplay between our genes, environments, diet, and microbiome, which all contribute to our levels of these important insulating energy stores”
dhw: It’s not just energy stores that are involved in this interplay. It’s life itself and evolution. Our bodies are a community of communities, all working together, and all responding to the external conditions in which they live.
DAVID: the design of our body leaves nothing to chance. It is obvious the brain must know about every system in our body, and we need to keep finding them. God's careful controls designs.
dhw: Firstly, we should note that this research is being done on mice. The basic processes resulting from the above interplay are not confined to us humans. (I am simply pointing this out – it is not a criticism of your comment.) The interplay and cooperation are clearly not the result of chance: an analogy might be found in other types of community, such as ants, who cooperate in designing complex cities and social structures that enable them to make best use of the environment in which they live. Mice, humans and ants form Chapter 2 in the history of life, and in all our discussions, the focus is not on chance versus design, but on what does the designing. You believe in divine preprogramming 3.8 billion years ago or divine dabbling ad hoc; I propose (belief is too strong a word for me) that micro- as well as macro-organisms have the autonomous ability to do their own designing. Chapter 1 concerns the origin of life and of this possible autonomous ability. You believe the origin (first cause) is the unknown and unknowable, eternal, conscious being you call God. Another possibility is a chance combination resulting from the endless interplay between eternal, unconscious matter and energy (first cause). I find each of these proposals equally difficult to accept. More fool me, since one of them must be correct.
A restatement of your thinking is appropriate here.
Introducing the brain: normal function, no temporal lobe
by David Turell , Monday, September 05, 2022, 15:01 (593 days ago) @ David Turell
Born with a perinatal stroke, no left temporal lobe:
https://globle.io/the-curious-hole-in-my-head/
Comment: I cannot copy content, but the website carries his entire story of normal function. Fits all we have learned about brain plasticity.
Introducing the brain: human chimp brain comparison
by David Turell , Monday, September 05, 2022, 15:46 (593 days ago) @ David Turell
Little gene differences but large brain differences:
https://mindmatters.ai/2022/08/researchers-find-more-ways-that-human-and-ape-brains-dif...
"After grouping cells with similar expression profiles they revealed 109 shared primate cell types but also five that were not common to all species. These included a type of microglia, or brain-specific immune cell, that was present only in humans and a second type shared by only humans and chimpanzees.
"The human-specific microglia type exists throughout development and adulthood, the researchers found, suggesting the cells play a role in maintenance of the brain upkeep rather than combatting disease… An analysis of gene expression in the microglia revealed another human-specific surprise — the presence of the gene FOXP2. This discovery raised great interest because variants of FOXP2 have been linked to verbal dyspraxia, a condition in which patients have difficulty producing language or speech.
***
"...chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, have brains that are one-third the size of our own, although they are very similar to us in body size. Most of this brain-size difference reflects the evolutionary expansion of the association cortex, a group of regions that supports such sophisticated cognitive functions as language, self-awareness, and problem solving.”
"Human brains are especially asymmetric. “Researchers compared geometric differences between brain scans of humans and chimpanzees. They observed structural asymmetries in both human and chimpanzee brains, but human brains were especially asymmetric.”
"The human brain allocates more cells to thinking skills. “… a part of the brain called the cerebral cortex – which plays a key role in memory, attention, awareness and thought – contains twice as many cells in humans as the same region in chimpanzees.”
"Our brains have many more language connections. “Especially the fasciculus arcuatus, a bundle of connective nerve fibres important for the processing of language, is connected to many more areas in humans than in macaques, and even in chimpanzees.”
"There are distinct differences at the molecular and genetic level. “Specifically, the researchers’ results showed that interneurons expressing genes that code for dopamine synthesis are present in humans’ striata but not in non-humans’. This, they say, is part of what makes human brains uniquely human. Neuromodulatory transmitters, in particular dopamine, are involved in distinctly human aspects of cognition and behavior, such as working memory, reasoning, reflective exploratory behavior, and overall intelligence” (my bold)
"The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History tells us that “While the genetic difference between individual humans today is minuscule – about 0.1%, on average – study of the same aspects of the chimpanzee genome indicates a difference of about 1.2%. The bonobo (Pan paniscus), which is the close cousin of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), differs from humans to the same degree. The DNA difference with gorillas, another of the African apes, is about 1.6%. Most importantly, chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans all show this same amount of difference from gorillas. A difference of 3.1% distinguishes us and the African apes from the Asian great ape, the orangutan.”
"The differences between our brains and those of primates seem to be much greater than the genetic differences, so they don’t seem to originate in the genes. The mystery is perhaps analogous to that of the human mind."
Comment: The problem of gene comparison has been explained here in the past. It is gene 3-D relationships that make the differences. It is estimated with 3-D relationships we differ from chimps by 21%.
Introducing the brain: normal function, no temporal lobe
by David Turell , Monday, September 05, 2022, 20:16 (592 days ago) @ David Turell
Born with a perinatal stroke, no left temporal lobe:
https://globle.io/the-curious-hole-in-my-head/
Comment: I cannot copy content, but the website carries his entire story of normal function. Fits all we have learned about brain plasticity. Found an article I can copy:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/04/science/brain-language-research.html?unlocked_articl...
"In those early days of my life, my parents wrung their hands wondering what my life, and theirs, would look like. Eager to find answers, they enrolled me in a research project at New York University tracking the developmental effects of perinatal strokes.
"But month after month, I surprised the experts, meeting all of the typical milestones of children my age. I enrolled in regular schools, excelled in sports and academics. The language skills the doctors were most worried about at my birth — speaking, reading and writing — turned out to be my professional passions.
"My case is highly unusual but not unique. Scientists estimate that thousands of people are, like me, living normal lives despite missing large chunks of our brains. Our myriad networks of neurons have managed to rewire themselves over time. But how?
My childhood memories are filled with researchers following me around with pens and clipboards. My brain was scanned several times a year, and I was tasked with various puzzles, word searches and picture-recognition tests. At the end of each day of testing, the researchers would give me a sticker, which I would keep in a tin container next to my bed.
***
Over the years, the scientists realized that I wasn’t like the other children in the study: I didn’t have any deficits to track over time. When I was around 15, my dad and I met in the cluttered Manhattan office of Dr. Ruth Nass, the pediatric neurologist leading the research. She questioned if I had actually had a perinatal stroke. In any case, she said frankly that my brain was so different from the others’ that I could no longer be in the study.
***
"I went to college and majored in neuroscience. After graduating in 2015, I spent two years working in a lab studying concussions. I spent hours in the magnetic resonance imaging room, watching as other peoples’ brains appeared before me on a computer screen.
"But I never thought much about my own brain until this spring, when I happened upon a story in Wired magazine about a woman just like me: astonishingly normal, apart from a missing temporal lobe.
***
"The researchers’ studies found that the brain of the Connecticut patient had adapted by switching sides: For her, these sentences activated the right temporal and frontal lobes, according to a case study published in the journal Neuropsychologia.
My brain, however, surprised everyone, yet again.
"'A preliminary analysis of the scans showed that, even without a left temporal lobe, I still process sentences using my left hemisphere.
“'I had thought that any large left hemisphere early lesion leads to the migration of the language system to the right hemisphere!” Dr. Fedorenko said. “But science is cool this way. Surprises often mean cool discoveries.”
"A possible reason behind this discovery, according to Dr. Fedorenko, is that my lesion is primarily in the front of my left hemisphere, leaving enough healthy tissue in the back for the language system to take root."
Comment: she was luckier than others who have defects in cognition. What is not explained are those cases we've seen with a shell of a brain and normal cognition.
Introducing the brain: pregnancy effects
by David Turell , Sunday, September 11, 2022, 16:45 (586 days ago) @ David Turell
In men slight shrinkage:
https://www.sciencealert.com/first-time-dads-may-experience-brain-shrinkage-scientists-...
"The study is only small, but it suggests that the neural substrates of parenthood are not exclusive to mothers. Men, as it turns out, can also be impacted by their new role as a parent, albeit in a less pronounced and uniform way.
"On average, the researchers found new fathers lost a percentage or two of cortical volume following the birth of their first child.
"This shrinkage was mainly confined to an area of the brain known as the 'default mode network', which is associated with parental acceptance and warmth.
"At first, a loss in cortical volume might sound like a bad thing, but it can actually indicate a refinement of the brain that makes connecting with a child more powerful and efficient.
"Similar cortical losses in mothers, for example, are associated with greater neural responses to a child and stronger child-parent attachment,
***
"They did, however, show signs of brain plasticity in their cortical gray matter, which is largely involved in social understanding – and the researchers also found pronounced reductions in the visual system's volume.
"More research on this visual brain region and its role in parenthood is needed, but the findings do align with a recent study in 2020 that found fathers are better at visual memory tasks than those men without children.
"'These findings may suggest a unique role of the visual system in helping fathers to recognize their infants and respond accordingly, a hypothesis to be confirmed by future studies," the authors of the new paper write."
Comment: the amazing ability of the brain to adjust itself on display again. If dhw's brilliant cell committees can speciate, they must be neuron committees
Introducing the brain: The aging brain after 40
by David Turell , Friday, September 30, 2022, 01:22 (568 days ago) @ David Turell
Current findings:
https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/great-brain-rewiring-after-age-40/?utm_source=mailchimp...
"The gathered evidence suggests that in the fifth decade of life (that is, after a person turns 40), the brain starts to undergo a radical “rewiring” that results in diverse networks becoming more integrated and connected over the ensuing decades, with accompanying effects on cognition.
***
"Early on, in our teenage and young adult years, the brain seems to have numerous, partitioned networks with high levels of inner connectivity, reflecting the ability for specialized processing to occur. That makes sense, as this is the time when we are learning how to play sports, speak languages, and develop talents. Around our mid-40s, however, that starts to change. Instead, the brain begins becoming less connected within those separate networks and more connected globally across networks. By the time we reach our 80s, the brain tends to be less regionally specialized and instead broadly connected and integrated.
***
“'Older adults tend to show less flexible thinking, such as forming new concepts and abstract thinking, lower response inhibition, as well as lower verbal and numeric reasoning,” the reviewers noted. “These executive function changes can be seen first in adults in their fifth decade of life, consistent with the findings of the systematic review that functional network connectivity changes reach their inflection point in the fourth and fifth decade.”
"But the news isn’t all bad for the aging brain. “Tasks relying on predominantly automatic or well-practiced processes are less impacted by age or may even increase slightly across the lifespan, such as vocabulary and general knowledge,” the authors wrote.
"So why do these brain networking changes even occur in the first place? The reviewers offered some learned speculation. They noted that the brain is a resource-hungry organ, ravenous for the simple sugar glucose. “The adult brain accounts for approximately 2% of total body weight but requires approximately 20% of total glucose supply,” they wrote.
"But as we get older, our bodies tend to slow down and the brain becomes less efficient. So not only is the brain getting less glucose, it’s also not putting the fuel to good use. Thus, the networking changes likely result from the brain reorganizing itself to function as well as it can with dwindling resources and aging “hardware.”
***
"The brain’s inner workings are mysterious indeed, but with this grand systematic review comprising hundreds of studies and tens of thousands of brain scans, we are at least starting to get a surface view of how it changes across our lifetimes."
Comment: perhaps all of these changes ae programmed into the DNA of brains neurons.
Introducing the brain: non-coding controls in the brain.
by David Turell , Friday, September 30, 2022, 01:56 (568 days ago) @ David Turell
A menagerie of RNA types:
https://www.the-scientist.com/features/the-noncoding-regulators-of-the-brain-70457?utm_...
" “it was frustrating to see how few protein-coding genes exist,” says Geraldine Zimmer-Bensch, a neuroepigeneticist at Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen in Germany, “and even more frustrating, how little difference there is between the mouse and the human protein-coding genome.” Yes, there are proteins and variants of proteins that are unique to our species, she says, but there simply aren’t enough of them to explain humans’ singular cognitive prowess.
"This was particularly surprising because at least a tenth of the human proteome consists of proteins whose main function is in the brain—some estimates say it’s more like a third.
"According to Zimmer-Bensch and an increasing number of neuroscientists, the missing piece of the puzzle is RNA—specifically, the myriad RNAs that don’t code for proteins, such as long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs). Noncoding RNAs are likely protagonists in our brain’s evolutionary story because they are pivotal regulators of gene expression, especially during development, experts say. Changes in traits such as tissue size and shape are easily made by tweaking when and in what cells different proteins are made—precise alterations that generally occur as the result of changes in noncoding regions of the genome, researchers are finding.
"And RNAs aren’t just stars of the evolutionary and developmental past; they are essential for brain functioning now, and evidence is mounting that regulating gene expression is just one of noncoding RNAs’ many neurological tasks....“The functional diversity [of noncoding RNAs] is tremendous and impressive.”
" Moreover, scientists don’t yet have a complete grasp of the total number of RNAs encoded in the genome, and novel RNA forms continue to be discovered. But now, cutting-edge sequencing technologies are giving researchers unprecedented insights into cells, allowing RNA studies to be conducted on the spatial and temporal scales needed for the discipline to begin to catch up to protein biology. And findings from this work are pointing to an inevitable conclusion: RNAs rule the brain.
***
"In addition to finding that miRNA repertoires tend to increase in the genomes of different animal groups over evolutionary time, the team discovered that “there are certain places in evolution where you just had inordinate numbers [of miRNAs] added to a genome,” Peterson says. “And these just happened to coincide with places on the tree where you get these big, obvious jumps in complexity.” This includes a burst of 179 miRNA genes that appeared in the primate lineage after it split from mice.
***
"In a 2018 review on miRNAs and brain development, Kosik and UC San Francisco collaborator Tomasz Nowakowski refer to miRNAs as “an evolutionary cauldron.” Silver, who also did not participate in the research, agreed. “There’s [a] way of thinking that nature reuses strategies that work over and over, and this could be a nice example of that.”
***
"...the expansion and alteration of all kinds of noncoding RNAs were likely essential to brain evolution, he says. “The more complex the species, the bigger the junk DNA or noncoding RNA repertoire is, so that was how evolution climbed the mountain of developmental complexity,” he speculates, adding that “my expectation is they’re all important, that they’re part of a regulatory fabric.”
***
"When it comes to the evolution of human brains specifically, many of the relevant RNAs fall into what are known as human accelerated regions (HARs): stretches of the genome with mutation rates that increased significantly after humans split from chimpanzees (my bold)
***
"Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are generally described as any noncoding RNAs greater than 200 nucleotides in length. Because of their variable size and composition, they can have complex shapes and perform a variety of cellular activities, though most lncRNAs await functional investigation.
"Example: The human and chimpanzee versions of a lncRNA called HAR1 differ by 18 nucleotides, which impacts the molecule’s secondary structure. The human version is predicted to be more stable, but exactly how that translates into differences in brain form or function isn’t yet clear.
***
“'It’s sort of like hitting, for lack of a better term, almost a master regulator of gene expression,” says Silver. “And by doing that, it’s going to influence gene expression of its targets likely in a very cell-specific, tissue-specific, timing-specific fashion, and that itself could then affect expression of downstream targets below that.” Because of this, she adds “even though our genomes of human and, say, chimpanzees are remarkably similar globally at the DNA level, there is a whole host of regulatory changes at the RNA level that are likely to contribute synergistically to human-specific traits.'”
Comment. huge article filled with research findings. Why we are not chimps is pretty evident. Note my bold. Human evolution appears driven.
Introducing the brain: super-agers large neurons
by David Turell , Friday, September 30, 2022, 20:23 (567 days ago) @ David Turell
From autopsy studies:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2340560-superagers-with-sharp-memories-in-their-80...
“'Superagers” – people aged 80 or over with exceptionally good memories – may have larger than expected neurons in a region of the brain that is critical for memory.
"With age, most people experience a gradual decline to their memory, but some maintain a remarkable ability to recall past events into their eighties or older, on par with people 20 to 30 years younger.
"Alongside a decline in memory, our brains naturally shrink with age, with previous studies suggesting this occurs less with superagers.
"Now, researchers have shown that superagers may have larger than expected neurons in their entorhinal cortex, a component of the brain’s memory system.
***
"Among the superagers, their entorhinal cortex neurons were around 10 per cent larger than those of the people who died at a similar age with a to-be-expected memory.
"The superagers’ neurons were even around 5 per cent larger than the people who died 40 years younger, suggesting that larger than average neurons may contribute to an exceptional memory at age 80 or over.
"The superagers also had substantially fewer protein clumps called tau tangles inside their neurons than their counterparts who died at a similar age. An abnormal build-up of tau has been suggested as a cause of Alzheimer’s disease.
“'I am not yet sure why larger neurons are associated with preserved memory other than that they are more resistant to tau tangles,” says Gefen. “One other hypothesis is that they are more structurally sound and can generate more optimal [neural connections].”
“'[The overall study] adds to the growing evidence that superagers differ from typical adults on multiple levels of the brain,” says Alexandra Touroutoglou at Harvard Medical School.
“'The sample size here is relatively small, but that’s understandable. Superagers are a rare group, so finding a good number of them in a postmortem brain study is difficult,“ she says."
Comment: All I can say is a very interesting study.
Introducing the brain: interpreting vision
by David Turell , Saturday, October 01, 2022, 17:12 (566 days ago) @ David Turell
Mouse experiments with pupil size:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-09-pupil-dilation-window-perception.html
"An international research team from the Universities of Göttingen and Tübingen, Germany, and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, are now able to provide answers as to why pupil size is influenced by not only sensory stimuli like light, but also by our internal state such as fear, excitement or attention.
"The findings, appearing in the current edition of Nature, help to explain whether these rapid, state-dependent changes in pupil size found not only in humans but also in other vertebrates, affect the way we perceive our surroundings.
"Researchers started their work by investigating how state-dependent changes in pupil size affected the vision of mice.
"'While the eyes convert light to neural activity, it is the brain which is crucial for the interpretation of visual scenes," said Dr. Katrin Franke, research group leader at the Institute for Ophthalmology Research at the University of Tübingen and first author of the study.
"In their experiments, the researchers showed mice different colored images and recorded the activity of thousands of individual neurons within the visual cortex, a particularly relevant brain area for visual perception. Based on these recordings, they used deep neural networks to create a computer model as a digital twin of the cortex, simulating the responses of large numbers of neurons in the brain. They then used this computer model to identify the optimal visual light stimulus for each neuron, meaning each neuron's "favorite image."
"This model revealed something quite interesting: When the mice dilated their pupils due to an alert state of mind, the color sensitivity of the neurons changed from green to blue light within seconds, meaning neurons were more green sensitive in a quiet state and became more UV sensitive in an active state.
This was particularly true for neurons that sample stimuli from the upper hemisphere used to observe the sky. In subsequent experiments they were able to verify that this also happens in the real biological neurons.
***
"'These results clearly demonstrate that pupil dilation due to an alert brain state can directly affect visual sensitivity and probably visual perception as well. The mechanism here is that a larger pupil lets more light into the eye, recruiting different types of photoreceptors in our retina and thus indirectly changing the color sensitivity in the visual cortex," Franke said.
"But what are the benefits of this change in visual sensitivity? Konstantin Willeke, co-first author of the study and member of the research group led by adjunct professor of neuroscience at Baylor Dr. Fabian Sinz, said, "We were able to show that the higher neuronal sensitivity to blue light probably helps the mice to better recognize predators against a blue sky."
***
"Dr. Andreas Tolias, also principal investigator on the study and professor and director of the Center for Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence at Baylor, said, "The finding that brain state-related changes in pupil size affect visual sensitivity has implications for our understanding of vision well beyond predator detection in mice. Further research questions now arise as to how perception in numerous other animals is influenced by this effect. The pupils in our eyes could thus not only be a window into the soul, but also change the way we perceive the world from moment to moment depending on our inner state of mind."
Comment: Changes in the pupil size are moderated by the mental state of the brain. How did this develop if we assume a natural form of evolution. Too many parts have to change or evolve simultaneously. Not by chance. Only ID fits.
Introducing the brain: interpreting smell
by David Turell , Saturday, October 01, 2022, 17:28 (566 days ago) @ David Turell
Another study in mice:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/09/220929204018.htm
"Since their discovery over 100 years ago, neurons in the brain's olfactory bulb called tufted cells have been difficult to study. The close proximity between tufted cells and other neurons called mitral cells, restricted the ability to dissect each individual neuron's activity. By leveraging fluorescent genetic markers and new optical imaging technologies, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) neuroscientists were able to compare the neurons' activity.
"CSHL Associate Professor Florin Albeanu and Assistant Professor Arkarup Banerjee discovered tufted cells are better at recognizing smells than mitral cells. They've found tufted cells are essential to one of two parallel neural circuit loops that help the brain process different odor features. The findings help explain how the brain takes in sensory information that influences behavior and emotions.
"The researchers exposed mice to various odors, from fresh mint to sweet bananas, at different concentrations. They simultaneously tracked the neural activity of the two cell types and found tufted cells outperformed mitral cells. They were faster and better at distinguishing smells. They also captured a wider range of concentrations. While this illuminated a new role for tufted cells, it also led to a new unanswered question. "If tufted cells are actually better at recognizing odors, what then, is the function of mitral cells?" said Albeanu.
"Albeanu and Banerjee think mitral cells enhance important smells. They are part of a neural feedback loop that may help an animal prioritize, for example, the smell of food or a predator. In contrast, the tufted cells are part of a second feedback loop that helps process smell intensity and identity. This can guide animals locating odors in the environment. Banerjee explains:
"'If you can't tell whether it's high [intensity] versus low [intensity], then you can't track an odor. There's no way to know that you're actually getting closer to the odor source if you can't tell the difference."
"The two neural circuit loops offer novel explanations for how the brain processes sensory information."
Comment: just as in the vison article presented today, the question is how natural evolution would/could produce this result, which involved simultaneous changes in two connected organs. Not by chance. Only ID fits
Introducing the brain: pupil size control
by David Turell , Monday, October 03, 2022, 17:27 (564 days ago) @ David Turell
Depends on the state of the brain's alertness in mice:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-09-pupil-dilation-window-perception.html
"The eyes are often referred to as the "windows to the soul." In fact, there is a grain of neurobiological truth to this. An international research team from the Universities of Göttingen and Tübingen, Germany, and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, are now able to provide answers as to why pupil size is influenced by not only sensory stimuli like light, but also by our internal state such as fear, excitement or attention.
***
"This model revealed something quite interesting: When the mice dilated their pupils due to an alert state of mind, the color sensitivity of the neurons changed from green to blue light within seconds, meaning neurons were more green sensitive in a quiet state and became more UV sensitive in an active state.
"This was particularly true for neurons that sample stimuli from the upper hemisphere used to observe the sky. In subsequent experiments they were able to verify that this also happens in the real biological neurons.
"With the help of eye drops that dilate the pupil, researchers were then able to simulate the higher sensitivity to blue light even for a quiet brain state.
"These results clearly demonstrate that pupil dilation due to an alert brain state can directly affect visual sensitivity and probably visual perception as well. The mechanism here is that a larger pupil lets more light into the eye, recruiting different types of photoreceptors in our retina and thus indirectly changing the color sensitivity in the visual cortex," Franke said.
"But what are the benefits of this change in visual sensitivity? Konstantin Willeke, co-first author of the study and member of the research group led by adjunct professor of neuroscience at Baylor Dr. Fabian Sinz, said, "We were able to show that the higher neuronal sensitivity to blue light probably helps the mice to better recognize predators against a blue sky.'"
Comment: it is not surprising the brain has feedback loop controlling pupil size. This did not develop by chanced mutations but by clever design.
Introducing the brain: new consciousness theory
by David Turell , Monday, October 03, 2022, 20:09 (564 days ago) @ David Turell
The brain hides much of what it is doing:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-10-explanation-consciousness.html
"Consciousness is your awareness of yourself and the world around you. This awareness is subjective and unique to you.
***
"'In a nutshell, our theory is that consciousness developed as a memory system that is used by our unconscious brain to help us flexibly and creatively imagine the future and plan accordingly," explained corresponding author Andrew Budson, MD, professor of neurology. "What is completely new about this theory is that it suggests we don't perceive the world, make decisions, or perform actions directly. Instead, we do all these things unconsciously and then—about half a second later—consciously remember doing them."
***
"According to the researchers, this theory is important because it explains that all our decisions and actions are actually made unconsciously, although we fool ourselves into believing that we consciously made them. So, we can say to ourselves, we're just going to have one spoonful of ice cream and, the next thing we know, the container is empty—because our conscious mind is not controlling our actions. "Even our thoughts are not generally under our conscious control. This lack of control is why we may have difficulty stopping a stream of thoughts running through our head as we're trying to go to sleep, and also why mindfulness is hard," adds Budson."
Comment: this fits my theory that the brain is built to help understanding reality, just as this new theory tells us so much of brain work is unconscious.
Introducing the brain: new consciousness theory
New consciousness theory
QUOTE: Consciousness is your awareness of yourself and the world around you. This awareness is subjective and unique to you.
True. However, we can prove over and over again that our subjective conscious perceptions of the world are not unique to us, since so many of them are shared by others. If they weren’t, just imagine the chaos!
QUOTE: "What is completely new about this theory is that it suggests we don't perceive the world, make decisions, or perform actions directly. Instead, we do all these things unconsciously and then—about half a second later—consciously remember doing them."
At first I thought all this was a joke, but apparently not. Amazingly the heading of the article is “new explanation for consciousness”. There is no explanation at all. The authors have concocted a theory about the sequence of perceptions, thoughts and decisions. Consciousness is not explained by the theory that we are only conscious after our subconscious has done the perceiving, thinking and decision-making! The example is surely not meant to be taken seriously:
QUOTE: So, we can say to ourselves, we're just going to have one spoonful of ice cream and, the next thing we know, the container is empty—because our conscious mind is not controlling our actions.
If that is the next thing we know, either our conscious mind was focusing on something else, or we were sleep-walking. Supposing I say I’m going to have one spoonful of ice cream, and I pick up the spoon, notice that it’s dirty, wash it, take the tub from the fridge, remove the lid, accidentally drop it, pick it up, take out one spoonful of ice cream, eat it, decide that I’d like one more, eat it, think about having another spoonful, decide not to, replace the lid, put the tub back in the freezer, and go back to work. How many of these “next things” are unconscious before they become conscious? I suggest that the only one of which I am not directly conscious is what preceded them all – namely, whatever caused the urge to have a spoonful of ice cream. And how does any of this “explain” consciousness?
Introducing the brain: new consciousness theory
by David Turell , Tuesday, October 04, 2022, 17:08 (563 days ago) @ dhw
New consciousness theory
QUOTE: Consciousness is your awareness of yourself and the world around you. This awareness is subjective and unique to you.
dhw: True. However, we can prove over and over again that our subjective conscious perceptions of the world are not unique to us, since so many of them are shared by others. If they weren’t, just imagine the chaos!
QUOTE: "What is completely new about this theory is that it suggests we don't perceive the world, make decisions, or perform actions directly. Instead, we do all these things unconsciously and then—about half a second later—consciously remember doing them."
At first I thought all this was a joke, but apparently not. Amazingly the heading of the article is “new explanation for consciousness”. There is no explanation at all. The authors have concocted a theory about the sequence of perceptions, thoughts and decisions. Consciousness is not explained by the theory that we are only conscious after our subconscious has done the perceiving, thinking and decision-making! The example is surely not meant to be taken seriously:
QUOTE: So, we can say to ourselves, we're just going to have one spoonful of ice cream and, the next thing we know, the container is empty—because our conscious mind is not controlling our actions.
If that is the next thing we know, either our conscious mind was focusing on something else, or we were sleep-walking. Supposing I say I’m going to have one spoonful of ice cream, and I pick up the spoon, notice that it’s dirty, wash it, take the tub from the fridge, remove the lid, accidentally drop it, pick it up, take out one spoonful of ice cream, eat it, decide that I’d like one more, eat it, think about having another spoonful, decide not to, replace the lid, put the tub back in the freezer, and go back to work. How many of these “next things” are unconscious before they become conscious? I suggest that the only one of which I am not directly conscious is what preceded them all – namely, whatever caused the urge to have a spoonful of ice cream. And how does any of this “explain” consciousness?
You skipped over my comment that the brain works to help us relate to reality.
Introducing the brain: cerebellar role in memory
by David Turell , Sunday, October 09, 2022, 16:59 (558 days ago) @ David Turell
In particularly emotional memories:
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-cerebellum-has-a-function-we-didnt-even-know-about-new...
"Already known as being important for properly controlling our movements, it now appears that this brain region also has a key role to play when it comes to remembering positive and negative emotional experiences.
"These types of emotional experiences are particularly well remembered by the brain, not least because it helps the survival of our species to be able to remember times when we were in danger and times when we prospered.
"The amygdala and hippocampus are the brain regions thought to be most responsible for consolidating these emotional memories, but as the cerebellum is already linked to fear conditioning, the researchers behind the latest study wanted to see if it had a part to play in logging emotional memories too.
"'The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the cerebellum and cerebellar–cerebral connections are involved in the phenomenon of superior episodic memory for emotionally arousing visual information," write the researchers in their published paper.
***
"The participants in the study remembered positive and negative images much better than the neutral ones, and this enhanced storage capability was linked to times when the cerebellum was more active.
"What's more, the researchers also observed a greater level of communication between the cerebellum and the cerebrum, the largest part of the brain. The cerebellum was receiving information from the anterior cingulate cortex (a region key to perceiving and evaluating feelings); it was also relaying information to the amygdala and the hippocampus.
"'These results indicate that the cerebellum is an integral component of a network that is responsible for the improved storage of emotional information," says neuroscientist Dominique de Quervain from the University of Basel in Switzerland."
Comment: another new finding about the cerebellum showing its function is much more complex than coordinating movement.
Introducing the brain: rewiring in old age
by David Turell , Monday, October 10, 2022, 21:35 (557 days ago) @ David Turell
The brain keeps changing to accommodate different ages and usage:
https://mindmatters.ai/2022/10/the-human-brain-rewires-itself-in-middle-age/
"In a systematic review recently published in the journal Psychophysiology, researchers from Monash University in Australia swept through the scientific literature, seeking to summarize how the connectivity of the human brain changes over our lifetimes. The gathered evidence suggests that in the fifth decade of life (that is, after a person turns 40), the brain starts to undergo a radical “rewiring” that results in diverse networks becoming more integrated and connected over the ensuing decades, with accompanying effects on cognition.
"Around our mid-40s, however, that starts to change. Instead, the brain begins becoming less connected within those separate networks and more connected globally across networks. By the time we reach our 80s, the brain tends to be less regionally specialized and instead broadly connected and integrated.
In a new study published Friday in The Journal of Neuroscience, researchers imaged the brains of six super-agers who had, during their lives, taken part in ongoing research into their abilities. The super-agers sampled died at an average of 91 years old. The researchers compared those brains to those of seven cognitively average elderly people who had died after 80; six younger people who died at 49, on average; and five people who had early Alzheimer’s.
"Some of them had cells of the entorhinal cortex (a memory area) that were larger than those of people twenty to thirty years younger.surprisingly, these “super-agers” also did not accumulate as much of the “tau” protein in their neurons, considered a characteristic of Alzheimer syndrome.
"Some of this may be heredity, some an accident, or environment or lifestyle. But another recent large study points to the role of exercise in helping seniors in general retain their memories:
***
“'Everyone always asks, ‘How much should I be exercising? What’s the bare minimum to see improvement?’ ” said lead author Sarah Aghjayan, a Clinical and Biological Health Psychology PhD student in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. “From our study, it seems like exercising about three times a week for at least four months is how much you need to reap the benefits in episodic memory.”
"Episodic memory is the kind that deals with events that happened to you in the past. It’s also one of the first to decline with age.
"But then, maybe not …
"You may also wish to read: Ever wish you had total recall? Ask people who do… Recall of every detail of one’s past works out better for some people than for others. Just why some people can recall almost everything that happened to them is a mystery in neuroscience, in part because they are few in number."
Comment: I noted the large neuron study earlier. From my own experience I 'm not surprised. I did heavy exercise until four years ago, and episodic old memories are still there. And all the studies till support my contention the brain is built to help us
Introducing the brain: stroke recovery in infants
by David Turell , Tuesday, October 11, 2022, 00:46 (557 days ago) @ David Turell
The plasticity enables the other lobe to compensate:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-10-infant-brain-side-compensates-loss.html
"A clinical study conducted by researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center has found that for children who had a major stroke to the left hemisphere of their brain within days of their birth, the infant's brain was "plastic" enough for the right hemisphere to acquire the language abilities ordinarily handled by the left side, while also maintaining its own language abilities.
"The left hemisphere of the brain is normally responsible for sentence processing (understanding words and sentences as we listen to speech). The right hemisphere of the brain is normally responsible for processing the emotion of the voice—whether it is happy or sad, angry or calm. This study sought to answer the question "What happens when one of the hemispheres is injured at birth?"
"The participants in this study developed normally during pregnancy. But around birth they each had a significant stroke, one that would produce debilitating outcomes in adults. In infants, a stroke is much rarer, but does happen in roughly one out of every four thousand births.
***
"'However, this early plasticity for language is restricted to one brain region. The brain is not able to reorganize injured functions just anywhere, as more dramatic reorganization is not possible even in early life. This gives us great insights into the regions we might be able to focus on for potential breakthroughs in developing techniques for recovery in adults as well."
***
"To assess long-term outcomes in their language abilities, participants were given language tests at 9 to 26 years of age and were compared to their close-in-age healthy siblings. They were also scanned in an MRI to reveal which brain areas were involved in sentence comprehension.
"The participants and their healthy siblings all completed the language tasks almost perfectly. The major difference was that the stroke participants processed sentences on the right side of the brain while their siblings processed sentences on the left side. The stroke participants showed a very consistent pattern of language activation in the right hemisphere, regardless of the extent or location of damage from the stroke to the left hemisphere. Only one of the 15 participants, who had the smallest stroke, did not show clear right hemisphere dominant activation.
"'It is also notable that many years after their strokes, our participants are all such highly functioning adults. Some are honor students and others are working toward or have gotten their master's degrees," says Newport. "Their achievements are remarkable, especially since some of their parents had been told when they were born that their strokes would produce life-long impairments.'"
Comment: It makes the same point as the other entry about the brain. Teh brain is built to help us and has the major ability to reorganize itself to satisfy all of our mental needs.
Introducing the brain: stroke recovery in infants
I'm combining the two posts about the brain.
Rewiring in old age
First a correction:
QUOTE: The gathered evidence suggests that in the fifth decade of life (that is, after a person turns 40), the brain starts to undergo a radical “rewiring” that results in diverse networks becoming more integrated and connected over the ensuing decades, with accompanying effects on cognition.
You accidentally left out the following part of the quote, without which your researchers appeared to be contradicting themselves in the quote below:. “According to the researchers, when we are young, our brains are modular, suited to learning specific tasks……
QUOTE: "Around our mid-40s, however, that starts to change. Instead, the brain begins becoming less connected within those separate networks and more connected globally across networks."
I find the rest of the article pretty unhelpful:
QUOTES: […] researchers imaged the brains of six super-agers who [...] died at an average of 91 years old. The researchers compared those brains to those of seven cognitively average elderly people who had died after 80; six younger people who died at 49, on average; and five people who had early Alzheimer’s.
"[bbb] Some of them bbb had cells of the entorhinal cortex (a memory area) that were larger than those of people twenty to thirty years younger.”(dhw’s bold)
Some of the six/seven did, which means some of the six/seven didn’t. We’re not told how many. How can we draw any conclusions from this?
QUOTE: "Episodic memory is the kind that deals with events that happened to you in the past. It’s also one of the first to decline with age.
I’ve never heard of memories that deal with events that happen to you in the future!
QUOTE: "But then, maybe not …
Actually, I think this is meant to be a comment on a headline which David missed out:
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, “EXERCISE CAN HELP OLDER ADULTS RETAIN THEIR MEMORIES” AT SCIENCEDAILY (FEBRUARY 17, 2022).
QUOTE: "But then, maybe not …"
All the same, it’s not exactly enlightening, is it?
QUOTE: "Recall of every detail of one’s past works out better for some people than for others. Just why some people can recall almost everything that happened to them is a mystery in neuroscience, in part because they are few in number."
It’s really strange, but I’ve also noticed that lots and lots and lots of things work out better for some people than for others. Just why this is so is a mystery in neuroscience, in part because nobody actually knows how the brain works to produce all the different levels of intelligence, memory, consciousness….And just to add to the mystery, some people believe that the brain doesn’t produce these things at all, but they are the products of an immaterial something-or-the-other which resides within us until we die. These people are called dualists, and the something-or-the-other is called the soul.
DAVID: […] all the studies still support my contention the brain is built to help us.
I don’t suppose many people would disagree that our brains help us to do all kinds of things.
Stroke recovery in infants
QUOTE: "A clinical study conducted by researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center has found that for children who had a major stroke to the left hemisphere of their brain within days of their birth, the infant's brain was "plastic" enough for the right hemisphere to acquire the language abilities ordinarily handled by the left side, while also maintaining its own language abilities.
DAVID: It makes the same point as the other entry about the brain. Teh brain is built to help us and has the major ability to reorganize itself to satisfy all of our mental needs.
You have offered us articles before about people with half a brain, and all this research seems to me to confirm your final point: the cell communities of which the brain is composed have the major ability to reorganize themselves. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they “satisfy all our mental needs”, but I would certainly emphasize the autonomy of the cells’ ability to reorganize themselves, and that requires intelligence. A theist can of course propose that God was the inventor of the intelligent cell.
Introducing the brain: stroke recovery in infants
by David Turell , Tuesday, October 11, 2022, 17:21 (556 days ago) @ dhw
Rewiring in old age
dhw: First a correction:
QUOTE: The gathered evidence suggests that in the fifth decade of life (that is, after a person turns 40), the brain starts to undergo a radical “rewiring” that results in diverse networks becoming more integrated and connected over the ensuing decades, with accompanying effects on cognition.
You accidentally left out the following part of the quote, without which your researchers appeared to be contradicting themselves in the quote below:. “According to the researchers, when we are young, our brains are modular, suited to learning specific tasks……
QUOTE: "Around our mid-40s, however, that starts to change. Instead, the brain begins becoming less connected within those separate networks and more connected globally across networks."
I find the rest of the article pretty unhelpful:
QUOTES: […] researchers imaged the brains of six super-agers who [...] died at an average of 91 years old. The researchers compared those brains to those of seven cognitively average elderly people who had died after 80; six younger people who died at 49, on average; and five people who had early Alzheimer’s.
"[bbb] Some of them bbb had cells of the entorhinal cortex (a memory area) that were larger than those of people twenty to thirty years younger.”(dhw’s bold)dhw: Some of the six/seven did, which means some of the six/seven didn’t. We’re not told how many. How can we draw any conclusions from this?
Had to find enough preserved brains for a larger study
QUOTE: "Episodic memory is the kind that deals with events that happened to you in the past. It’s also one of the first to decline with age.dhw: I’ve never heard of memories that deal with events that happen to you in the future!
QUOTE: "But then, maybe not …
Actually, I think this is meant to be a comment on a headline which David missed out:
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH, “EXERCISE CAN HELP OLDER ADULTS RETAIN THEIR MEMORIES” AT SCIENCEDAILY (FEBRUARY 17, 2022).QUOTE: "But then, maybe not …"
dhw: All the same, it’s not exactly enlightening, is it?
I know the study. Should have mentioned it in my personal history: I did heavy exercise swimming until four years ago and had to stop, and my episodic old memories are all there.
QUOTE: "Recall of every detail of one’s past works out better for some people than for others. Just why some people can recall almost everything that happened to them is a mystery in neuroscience, in part because they are few in number."dhw: It’s really strange, but I’ve also noticed that lots and lots and lots of things work out better for some people than for others. Just why this is so is a mystery in neuroscience, in part because nobody actually knows how the brain works to produce all the different levels of intelligence, memory, consciousness….And just to add to the mystery, some people believe that the brain doesn’t produce these things at all, but they are the products of an immaterial something-or-the-other which resides within us until we die. These people are called dualists, and the something-or-the-other is called the soul.
Consciousness and soul may one and the same
Stroke recovery in infants
QUOTE: "A clinical study conducted by researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center has found that for children who had a major stroke to the left hemisphere of their brain within days of their birth, the infant's brain was "plastic" enough for the right hemisphere to acquire the language abilities ordinarily handled by the left side, while also maintaining its own language abilities.
DAVID: It makes the same point as the other entry about the brain. The brain is built to help us and has the major ability to reorganize itself to satisfy all of our mental needs.
dhw: You have offered us articles before about people with half a brain, and all this research seems to me to confirm your final point: the cell communities of which the brain is composed have the major ability to reorganize themselves. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they “satisfy all our mental needs”, but I would certainly emphasize the autonomy of the cells’ ability to reorganize themselves, and that requires intelligence. A theist can of course propose that God was the inventor of the intelligent cell.
Yes, He was.
Introducing the brain: rewiring older brains
by David Turell , Tuesday, October 11, 2022, 18:03 (556 days ago) @ David Turell
A study of scientists age and productivity:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/10/221010115338.htm
"A new study provides the best evidence to date that scientists overall are most innovative and creative early in their careers.
"Findings showed that, on one important measure, the impact of biomedical scientists' published work drops by between one-half to two-thirds over the course of their careers.
"'That's a huge decline in impact," said Bruce Weinberg, co-author of the study and professor of economics at The Ohio State University.
"'We found that as they get older, the work of biomedical scientists was just not as innovative and impactful."
***
"'So when you look at all biomedical scientists as a group, it doesn't look like innovation is declining over time. But the fact that the least innovative researchers are dropping out when they are relatively young disguises the fact that, for any one person, innovativeness tends to decline over their career."
"Results showed that for the average researcher, a scientific article they published late in their career was cited one-half to two-thirds less often than an article published early in their careers.
"But it wasn't just citation counts that suggest researchers were less innovative later in their career."
Comment: this is bright group of people. In view of how the brain accommodates to age, I wonder this is why the study shows declining production of new studies.
Introducing the brain: human brain organoids in rat brains
by David Turell , Wednesday, October 12, 2022, 16:38 (555 days ago) @ David Turell
A great new ethical way to study human neuron networks:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/lab-grown-human-cells-form-working-circuits-in-rat-brain...
"Our understanding of the inner workings of the human brain has long been held back by the practical and ethical difficulty of observing human neurons develop, connect and interact. Today, in a new study published in Nature, neuroscientists at Stanford University led by Sergiu Paşca report that they have found a new way to study human neurons — by transplanting human brainlike tissue into rats that are just days old, when their brains have not yet fully formed. The researchers show that human neurons and other brain cells can grow and integrate themselves into the rat’s brain, becoming part of the functional neural circuitry that processes sensations and controls aspects of behaviors.
"Using this technique, scientists should be able to create new living models for a wide range of neurodevelopmental disorders, including at least some forms of autism spectrum disorder. The models would be just as practical for neuroscientific lab studies as current animal models are but would be better stand-ins for human disorders because they would consist of real human cells in functional neural circuits. They could be ideal targets for modern neuroscience tools that are too invasive to use in real human brains.
“'This approach is a step forward for the field and offers a new way to understand disorders of neuronal functioning,” said Madeline Lancaster, a neuroscientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, U.K., who was not involved in the work.
***
"In the new work — which was also headed by Paşca’s Stanford colleagues Felicity Gore, Kevin Kelley and Omer Revah (now at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) — the team inserted cortical human brain organoids into the somatosensory cortex of very young rat pups, before the pups’ brain circuitry was fully established. This gave the human neurons a chance to receive long-range connections from a key region that processes incoming sensory information. Then the researchers waited to see whether the organoid would grow in concert with the rest of the rat’s developing brain.
“'We discovered that if we put the organoid in at that early stage … it grows up to nine times larger than it initially was over a period of four or five months,” said Paşca. That translated to an area of humanlike brain tissue that covered about a third of one of the rat’s brain hemispheres.
"But even though the human neurons stayed together in the cortical area where they were surgically placed, the researchers demonstrated that they became active parts of the neural circuitry threaded deep within the rat’s brain. Most of the transplanted human neurons began responding to touch sensations from the rat’s whiskers: When puffs of air were directed at the whiskers, the human neurons became more electrically active.
"Even more surprising, the flow of neural signals could also run in the other direction and influence behavior. When the human neurons were stimulated with blue light (through a technique called optogenetics), it triggered a conditioned behavior in the rats that made them seek a reward by licking more often at a water bottle.
“'That means that we have actually integrated human cells into the circuitry,” said Paşca. “It’s not changing the circuits. … It’s just that human cells are now part of it.”
***
"The transplanted cells didn’t perfectly mimic human brain tissue in their new setting. For example, they did not organize themselves into the same multilayered structure seen in the human cortex. (Nor did they follow the lead of surrounding rat neurons and form the barrel-like columns characteristic of the rat somatosensory cortex.) But the individual transplanted neurons did keep many of the normal human electrical and structural properties."
***
"Paşca hopes that being able to study mature human neurons within rats will finally bring treatments for psychiatric disorders and neurological conditions closer. Others in the field are hopeful too. “If this organoid transplantation strategy can truly mimic disease signatures, this could really accelerate our path toward cures,” said Joel Blanchard, a neuroscientist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Comment: this is a major advance. Functional human neurons helping rat brain ssignals but, as the article notes, not organized as if in a human brain. But the neurons can be studied.
Introducing the brain: neuronal connections are ordered
by David Turell , Friday, October 14, 2022, 17:17 (553 days ago) @ David Turell
A new discovery:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-10-secret-wiring-diagram-brain.html
"In the brain, our perception arises from a complex interplay of neurons that are connected via synapses. But the number and strength of connections between certain types of neurons can vary. Researchers...have now discovered that the structure of the seemingly irregular neuronal connection strengths contains a hidden order. This is essential for the stability of the neuronal network.
***
"However, each synapse is unique and its strength can vary over time. Even experiments that measured the same type of synapse in the same brain region yielded different values for synaptic strength. However, this experimentally observed variability makes it difficult to find general principles underlying the robust function of neuronal networks," says Prof. Tatjana Tchumatchenko,
***
"In the primary visual cortex (V1), the visual stimuli transmitted by the eye via the thalamus, a switching point for sensory impressions in the diencephalon, are first recorded. The researchers took a closer look at the connections between the neurons that are active during this process. To do this, the researchers measured experimentally the joint response of two classes of neurons to different visual stimuli in the mouse model. At the same time, they used mathematical models to predict the strength of synaptic connections. To explain their lab-recorded activities of such network connections in the primary visual cortex, they used the so-called "stabilized supralinear network" (SSN).
"'It is one of the few nonlinear mathematical models that offers the unique possibility to compare theoretically simulated activity with actually observed activity," says Prof. Laura Busse, research group leader at LMU Neurobiology. "We were able to show that combining SSN with experimental recordings of visual responses in the mouse thalamus and cortex allows us to determine different sets of connection strengths that lead to the recorded visual responses in the visual cortex."
"The researchers found that there was an order behind the observed variability in synapse strength. For example, the connections from excitatory to inhibitory neurons were always the strongest, while the reverse connections in the visual cortex were weaker. This is because the absolute values of synaptic strengths varied in the modeling—as they had in the earlier experimental studies—but nevertheless always maintained a certain order. Thus, the relative ratios are crucial for the course and strength of the measured activity, rather than the absolute values.
"'It is remarkable that analysis of earlier direct measurements of synaptic connections revealed the same order of synaptic strengths as our model prediction based on measured neuronal responses alone," says Simon Renner, Ph.D., of LMU Neurobiology, whose experimental recordings of cortical and thalamic activity allowed characterization of the connections between cortical neurons.
"'Our results show that neuronal activity contains much information about the underlying structure of neuronal networks that is not immediately apparent from direct measurements of synapse strengths. Thus, our method opens a promising perspective for the study of network structures that are difficult to access experimentally," explains Nataliya Kraynyukova, Ph.D."
Comment: it is not surprising to find a pattern of order in the brain. Neuronal activity must have a basis of designed organization.
Introducing the brain: studying pyramidal neurons
by David Turell , Wednesday, October 19, 2022, 17:42 (548 days ago) @ David Turell
Compared to rats and analyzed spikes:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-10-window-brain-function.html
"'We compared the electrical properties of human and rodent neocortical pyramidal neurons by making intricate simultaneous electrical recordings from their cell bodies and thin dendrites.
"'Our research revealed that human and rodent neocortical pyramidal neurons share fundamental biophysical properties.
"'For example, we showed that both the dendrites of human and rodent neocortical pyramidal neurons generate dendritic sodium spikes, suggesting a conservation of the machinery for integrating the many thousands of input signals that a neuron receives.
"'However, we discovered the computational function of human neocortical pyramidal neurons is dramatically enhanced.'"
Comment: our pyramidal neurons are improved over rodents.
Introducing the brain: studying neuron's mechanisms
by David Turell , Wednesday, October 19, 2022, 22:04 (548 days ago) @ David Turell
The researchers put a foreign amino acid into the neuron's manufacturing process:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-10-tool-reveals-brain.html
"Scientists at Scripps Research have developed a new tool to monitor brain plasticity—the way our brains remodel and physically adapt as we learn and experience things, from watching a movie to learning a new song or language. Their approach, which measures the proteins produced by individual types of brain cells, has the potential to both answer basic questions about how the brain works, and shed light on numerous brain diseases in which plasticity goes awry.
"Prior experiments in several labs have already revealed how brain activity spurs changes in the gene expression in neurons, an early step in plasticity.
***
"When you learn something new, two things happen: First, neurons immediately pass electrical signals along new routes in your brain. Then, over time, this leads to changes in the physical structure of cells and their connections in the brain. But scientists have long wondered what happens in between these two steps. How does this electrical activity in neurons ultimately coax the brain to change in more lasting ways? Even further, how and why does this plasticity decrease with age and certain diseases?
"Previously, researchers have studied how genes in neurons turn on and off in response to brain activity, hoping to get insight into plasticity. With the advent of high-throughput gene sequencing technologies, tracking genes in this way has become relatively easy. But most of those genes encode proteins—the real workhorses of cells, the levels of which are more difficult to monitor.
***
"The team designed a system in which they could introduce a specially tagged amino acid—one of the building blocks of proteins—into one type of neuron at a time. As the cells produced new proteins, they would incorporate this amino acid, azidonorleucine, into their structures. By tracking which proteins contained the azidonorleucine over time, the researchers could monitor newly made proteins and distinguish them from pre-existing proteins.
"Cline's group used the azidonorleucine to track which proteins were made after mice experienced a large and widespread spike in brain activity, mimicking what happens at a smaller scale when we experience the world around us. The team focused on cortical glutamatergic neurons, a major class of brain cell responsible for processing sensory information.
"After the increase in neural activity, the researchers discovered levels of 300 different proteins changed in the neurons. While two-thirds increased during the spike in brain activity, the synthesis of the remaining third decreased. By analyzing the roles of these so-called "candidate plasticity proteins," Cline and her colleagues were able to gain general insight into how they might impact plasticity. Many of the proteins related to the structure and shape of neurons, for instance, as well as how they communicate with other cells. These proteins suggested ways in which brain activity can immediately begin to impact connections between cells.
"Additionally, a number of the proteins were related to how DNA is packaged inside cells; changing this packaging can change which genes a cell can access and use over a long time period. This suggests ways that a very short spike in brain activity can lead to more sustained remodeling within the brain.
"'This is a clear mechanism by which a change in brain activity can lead to waves of gene expression for many days," says Cline.
"The researchers hope to use this method to discover and study additional candidate plasticity proteins, for instance those that might change in different types of brain cells after animals see a new visual stimulus."
Comment: I'm not surprised at all the complexity of neuron function with all the proteins in active changes. This degree of complexity requires design.
Introducing the brain: neuron's very long lives
by David Turell , Monday, October 24, 2022, 17:09 (543 days ago) @ David Turell
Research shows the neurons have protective mechanisms:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-10-born-survivehow-human-neurons-century.html
"Essentially all human tissues and organs have the capacity to heal, to renew cells which are damaged or killed. In this context, the human brain behaves fundamentally differently. The vast majority of nerve cells are created before birth and the regenerative capacity of the postnatal human brain is limited to a few regions.
"As a consequence, the average age of neurons in adults is much higher than that for any other cell type of the human body. But how do human neurons protect themselves from accidental cell death and maintain a high level of functionality throughout a human's lifespan?
***
"They used human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) to generate human neurons in the culture dish which they matured over time, generating a developmental model of the brain where they could directly compare young, newborn neurons to their older, more mature counterparts. The study has now been published in the journal Cell Death & Disease.
"'If cells get stressed or harmed, they normally try to adopt to these conditions, by for instance activating reactive repair programs. At a certain degree of damage, a cell death program, called apoptosis, is activated to eliminate the harmed cell or tissue. This programmed cell death is controlled tightly by several molecular pathways," explains Prof. Philipp Koch, lead author of the study and Head of the HITBR. "We found that the threshold for entering cell death is particularly high in human neurons."
"Indeed, the researchers in Mannheim showed that once human neurons mature they get endowed with complex and redundant preemptive strategies to protect against stress and cell death.
"Among others, major components of the cell death machinery such as Caspases are strongly downregulated or shut off completely while protective pathways such as antiapoptotic Bcl-2 family proteins of inhibitors of apoptosis proteins (IAPs) are upregulated.
"'It seems that the brain developed a very elaborate, complex and complementary network to protect against cell death, likely an evolutionary adaptation to its reduced regenerative capacity. These safeguarding mechanisms in mature neurons may also in part explain why most neurodegenerative diseases are usually fend off for many decades and only tend to occur with advanced age. Manifestation of neurodegenerative diseases might be the result of many years of accumulated cell stress and damage in combination with a weakening of the maturity-dependent protective mechanisms," says Koch."
Comment: since our brain is in constant use, it is obvious neuron turnover, as in other organs, cannot happen. Cell division would disrupt thought
Introducing the brain: studying plasticity
by David Turell , Tuesday, October 25, 2022, 15:40 (543 days ago) @ David Turell
In a mouse visual cortex:
https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(22)00905-9?dgcid=raven_jbs_aip_email
Summary
"Adaptive sensory behavior is thought to depend on processing in recurrent cortical circuits, but how dynamics in these circuits shapes the integration and transmission of sensory information is not well understood. Here, we study neural coding in recurrently connected networks of neurons driven by sensory input. We show analytically how information available in the network output varies with the alignment between feedforward input and the integrating modes of the circuit dynamics. In light of this theory, we analyzed neural population activity in the visual cortex of mice that learned to discriminate visual features. We found that over learning, slow patterns of network dynamics realigned to better integrate input relevant to the discrimination task. This realignment of network dynamics could be explained by changes in excitatory-inhibitory connectivity among neurons tuned to relevant features. These results suggest that learning tunes the temporal dynamics of cortical circuits to optimally integrate relevant sensory input."
***
"Here, we ask whether improvements in stimulus decodability over learning could arise through selective temporal integration of relevant feedforward sensory input. We first show analytically how the output of a network can be tuned to optimally discriminate pairs of input stimuli by matching its recurrent dynamics to their sensory input statistics. In particular, we show that a stimulus decoder applied to network output performs best if the dimension of network input with greatest SNR [signal to noise ratio] activates a pattern of recurrent network dynamics that decays slowly. We then study how the dynamical properties of neural circuits in mouse V1 change as animals learn to discriminate visual stimuli. Using a dynamical systems model fit to experimental data (Khan et al., 2018), we find that slowly decaying patterns in the recurrent dynamics became better aligned with high-SNR sensory input over learning. Finally, we analyze circuit models with excitatory and inhibitory neurons to explore how this alignment might arise through changes in the circuit. We find that stimulus-specific changes in connectivity between excitatory and inhibitory neurons increase the alignment of recurrent dynamics with sensory input as observed experimentally. These connectivity changes predict changes in stimulus tuning and cell type-specific reorganization of dynamics within the model, which we find to be recapitulated in the experimental data. Our findings suggest a critical role for cortical dynamics in selective temporal integration of relevant sensory information."
Comment: a highly technical article which shows how we are beginning to understand brain plasticity. To wit: "our approach provides a unifying formalism which links statistical properties of evidence integration and population coding to the dynamical properties of the underlying recurrent network. Although we have focused on changes in network dynamics over learning, the mechanism of dynamical alignment may also provide a substrate for contextual or attentional modulation of sensory processing (Gilbert, and Li, 2013). Specifically, top-down input may modulate the dynamics of recipient neural populations, transiently aligning dynamical modes of the local circuit with relevant features of bottom-up sensory input according to task context. Such a mechanism could allow for flexible routing and gating of information between brain areas through the dynamical formation and coordination of “communication subspaces” (Semedo et al., 2019; Kohn et al., 2020; Javadzadeh and Hofer, 2022), configured through selective alignment of local modes across anatomically distributed circuits."
Introducing the brain: timed events in hippocampus
by David Turell , Thursday, October 27, 2022, 15:00 (541 days ago) @ David Turell
Timed memories are recorded in the hippocampus:
https://www.sciencealert.com/time-cells-in-the-human-brain-encode-the-flow-of-time-scie...
"Research suggests that 'time cells' – neurons in the hippocampus thought to represent temporal information – could be the glue that sticks our memories together in the right sequence so that we can properly recall the correct order in which things happened.
"To investigate, a team of researchers led by neuroscientist Leila Reddy from the Brain and Cognition Research Center (CerCo) in France monitored electrical activity in the brains of 15 epilepsy patients, using microelectrodes implanted in the hippocampus.
"'Creating episodic memories requires linking together distinct events of an experience with temporal fidelity," the researchers explained in their study, published last year.
"'Given the importance of the hippocampus in sequence order learning and temporal order judgments, we tested whether human hippocampal neurons represented temporal information while participants learned the order of a sequence of items."
***
"According to the researchers, the neurons involved are evidence of time cells: "neurons whose activity is modulated by temporal context within a well-defined time window".
***
"'Temporal modulation during these gap periods could not have been driven by external events; rather they appear to represent an evolving temporal signal as a result of changes in the patients' experience during this time of waiting."
"According to the researchers, time cells in the human brain are "multi-dimensional", capable of encoding information in relation to time but also responding to different kinds of sensory information or stimuli.
***
"'Central to our experience of reliving the past is our ability to vividly recall specific events that occurred at a specific place and in a specific temporal order… Our results provide further evidence that human hippocampal neurons represent the flow of time in an experience.'"
Comment: the brain is too integrated to assume that is there is to memory recall. There has to be interpretation connections to the frontal lobe cortex.
Introducing the brain: astrocyte diversity
by David Turell , Friday, November 04, 2022, 20:44 (532 days ago) @ David Turell
Review article:
https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/library/item/04_november_2022/40...
"Astrocytes are morphologically complex glial cells that regulate essential aspects of central nervous system (CNS) function, including synapse formation, ion homeostasis, and neurovascular coupling. Once viewed as a homogeneous population of cells, astrocytes are now known to exhibit molecular and functional heterogeneity at the regional and cellular level. How this diversity arises is unclear. On page 514 of this issue, Endo et al. investigate the molecular basis of astrocyte heterogeneity in mice, uncovering shared core features and identifying key differences that are specific to CNS regions. Their findings suggest that astrocyte diversity arises primarily from differences in the tissue microenvironment and highlight a key role for astrocyte morphological complexity in brain health and disease.
"Astrocytes are ubiquitous throughout the CNS. During development, astrocytes arise from neural progenitors in the ventricular zone (VZ) and migrate to different CNS regions, where they undergo local clonal expansion and morphogenesis (5). Morphological complexity is a hallmark feature of astrocytes. All astrocytes possess densely branched arbors that directly contact neighboring cells and structures to actively control the formation and function of neuronal circuits and execute a diverse array of homeostatic functions. Overall, the morphological complexity of astrocytes is a prerequisite for their functional complexity.
"Astrocytes in different regions of the mouse CNS show variations in gene expression, morphology, and function. Heterogeneity is also observed among astrocytes within the same CNS region. What is the source of astrocyte diversity? Some aspects of heterogeneity are developmentally encoded. In the spinal cord, for example, astrocyte location and gene expression are determined by the site of origin of progenitor cells in the VZ. Heterogeneity may also arise locally, although the extent to which differences in the tissue microenvironment influence regional astrocyte diversity is largely unexplored. Questions also remain regarding the relationship between molecular diversity and morphological and functional complexity, as well as the relevance of these features to disease.
"To address these knowledge gaps, Endo et al. analyzed anatomical, molecular, and morphological features of astrocytes across 13 different CNS regions from mice. Although neuronal density differed substantially between regions, astrocyte density was relatively constant, underscoring their importance for brain homeostasis. Accordingly, astrocytes from all brain regions shared expression of genes related to core astrocyte functions, including neurotransmitter homeostasis, cholesterol biosynthesis, and glucose metabolism. The expression of many transcriptional regulators and ligand-dependent nuclear receptors was also shared among astrocytes across regions, suggesting that common mechanisms of upstream regulation may control core functional properties.
"To investigate the extent of astrocyte diversity across CNS regions, Endo et al. focused on astrocyte-enriched differentially expressed genes (DEGs) that were distinct to a particular region or shared by a subset of regions. DEGs from the 13 CNS regions clustered into three broad regions based on anatomical proximity: cerebrum, brain stem–spinal cord, and cerebellum. Furthermore, astrocyte region-enriched DEGs correlated with region-enriched DEGs from bulk tissue, indicating that the identity of astrocytes reflects the tissue microenvironment. Singlecell sequencing analysis of a subset of brain regions identified seven astrocyte subclusters that were present at different proportions in each brain region. Several extracellular signaling molecules were identified as upstream regulators of each cluster, suggesting that local cues may shape the identify of these subclusters. Collectively, these findings provide strong evidence that astrocyte regional heterogeneity is shaped by the tissue microenvironment.
"In addition to molecular heterogeneity, Endo et al. characterized the morphological features of astrocytes from the same 13 CNS regions and found considerable regional differences in territory size, sphericity, and branching complexity. For example, astrocytes in the motor cortex displayed the largest territory size of all CNS regions, whereas striatal astrocytes were among the smallest. Both motor cortex and striatal astrocytes had a relatively round shape, whereas astrocytes in the cerebellum had the lowest degree of circularity and the longest length (see the figure). Intriguingly, astrocyte morphological diversity correlated strongly with two gene modules from the region-specific DEGs. The authors selected top morphologylinked genes from these modules for further investigation. Deletion of morphology-linked genes from astrocytes in mice resulted in morphological and synaptic deficits and impaired spatial memory. Together, these findings establish a functional link between gene expression, astrocyte morphology, and functional output."
Comment: astrocytes add an additional complexity to the functionality of the brain. It is not just the neuron contingent doing all the work. This degree of complexity cannot appear by chance, and strongly implies a designer at work.
Introducing the brain: lumping not splitting
by David Turell , Friday, November 11, 2022, 16:47 (525 days ago) @ David Turell
A book review of a lumper scientist:
https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/library/item/11_november_2022/40...
"In his new book, The Entangled Brain: How Perception, Cognition, and Emotion Are Woven Together, Brazilian neuroscientist Luiz Pessoa offers a way to construe the brain as a fully integrated organ, a framework that “while not rare, is also not mainstream among neuroscientists.” A “divide-and-conquer strategy” has produced ever more refined brain maps, he argues, and subsequent leaps from structure to function. However, not only are anatomical brain areas far from simply located units of cognition but, as the subtitle of the book makes explicit, perception, cognition, and emotion are also interweaved.
"To stress the networked nature of the brain, Pessoa has chosen a timely adjective: “entangled.” He seeks a portrait of the brain beyond the high-resolution caricature of cognitive functions placed inside cerebral boxes.
***
"So, what is the remedy for reductionism? Pessoa goes for large-scale distributed circuits within a network perspective—a complex systems approach where “many relatively simple interacting parts” exhibit “emergent” behaviors. Emergence can be invoked as a free miracle, and the misuse of networks lends itself to hairball graphs. However, Pessoa’s amalgamation of systems theory, cybernetics, and network science is a necessary step.
"Pessoa claims that “biology does not work like physics, and even less so like engineering.” He challenges linchpin assumptions in the life and mind sciences—the reducibility of organisms and their brains, ceteris paribus, and the belief that truth is to be found in simplicity. The obviously nontrivial requires restating: We cannot explain “all biology in terms of physics and chemistry.”
***
"Given Pessoa’s wink at a processual view of life, one wonders whether his postreductionism also calls for a post materialist neuroscience. Para phrasing Erwin Schrödinger, if verschränkung (entanglement) is the defining characteristic of brains and minds, it enforces an entire departure from classical lines of thought. In this sense, The Entangled Brain instantiates yet another conservative revolution in current neuroscience."
Comment: there are always splitters and lumpers in science. I'm with the lumpers.
Introducing the brain: the claustrum
by David Turell , Monday, November 14, 2022, 21:50 (522 days ago) @ David Turell
A coordinating center:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-11-brain-area-thought-impart-consciousness.html
Tucked underneath the brain's outer, wrinkly cortex is a deeply mysterious area, known as the claustrum. This region has long been known to exchange signals with much of the cortex, which is responsible for higher reasoning and complex thought. Because of the claustrum's extensive connections, the legendary scientist Francis Crick, Ph.D., of DNA-discovery fame, first postulated in 2005 that the claustrum is the seat of consciousness; in other words, the region of the brain enabling awareness of the world and ourselves.
Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, however, now posit that Crick may have been incorrect: They developed a new theory—built on data—that the claustrum behaves more like a high-speed internet router, taking in executive commands from "boss" areas of the brain's cortex that form complex thoughts to generate "networks" in the cortex. Acting like a router, the claustrum coordinates these networks to work together to accomplish the many different cognitively demanding tasks we perform on a moment-to-moment basis in everyday life.
***
"The brain is the most complex system in the known universe. It is these data-driven theoretical advances that propel our knowledge forward toward harnessing that complexity for improving human life," said Brian Mathur, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Pharmacology at UMSOM. "As the most highly connected structure in the brain, the claustrum is a window into the enigma of the brain, the mind." (my bolds)
"In an effort to identify the precise role of the claustrum, Dr. Mathur and his colleagues conducted a serious of experiments on both animals and people. One experiment used modern neuroscience approaches to turn off the claustrum in conscious mice. The mice did not lose consciousness and kept running around normally. This was strike one against Crick's theory.
"Next, the researchers gave mice a cognitively simple or a difficult task and compared how they responded when the claustrum was turned off. Normally, a mouse can perform both the simple and the difficult tasks. Yet when the researchers turned off the claustrum, the mice could no longer perform the difficult task.
"Wondering if this finding had any relevance to humans, Dr. Mathur collaborated with his colleagues David Seminowicz, Ph.D., Professor of Neural and Pain Sciences at the UM School of Dentistry, and Fred Barrett, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The three organized a research study where they conducted functional MRI brain scans on healthy volunteers who were engaged in either simple or complicated mental tasks. The researchers observed that their claustrum only "lit up" when performing the difficult version of the task. This event coincided with the activation of a network in the cortex involved in optimal cognitive performance: Strike two against Crick's consciousness theory."
Comment: certainly, could be a facilitator of the mind in aspects not involving problem solving
Introducing the brain: rapid learning in children
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 16, 2022, 14:49 (521 days ago) @ David Turell
Measured levels of GABA shows children have different brain responses than adults while learning:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01629-3?dgcid=raven_jbs_aip...
"Visual perceptual learning (VPL) is more efficient in children than adults
"VPL is stabilized more rapidly in children than adults
"Stabilization of VPL in children is supported by a rapid boost of GABA
"This boost of GABA occurs during and after visual training in children
"It is generally thought that children learn more efficiently than adults. One way to accomplish this is to have learning rapidly stabilized such that it is not interfered with by subsequent learning. Although γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) plays an important role in stabilization, it has been reported that GABAergic inhibitory processing is not fully matured yet in children compared with adults. Does this finding indicate that more efficient learning in children is not due to more rapid stabilization? Here, we measured the concentration of GABA in early visual cortical areas in a time-resolved fashion before, during, and after visual perceptual learning (VPL) within subjects using functional MRS (fMRS) and then compared the concentrations between children (8 to 11 years old) and adults (18 to 35 years old). We found that children exhibited a rapid boost of GABA during visual training that persisted after training ended, whereas the concentration of GABA in adults remained unchanged. Moreover, behavioral experiments showed that children exhibited rapid development of resilience to retrograde interference, which indicates that children stabilize VPL much faster than adults. These results together suggest that inhibitory processing in children’s brains is more dynamic and adapts more quickly to stabilize learning than in adults, making learning more efficient in children."
Comment: a logically design arrangement, especially if viewed from the standpoint of ancient hunter-gatherer groups. Dangers were more severe and young children needed to learn quickly for self-protection.
Introducing the brain: a new discovery:
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 23, 2022, 19:31 (513 days ago) @ David Turell
How the mammalian mind works:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-11-major-discovery-mammalian-brains.html
"In a new breakthrough to understand more about the mammalian brain, University of Copenhagen researchers have made an incredible discovery. Namely, a vital enzyme that enables brain signals is switching on and off at random, even taking hours-long "breaks from work". These findings may have a major impact on our understanding of the brain and the development of pharmaceuticals.
"Millions of neurons are constantly messaging each other to shape thoughts and memories and let us move our bodies at will. When two neurons meet to exchange a message, neurotransmitters are transported from one neuron to another with the aid of a unique enzyme.
"This process is crucial for neuronal communication and the survival of all complex organisms. Until now, researchers worldwide thought that these enzymes were active at all times to convey essential signals continuously. But this is far from the case.
"Using an innovative method, researchers from the University of Copenhagen's Department of Chemistry have closely studied the enzyme and discovered that its activity is switching on and off at random intervals, which contradicts our previous understanding.
"'This is the first time anyone has studied these mammalian brain enzymes one molecule at a time, and we are awed by the result. Contrary to popular belief, and unlike many other proteins, these enzymes could stop working for minutes to hours. Still, the brains of humans and other mammals are miraculously able to function," says Professor Dimitrios Stamou, who led the study from the center for Geometrically Engineered Cellular Systems at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Chemistry.
***
"The central enzyme of this study, known as V-ATPase, is responsible for supplying the energy for the neurotransmitter pumps in these containers. Without it, neurotransmitters wouldn't be pumped into the containers, and the containers wouldn't be able to transmit messages between neurons.
"But the study demonstrates that in each container, there is just one enzyme; when this enzyme switches off, there would be no more energy to drive the loading of neurotransmitters into the containers. This is an entirely new and unexpected discovery.
"'It is nearly incomprehensible that the extremely critical process of loading neurotransmitters in containers is delegated to only one molecule per container. Especially when we find that 40% of the time these molecules are switched off," says Professor Dimitrios Stamou.
***
"Facts about the V-ATPase enzyme:
"V-ATPases are enzymes that break down ATP molecules to pump protons across cellular membranes.
They are found in all cells and are essential for controlling the pH/acidity inside and/or outside cells.
In neuronal cells, the proton gradient established by V-ATPases provides energy for loading neurochemical messengers called neurotransmitters into synaptic vesicles for subsequent release at synaptic connections."
Comment: my usual thought about any enzyme. It is a giant very complex molecule thatt can only appear by design.
Introducing the brain: processing spoken language
by David Turell , Friday, November 25, 2022, 19:17 (511 days ago) @ David Turell
New study shos specific steps are taken:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-11-brains-time-stamp-words.html
"Our brains "time-stamp" the order of incoming sounds, allowing us to correctly process the words that we hear, shows a new study by a team of psychology and linguistics researchers. Its findings,
"'To understand speech, your brain needs to accurately interpret both the speech sounds' identity and the order that they were uttered to correctly recognize the words being said," explains Laura Gwilliams, the paper's lead author, an NYU doctoral student at the time of the research and now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco. "We show how the brain achieves this feat: Different sounds are responded to with different neural populations. And, each sound is time-stamped with how much time has gone by since it entered the ear. This allows the listener to know both the order and the identity of the sounds that someone is saying to correctly figure out what words the person is saying."
***
"...the scientists aimed to understand how the brain processes the identity and order of speech sounds, given that they unfold so quickly. This is significant because your brain needs to accurately interpret both the speech sounds' identity (e.g., l-e-m-o-n) and the order that they were uttered (e.g., 1-2-3-4-5) to correctly recognize the words being said (e.g. "lemon" and not "melon").
***
"The researchers found that the brain processes speech using a buffer, thereby maintaining a running representation—i.e., time-stamping—of the past three speech sounds. The results also showed that the brain processes multiple sounds at the same time without mixing up the identity of each sound by passing information between neurons in the auditory cortex.
"'We found that each speech sound initiates a cascade of neurons firing in different places in the auditory cortex," explains Gwilliams, who will return to NYU's Department of Psychology as an assistant professor in 2023. "This means that the information about each individual sound in the phonetic word 'k-a-t' gets passed between different neural populations in a predictable way, which serves to time-stamp each sound with its relative order.'"
Comment: spoken language is a late development. The human larynx presumably was present in
Erectus. Therefore, the brain mechanisms to interpret speech is a late development in brain plasticity as spoken language evolved.
Introducing the brain: controlling a fast stop in a run
by David Turell , Monday, November 28, 2022, 19:19 (508 days ago) @ David Turell
From a running mouse's brain:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-brain-uses-calculus-to-control-fast-movements-20221128/
"The new work reveals that the brain is not wired to transmit a sharp “stop” command in the most direct or intuitive way. Instead, it employs a more complicated signaling system based on principles of calculus. This arrangement may sound overly complicated, but it’s a surprisingly clever way to control behaviors that need to be more precise than the commands from the brain can be.
"Control over the simple mechanics of walking or running is fairly easy to describe: The mesencephalic locomotor region (MLR) of the brain sends signals to neurons in the spinal cord, which send inhibitory or excitatory impulses to motor neurons governing muscles in the leg: Stop. Go. Stop. Go. Each signal is a spike of electrical activity generated by the sets of neurons firing.
***
"Biologists have understood for a long time that goals take shape in the brain’s cerebral cortex. How does the brain translate a goal (stop running there so you get a reward) into a precisely timed signal that tells the MLR to hit the brakes?
***
"But a discrepancy in the data quickly undermined that theory. They observed a “stop” signal flowing into the MLR while the mouse slowed, but it wasn’t spiking in intensity fast enough to explain how quickly the animal halted.
“'If you just take stop signals and feed them into the MLR, the animal will stop, but the mathematics tell us that the stop won’t be fast enough,” said Adam.
“'The cortex doesn’t provide a switch,” said Sur. “We thought that’s what the cortex would do, go from 0 to 1 with a fast signal. It doesn’t do that, that’s the puzzle.”
***
"To find it, they looked again at the anatomy of the mouse brain. Between the cortex where goals originate and the MLR that controls locomotion sits another region, the subthalamic nucleus (STN). It was already known that the STN connects to the MLR by two pathways: One sends excitatory signals and the other sends inhibitory signals. The researchers realized that the MLR responds to the interplay between the two signals rather than relying on the strength of either one.
"As the sprinting mouse prepares to stop, the MLR receives an inhibitory signal from the STN. Almost immediately afterward, it also receives an excitatory signal. Each signal comes on slowly — but the switch between them is fast, and that’s what the MLR pays attention to: It registers the difference between the two signals. The greater the difference, the faster the change in the inhibitory signal and the more rapidly the MLR commands the legs to stop.
“'There is no information in the height of the spikes,” said Sur. “Everything is in the interval between the spikes. Because the spikes are sharp, the interval can carry information.”
***
"...the MLR accumulates the difference between the two well-timed signals, which mirrors the way a derivative is calculated: by taking the difference between two infinitesimally close values to calculate the slope of a curve at a point. The fast dynamics of the derivative cancel out the slow dynamics of the integration and allow for a fast stop.
“'There’s an excitatory signal and an inhibitory signal and the two are being compared instantaneously,” Sur said. “When that value hits a certain amount, there is a switch thrown that makes the animal stop.”
"This derivative-based control system may sound indirect, but it makes strategic sense. When a mouse navigating virtual reality or a tennis player racing across a court is approaching a stopping point, they might find it useful to know how fast they are going. But for planning what they will need to do next, it’s more useful for them to know how rapidly they are speeding up or slowing down — the derivative function of their movement.
“'It allows you to anticipate and predict. If I know the derivative, the rate of change of velocity, then I can predict what my velocity will be at the next step,” Sarma said. “If I know I have to stop, I can plan for it and make it happen.' ”
Comment: nothing the brain does amazes any more. This has to apply to rapid activity and to stop at all levels of activity.
Introducing the brain: silent synapses
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 30, 2022, 19:19 (506 days ago) @ David Turell
A key part of plasticity :
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/11/221130114452.htm
"MIT neuroscientists have discovered that the adult brain contains millions of "silent synapses" -- immature connections between neurons that remain inactive until they're recruited to help form new memories.
***
"The existence of these silent synapses may help to explain how the adult brain is able to continually form new memories and learn new things without having to modify existing conventional synapses, the researchers say.
"These silent synapses are looking for new connections, and when important new information is presented, connections between the relevant neurons are strengthened. This lets the brain create new memories without overwriting the important memories stored in mature synapses, which are harder to change," says Dimitra Vardalaki, an MIT graduate student and the lead author of the new study.
***
"Theoretical work in the field from Stefano Fusi and Larry Abbott of Columbia University has also proposed that neurons must display a wide range of different plasticity mechanisms to explain how brains can both efficiently learn new things and retain them in long-term memory. In this scenario, some synapses must be established or modified easily, to form the new memories, while others must remain much more stable, to preserve long-term memories.
***
"Theoretical work in the field from Stefano Fusi and Larry Abbott of Columbia University has also proposed that neurons must display a wide range of different plasticity mechanisms to explain how brains can both efficiently learn new things and retain them in long-term memory. In this scenario, some synapses must be established or modified easily, to form the new memories, while others must remain much more stable, to preserve long-term memories.
***
"The findings offer support for the theory proposed by Abbott and Fusi that the adult brain includes highly plastic synapses that can be recruited to form new memories, the researchers say."
Comment: having back-up neurons is an obvious way to prepare for plasticity. God designs logically
Introducing the brain: silent synapses II
by David Turell , Friday, March 31, 2023, 15:41 (386 days ago) @ David Turell
More research:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/silent-synapses-may-provide-plasticity-in-ad...
"Silent synapses are otherwise complete neuronal connections that lack a key signaling protein—AMPA receptors—that renders them inactive. They were thought to be unique to early development, as previous work found that the silent connections vanish by the time a mouse has reached adulthood. But researchers may have been looking in the wrong place. In young animals, silent synapses are formed from larger protrusions called dendritic spines. But in adults, they can be found on the ends of threadlike structures called filopodia, according to the new study.
***
"They found that the tips of filopodia were indeed covered with AMPA-deficient synapses. Without AMPA, synapses cannot be activated, as the receptors clear magnesium ions that obstruct other receptors integral to synaptic transmission.
"They also realized that filopodia are far more widespread than they anticipated. They were found all over the brain and at levels ten times higher than previously described, making up 30 percent of the protrusions on a given dendritic branch. This suggests a similar proportion of synapses in the adult mouse brain are silent, waiting to be activated.
"To confirm that the synapses were in fact silent, the researchers released the neurotransmitter glutamate at the tips of filopodia to mimic activity in a neighboring neuron. Unlike the synapses on dendritic spines, which responded with a burst of electrical activity, the synapses on filopodia were unresponsive. When the team washed away the magnesium ions from the same filopodium—unblocking receptors typically activated by AMPA—the silent synapse discharged a babble of electricity.
***
"The researchers then went a step further, unsilencing the synapse by injecting a current into an AMPA-deficient neuron while pouring glutamate onto its filopodia. This mimics the simultaneous firing of two neurons connected by the silent synapse. After just a few rounds of stimulation, AMPA receptors accumulated on the synaptic membrane and the filopodia started to resemble a dendritic spine. Performing the same experiment on dendritic spines, however, had no effect.
"The results suggest that the adult brain is far more plastic than was previously thought, says neuroscientist Gregor Schuhknecht of Harvard University, who was not involved in the study. It shows that “there’s a vast capacity for circuit remodeling,” he adds.
"The study may explain how the brain is able to learn new things without having to sacrifice existing connections, the researchers say. The ability of the brain to use different synapses “solves the plasticity versus flexibility dilemma,” says Harnett. If all the brain’s synapses are flexible, then you can’t preserve old information. But if they’re all stable, then it is difficult to learn new things, he says. Instead, the brain employs both: spiny synapses for stability and filopodia for flexibility.
"But instead of distinct categories, Harnett’s group are beginning to think about dendritic projections as existing on a continuum, from filopodia on one end to mature spines at the other. “It is a spectrum of maturity, strength, and plasticity,” says study author Dimitra Vardalaki, a PhD candidate in Harnett’s lab."
Comment: there had to be a way for much older brains to learn by plasticity, creating new connections, since we don't make new neurons.
Introducing the brain: thalamus role in memory?
by David Turell , Friday, March 31, 2023, 17:11 (385 days ago) @ David Turell
A recent finding in mice:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2366970-memories-may-be-sorted-by-the-thalamus-bef...
"Priya Rajasethupathy at the Rockefeller University in New York and her colleagues studied the brain activity of dozens of mice navigating a virtual maze. When the mice’s thalamus was stimulated while learning the maze, the animals were able to recall the routes they learned weeks later – by which point they would ordinarily have forgotten.
"The process of forming and storing memories involves multiple regions of the mammalian brain. Neuroscientists have largely focused their attention on the hippocampus, a region earlier studies identified as critical for forming new memories, and the cortex, where long-term memories are stored. But researchers weren’t sure where memories travelled between the time they formed in the hippocampus and when they ended up in the cortex.
***
"At the end of the maze training, the mice had more activity in their thalamus, suggesting to the researchers that the region may be playing an important role in memory.
“The thalamus hasn’t been appreciated really as a cognitive structure that’s important for memory and memory-guided processes, so when we first found this, we were kind of just struck,” says Rajasethupathy. After three weeks, they tested the rodents’ memory while either stimulating or curbing the function of the thalamus using a technique called optogenetics, in which researchers can turn neurons on or off with light.
"Mice that received a thalamus boost during the virtual reality game were able to recall memories weeks later that would have otherwise been forgotten, like the path to a meagre few drops of sugar water. Mice that had their thalamus suppressed could learn and recall routes in the short term but could not form long-term memories. “That was a very clear indication to us that they really need the thalamus to consolidate memories to long term,” says Rajasethupathy.
"Because mice are used as model organisms to illuminate characteristics often shared across mammals, this memory pathway could hold true for humans, too. “This study only looks at mice at the moment, but it is definitely interesting and will undoubtedly prompt much interest in the [thalamus] of humans in relation to memory,” says Dorothy Tse at Edge Hill University in the UK."
Comment: an interesting finding. The thalamus plays a key role in the brain.
Introducing the brain: pregnancy effects
by David Turell , Thursday, December 01, 2022, 17:19 (505 days ago) @ David Turell
Another supporting study:
https://www.livescience.com/pregnancy-causes-dramatic-changes-in-brain?utm_term=C3CFD69...
"Pregnancy caused women to lose gray matter, and reshaped the brain’s “default mode network,” a set of brain regions that are most active when the mind is wandering.
"A new study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to show dramatic changes in the brain during pregnancy. Pregnancy increased gray matter loss and reshaped the default mode network, which is responsible for the mind wandering and a sense of identity. Pregnancy leads to striking changes in the brain, including alterations in gray matter and regions involved in self-perception, according to a new study.
"The findings suggest that these neurological changes may promote bonding between mother and baby and could play a role in the identity shift that many women feel when they become new mothers, the researchers said.
"'These data provide key insights into the impact of becoming a mother on the human brain and point to pronounced changes in brain structure and function" during pregnancy, the authors wrote in the study, which was published Nov. 22 in the journal Nature Communications."
Comment: reported here in an earlier study. the brain's plasticity exhibited again.
The abstract:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33884-8?utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=...
"While animal studies have demonstrated a unique reproduction-related neuroplasticity, little is known on the effects of pregnancy on the human brain. Here we investigated whether pregnancy is associated with changes to resting state brain activity, white matter microstructure, neural metabolite concentrations and grey matter architecture using a comprehensive pre-conception cohort study. We show that pregnancy leads to selective and robust changes in neural architecture and neural network organization, which are most pronounced in the Default Mode Network. These neural changes correlated with pregnancy hormones, primarily third-trimester estradiol, while no associations were found with other factors such as osmotic effects, stress and sleep. Furthermore, the changes related to measures of maternal-fetal bonding, nesting behavior and the physiological responsiveness to infant cues, and predicted measures of mother-infant bonding and bonding impairments. These findings suggest there are selective pregnancy-related modifications in brain structure and function that may facilitate peripartum maternal processes of key relevance to the mother-infant dyad."
Introducing the brain: pregnancy effects, Daddy too
by David Turell , Thursday, December 01, 2022, 23:22 (505 days ago) @ David Turell
Father's similar effects:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fatherhood-changes-mens-brains-according-to-...
"As with practicing any new skill, the experience of caring for an infant might leave a mark on the brains of new parents. This is what neuroscientists call experience-induced brain plasticity—like the brain changes that occur when you learn a new language or master a new musical instrument.
"A sparse but growing body of research is observing this type of plasticity in fathers who experience the cognitive, physical and emotional demands of caring for a newborn without going through pregnancy. In terms of brain function, for instance, gay male fathers who are primary caregivers show stronger connections between parenting brain regions when viewing their infants, compared with secondary male caregivers.
***
"We found several significant changes in the brains of fathers from prenatal to postpartum that did not emerge within the childless men we followed across the same time period. In both the Spanish and Californian samples, fathers’ brain changes appeared in regions of the cortex that contribute to visual processing, attention and empathy toward the baby.
"The degree of brain plasticity in fathers may be linked with how much they interact with their baby. Although fathers in many parts of the world are increasingly taking part in child care, paternal involvement varies widely across different men. This range of involvement may explain why we found more subtle brain changes in these fathers compared with those observed in first-time mothers. In fact, brain changes in fathers were almost half the magnitude of the changes observed in the mothers.
"Social, cultural and psychological factors that determine how much fathers engage with their children may, in turn, influence changes to the fathering brain. Indeed, Spanish fathers, who, on average, have more generous paternity leaves than fathers have in the U.S., displayed more pronounced changes in brain regions that support goal-directed attention, which may help fathers attune to their infants’ cues, compared with Californian fathers."
Comment: a perfect example of brain plasticity responding to new requirements. in other requirements large changes have been found. The brain is enabled to respond to all diverse demands. Justv as new species arrive prepared to adapt to all new future requirements.
Introducing the brain: strange brain tendrils
by David Turell , Saturday, December 03, 2022, 21:53 (503 days ago) @ David Turell
A new mouse finding:
https://www.sciencealert.com/mysterious-tendrils-inside-the-brain-may-control-our-perce...
"Tiny antenna-like organelles once thought to be holdovers from our ancient past appear to play a crucial role in keeping track of time, according to a recent study on mice by researchers from the University of California, Irvine (UCI), in the US.
"Known as cilia, the microtubule projections can be found throughout the more complex branches of the tree of life, including on many of our own cells.
"Where they often have a role in motion, either pushing cells around or moving materials close to their surface, most in the human body – described as primary cilia – are non-motile.
Initial investigations more than a century ago considered these kinds of structures to be vestigial. Today, many primary cilia are recognized as part of a signaling hub system that keeps the body adapting and responding appropriately.
***
"For their study, the researchers used a gene manipulation technique to remove striatum cilia in mice, which had a dramatic effect.
"While the mice could still maintain long-term memories and habitual or already learned motor skills, various negative effects were observed after the cilia removal.
"The rodents proved unable to learn new motor tasks and showed repetitive motor behavior as well as noticeable delays in making decisions. Their ability to quickly recall location and orientation information, and their ability to filter out irrelevant environmental sensory information, were negatively affected.
***
"'Successful performance of working memory, attention, decision-making and executive function requires accurate and precise timing judgment, usually within a millisecond to a minute," says UCI neuroscientist Amal Alachkar.
"'When that capacity is impaired, it means losing the ability to quickly adjust behavior in response to changes in external stimuli and failing to sustain appropriate, goal-oriented motor responses."
"It's clear that all the impacts of cilia removal have a shared characteristic: the loss of ability to quickly change behavior in response to changes in the environment in an appropriate time frame.
"How the results of this study relate to humans isn't yet fully known, but it's likely that the human brain's cilia work in a similar way to those in mice."
Comment: These functions are automatic in fully functional brains and underlie/are triggered by decision making in the frontal cortex. It is not surprising the brain has 80-100 billion neurons. but also has billions of functional astrocytes and now these cilia. Not by chance.
Introducing the brain: another example of rapid plasticity
by David Turell , Sunday, December 04, 2022, 02:03 (503 days ago) @ David Turell
Eleven weeks of piano lessons enhances perceptions:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/12/221202124841.htm
"A new study published by researchers at the University of Bath demonstrates the positive impact learning to play a musical instrument has on the brain's ability to process sights and sounds, and shows how it can also help to lift a blue mood.
"Publishing their findings in the academic journal Nature Scientific Reports, the team behind the study shows how beginners who undertook piano lessons for just one hour a week over 11 weeks reported significant improvements in recognising audio-visual changes in the environment and reported less depression, stress and anxiety.
***
"The researchers found that within just a few weeks of starting lessons*, people's ability to process multisensory information -- i.e., sight and sound -- was enhanced. Improved 'multisensory process' has benefits for almost every activity we participate in -- from driving a car and crossing a road, to finding someone in a crowd or watching TV.
"These multisensory improvements extended beyond musical abilities. With musical training, people's audio-visual processing became more accurate across other tasks. Those who received piano lessons showed greater accuracy in tests where participants were asked to determine whether sound and vision 'events' occurred at the same time.
"This was true both for simple displays presenting flashes and beeps, and for more complex displays showing a person talking. Such fine-tuning of individuals' cognitive abilities was not present for the music listening group (where participants listened to the same music as played by the music group), or for the non-music group (where members studied or read).
***
"Cognitive psychologist and music specialist Dr Karin Petrini from the University of Bath's Department of Psychology, explained: "We know that playing and listening to music often brings joy to our lives, but with this study we were interested in learning more about the direct effects a short period of music learning can have on our cognitive abilities.
"'Learning to play an instrument like the piano is a complex task: it requires a musician to read a score, generate movements and monitor the auditory and tactile feedback to adjust their further actions. In scientific terms, the process couples visual with auditory cues and results in a multisensory training for individuals.
"'The findings from our study suggest that this has a significant, positive impact on how the brain processes audio-visual information even in adulthood when brain plasticity is reduced.'"
Comment: once again we see our brain is designed to handle all future requirements. This is the way God speciated all forms in evolution.
Introducing the brain: neuron self-control
by David Turell , Tuesday, December 06, 2022, 18:14 (500 days ago) @ David Turell
They handle the level of their own excitability:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-12-neurons-autonomously.html
"The neurons in the brain can also fine-tune their sensitivity, and even do so autonomously. A new study led by the University of Bonn and the University Hospital Bonn shows how they do this. For this purpose, the participants investigated nerve cell networks that also play a role in vision, hearing and touch. The stimulus first travels to the so-called thalamus, a structure deep in the center of the brain. From there, it is then conducted to the cerebral cortex, where it is further processed.
***
"For example, they need to dial down their sensitivity if the incoming stimuli were very strong. "We have now discovered that a specific enzyme called SLK plays a role in this process," says Beck, who is also spokesperson for the Transdisciplinary Research Area "Life and Health" at the University of Bonn. "It enables neurons to individually calibrate their own excitability." Which is somewhat like having no sound engineer: Instead, the microphones would automatically adjust their sensitivity so that the recording is neither too quiet nor overamplified.
"'In this mechanism, special nerve cells play an essential role, the so-called interneurons," explains Dr. Pedro Royero from Beck's research group. He earned his doctorate with this study in the Max Planck International Graduate School and performed most of the experiments. Interneurons send inhibitory action potentials to excited neurons. In a way, they turn the knob that reduces their sensitivity. "The SLK now determines how much this regulator can be adjusted by the interneurons, that is, how strong their inhibitory effect is."
"There are two different types of interneurons. Some are activated directly by incoming impulses from the thalamus. They already inhibit the neurons while these are simultaneously excited by the thalamus. Another type, in contrast, is only switched on by the activity of the neurons in the cerebral cortex—i.e. the very neurons they are supposed to inhibit afterwards. So they are part of a negative feedback loop. "Interestingly, the SLK is not active in this feedback inhibition, but only in the first case," Royero points out.
"The researchers were also able to show that certain genes are activated during sensitivity adjustment. They now want to investigate their role in the process in more detail. This is also interesting because the balance between excitation and inhibition is extremely important for brain function."
Comment: How did neurons do this? Trial and error? No animal can live with that sort of brain. Must be designed all at once for survival.
Introducing the brain: a new synapse control
by David Turell , Wednesday, December 07, 2022, 16:57 (499 days ago) @ David Turell
Recent biochemical research:
https://www.the-scientist.com/the-literature/a-novel-player-at-the-neuromuscular-juncti...
"In vertebrates, this signaling happens at the neuromus-cular junction (NMJ), a synaptic connection between motor neurons and muscle fibers. Once stimulated, a neuron will release the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which then traverses the synapse to bind specialized receptors on the surface of the muscle, triggering a contraction.
A suite of molecular machinery is required for the development and maintenance of the NMJ, which can otherwise become disorganized over time. One well-known player is muscle-specific kinase (MuSK), which forms a complex involved in cell signaling. Recent research has also implicated the Wnt family of proteins, peptides involved in multiple developmental pathways in animals.
***
"Strochlic’s group previously reported that Vangl2, a transmembrane protein found on both the neuron and muscle sides of the NMJ, interacts with certain Wnt
proteins—and that mice with mutated Vangl2 have NMJ defects. For their latest project, Strochlic, PhD student Myriam Boëx, and colleagues created location-
specific mouse knockouts, disrupting Vangl2 function either in the motor neuron or in skeletal muscle. Knocking out the protein in the neuron had little effect on NMJ architecture, the team found. But disrupting Vangl2 in the muscle resulted in mice with structurally disorganized junctions, reduced synaptic transmission, and weakness in their diaphragm or leg muscles.
"In vitro biochemical and genetics assays suggested that Vangl2 directly binds to MuSK and mediates Wnt-induced MuSK signaling, Strochlic adds. Although the precise details of the interactions aren’t yet clear, the findings point to Vangl2 being an important component of the complex that helps develop and maintain the NMJ, she says."
Comment: what is required is a complex orchestra of specialized function proteins. In a creative mode, one must think of inventing each protein and setting them up to work together. Logically, this cannot have happened naturally. A designer is required.
Introducing the brain: pigeon brains' unusual neurons
by David Turell , Wednesday, December 07, 2022, 21:01 (499 days ago) @ David Turell
Very dense with low energy use:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pigeon-neurons-use-much-less-energy-than-tho...
"Scientists once thought bigger brains made smarter animals. But birds fly in the face of that logic: with a brain smaller than a walnut, they can develop sophisticated tools and remember where they hid food. Now research published in Current Biology suggests birds can pull this off because their brain neurons use less energy than those of mammals, letting their bodies support a higher proportion of these cells.
"A 2016 study showed that avian brains are denser than those of many other animals. For example, a macaw’s 20-gram brain holds as many neurons as a squirrel monkey’s 30-gram brain. But neurons drain energy; researchers have found that a human brain uses a fifth of the body’s energy despite being only 2 percent of its mass, notes avian neuroscientist Kaya von Eugen of Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. She and others wondered how birds’ small bodies and energy budgets—based on how much food they consume—can support so many neurons.
***
"When compared against the neuronal energy budget of rodents, humans and other primates, a pigeon neuron used three times less energy than the average mammal’s neuron—a “really surprising” result, von Eugen says. Although avian neurons are likely smaller than a typical mammal’s, she adds, the difference in energy use “is so big that this cannot be the only explanation.” Perhaps, she suggests, avian brains are organized so that neurons can more easily exchange signals, or maybe birds’ warmer body temperatures let neurons function faster. The authors speculate that complex cognitive needs such as song and flight could have pushed the evolution of more efficient brain cells.
"The finding is “pretty remarkable,” says Vanderbilt University neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel, who worked on the 2016 study but was not involved in the new research. Based on the density disparities between mammal and bird brains, she says, the energy difference is “exactly the math you’d expect.” Birds may have evolved this trait simply to work with their limited energy supply, Herculano-Houzel adds, rather than to accommodate advanced processing needs. (my bold)
Comment: the bolds are Darwinian guesses, as usual. When birds first arrived, they may or may not perform all the activities they do today as noted above: "complex cognitive needs such as song and flight". Did a chance process design this? I doubt it.
Introducing the brain: intelligence from microRNA's
by David Turell , Sunday, December 11, 2022, 16:27 (495 days ago) @ David Turell
A theory involving octopuses:
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/we-share-smarts-with-octopuses-and-now-we...
"Octopuses are incredibly intelligent creatures, though their intelligence is dramatically different from our own. They benefit from a big, central brain in addition to an ancillary brain in each of their eight tentacles. The animals demonstrate strange problem-solving skills, moving through mazes and opening tough-to-split shells in ways we struggle to understand.
***
"But, while octopuses and their cephalopod counterparts (the squids and the cuttlefish) boast oddly complex brains, the basis of their complexity continues to stump scientists. That is, until now, since a study in Science Advances suggests that their intelligence is due to the dramatic assortment of microRNA types in their brain tissues — an assortment that they seem to share with a wide variety of vertebrates, including our own species.
"Approximately 600 million years ago, an ancient worm with minimal intelligence scuttled across the floor of the sea in search of food. In the years that followed, its descendants diversified into two distinct taxa, one without backbones and one with backbones. And though the descendants without backbones (the invertebrates) remained relatively dim, those with backbones (the vertebrates) built increasingly complex brains over time.
"The cephalopods form one of the biggest departures from this pattern. In fact, scientists say that these backbone-less mollusks break the mold made by their fellow invertebrates thanks to their intricate brains and their incredible intelligence. But the origins of which are a constant source of confusion for biologists.
Now, the new Science Advances study proposes one possible source of cephalopod smarts. Assuming that small, single-stranded molecules known as microRNA perform a pivotal function in building brain complexity, the study states that the vertebrates (including our own species) as well as the invertebrate cephalopods both share an abundance of microRNAs in their brain tissues.
"To uncover any similarities between cephalopod intelligence and our own, Rajewsky and several other study authors assessed 18 distinct types of tissues from deceased octopuses. Their analysis, and their analysis of the brain tissues in particular, revealed a profusion of types of microRNA, which are small molecules that mold to the RNA in an animal’s cells to influence the type and quantity of proteins that those cells produce.
“'This is the third-largest expansion of microRNA families in the animal world, and the largest outside of vertebrates,” says Grygoriy Zolotarov, another study author and a student at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, in a press release. “To give you an idea of the scale, oysters, which are also mollusks, have acquired just five new microRNA families since the last ancestors they shared with octopuses — while the octopuses have acquired 90.”
"Within that abundance of acquired types, the study authors identified 42 novel forms of microRNA. Plus, the fact that these forms persisted throughout the process of cephalopod evolution indicates that they perform an actual, functional purpose and assist the animals with survival in the wild."
Comment: it is a general study of populations of molecules. And following a general rule of evolution, if they are there, they must do something useful.
Introducing the brain: astrocyte actions
by David Turell , Monday, December 12, 2022, 18:40 (494 days ago) @ David Turell
In control of synapses:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-12-highlights-role-astrocytes-synaptic-vta.html
"Researchers at the CNR Institute of Neuroscience and the University of Padua, the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the Polytechnic University of Le Marche in Italy have recently carried out a study investigating the so far elusive role of astrocytes in the so-called ventral tegmental area (VTA), a hub of the mesocorticolimbic circuitry that plays fundamental roles in cognition, locomotion, reward, motivation and aversion. Their findings, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggest that astrocytes participate to the synaptic regulation of VTA dopamine neurons.
***
"The key idea behind the research by Carmignoto and his colleagues is that the functioning of the brain relies on a network of highly interacting neurons and astrocytes. In their recent study, they set out to specifically examine the role of astrocytes in the VTA circuitry, which was rarely explored in previous literature.
"Past findings suggest that the release of dopamine and endocannabinoids at the level of dopaminergic neuronal dendrites can act on both presynaptic terminals and postsynaptic neurons to modulate activity in the VTA. Carmignoto and his colleagues set out to explore the possibility that these previously reported neuronal signals also recruit astrocytes, which in turn modulate VTA synaptic circuitry.
***
"'In light of the results we obtain, we propose that astrocytes are activated by dopamine and endocannabinoids. Indeed, in collaboration with Fiorenzo Conti's group, we provide evidence that burst-firing neurons induce recurring calcium elevations in nearby astrocytes through activation of both dopamine type-2 and endocannabinoid type-1 receptors."
"Carmignoto and his colleagues then conducted a series of experiments using an electron microscope, which confirmed that dopamine type-2 and endocannabinoid type-1 receptors were co-expressed in astrocytes. Using pharmacological and genetic techniques, they also demonstrated that the activation of these two receptors in astrocytes, probably followed by the release of glutamate, play a key role in regulating synaptic transmission onto VTA dopaminergic neurons.
"Finally, the researchers used chemogenetic tools to selectively activate astrocytes in the VTA of living mice and observe resulting activity in the region. Their observation revealed that astrocytes regulate the burst firing of VTA dopamine neurons and induce hyperlocomotion.
"'We identified a hitherto unknown, sex and age-dependent, astrocyte-mediated mechanism of long-term synaptic potentiation of the excitatory transmission onto VTA dopaminergic neurons," Carmignoto said. "Consistent with the key role that the excitatory transmission exerts on the firing activity of VTA dopaminergic neurons, in collaboration with Annalisa Muntoni in Cagliari and Francesco Papaleo in Genova, we found that in vivo astrocyte activation increases the burst firing of dopamine neurons in the VTA and induces locomotor hyperactivity, a behavior that is known to be associated with increased activity of VTA dopaminergic neurons.
"'This is, in our opinion, an important observation, as the burst firing of VTA dopamine neurons is the code used by dopamine neurons to regulate dopamine release at multiple VTA target regions, thereby controlling various behavioral states including reward and aversion, learning, motivation, attention and locomotor activity."
"Overall, the recent work by this team of researchers advances the hypothesis that the reciprocal communication between astrocytes and neurons in the VTA plays a crucial role in the manifestation of dopamine-dependent behaviors. These behaviors are known to be associated with numerous psychiatric conditions, including obsessive-compulsive disorder and drug addiction."
Comment: more complexity found in the control systems in the brain with astrocytes shown to be so active.
Introducing the brain: perception and memories
by David Turell , Thursday, December 15, 2022, 17:30 (491 days ago) @ David Turell
Scans have worked it out ow the brain handles them:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-brain-distinguishes-memories-from-perceptions-20...
"...in the 1990s neuroimaging studies revealed that parts of the brain that were thought to be active only during sensory perception are also active during the recall of memories.
“'It started to raise the question of whether a memory representation is actually different from a perceptual representation at all,” said Sam Ling, an associate professor of neuroscience and director of the Visual Neuroscience Lab at Boston University. Could our memory of a beautiful forest glade, for example, be just a re-creation of the neural activity that previously enabled us to see it?
***
"...when Favila and her colleagues looked at how perceptions and memories were represented in the various areas of the visual cortex, they discovered major differences.
"As participants recalled the images, the receptive fields in the highest level of visual processing were the same size they had been during perception — but the receptive fields stayed that size down through all the other levels painting the mental image. The remembered image was a large, blurry blob at every stage.
"This suggests that when the memory of the image was stored, only the highest-level representation of it was kept. When the memory was experienced again, all the areas of the visual cortex were activated — but their activity was based on the less precise version as an input.
"So depending on whether information is coming from the retina or from wherever memories are stored, the brain handles and processes it very differently. Some of the precision of the original perception gets lost on its way into memory, and “you can’t magically get it back,” Favila said.
***
"But why are memories recalled in this “blurrier” way? To find out, the researchers created a model of the visual cortex that had different levels of neurons with receptive fields of increasing size. They then simulated an evoked memory by sending a signal through the levels in reverse order. As in the brain scans, the spatial blurriness seen in the level with the largest receptive field persisted through all the rest. That suggests that the remembered image forms in this way due to the hierarchical nature of the visual system, Favila said.
"One theory about why the visual system is arranged hierarchically is that it helps with object recognition. If receptive fields were tiny, the brain would need to integrate more information to make sense of what was in view; that could make it hard to recognize something big like the Eiffel Tower, Favila said. The “blurrier” memory image might be the “consequence of having a system that’s been optimized for things like object recognition.”
***
"But it’s not clear “whether it’s a feature or a bug,” said Thomas Naselaris, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. He was not involved in the new study, but he came to a similar conclusion that perception and memory look very different in the brain in a 2020 study. He favors the idea that the difference is advantageous, perhaps in helping to differentiate perceptions from memories. “A person whose mental imagery had all of the detail and precision of their scene imagery could get confused easily,” he said.
"The blurriness could also help to prevent storage of unnecessary information. Maybe the important thing isn’t to remember where each pixel sits in the field of vision, but that the pixels belong to a family member or a friend, Favila said.
“'It’s not like the visual system is incapable of generating highly detailed, vivid and precise imagery,” Naselaris said. People have reported very vivid visual images, for example, when they’re in the “hypnogogic” state between sleep and wakefulness. The brain “just tends not to do it during waking hours.'”
Comment: what I take from this is when we study the brain, se find a every logical design.
Introducing the brain: hidden plasticity synapses
by David Turell , Friday, December 16, 2022, 19:55 (490 days ago) @ David Turell
Now found in mice in a special neuron connection called filipodia:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/silent-synapses-may-provide-plasticity-in-ad...
"Silent synapses are otherwise complete neuronal connections that lack a key signaling protein—AMPA receptors—that renders them inactive. They were thought to be unique to early development, as previous work found that the silent connections vanish by the time a mouse has reached adulthood. But researchers may have been looking in the wrong place. In young animals, silent synapses are formed from larger protrusions called dendritic spines. But in adults, they can be found on the ends of threadlike structures called filopodia, according to the new study.
***
"In the new study, the researchers used the technique on brain slices of the visual cortex, then on other brain regions, in mice expressing fluorescently labeled synaptic proteins. They found that the tips of filopodia were indeed covered with AMPA-deficient synapses. Without AMPA, synapses cannot be activated, as the receptors clear magnesium ions that obstruct other receptors integral to synaptic transmission.
"They also realized that filopodia are far more widespread than they anticipated. They were found all over the brain and at levels ten times higher than previously described, making up 30 percent of the protrusions on a given dendritic branch. This suggests a similar proportion of synapses in the adult mouse brain are silent, waiting to be activated.
“'It is a major advance to have this direct demonstration” that silent synapses are abundant in adult mice, says Yan Dong, a neuroscientist at the University of Pittsburgh who was not involved in the study. Dong’s group had previously provided potential evidence for silent synapses in cocaine-addicted adult mice: Zapping the synapses with an electrode generated no response, but when the drug was withdrawn, AMPA receptors gathered on the synapse and responded to electrical stimulation. But in such a densely packed region, the researchers could have been accidentally activating other cells, he says, so the evidence was indirect. “In neuroscience research, you believe it only when you see it,” he adds.
"The researchers then went a step further, unsilencing the synapse by injecting a current into an AMPA-deficient neuron while pouring glutamate onto its filopodia. This mimics the simultaneous firing of two neurons connected by the silent synapse. After just a few rounds of stimulation, AMPA receptors accumulated on the synaptic membrane and the filopodia started to resemble a dendritic spine. Performing the same experiment on dendritic spines, however, had no effect.
"The results suggest that the adult brain is far more plastic than was previously thought, says neuroscientist Gregor Schuhknecht of Harvard University, who was not involved in the study. It shows that “there’s a vast capacity for circuit remodeling,” he adds.
"The study may explain how the brain is able to learn new things without having to sacrifice existing connections, the researchers say. The ability of the brain to use different synapses “solves the plasticity versus flexibility dilemma,” says Harnett. If all the brain’s synapses are flexible, then you can’t preserve old information. But if they’re all stable, then it is difficult to learn new things, he says. Instead, the brain employs both: spiny synapses for stability and filopodia for flexibility."
Comment: For plasticity to be an unlimited in capacity, this sort of arrangement must be present. As usual, looks like v perfect design.
Introducing the brain: developing squid brain like ours
by David Turell , Wednesday, January 18, 2023, 16:07 (457 days ago) @ David Turell
We split 500 million years ago, but similar embyologic development is found:
https://www.livescience.com/baby-squid-retinas-have-vertebrate-brain-development?utm_te...
"Scientists who watched nerve cells connect inside the eyes of growing squid have uncovered a remarkable secret — the cephalopods’ brains independently evolved to develop in the same way ours do.
"The discovery, made using high-resolution cameras focused on the retinas of longfin squid (Doryteuthis pealeii) embryos, reveals that, in spite of 500 million years of divergent evolution, the basic blueprint for how complex brains and nervous systems evolve may be the same across a wide range of species.
***
"'Our conclusions were surprising because a lot of what we know about nervous system development in vertebrates has long been thought to be special to that lineage," study senior author Kristen Koenig, a molecular biologist at Harvard University, said in a statement. "By observing the fact that the process is very similar, what it suggested to us is that these two [lineages] independently evolved very large nervous systems using the same mechanisms to build them. What that suggests is that those mechanisms — those tools — the animals use during development may be important for building big nervous systems."
***
"Just as in vertebrates, the researchers saw the squids’ progenitor cells arrange themselves into a structure called a pseudostratified epithelium — a long, densely packed structure that forms as a crucial step in the growth of large, complex tissue. The researchers noted that the size, organization and movement of the structure's nucleus was remarkably similar to the same neural epitheliums in vertebrates; something that was once considered a unique feature that enabled back-boned animals to grow sophisticated brains and eyes.
"This is not the only time that scientists have spotted cephaolopods sharing common neurological blueprints with us. Much like humans, octopuses and squid also have a large variety of microRNAs (small molecules that control how genes are expressed) found inside their neural tissue."
Comment: another example of convergent evolution. From a design point of view, if a mechanism works use it whenever required.
Introducing the brain: mutation difference with Neanderthals
by David Turell , Wednesday, January 18, 2023, 16:21 (457 days ago) @ David Turell
Has to do with brain size:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/mutation-linked-to-difference-between-human-...
"A single amino acid substitution in a protein causes increased neuron production in the frontal lobes of humans compared to Neanderthals—a tiny difference that could have given our species a cognitive edge, researchers say.
"Even though modern humans are highly similar to our ancient Neanderthal cousins, there are some key differences between us—most notably, more neuron-packed frontal lobes. Now, researchers have identified a possible genetic trigger that led to increased neuron production in that brain region, which is associated with higher-level cognition as well as impulse control and emotional regulation: a mutation that ultimately alters metabolism in cells that become neurons.
"The research, published yesterday (September 8) in Science, finds that the modern human and the archaic Neanderthal versions of the gene that codes for the protein transketolase-like 1 (TKTL1) differ by just one base pair. That point mutation in TKTL1 means that the Neanderthal version of the protein has a lysine where the modern human version has an arginine. After conducting experiments with fetal human neocortex tissue, mouse and ferret models, and engineered human brain organoids, the researchers behind the study conclude that the mutated gene’s behavior may explain humanity’s neuron-rich brains and could point to humans having a higher intellect than Neanderthals.
***
"What the experiments collectively show is that the solitary lysine-to-arginine substitution in TKTL1 leads to an increase in the production of basal radial glia—neural progenitor cells that, during embryonic development, divide asymmetrically to produce more of themselves as well as most of the neurons in the frontal lobes. Having more of these glia in turn resulted in more neurons developing in the area. While there aren’t any Neanderthals around to recruit for cognitive tests, experts tell The Scientist that the increased neuron count in modern human brains could indicate that our subspecies developed greater cognitive abilities, though the relative intelligence of humans and Neanderthals is subject to substantial debate.
Comment: it is hard to imagine just one gene made all the difference in cognitive abilities. But finding this gene difference is not surprising.
Introducing the brain: zone of uncertainty
by David Turell , Thursday, January 26, 2023, 15:18 (449 days ago) @ David Turell
More studies in mouse brains:
https://www.sciencealert.com/mysterious-zone-of-uncertainty-inside-the-brain-reveals-a-...
"The new study looks at the 'zone of uncertainty' or 'zona incerta' inside the brain: we don't know much about it, but we do know that it seems to handle memory formation in tandem with the neocortex, the largest part of the cerebral cortex.
"In learning tests on mice, the researchers analyzed how connections between the zona incerta and the neocortex operated, paying particular attention to the synapses (the connections between neurons) and inhibition (the rewiring of neuron activity).
"'The results were striking," says neuroscientist Anna Schroeder from the University of Freiburg in Germany. "While about half of the synapses developed stronger positive responses during learning, the other half did exactly the opposite."
"'In effect, what we observed was thus a complete redistribution of inhibition within the system due to learning."
"When the brain forms memories, it combines both 'bottom-up' signals coming in from the environment and 'top-down' signals that it generates itself; these top-down signals might be influenced by our current goals or past experiences, for example.
"The zona incerta deals in a less common type of top-down signal called long-range inhibitory pathways. Top-down signals usually light up or excite neural pathways, whereas these types are inhibitors, suppressing and blocking off these routes as needed.
"Varying the strengths of synapses and chains of neurons in the brain is essential for forming memories, helping the brain assign value to what we're going through: everything that happens to us is somewhere on the memorable scale.
"These tests show the zona incerta encoding previous experiences in a special bidirectional way that hasn't been seen before. Further tests where the zona incerta pathways were blocked off resulted in impairments in learning in the mice.
"'This connectivity implies that an activation of the zona incerta should result in a net excitation of neocortical circuits," says Schroeder.
"However, combining this with the redistribution of inhibition that we see with learning shows that this pathway likely has even richer computational consequences for neocortical processing."
"This is all relatively high-level neuroscience, but the conclusion is that we now know more about how a mysterious brain region influences memory and learning ability – and it does it in a peculiar and unexpected way that's of particular interest to scientists.
***
"'Ultimately, this study will hopefully also inspire other researchers to keep exploring the role of long-range inhibition in regulating neocortical function, both from the zona incerta and from additional, yet-to-be-identified sources," says neuroscientist Johannes Letzkus from the University of Freiburg."
Comment: the brain is the most complex organ we study. It is the strongest evidence we have for design.
Introducing the brain: review of maturation
by David Turell , Thursday, February 09, 2023, 15:49 (435 days ago) @ David Turell
Manly prefrontal cortex and connections to other areas:
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/why-the-human-brain-takes-decades-to-develop?utm_...
"Even after a young adult has finished growing, perhaps married or claimed independence by most social standards, their brain typically continues developing — until they reach their mid- to late 20s.
"Adolescence, in fact, spans from the age of 10 until at least age 24, according to some definitions.
"Interestingly, the actual volume and size of the brain typically reaches its full mass in early adolescence. But key regions and connections need more time and experience to gradually form and mature.
"Particularly the prefrontal cortex toward the front of the brain gets “remodeled” during adolescence, according to some brain experts. This thinking-center is responsible for judgements, reasoning and impulse control.
"Before that happens, younger adolescents tend to primarily navigate the world with the amygdala and limbic system, which develops earlier and is associated with emotional behavior and survival mechanisms such as fight-or-flight response.
"One neuroscientist, Sarah McKay, has described this as a sort of neurological “mismatch” in the developmental years. The adolescent period brings about “a significant neurological transition,” she said in blog post outlining key shifts that occur in the teenage brain.
"Namely, stronger connections gradually begin to form with the prefrontal cortex. Though, the exact timing and development process varies from person to person.
"This process explains why some childhood behaviors are often attributed to the still-developing brain. And that neurological reality correlates with societal age restrictions on things like drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes and renting a car.
"Angela Griffin, a neuropsychologist at Southampton Children’s Hospital in the U.K., described the prefrontal cortex this way in a 2017 review in Healthcare: “One of the key goals of the pre-frontal cortex is to become skilled at reconciling internal emotional states with the demands of external reality.”
"Griffin’s review explains that during the teen years, brain connections between the hippocampus and frontal areas are strengthened, enabling youth to become gradually better at integrating memory and experience into their decision making.
***
"Incidentally, and surprising to many people, within a decade after fully developing, the human brain begins shrinking — often once a person reaches their 30s. And by the time they hit 60, the rate of shrinking has increased even more.
"Suffice to say, the brain develops and ages in dynamic ways that we are only beginning to grasp."
Comment: that our brain is so complex is the reason we are still learning about it.
Introducing the brain: thought regions in cortex
by David Turell , Tuesday, February 21, 2023, 01:39 (424 days ago) @ David Turell
Can be mapped in early work:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-02-distinct-pyramidal-cell-patterns-cortical.html
"Their findings, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggest that distinct types of pyramidal cells drive patterns of cortical activity associated with different brain functions. The team's study builds on some of their previous works focusing on neuronal activity in the cortex.
***
"'Most notably, we found that the cortex-wide activity patterns that we observed from different cell types were really distinct," Musall explained. "This means that some brain regions were performing a specific function, such as processing sensory inputs, but this only became visible when measuring the activity of the specific cell type that carried this function.
"'Conversely, many of these functions were not visible with non-specific imaging data because the activity of different cell types in the region got mixed. The same is true for most brain imaging tools that are routinely used in humans, such as fMRI, where we measure the activity of different brain areas based on oxygen consumption."
"The findings gathered by Musall and his colleagues delineate the functionally different cortical activity patterns that different types of pyramidal cells in the mouse brain elicit during decision-making. Even if all the cells seemed to play a key role in decision-making, different types exhibited different choice tuning patterns."
Comment: decoding the brain is very complex work
Introducing the brain: controls 'feeling sick
by David Turell , Thursday, February 23, 2023, 19:20 (421 days ago) @ David Turell
The brain recognized when the illness appears and creates how you feel, your fever, etc.:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00509-z?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_c...
"The difference in the hearts’ appearance originated in the brain, Haykin explains. The healthier-looking samples came from mice that had received stimulation of a brain area involved in positive emotion and motivation. Those marked with scars were from unstimulated mice.
“In the beginning we were sure that it was too good to be true,” Haykin says. It was only after repeating the experiment several times, she adds, that she was able to accept that the effect she was seeing was real.
"Haykin, alongside her supervisors at the Technion — Asya Rolls, a neuroimmunologist, and Lior Gepstein, a cardiologist — are trying to work out exactly how this happens. On the basis of their experiments so far, which have not yet been published, activation of this brain reward centre — called the ventral tegmental area (VTA) — seems to trigger immune changes that contribute to the reduction of scar tissue. (my bold)
"This study has its roots in decades of research pointing to the contribution of a person’s psychological state to their heart health1. In a well-known condition known as ‘broken-heart syndrome’, an extremely stressful event can generate the symptoms of a heart attack — and can, in rare cases, be fatal. Conversely, studies have suggested that a positive mindset can lead to better outcomes in those with cardiovascular disease. But the mechanisms behind these links remain elusive.
"For Rolls, the implications of this work are broad. She wants to provide an explanation for a phenomenon that many clinicians and researchers are aware of: mental states can have a profound impact on how ill we get — and how well we recover. In Rolls’s view, working out how this happens could enable physicians to tap into the power of the mind over the body. Understanding this could help to boost the placebo effect, destroy cancers, enhance responses to vaccination and even re-evaluate illnesses that, for centuries, have been dismissed as being psychologically driven, she says. “I think we’re ready to say that psychosomatic [conditions] can be treated differently.”
"She is part of a growing group of scientists who are mapping out the brain’s control over the body’s immune responses. There are multiple lines of communication between the nervous and the immune systems — from small local circuits in organs such as the skin, to longer-range routes beginning in the brain — with roles in a wide range of diseases, from autoimmunity to cancer. This field “has really exploded over the last several years”, says Filip Swirski, an immunologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City."
***
"Veiga-Fernandes and his group have documented clusters of neuronal and immune cells in various tissues and discovered how they work together to sense damage and mobilize immune reactions. His team is now looking at how these little switchboards can be controlled by the brain.
**
"The brain itself is also beginning to give up its secrets. Neuroscientist Catherine Dulac and her team at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have pinpointed neurons in an area called the hypothalamus that control symptoms including fever, warmth-seeking and loss of appetite in response to infection6. “Most people probably assume that when you feel sick, it’s because the bacteria or viruses are messing up your body,” she says. But her team demonstrated that activating these neurons could generate symptoms of sickness even in the absence of a pathogen. An open question, Dulac adds, is whether these hypothalamic neurons can be activated by triggers other than pathogens, such as chronic inflammation.
"Just above the hypothalamus sits a region called the insula, which is involved in processing emotion and bodily sensations. In a 2021 study, one of Rolls’s doctoral students, Tamar Koren, found that neurons in the insula store memories of past bouts of gut inflammation — and that stimulating those brain cells reactivated the immune response7.
***
"Negative mental states can also influence the body’s immune response. In a study published last year, Swirski and his team identified specific brain circuits that mobilize immune cells in the bodies of mice during acute stress10. The researchers found two pathways, one originating in the motor cortex that directed immune cells to the site of injury or infection, and another beginning in the hypothalamus — a key responder in times of stress — that reduced the number of immune cells circulating in the blood. The group is now investigating the role of stress-mediated circuits in chronic inflammatory diseases."
Comment: as you read this brain 'connectivity to everything' article, just recall now powerful is the placebo effect. Chance mutations cannot create this. It must be designed.
Introducing the brain: source of adult plasticity
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 14, 2023, 15:17 (402 days ago) @ David Turell
Study of filopodia:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/silent-synapses-may-provide-plasticity-in-ad...
"The information we gather throughout the course of our lives—the quickest way to get to work, for instance, or the name of a friend’s new partner—is stored in synapses. In the adult brain, new synapses are thought to be formed from scratch as needed or through the modification of existing connections. Now, a study published November 30 in Nature unearths an abundance of ready-made ‘silent synapses’ which ripen upon neuronal stimulation.
"Silent synapses are otherwise complete neuronal connections that lack a key signaling protein—AMPA receptors—that renders them inactive. They were thought to be unique to early development, as previous work found that the silent connections vanish by the time a mouse has reached adulthood. But researchers may have been looking in the wrong place. In young animals, silent synapses are formed from larger protrusions called dendritic spines. But in adults, they can be found on the ends of threadlike structures called filopodia, according to the new study.
***
"In the new study, the researchers used ... brain slices of the visual cortex, then on other brain regions, in mice expressing fluorescently labeled synaptic proteins. They found that the tips of filopodia were indeed covered with AMPA-deficient synapses. Without AMPA, synapses cannot be activated, as the receptors clear magnesium ions that obstruct other receptors integral to synaptic transmission.
"They also realized that filopodia are far more widespread than they anticipated. They were found all over the brain and at levels ten times higher than previously described, making up 30 percent of the protrusions on a given dendritic branch. This suggests a similar proportion of synapses in the adult mouse brain are silent, waiting to be activated.
"To confirm that the synapses were in fact silent, the researchers released the neurotransmitter glutamate at the tips of filopodia to mimic activity in a neighboring neuron. Unlike the synapses on dendritic spines, which responded with a burst of electrical activity, the synapses on filopodia were unresponsive. When the team washed away the magnesium ions from the same filopodium—unblocking receptors typically activated by AMPA—the silent synapse discharged a babble of electricity.
“'It is a major advance to have this direct demonstration” that silent synapses are abundant in adult mice, says Yan Dong, a neuroscientist at the University of Pittsburgh who was not involved in the study.
***
"The study may explain how the brain is able to learn new things without having to sacrifice existing connections, the researchers say. The ability of the brain to use different synapses “solves the plasticity versus flexibility dilemma,” says Harnett. If all the brain’s synapses are flexible, then you can’t preserve old information. But if they’re all stable, then it is difficult to learn new things, he says. Instead, the brain employs both: spiny synapses for stability and filopodia for flexibility."
Comment: if the adult brain does not produce new neurons (except in the hippocampus) so there had to be a way to keep plasticity in play.
Introducing the brain: internal compass
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 22, 2023, 19:36 (394 days ago) @ David Turell
Like a GPS:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-03-brain-internal-compass.html
"This ability to accurately decode the animal's internal head direction allowed the researchers to explore how the Head-Direction cells, which make up the brain's internal compass, support the brain's ability to re-orient itself in changing surroundings. Specifically, the research team identified a phenomenon they term "network gain" that allowed the brain's internal compass to reorient after the mice were disoriented.
"'It's as if the brain has a mechanism to implement a 'reset button' allowing for rapid reorientation of its internal compass in confusing situations," says Ajabi.
"Although the animals in this study were exposed to unnatural visual experiences, the authors argue that such scenarios are already relevant to the modern human experience, especially with the rapid spread of virtual reality technology. These findings "may eventually explain how virtual reality systems can easily take control over our sense of orientation," adds Ajabi."
Comment: they found a large group of neurons acting in concert but could not dissect out individual neuron activity.
Introducing the brain: wiring for each language
by David Turell , Monday, March 27, 2023, 16:12 (389 days ago) @ David Turell
Connections differ for each first language:
https://www.livescience.com/your-native-language-may-shape-the-wiring-of-your-brain?utm...
"A person's native language may shape how their brain builds connections between different hubs of information processing, a new brain scan study reveals.
"The observed differences in these language network structures were related to linguistic characteristics in the native languages of the study participants: German and Arabic.
***
"Although the language network grows to be one of the strongest networks in the brain, the connections at birth are weak. As we learn to speak, links strengthen between the various brain regions that are responsible for different types of language processing, such as recognizing words from sounds and interpreting the meaning of sentences, Anwander explained.
"Different languages may tax some types of language processing more than others. The researchers wanted to see how these differences affect the formation of connections in the brain.
"Previous studies had highlighted regions of the brain that activate during language processing. These are primarily situated in the left hemisphere, although both sides of the brain are invoked in auditory processing, and the region that assesses stress and intonation in the pronunciation of words lives in the right hemisphere.
"Discussing the paper at a seminar(opens in new tab), Patrick Friedrich(opens in new tab), a researcher at the Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine at Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany who was not involved in the study, noted that the brain's language network is understood to be "more or less universal among participants of different native languages." Yet, scientists have observed differences in how the brain processes second languages.
"'I thought this study was really interesting because it shows for the first time a structural difference depending on the native experience," rather than languages learned later, Friedrich said.
***
"The scans revealed that the native German speakers showed increased connectivity in the regions of the left hemisphere involved in language processing, compared with the Arabic speakers. Anwander noted that German is considered syntactically complicated(opens in new tab), meaning the sense of a sentence is gleaned less from the word order and more from the grammatical forms of the words. Thus, words that depend on each other for their meaning may be at opposite ends of a sentence. Syntactic processing regions are mostly in frontal parts of the left hemisphere, so the higher connectivity within the left hemisphere makes sense, he said.
"In contrast, Anwander described Arabic as semantically complex — while the sentence word order remains more fixed, the words' meanings can be more taxing to decode. The researchers observed increased connectivity between the left and right hemispheres for Arabic speakers that reflected this."
Comment: not at all surprising. A baby brain has tremendous plasticity and as it hears language the proper networks will form, especially since a baby is born with a sense of syntax
Introducing the brain: synapse plasticity
by David Turell , Monday, March 27, 2023, 19:47 (389 days ago) @ David Turell
Three scientist awarded:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/2023-brain-prize-awarded-for-research-on-syn...
"The Brain Prize recognizes the three scientists’ research on the molecular mechanisms behind neural plasticity: the brain’s ability to rewire connections as it learns, develops, heals from injury, and adapts to new information.
***
"Greenberg, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School, identified the cFos gene and its associated protein, a transcription factor known as Fos. He went on to show that neuronal activity drives Fos expression, kickstarting the production of synaptic plasticity-related genes and leading to long-term changes in connectivity. Fos acts on extremely fast timescales, shifting the paradigm that gene regulation is a slow process.
***
"Greenberg established that Fos and other genes mediate long-term synaptic plasticity, but scientists continued to puzzle over how synaptic plasticity is maintained at individual synapses far from the nucleus. This puzzle intrigued Schuman, who is now the director of the Max Planck Institute in Germany. In 1996, Schuman was the first to show that local protein translation at these far-away synapses is crucial for strengthening synaptic connectivity, a phenomenon that occurs without any genetic changes at the nucleus—where mRNAs are first transcribed. “The solution that neurons have come up with is to send mRNAs” from the nucleus to the axons, Schuman explains in a press briefing ahead of the announcement, “once the mRNAs are in the processes, proteins can be made on demand.”
***
"Holt, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge in the UK, is interested in how connections are first formed in the brain during development and maintained long-term. Her work on the vertebrate visual system led to the discovery that as neurons navigate to their targets during development, proteins are made and degraded at the very tip of the axon, called the growth cone. Like Schuman’s findings, Holt’s research highlighted the importance of local translation both in the development and maintenance of axons in the brain.
"Morris says that together, the researchers’ work tells “a lovely story.” First, Greenberg’s work shows that neuronal “activity can affect gene transcription.” Then, Schuman and Holt show that “gene transcription creates RNAs which are transported out to the periphery to do their job” of modifying synapses."
Comment: a design that fits the need. All of this is at a long distance from the nuclear DNA in neurons. NOT BY CHANCE.
Introducing the brain: neuronal plasticity to stimuli
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 28, 2023, 11:35 (389 days ago) @ David Turell
In C. elegans sensory neurons:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)00263-4?dgcid=raven_jbs_aip...
"The gene expression profile of AFD reflects defined temperature experience features
"Altered expression is mediated by classic activity-dependent regulatory pathways
"Specific gene expression changes drive developmental and behavioral flexibility
"Linking stimulus aspects with transcription enables precise neuronal plasticity
"Neurons modify their transcriptomes in response to an animal’s experience. How specific experiences are transduced to modulate gene expression and precisely tune neuronal functions are not fully defined. Here, we describe the molecular profile of a thermosensory neuron pair in C. elegans experiencing different temperature stimuli. We find that distinct salient features of the temperature stimulus, including its duration, magnitude of change, and absolute value, are encoded in the gene expression program in this single neuron type, and we identify a novel transmembrane protein and a transcription factor whose specific transcriptional dynamics are essential to drive neuronal, behavioral, and developmental plasticity. Expression changes are driven by broadly expressed activity-dependent transcription factors and corresponding cis-regulatory elements that nevertheless direct neuron- and stimulus-specific gene expression programs. Our results indicate that coupling of defined stimulus characteristics to the gene regulatory logic in individual specialized neuron types can customize neuronal properties to drive precise behavioral adaptation." ( my bold)
Comment: My bold shows a fixed set of controls, not variable. Multiplied to the size of our brain helps explain its actions.
Introducing the brain: astrocyte functions not fully known
by David Turell , Saturday, April 01, 2023, 19:34 (384 days ago) @ David Turell
An editorial plea:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-03-astrocytes-stars-brain.html
"Long thought of as "brain glue," the star-shaped cells called astrocytes—members of a family of cells found in the central nervous system called glial that help regulate blood flow, synaptic activity, keep neurons healthy, and play an important role in breathing. Despite this growing appreciation for astrocytes, much remains unknown about the role these cells play in helping neurons and the brain process information.
"'We believe astrocytes can add a new dimension to our understanding of how external and internal information is merged in the brain," said Nathan Smith, MS, Ph.D., associate professor of Neuroscience at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester.
"He and fellow authors...highlight this in an opinion article out today in Trends in Neuroscience. The piece explores how astrocytes may be a key player in the brain's ability to process external and internal information simultaneously. "More research on these cells is necessary to understand their role in the process that allows a person to have an appropriate behavioral response and also the ability to create a relevant memory to guide future behavior."
"How our body integrates external with internal information is essential to survival. When something goes awry in these processes, behavioral or psychiatric symptoms may emerge. Smith and co-authors point to evidence that astrocytes may play a key role in this process. Previous research has shown astrocytes sense the moment neurons send a message and can simultaneously sense sensory inputs.
"These external signals could come from various senses such as sight or smell. Astrocytes respond to this influx of information by modifying their calcium Ca2+ signaling directed towards neurons, providing them with the most suitable information to react to the stimuli. The authors hypothesize that this astrocytic Ca2+ signaling may be an underlying factor in how neurons communicate and what may happen when a signal is disrupted.
"But much is still unknown in how astrocytes and neuromodulators, the signals sent between neurons, work together.
"Astrocytes are an often-overlooked type of brain cell in systems neuroscience," Smith said. "We believe dysfunctional astrocytic calcium signaling could be an underlying factor in disorders characterized by disrupted sensory processing, like Alzheimer's and autism spectrum disorder."
***
"Apart from absorbing excess potassium, astrocytes themselves could cause potassium levels around the neuron to drop, halting neuronal signaling. This research showed, for the first time, that astrocytes did more than tend to neurons, they also could influence the actions of neurons.
"'I think once we understand how astrocytes integrate external information from these different internal states, we can better understand certain neurological diseases. Understanding their role more fully will help propel the future possibility of targeting astrocytes in neurological disease," said Smith.
"The communication between neurons and astrocytes is far more complicated than previously thought. Evidence suggests that astrocytes can sense and react to change—a process that is important for behavioral shifts and memory formation. Authors believe discovering more about astrocytes will lead to a better understanding of cognitive function and lead to advances in treatment and care."
Comment: my bet is on a discovery of much more complexity in astrocyte functions.
Introducing the brain: responses without a brain
by David Turell , Monday, April 03, 2023, 14:40 (383 days ago) @ David Turell
Sea anemones have habituation and sensitization responses:
https://www.sciencealert.com/these-sea-creatures-dont-need-a-brain-to-learn-according-t...
"Learning is one of life's defining characteristics, and every living thing, from birds to slime mold, possesses this ability to varying degrees.
"In the simplest of organisms, repeated exposure to the same stimuli can cause non-associative learning in the form of habituation or sensitization.
"According to recent research, starlet sea anemones (Nematostella vectensis) are capable of surprisingly sophisticated learning, as evidenced by their ability to remember the connection between light and electric pulses.
"'This is exactly what is called associative learning," says senior author, University of Fribourg neurobiologist Simon Sprecher.
""Proof that even animals without brains are able to display complex behavior thanks to their nervous system."
***
"Cnidarians like sea anemones and jellyfish only have a decentralized nerve net, so it makes sense to assume they can only learn in non-associative ways.
"To investigate N. vectensis's capacity for associative learning, Sprecher and colleagues from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland and the University of Barcelona in Spain conducted classical conditioning experiments with light and an electric shock.
***
"In the group that had previously received the shock at the same time as the light, 72 percent retracted their tentacles at the light alone. This was more than double the reaction rate (30 percent) of the animals trained with the shock and light at different times.
"By using software to track the body length of the animals at each point in the test, the team also measured the extent of the retractions. They found that the maximum length of retraction was significantly longer in animals trained with the shock and light together compared to the unpaired group.
"'Overall," the authors write, "these animals displayed a quantitatively and qualitatively different behavioral response compared to control animals that received unpaired stimuli."
"However, it is still unclear whether cnidarians share the same types of neurotransmitters or neuromodulators that we do, such as serotonin or dopamine, and it is possible that associative learning evolved independently in these animals.
"The researchers note, "In most model organisms, defined neural circuits and molecular mechanisms responsible for specific forms of memories have been identified."
"They suggest this ability of cnidarians to learn is an example of "embodied cognition" and prompts research into the structure of memory in organisms that do not have a typical brain.
"'We know very little about the workings of the learning process in animals that have an apparently simple nervous system," says Sprecher.
'
"So we have the necessary framework to push our research further.'"
Comment: it comes down to how much can individual neurons do in these tiny circuits.
Introducing the brain: serotonin controls visual information
by David Turell , Tuesday, April 04, 2023, 17:25 (381 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Tuesday, April 04, 2023, 17:34
Information sent to the thalamus:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04-serotonin-gates-visual-eyes-thalamus.html
"Humans are known to perceive the environment around them differently based on the situation they are in and their own feelings and sensations. Internal states, such as fear, arousal or hunger can thus affect the ways in which sensory information is processed and registered by the brain.
"Researchers at Beth Israel...have recently carried out a study investigating the possible effects of serotonin, a neurotransmitter known to regulate sleep, mood, sexual desire, and other inner states, in the processing of visual information. Their findings, published in Neuron, suggest that serotonergic neurons in the brainstem (i.e., the central trunk of the mammalian brain) gate the transfer of visual information from the eyes to the thalamus, an egg-shaped area of the brain.
***
"Chen, her collaborator Mark Andermann, and their colleagues specifically explored the effects of serotonin on the early processing of visual information and its transfer from the eyes to the thalamus. To do this, they used a technique known as two-photon calcium imaging to track the activity of individual retinal axons in the brains of awake mice as they viewed visual images on a computer monitor.
***
"The experiments carried out by this team of researchers yielded very interesting results. Notably, they showed that serotonin can suppress calcium signals in retinal axons and the release of glutamate in the thalamus. This ultimately reduces the transmission of visual signals from the eye to the thalamus.
"When they analyzed their results more in detail, Andermann, Chen, and their colleagues found that some classes of retinal axons tended to be more suppressed by serotonin, with classes that responded to broad changes in light levels being more affected than those responding to fine visual details.
"The researchers also compared the selective modulation observed in their experiments to that naturally occurring when animals or humans are highly aroused. They found that periods of high arousals that were not accompanied by an increase in the release of serotonin tended to suppress the retinal axons transmitting information about fine details, rather than changes in light levels.
"Overall, the results of this study confirm that different internal states can impact the processing of separate types of visual information. In the future, this insight could inform new studies exploring the impact of neuromodulatory systems on downstream brain areas and on perception in animal models and humans, potentially leading to interesting new discoveries."
Comment: This demonstrates that the brain is not just neuron connections but has influences by neuroactive proteins like serotonin, adrenalin, glutamine, etc.
Introducing the brain: bilingual, multilingual reading
by David Turell , Saturday, April 08, 2023, 18:03 (377 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Saturday, April 08, 2023, 18:49
Changes the prefrontal cortex:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04-bilingual-readers-visual-cortex-latin.html
"Using high-resolution 7T fMRI, the researchers showed that the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) is composed of tiny cortical areas sensitive to word perception. These areas are indifferently activated when reading English and French. However, in English-Chinese bilinguals, certain cortical areas react specifically to Chinese ideograms and seem involved in face recognition.
"Learning several writing systems could therefore shape the visual cortex to the point that certain groups of neurons specialize in reading one alphabet.
"Like musicians who can play several instruments and read different types of musical notation, people who regularly read in two languages have developed a remarkable ability to navigate from one linguistic universe to another. This capacity is even more fascinating among those who master several writing systems: Roman, Georgian, or Hebrew alphabets, Japanese kanji, Chinese ideograms, Arabic diacritics... the world's languages each have their way of transcribing sounds and meanings. But how does this reading agility develop in the brain?
"'Within the left ventral occipitotemporal cortex, the recognition of written words mobilizes a specific region called the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) formed during the acquisition of reading," explains Laurent Cohen, a neurologist at Paris Brain Institute. "It is part of a vast mosaic of visual cortex areas specialized in the visual identification of objects—such as faces, silhouettes, tools, or places. People who have this area damaged become alexic, meaning they lose the ability to recognize words or even simple letters."
***
"Using this protocol, the researchers were able to look at the VWFA of each participant. They found that this region is subdivided into several tiny cortical areas highly specialized for word perception and invisible with usual imaging techniques. In English-French bilinguals, all these areas were equally activated for both languages.
"In English-Chinese bilinguals, however, some areas were only stimulated by the recognition of Chinese logograms. Finally, in all participants, pseudowords or badly drawn characters activated these tiny cortical zones more weakly than real, familiar words.
"'English and French use the same alphabet; it certainly explains why these two languages use the same cortical resources even though their spelling rules are very different," explains Minye Zhan. "Conversely, when writing systems differ radically in terms of contour, shape, and complexity of the signs used, specialized groups of neurons appear."
"Even more fascinating, in English-Chinese bilinguals, cortical areas that responded specifically to reading Chinese words were also strongly activated by faces. "We can assume that reading facial features and logograms share some underlying mechanisms. Faces, like Chinese characters, are compact shapes that can only be recognized and distinguished by analyzing the position of their parts in relation to each other," adds Stanislas Dehaene, director of NeuroSpin and professor at Collège de France."
Comment: remember, this brain given to us 315,000 years ago to handle needs then and is handling very new needs now. The new brain was built to handle any future event. In speciation God designs for future needs. It obviously handles immediate needs at first.
Introducing the brain: slow adaptation of adolescent
by David Turell , Monday, April 10, 2023, 19:20 (375 days ago) @ David Turell
Malleable frontal lobe adaptations:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/04/230410132201.htm
"Brain development does not occur uniformly across the brain, but follows a newly identified developmental sequence, according to a new Penn Medicine study. Brain regions that support cognitive, social, and emotional functions appear to remain malleable -- or capable of changing, adapting, and remodeling -- longer than other brain regions, rendering youth sensitive to socioeconomic environments through adolescence.
"Researchers charted how developmental processes unfold across the human brain from the ages of 8 to 23 years old through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The findings indicate a new approach to understanding the order in which individual brain regions show reductions in plasticity during development.
"Brain plasticity refers to the capacity for neural circuits -- connections and pathways in the brain for thought, emotion, and movement -- to change or reorganize in response to internal biological signals or the external environment. While it is generally understood that children have higher brain plasticity than adults, this study provides new insights into where and when reductions in plasticity occur in the brain throughout childhood and adolescence.
"The findings reveal that reductions in brain plasticity occur earliest in "sensory-motor" regions, such as visual and auditory regions, and occur later in "associative" regions, such as those involved in higher-order thinking (problem solving and social learning). As a result, brain regions that support executive, social, and emotional functions appear to be particularly malleable and responsive to the environment during early adolescence, as plasticity occurs later in development.
***
"When a brain region is less developed and more plastic, there tends to be more intrinsic activity within the region, and that activity also tends to be more synchronized. This is because more neurons in the region are active, and they tend to be active at the same time. As a result, measurements of brain activity waves show an increase in amplitude(or height).
***
"Analyzing MRI scans from more than 1,000 individuals, the authors found that the functional marker of brain plasticity declined in earlier childhood in sensory-motor regions but did not decline until mid-adolescence in associative regions.
"'These slow-developing associative regions are also those that are vital for children's cognitive attainment, social interactions, and emotional well-being," Satterthwaite added. "We are really starting to understand the uniqueness of human's prolonged developmental program."
"'If a brain region remains malleable for longer, it may also remain sensitive to environmental influences for a longer window of development," Sydnor said. "This study found evidence for just that."
***
"Critically, youths' socioeconomic environments generally had a larger impact on brain development in the late-maturing associative brain regions, and the impact was found to be largest in adolescence.
"'This work lays the foundation for understanding how the environment shapes neurodevelopmental trajectories even through the teenage years," said Bart Larsen, PhD, a PennLINC postdoctoral researcher and co-author."
Comment: most adolescent brains are complete4ly developed by 25. Allowing adult behaviors and activities at earlier ages results in drinking and driving problems. It is a question whether to allow voting before age 21.
Introducing the brain: conduction speed highest in adults
by David Turell , Monday, May 15, 2023, 00:00 (341 days ago) @ David Turell
Latest measurement:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/05/230511164625.htm
"Called the human connectome, the structural system of neural pathways in the brain or nervous system develops as people age. But how structural changes affect the speed of neuronal signaling has not been well described.
"'Just as transit time for a truck would depend on the structure of the road, so does the transmission speed of signals among brain areas depend on the structure of neural pathways," Dr. Hermes explains. "The human connectome matures during development and aging, and can be affected by disease. All these processes may affect the speed of information flow in the brain. "In the study, Dr. Hermes and colleagues stimulated pairs of electrodes with a brief electrical pulse to measure the time it took signals to travel among brain regions in 74 research participants between the ages of 4 and 51. The intracranial measurements were done in a small population of patients who had electrodes implanted for epilepsy monitoring at University Medical Center Utrecht, Netherlands.
"The response delays in connected brain regions showed that transmission speeds in the human brain increase throughout childhood and even into early adulthood. They plateau around 30 to 40 years of age.
"The team's data indicate that adult transmission speeds were about two times faster compared to those typically found in children. Transmission speeds also were typically faster in 30- or 40-year-old subjects compared to teenagers.
"Brain transmission speed is measured in milliseconds, a unit of time equal to one-thousandth of a second. For example, the researchers measured the neuronal speed of a 4-year-old patient at 45 milliseconds for a signal to travel from the frontal to parietal regions of the brain. In a 38-year-old patient, the same pathway was measured at 20 milliseconds. For comparison, the blink of an eye takes about 100 to 400 milliseconds."
Comment: full brain development occurs at about 25 years for the prefrontal cortex. With transmitting at slower speeds and not having a full brain until 25, no wodner adolescents get into trouble.
Introducing the brain: new motor control areas
by David Turell , Monday, May 15, 2023, 19:18 (340 days ago) @ David Turell
Combining action and emotions:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/new-brain-network-connecting-mind-and-body-d...
"Even before speaking in front of a large crowd, your palms may start to sweat, your heart may race, and your shoulders may tense up.
"Little is known about why this happens, and how mental states, like emotions, influence the body in anticipation of an event. Now, however, researchers have identified a previously undiscovered brain network that might be behind this mind-body connection, according to new research published today (April 19) in Nature.
"'The newly discovered network involves both the motor cortex and cognitive areas of the brain, upending a long-held view that the motor cortex is only involved in producing movements.
“'The study is very interesting, very exciting,” says Michael Graziano, a neuroscientist at Princeton who was not involved in the study.
"The primary motor cortex sits in the back of the frontal lobes, near the temple. The dominant paradigm states that the motor cortex is simplistic. Planning, cognition, and conscious initiation of movements happen elsewhere in the brain; the motor cortex just receives these signals, relaying them directly to muscles.
"The motor cortex is organized in a way that correlates to a distorted representation of the human body called the cortical homunculus, where greater areas of the cortex are dedicated to parts of the body capable of fine motor control. This map is organized in an orderly fashion: the upper part of the cortex controls the toes, while the lower part, near the ear, controls the head. Study coauthor Evan Gordon explains that the homunculus is one of the most entrenched ideas in cortical neuroscience. “It’s one of the first things you learn about in grad school,” he says.
“'This map goes all the way [back] to 1870,” says Graziano, who studied the motor cortex for more than a decade. “We’re 150 years on from the discovery of this motor map. And it’s very traditional . . . and embedded.”
“'It’s also not true.”
***
"From this data, the researchers mined connectivity information in search of brain areas with coordinated activity, which could indicate that the areas were part of the same network. They found that the three newly discovered areas of the primary motor cortex connected to the cingulo-opercular network (CON), a brain region that’s been linked to action, goals, arousal, and pain. “We’ve thought about this network as one of the smartest networks in the brain because it does your high-level planning,” explains Gordon. The network also involved several other motor and sensory areas of the brain. Overall, they called this network the somato-cognitive action network, or SCAN, hypothesizing that the network connects goals, physiology, and body movement.
***
"The researchers found a similar network in nonhuman primates, using fMRI data from macaques. In monkeys, the SCAN was also connected to brain areas that control things like heart rate and breathing, leading the researchers to conclude that one of the network’s duties might be to put the body on alert in response to a stimulus, such as a stressful event."
Comment: we were evolved, so the same finding in nonhumans is no surprise. Also no surprise finding that such centers exist. We've all felt those emotions. That nonhumans have this pattern fits my idea that evolution follows broad patterns of development and therefore our brain will be a guide to lesser forms. And in my concept, our brain simply followed past patterns exactly. That is, past brains were oversized for initial use and complexified like ours. No past brain had the capacity to self-enlarge.
Introducing the brain: the role of non-coding RNA's
by David Turell , Thursday, May 25, 2023, 15:22 (331 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Thursday, May 25, 2023, 15:52
Much manipulation in the DNA by many forms of RNA:
https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(23)00341-0?dgcid=raven_jbs_aip_email
"Summary
The brain constantly adapts to changes in the environment, a capability that underlies memory and behavior. Long-term adaptations require the remodeling of neural circuits that are mediated by activity-dependent alterations in gene expression. Over the last two decades, it has been shown that the expression of protein-coding genes is significantly regulated by a complex layer of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) interactions. The aim of this review is to summarize recent discoveries regarding the functional involvement of ncRNAs during different stages of neural circuit development, activity-dependent circuit remodeling, and circuit maladapations underlying neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. In addition to the intensively studied microRNA (miRNA) family, we focus on more recently added ncRNA classes, such as long ncRNAs (lncRNAs) and circular RNAs (circRNAs), and discuss the complex regulatory interactions between these different RNAs. We conclude by discussing the potential relevance of ncRNAs for cell-type and -state-specific regulation in the context of memory formation, the evolution of human cognitive abilities, and the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic tools in brain disorders." (my bold)
Comment: the article is behind a paywall. This is a titillating glimpse into the complexity of the controls of complexification. It must be designed
Introducing the brain: human neurons grow very slowly
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 30, 2023, 14:53 (326 days ago) @ David Turell
Compared to mice:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/mitochondrial-metabolism-dictates-neurons-gr...
"Human brains grow extraordinarily slowly—a trait many neuroscientists speculate is related to our distinctive intellect. But how and why a human neuron takes years to grow when a mouse neuron grows for mere weeks has remained unclear. Now, scientists have uncovered one piece of the puzzle: Neuron growth is mediated by its mitochondria’s metabolism, according to a January 26 study in Science. The finding could not only help answer fundamental questions about brain development, the study authors say it could widen treatment options for developmental disorders.
“'This is the most exciting study I’ve read in a while,” says Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a biologist and neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University who wasn’t involved in the research. “It opens a path for finding answers to, what is to me, one of the biggest questions we have: What makes different brains different?”
***
"...he and his colleagues at the time noted that every single aspect of the neuron, from its dendrites to its synapses to its axon, grows in synchrony, indicating that the growth is regulated by a ubiquitous, basal component of the cell. Other research had posited that mitochondria may somehow play important roles in the development of cells. So he and his team set out to investigate whether mitochondria are involved in regulating neuron growth.
***
"Vanderhaeghen explains, as neurons don’t develop at the same rate as one another, even when their original stem cells are created at the same time. However, stem cells can only become neurons after promoter NeuroD1 is activated. So Vanderhaeghen and colleagues came up with a genetic tool that uses an engineered recombinase enzyme called CreER that identifies when NeuroD1 is turned on and immediately tags the neuron—essentially flagging its “birth.” With the ability to date the neurons, Vanderhaeghen and his team could start testing the effect mitochondria have on neuron growth rates.
***
"The team knew they could manipulate mitochondrial respiration pharmacologically, so they sped up metabolism in human cortical neurons in vitro. Vanderhaeghen recalls a moment in the lab looking at the neurons; at only a few weeks old, the accelerated cortical neurons were considerably more mature than a normal human neuron. “To us, this was a big eureka moment,” he says. “There we thought, ‘this is it.’”
"The scientists tested the same principle in vivo, speeding up the mitochondrial metabolism of human neurons and implanting them into mice, as well as slowing down the mitochondrial metabolism of mouse neurons both in culture and inside the mice’s brains. The results from both in and out of the brain aligned: Human neurons with increased metabolic rates grew faster than normal, and mouse neurons with decreased mitochondrial metabolic rates displayed slower growth.
"Many scientists theorize that the human brain’s slow growth is part of what allows for our unique mental capacities. Knowing that a metabolism regulator can slow or speed up that growth will allow for further studies into what makes us human, Vanderhaeghen posits."
Comment: it would be interesting to study ape neuron mitochondrial metabolism, brains closer to us in evolution. But it does help explain why full-grown adolescents don't have a fully developed frontal lobes until age 25.
Introducing the brain: brain wrinkles predict wave patterns
by David Turell , Thursday, June 01, 2023, 19:52 (323 days ago) @ David Turell
More than maps of connectomes:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01774-8?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_c...
"The wrinkles that give the human brain its familiar walnut-like appearance have a large effect on brain activity, in much the same way that the shape of a bell determines the quality of its sound, a study suggests1. The findings run counter to a commonly held theory about which aspect of brain anatomy drives function.
"The study’s authors compared the influence of two components of the brain’s physical structure: the outer folds of the cerebral cortex — the area where most higher-level brain activity occurs — and the connectome, the web of nerves that links distinct regions of the cerebral cortex. The team found that the shape of the outer surface was a better predictor of brainwave data than was the connectome, contrary to the paradigm that the connectome has the dominant role in driving brain activity. “We use concepts from physics and engineering to study how anatomy determines function,” says study co-author James Pang, a physicist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
***
"The brain’s neuronal excitation can also come in waves, which can spread across the brain and travel back in periodic oscillations.
"The researchers calculated the modes of brainwave propagation for the cortical surface and for the connectome. As a model of the connectome, they used information gathered from diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which images brain anatomy. They then looked at data from more than 10,000 records of functional MRI, which images brain activity based on blood flow.
"The analysis showed that brainwave modes in the resting brain as well as during a variety of activities — such as during the processing of visual stimuli — were better explained by the surface geometry model than by the connectome one, the researchers found.
"David Van Essen, a neuroscientist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, who leads a connectome project, says that the diffusion MRI data the team used has well-documented drawbacks that make the comparison “not fair”. The team should have also looked at brain activity from simple stimuli that activate only local regions of the cortex, according to Van Essen. “It is extremely unlikely that the travelling wave model favoured by the authors could replicate such patterns,” he says."
Comment: Like the comment from Van Essen, I really don't know what this tells us. we know the brains has dedicated areas for activity.
Introducing the brain: how sleep affects memory
by David Turell , Saturday, June 03, 2023, 19:15 (321 days ago) @ David Turell
New research:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-06-brain-memory-clues.html
"As events occur during the day, they are recorded in a brain area called the hippocampus. Then, during sleep, the brain consolidates and communicates those memories to a different region called the neocortex, where they are stored long-term. Once stored, the memories are more stable and able to be retrieved later.
"'This (study) helps clarify how that process might happen," she said.
***
"For this study, published in Nature Neuroscience, he and collaborators, including Maya Geva-Sagiv and Yuval Nir, tracked the brain activity of these patients during the deepest part of sleep, when memories are believed to be consolidated and stored. Because the brain sends waves of different frequencies during this time, Fried decided to stimulate the relevant areas in a synchronized fashion ‒ which he likened to a conductor leading an orchestra.
"Before they went to sleep, volunteers were shown paired pictures of well known celebrities and animals. When shown images the next morning, those who received the synchronized signals during sleep were better able to remember which images they had seen the night before and which were new images that they hadn't seen.
"The participants feel nothing from the stimulation.
"The brain replays events during sleep, but not in exactly the same way as they occurred that day. "It has to be more efficient than that," Fried said.
"Sleep deprivation causes brain cells to fire more slowly, he said, explaining why daytime function falls off with lack of sleep.
"People with memory-related diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's often have disrupted sleep, Fried said, "playing a vicious cycle," which makes the disease worse.
"Fried hopes by better understanding the relationship between sleep and memory, scientists could one day help people with memory disorders.
"He compared the effect of the stimulation to a hearing aid that amplifies sound to help people hear. "In principle, it would be interesting if you could amplify memory," he said.
"Theoretically, a similar approach might also be used to identify the circuit in the brain that encodes a terrible memory ‒ such as from war or abuse ‒ and use stimulation to erase or recode that memory."
Comment: a good night's sleep always feels good. It is obvious sleep is more important than feeling good. The brain needs a rest period, but it is logical to look for active processes during sleep and memory consolidation is shown in this study.
Introducing the brain: transporting mRNAs in neurons
by David Turell , Saturday, June 03, 2023, 19:29 (321 days ago) @ David Turell
They must travel long distances in neurons:
https://phys.org/news/2023-06-link-mrna-delivery-brain-cells.html
"The groups...have discovered a new delivery mechanism that brings messenger RNA (mRNA), the proteins' blueprint, to the point of need in neurons.
"Using an array of techniques, the researchers have identified a protein complex, named FERRY, that links mRNA to intra-cellular carriers, and elucidates its role and structure. The discovery may lead to a better understanding of neurological disorders caused by FERRY malfunction and possibly to new medical targets.
"'These publications provide a major advancement to elucidate the mechanisms underlying mRNA distribution in brain cells," Marino Zerial says. Cells produce vital proteins using mRNA as a blueprint and ribosomes as 3D printers. Yet, brain cells have a logistic challenge to overcome: A tree-like shape with branches that can span centimeters in the brain. "This implies that thousands of mRNAs need to be transported far away from the nucleus, resembling the logistic effort of properly supplying supermarkets in an entire country," Jan Schuhmacher says, first author of the study.
"So far, researchers attributed the carrier role to spherical compartments inside the cell, called Late Endosomes. However, MPI scientists argue that a different form of the compartments, called Early Endosomes (EEs), are also suitable as mRNA carriers, due to their ability to travel in both directions along intracellular road networks.
"In the first publication, led by Marino Zerial from MPI in Dresden, scientists discovered the function of a protein complex that they called FERRY (Five-subunit Endosomal Rab5 and RNA/ribosome intermediarY). In neurons, FERRY is linked to EEs and works similarly to a tie-down strap during transport. It interacts directly with mRNA and holds it onto EEs, which hence become logistic carriers for mRNA transport and distribution in brain cells.
"But how does FERRY bind to mRNA? That's when Stefan Raunser's group from the MPI Dortmund comes into play. In the second publication, Dennis Quentin and colleagues used cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) to infer the structure of FERRY and the molecular features that allow the complex to bind to both EEs and mRNAs. The new 3D atomic model of FERRY, with a resolution of 4 Ångstroms, shows a novel mode of binding RNA, which involves coiled-coil domains.
"The scientists also explained how some genetic mutations affect FERRY's ability to link mRNA thus leading to neurological disorders. "Our research sets the groundwork for a more comprehensive understanding of neurological disorders caused by a failure of mRNA transport or distribution that might also lead to the identification of therapeutically relevant targets," Raunser says."
Comment: some neuron axon branches reach several feet, which explains the need for a rapid transport mechanism. The long axons and the transport mechanism had to each appear simultaneously or the neuron could not work. Not by chance.
Introducing the brain: insect flight controls
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 06, 2023, 18:50 (318 days ago) @ David Turell
Uses electric charges across synapses:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230606111652.htm
"The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster beats its wings around 200 times per second in order to move forward. Other small insects manage even 1,000 wingbeats per second. It is this high frequency of wingbeats that generates the annoying high-pitched buzzing sound we commonly associate with mosquitoes. Every insect has to beat its wings at a certain frequency to not get "stuck" in the air, which acts as a viscous medium due to their small body size. For this purpose, they employ a clever strategy that is widely used in the insect world. This involves reciprocal stretch activation of the antagonistic muscles that raise and depress the wings. The system can oscillate at high frequencies, thus producing the high rate of wingbeats required for propulsion. The motor neurons are unable to keep pace with the speed of the wings so that each neuron generates an electrical pulse that controls the wing muscles only about every 20th wingbeat. These pulses are precisely coordinated with the activity of other neurons. Special activity patterns are generated in the motor neurons that regulate the wingbeat frequency. Each neuron fires at a regular rate but not at the same time as the other neurons. There are fixed intervals between which each of them fires.
***
"As a result, they found that the neural network regulating flight is composed of just a small number of neurons that communicate with each other through electrical synapses only.
***
"Using experimentation and mathematical modeling, the researchers have been able to show that such a sequential distribution of pulse generation can also occur when neural activity is directly controlled electrically, without the presence of neurotransmitters. The neurons then create a special kind of pulse and 'listen' closely to each other, especially if they have just been active.
"Mathematical analyses predicted that this would not be possible with "normal" pulses. Hence, it would appear unlikely that transmission between neurons in a purely electrical form would result in this sequenced firing pattern. In order to test this theoretical hypothesis experimentally, certain ion channels in the neurons of the network were manipulated. As expected, the activity pattern of the flight circuit became synchronized -- just as the mathematical model had predicted. This experimental manipulation caused significant variations in the power generated during flight. It is thus apparent that the desynchronization of the activity pattern determined by the electrical synapses of the neural circuit is necessary to ensure that the flight muscles are able to generate a consistent power output.
"The findings of the team based in Mainz and Berlin are particularly surprising given that it was previously thought that interconnections by electrical synapses actually result in a synchronized activity of neurons. The activity pattern generated by the electrical synapses detected here indicates that there may well be forms of information processing by the nervous system that are as yet unexplained. The same mechanism may not only play a role in thousands of other insect species but also in the human brain, where the purpose of electrical synapses is still not fully understood. (my bold)
Comment: note my bold. This research may help in understanding our brain's neurons actions in processing information. I was amazed to see how fast insect wings beat and wonder how they handle fatigue, which in human comes from a buildup of Lactic acid from the muscle's metabolism.
Introducing the brain: hippocampal controls
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 07, 2023, 19:33 (317 days ago) @ David Turell
Small special molecules:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/short-lived-molecules-support-long-term-memo...
"Among the genes essential for synaptic remodeling during memory formation is the activity-regulated cytoskeletal associated (Arc) gene, whose mRNAs and proteins have a half-life of about an hour. Reconciling how these molecules produce changes on scales of hours or even days was one of the primary motivations for this study, said Sulagna Das, an RNA biologist and neuroscientist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and coauthor of this work.
"Das’s team tackled the question by visualizing all of the steps, tracking the mRNA from birth, following where they go and where they localize, watching when they are translated into proteins, and determining how long the proteins stay in the synapses. For this, the team fluorescently tagged the Arc gene and followed the journey of its mRNAs and proteins for several hours within individual brain cells after one initial chemical or optogenetic stimulus, both in cultured mouse hippocampal neurons and in mouse brain tissue.
"By closely spying on these molecules, Das and her colleagues found that a single initial stimulus resulted in a series of cycles of transcription. The first one was initiated by the stimulus, but the subsequent ones were induced by the translated Arc proteins themselves, suggesting the existence of a positive feedback loop.
"mRNAs produced during the second transcription cycle move to the dendritic regions populated by the translated proteins of the first cycle, leading to local translation and the formation of protein hubs. “That's how you can build up a lot of protein at a single location,” Das explained, and it’s important because this mechanism gives specificity to which synapses are being stabilized for long-term information storage."
Comment: This process takes many small steps, each dependent upon the last one. It cannot be developed by chance mutations and must be designed all at once fitting the steps together.
Introducing the brain: dying events
by David Turell , Monday, June 12, 2023, 23:17 (312 days ago) @ David Turell
The brain doesn't just stop:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-dying-people-often-experience-a-burst-of...
"Before CPR techniques were developed, cardiac arrest was basically synonymous with death. But now doctors can revive some people up to 20 minutes or more after their heart has stopped beating. Furthermore, Parnia says, many brain cells remain somewhat intact for hours to days postmortem—challenging our notions of a rigid boundary between life and death.
***
"Research over the past decade has demonstrated a surge in brain activity in human and animal subjects undergoing cardiac arrest. Meanwhile large surveys are documenting the seemingly inexplicable periods of lucidity that hospice workers and grieving families often report witnessing in people with dementia who are dying.
***
"Christopher Kerr, chief executive officer and chief medical officer at the Center for Hospice and Palliative Care in Buffalo, N.Y., has studied the lucid visions of several hundred terminally ill people. He says these events “usually occur in the last few days of life.” Such “terminal lucidity” is defined as the unexpected return of cognitive faculties such as speech and “connectedness” with other people, according to George Mason University’s Andrew Peterson, a researcher of bioethics and consciousness.
***
"As surprising as these events might seem, they are quite common. “Our study wasn’t a prevalence study,” says Jason Karlawish, a gerontologist at the Penn Memory Center and senior principal investigator of the NIH study. Nevertheless, he adds, “what we found is lucidity was more common than it was the exception in dementia patients, which would suggest that the idea of it being terminal is not entirely correct.” Instead he suggests that episodes of lucidity should be seen as part of the “disease experience” rather than as aberrant events. “We’ve actually found that a variety of these episodes occurred months, even years, before the person died,” Karlawish notes.
***
"The surge of gamma waves in dying subjects was particularly intense in a brain region Borjigin refers to as the “posterior cortical ‘hot zone,’” located near the back of the skull. Some other researchers believe this region may also be essential to conscious experience. The parts of the brain in this area are related to visual, auditory and motion perception—a phenomenon Borjigin believes is involved in the out-of-body experiences reported by people who come close to death and recover. She adds that gamma-wave activation patterns akin to those observed in the comatose people are associated with activities that include the recognition of a familiar image—such as a human face—in healthy people.
***
"In both the human and animal studies, the subjects’ brain showed a spike in activity after the sudden reduction of oxygen supply, Borjigin says. “It starts to activate this homeostatic mechanism to get oxygen back, either by breathing harder or making your heart beat faster,” she adds. Borjigin hypothesizes that much of the surge in more complex brain activity observed in humans and animals undergoing cardiac arrest is also a result of the brain attempting to reestablish homeostasis, or biological equilibrium, after detecting a lack of oxygen. She further speculates that these survival mechanisms may be involved in other changes in cognition surrounding death. “I believe dementia patients’ terminal lucidity may be due to these kinds of last-ditch efforts of the brain” to preserve itself as physiological systems fail, Borjigin says."
Comment: every organ makes attempts at achieving homeostasis. These lucid periods do not mimic NDE's, nor are they explained in any way by this research.
Introducing the brain: neurophysiologist's sense of self
by David Turell , Thursday, June 15, 2023, 23:22 (309 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Thursday, June 15, 2023, 23:40
He says it isn't there:
https://bigthink.com/the-well/eastern-philosophy-neuroscience-no-self/?utm_campaign=wee...
"This I/ego is what we think of as our true selves, and this individual self is the experiencer and the controller of things like thoughts, feelings, and actions. The pilot self feels like it is running the show. It is stable and continuous. It is also in control of our physical body; for example, this self understands that it is “my body.” But unlike our physical body, it does not perceive itself as changing, ending (except, perhaps for atheists, in bodily death), or being influenced by anything other than itself.
"Now let’s turn to the East. Buddhism, Taoism, the Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism, and other schools of Eastern thought have quite a different take on the self, the ego, or “me.” They say that this idea of “me” is a fiction, although a very convincing one.
***
"This idea sounds radical, even nonsensical, to those who are trained in Western traditions. It seems to contradict our everyday experience, indeed our whole sense of being. But in Buddhism and other schools of Eastern thought, the concept of the self is seen as the result of the thinking mind. The thinking mind reinvents the self from moment to moment such that it in no way resembles the stable coherent self most believe it to be. (my bold)
***
"While various neuroscientists have made the claim that the self resides in this or that neural location, there is no real agreement among the scientific community about where to find it — not even whether it might be in the left or the right side of the brain. Perhaps the reason we can’t find the self in the brain is because it isn’t there.
***
"The big difference between the Eastern spiritual traditions and psychology is that the former has recognized this experientially and the latter did so experimentally (and accidentally, for that matter). And in my view, this means that those who study and teach psychology are still largely unable to appreciate the implications of these findings.
***
Gazzaniga determined that the left side of the brain creates explanations and reasons to help make sense of what is going on around us. The left brain acts as an “interpreter” for reality. Furthermore, Gazzaniga found that this interpreter, as in the examples mentioned, is often completely and totally wrong. This finding should have rocked the world, but most people haven’t even heard of it. (my bold)
***
"Over the last 40 years, several additional studies have shown that the left side of the brain excels at creating an explanation for what’s going on, even if it isn’t correct, even in people with normal brain functioning.
***
"So, for the first time in history, the findings of scientists in the West strongly support, in many cases without meaning to, one of the most fundamental insights of the East: that the individual self is more akin to a fictional character than a real thing."
Comment: Hogwash. This guy is off a deep end. Note my first bold. Of course, myself is my consciousness and conscious thinking. Why is that so strange to him and just Eastern philosophy? The can't be a self-spot in the brain since consciousness is an emergent phenomenon related to whole brain function. The second bold gives a special function to the left side. Taht isa fascinating point of fact.
Introducing the brain: practical view of free will
by David Turell , Friday, June 16, 2023, 18:07 (308 days ago) @ David Turell
From a psychologist:
https://psyche.co/ideas/the-three-reasons-why-its-good-for-you-to-believe-in-free-will?...
"All my life, I’ve struggled with the question of whether humans have ‘free will’. It catalysed my decision to become a psychologist and continues to inspire my research to this day,
"I’ve come to the conclusion that people really do have free will, at least when it is defined as the ability to make reasoned choices among action possibilities that we ourselves think up. Indeed, as a species, free will is one of our most amazing evolutionary adaptations – allowing us to cope flexibly with the profound and unpredictable complexities of our lives.
"I understand that many philosophers choose to embrace some form of ‘determinism’ – and perhaps you do too. Determinism says that, at a deep level, humans have no real choice in what we do – it’s always our past, or our unknowable brain processes, or our immutable genetics, or some combination of these, that determine our actions; never our psychological selves.
"Regardless of who is correct in this debate, my work has led me to a second conclusion that I consider even more important than whether we have free will or not. It’s that a belief in our own capacity to make choices is critical for our mental health. At the very least, this belief lets us function ‘as if’ we have free will, which greatly benefits us.
"There are three main reasons why I consider belief in free will to be important and beneficial. The first is that feeling autonomous and self-determined – that you have free will – is a basic psychological need, and satisfying this need is critical for your mental health. This has been shown by decades of research in self-determination theory concerning the causes and sources of human wellness.
***
"...if your intrinsic motivation (ie, your feeling of doing things because you chose and enjoyed them) were replaced by a feeling that you are only a choiceless machine driven by forces you cannot control, this would be bad for you. Losing your sense of free will, in this sense, might make your life much less enjoyable and interesting. Because of this, I encourage you to try to find, follow and develop your intrinsic motivations as much as possible.
***
"if your feeling of doing sometimes-unpleasant things because you agreed with and chose to be doing them were replaced by a feeling of having to make yourself do them, then you would suffer. Again, this is because, to be fulfilled, humans need to feel autonomous and self-determined: ie, that they are acting of their own free will. I recommend that, whatever ‘X’ you do, try to internalise it so that you at least have identified motivation, if not intrinsic motivation, for doing it. Try to reframe the situation, to recognise your own deeper reasons for doing X. If you can’t do that, then it might be a hint to stop doing X if you can, and to do something else instead!
***
"The second reason why I consider belief in free will to be beneficial is that it makes you a better person. Studies in social psychology show clearly that, if people become convinced that they have no free will, there can be negative effects on their ethical behaviour. In these studies, participants typically read one of two versions of a news passage describing current scientific thinking: one that concludes free will is true and determinism is false, another that concludes free will is false and determinism is true.
"...various studies have shown that participants primed to believe in determinism are more likely to cheat on a test when they think nobody will know; they are more likely to eat the unhealthier of two snack options (such as potato chips rather than carrots); they won’t wait as long before claiming a reward, resulting in a smaller reward; they can’t persist as long in a difficult task; and they are less likely to behave in a prosocial way, such as by helping others or giving change to a homeless person. Furthermore, they are less likely to take responsibility for their actions, and more likely to blame others or circumstances for their mistakes.
"This line of research suggests that, if you believe in your own free will, then you act as if your choices matter – which provides you with many benefits. On the other hand, if you believe in determinism, then that belief tends to come true: you act as if you have no control, and suffer in many ways.
***
"But surely it is more admirable to accept and embrace one’s capacity to make choices in life than to deny or evade it. This chimes with my third main reason why it’s beneficial to believe in free will: it is the most honourable position for you to take, the one with the most integrity.
***
"For all the reasons I’ve given, I believe there is an overwhelming case that you are better off embracing, rather than denying, your own free will. The real problem isn’t whether you have choice but, rather, whether you are able to choose wisely. You exercise your capacity for choice every day – you might as well accept this so you can learn to do it better."
Comment: a very personal appeal to ignore all the philosophic blather and accept that your conscious self knows how to make choices that are ethical and productive.
Introducing the brain:astrocyte epigenetic control of neuron
by David Turell , Friday, June 16, 2023, 18:30 (308 days ago) @ David Turell
Helps explain brain adaption to new stimuli:
https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/library/item/16_june_2023/410885...
"Sardar et al. report a newly identified role for the monoamine neurotransmitter serotonin in inducing epigenetic histone modifications in astrocytes that alter inhibitory neurotransmitter signaling and ultimately sculpt olfactory processing and behavior in mice.
"Astrocytes are an integral part of brain circuits: They undergo intracellular calcium fluctuations in response to physiological sensory-driven neuronal activity that elicit the calcium-dependent release of neuroactive molecules that affect neural activity, plasticity, and behavior. It is becoming evident that the influence of astrocytes on neurons is multifold and is specific to developmental stages, brain regions, activity regimes, and pathophysiological states. Hence, the regulation of neuronal activity by astrocytes is remarkably specific yet flexible.
***
"Sardar et al. identify a mechanism through which neuronal activity induces transcriptomic changes in astrocytes, which in turn drive epigenetic changes and regulate olfactory sensory processing in mice. They show that neuronal activity, artificially evoked using chemogenetics or physiologically triggered through olfactory stimulation, induces widespread changes in gene expression in astrocytes in a brain region–dependent manner. The expression of immediate early genes—a set of genes that are rapidly and transiently expressed in response to various stimuli—were specific to astrocytes and included transcription factors such as SOX9. The evoked neuronal activity increases binding of SOX9 to the promoter of the solute carrier family 22 member 3 (Slc22a3) gene. This gene encodes the monoamine transporter organic cation transporter 3 (OCT3), which contributes to the uptake of serotonin. SOX9-mediated upregulation of Slc22a3 expression was specific to the olfactory bulb; deleting Sox9 did not affect Slc22a3 expression in the cortex or hippocampus. This up-regulation in OCT3 expression increases levels of astroglial serotonin, which enters the nucleus to drive histone serotonylation.
***
"What is the role of such histone modification? Using conditional deletion of Slc22a3, Sardar et al. show that Slc22a3 up-regulation induced by histone serotonylation increases the expression of monoamine oxidase B (MAOB), a biosynthetic enzyme of the inhibitory neurotransmitter γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Increased MAOB expression was associated with enhanced levels of GABA and its release by astrocytes, leading to increases in inhibitory synaptic transmission. Behaviorally, the GABA-mediated olfactory sensory processing allows responses to scents and ultimately contributes to odor detection and discrimination in mice. This translated to an enhancement of the ability of mice to detect new scents present at low concentration and to distinguish between structurally similar odorants.
***
"What may be the advantage of such activity-dependent epigenetic regulation in several cell types? Considering that an astrocyte contacts hundreds of thousands of synapses, downstream effects of histone serotonylation could be broadcast to a large neuronal population. This is particularly suitable for the circuit-wide plasticity that is needed to discriminate scents.
Could other neuromodulators, such as catecholamines and histamine, also modulate changes that adaptively affect synaptic and circuit functions? Both the potential diversity in histone monoaminylation and regional specificities highlighted in the study of Sardar et al. could support the tailored regulation of gene expression according to local activity-dependent needs."
Comment: the knowledge of astrocyte activity is growing rapidly and contributes to our realizing just how complex is our brains underlying design. Not by chance.
Introducing the brain: as a predictive mechanism
by David Turell , Friday, June 16, 2023, 19:16 (308 days ago) @ David Turell
A book review:
https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/library/item/16_june_2023/410885...
"In The Experience Machine, philosopher Andy Clark masterfully synthesizes recent work on the predictive brain into an accessible and captivating book for the nonspecialist. He explains not only how predictive processing in the brain can account for accurate perception but also—and perhaps more fascinatingly—what happens when things go wrong. If sensory feedback is ambiguous or limited, for example, or if a brain assigns too much weight to an existing model of the world, then errors can occur. Clark illustrates these scenarios with familiar and compelling examples, describing why we sense phantom vibrations from our cell phones, why we hear speech in white noise, and why we experience a blue-and-black dress as white and gold.
"In Clark’s hands, the predictive brain is not merely a framework for understanding how our perceptual systems might work. Instead, it is a unifying theory of human minds. He weaves a compelling narrative that explores how perception, action, pain, emotion, and consciousness can all be understood as reflections of the relationship between our brain’s model of the external world and its model of our internal physiological states. And he explores how the predictive brain can explain various phenomena, including posttraumatic stress disorder, sporting expertise, the aesthetic response to artistic beauty, and even Patrick Swayze’s character’s dismissive attitude toward pain—“Pain don’t hurt”—in the 1989 movie Road House.
***
"Clark’s focus on neural processing may surprise readers familiar with the author’s earlier work on embodied and extended cognition. He has spent several decades arguing that many of our cognitive abilities are not brain-bound but rather are inextricable from our bodies and environments. However, Clark is adamant that we should not misunderstand this new book’s framework as a return to neurocentrism. He proposes instead that the predictive brain’s ability to combine inward-looking and outward-looking sensory information is precisely what enables it to exploit non-neural resources to extend its cognitive reach. This notion is the book’s most intriguing and its most metaphorical. Clark proposes that human minds are “seething, swirling oceans of prediction, continuously orchestrated by brain, body, and world.”
***
"Scientific work and philosophical work on predictive processing have been careful to distinguish neural prediction and precision weighting from what we do as conscious human beings when we estimate outcomes and consider probabilities. In this book, however, Clark is keen to unite our understanding of conscious and unconscious cognitive strategies. He suggests that our best understanding of affirmation and visualization techniques, for example, is in terms of the predictive brain’s error minimization strategy. Those hoping for an explanation of how our conscious expectations interact with nonconscious neural prediction mechanisms, however, will be left dissatisfied. This part of the puzzle, he acknowledges, is still missing. Nonetheless, The Experience Machine provides plenty of fodder to inspire the next generation of researchers to take on this task."
Comment: this supports my constant comment that the brain is built to help us in ways we do not intuitively recognize.
Introducing the brain: cortical swirls
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 20, 2023, 15:17 (305 days ago) @ David Turell
While thinking these electrical impulses appear:
https://www.livescience.com/health/neuroscience/mysterious-spiral-signals-in-the-human-...
"Mysterious, spiral signals have been discovered in the human brain, and the scientists who found the swirls think they could help to organize complex brain activity.
"The signals, which appeared as swirling spirals of brain waves across the outer layer of the brain, were discovered in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans of 100 young adults, and appeared both when they were resting and working on tasks.
"The exact purpose of these vortices is unknown, but their discoverers think the spiral signals might be used to link different parts of the brain and help process information faster. These vortices may even be impaired by brain diseases such as dementia, and could serve as inspiration for advanced computers that emulate the complex processes of the human mind.
"'Much like vortices act in turbulence, the spirals engage in intricate interactions, playing a crucial role in organising the brain's complex activities," Pulin Gong, an associate professor of physics at the University of Sydney, said in a statement. "The intricate interactions among multiple co-existing spirals could allow neural computations to be conducted in a distributed and parallel manner, leading to remarkable computational efficiency."
***
"To investigate the activity taking place across the cortex, the scientists took fMRI scans of 100 healthy adults between the ages of 22 and 35. The mysterious spirals, intricate brain wave patterns of various sizes that rotated around central points, were present in everyone.
***
"The exact function of the spirals is a mystery, but after analyzing the turbulent patterns, the scientists think that the vortices may act as bridges of communication across the brain, connecting distinct regions into networks and occasionally even traveling across the cortex. By assigning the participants tasks while they were scanned, such as completing math problems or listening to a story, the researchers observed the spirals switch directions from clockwise to counterclockwise in different regions across the brain — a clue that the vortices might be coordinating brain activity via dynamic rotational changes.
"'One key characteristic of these brain spirals is that they often emerge at the boundaries that separate different functional networks in the brain," first author Yiben Xu, a doctoral candidate in physics at the University of Sydney, said in the statement. "In our research we observed that these interacting brain spirals allow for flexible reconfiguration of brain activity during various tasks involving natural language processing and working memory, which they achieve by changing their rotational directions."
"The researchers said their study should encourage a shift in neuroscientific research toward larger-scale phenomena in the brain. Eventually, brain processes at multiple scales could be pieced together to get a fuller picture of how the mind functions."
Comment: the brain's complexity makes it very difficult unraveling al of the possible connectivity. This an important new approach.
Introducing the brain: intense protection
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 21, 2023, 16:22 (303 days ago) @ David Turell
The blood/brain barrier reveiwed:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-brain-protects-itself-from-blood-borne-threats-2...
"Embedded in the walls of the hundreds of miles of capillaries that wind through the brain, the barrier keeps most molecules in the blood from ever reaching sensitive neurons. Much as the skull protects the brain from external physical threats, the blood-brain barrier protects it from chemical and pathogenic ones.
***
"Like the rest of the body, the brain needs circulating blood to deliver essential nutrients and oxygen and to carry away waste. But blood chemistry constantly fluctuates, and brain tissue is extremely sensitive to its chemical environment. Neurons rely on precise releases of ions to communicate — if ions could flow freely out of the blood, that precision would be lost. Other types of biologically active molecules can also twang the delicate neurons, interfering with thoughts, memories and behaviors.
“'It’s really there to control the environment for proper brain function,” said Richard Daneman, an associate professor of pharmacology at the University of California, San Diego.
"So the blood-brain barrier provides protection, but it’s not a discrete structure like the walls around a fortress. Instead, the term refers to the unique properties of the blood vessels in the brain and those of the neighboring brain cells that wrap closely around those vessels.
"Most of the body’s capillaries are “leaky” at a molecular level to allow the free flow of nutrients and other substances. Their permeability is crucial to the function of organs such as the kidney and liver.
"But the brain’s blood vessels are built to a higher, less leaky standard. The endothelial cells that make up the capillary walls are pinned tightly together by structures called tight junctions. Thin parallel protein strands stick the cells together like “wires through the bricks,” said Elisa Konofagou, a professor of biomedical engineering and radiology at Columbia University. A few kinds of molecules can get past, but in small amounts. And they are mostly very small and water-soluble.
"But the brain also needs many other molecules such as glucose and insulin, which can’t squeeze between the tight junctions. The barrier is therefore also lined with pumps and receptors that, like bouncers for an elite club, permit only certain molecules in — and quickly eject most trespassers. Beyond the capillary wall itself are layers of supportive cells including pericytes and astrocytes, which also help to maintain the barrier and adjust its permeability.
"The blood-brain barrier is “there to deliver what the brain needs,” Daneman said. But not every part of the brain needs the same molecules, so the barrier is not the same everywhere. The barrier in the olfactory bulb, for example, acts differently and has a different protein composition than the barrier in the hippocampus, Rhea said.
"In fact, some parts of the brain don’t have a traditional blood-brain barrier at all. In the choroid plexus, a tissue in the large cavities of the brain that produces cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), the walls of blood vessels are much leakier. They have to be because the “blood-CSF” barrier of the choroid plexus needs to secrete half a liter of CSF into the brain every day, and that kind of output requires extensive amounts of water, ions and nutrients from the blood.
***
"Even though this protective function isn’t perfect, it is so universally useful that every organism with a complex nervous system has something resembling a blood-brain barrier, Daneman said.
"Even flies and other insects, which don’t have blood vessels, have one. Their equivalent of blood simply sloshes through organs inside their exoskeleton, but their equivalent of a brain is sheathed in protective glial cells.
***
"Where once the blood-brain barrier was thought of as a static, unchanging wall, scientists now view it as dynamic and “living,” Lehtinen said. It likely “grows and develops in different ways in different parts of the nervous system.” It temporarily creaks open naturally when we are in deep REM sleep or when we exercise. It changes with exposure to hormones and drugs, closing off old avenues for entry or opening new ones. When some molecules bind to the barrier, its cells can sometimes signal to the brain how to act without ever letting the molecule through, Rhea said.
"So rather than a stone rampart around a medieval fortress, the blood-brain barrier is like a magical wall in which doors appear and disappear, and windows grow bigger and smaller. Some parts crumble, some parts get built back — and it is constantly changing.
"'The blood-brain barrier is “never static,” Rhea said. “It’s never just this wall that needs to be overcome.'”
Comment: the barrier exists all through the levels of evolution. It reeks of purposeful design. It seems reasonable to assume the brain and barrier were designed all at once. Defenseless brains would not have survived. Excerpts are from an article reviewing how to treat a brain.
Introducing the brain: ancient genes for learning and memory
by David Turell , Monday, July 17, 2023, 17:14 (277 days ago) @ David Turell
Estimated 650 million years old:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230714114804.htm
"A team of scientists led by researchers from the University of Leicester have discovered that the genes required for learning, memory, aggression and other complex behaviours originated around 650 million years ago.
***
"Dr Feuda said: "We've known for a long time that monoamines like serotonin, dopamine and adrenaline act as neuromodulators in the nervous system, playing a role in complex behaviour and functions like learning and memory, as well as processes such as sleep and feeding.
"However, less certain was the origin of the genes required for the production, detection, and degradation of these monoamines. Using the computational methods, we reconstructed the evolutionary history of these genes and show that most of the genes involved in monoamine production, modulation, and reception originated in the bilaterian stem group. (my bold)
"'This finding has profound implications on the evolutionary origin of complex behaviours such as those modulated by monoamines we observe in humans and other animals."
"The authors suggest that this new way to modulate neuronal circuits might have played a role in the Cambrian Explosion -- known as the Big Bang -- which gave rise to the largest diversification of life for most major animal groups alive today by providing flexibility of the neural circuits to facilitate the interaction with the environment."
Comment: this fits exactly with my earlier point that the Cambrian Gap is bridged by biochemistry in the Ediacaran. The gap is only phenotypical.
Introducing the brain: a new control area
by David Turell , Friday, July 21, 2023, 15:23 (274 days ago) @ David Turell
Mental and emotional states affect this body this way:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/new-brain-network-connecting-mind-and-body-d...
"Even before speaking in front of a large crowd, your palms may start to sweat, your heart may race, and your shoulders may tense up.
"Little is known about why this happens, and how mental states, like emotions, influence the body in anticipation of an event. Now, however, researchers have identified a previously undiscovered brain network that might be behind this mind-body connection, according to new research published today (April 19) in Nature.
The newly discovered network involves both the motor cortex and cognitive areas of the brain, upending a long-held view that the motor cortex is only involved in producing movements.
***
"From this data, the researchers mined connectivity information in search of brain areas with coordinated activity, which could indicate that the areas were part of the same network. They found that the three newly discovered areas of the primary motor cortex connected to the cingulo-opercular network (CON), a brain region that’s been linked to action, goals, arousal, and pain. “We’ve thought about this network as one of the smartest networks in the brain because it does your high-level planning,” explains Gordon. The network also involved several other motor and sensory areas of the brain. Overall, they called this network the somato-cognitive action network, or SCAN, hypothesizing that the network connects goals, physiology, and body movement.
***
"The researchers found a similar network in nonhuman primates, using fMRI data from macaques. In monkeys, the SCAN was also connected to brain areas that control things like heart rate and breathing, leading the researchers to conclude that one of the network’s duties might be to put the body on alert in response to a stimulus, such as a stressful event."
Comment: it is not surprising that such correlated areas exist.
Introducing the brain: hippocampal new memory area
by David Turell , Saturday, July 22, 2023, 19:39 (272 days ago) @ David Turell
Found in mice:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-07-explores-emergence-hippocampus.html
"Neuroscience studies have found that the brain spontaneously organizes events and life experiences into memories, which can be mentally retrieved and replayed at different points in time. These memories of past events are known to partly shape human perceptions and behavior, for instance highlighting strategies for solving a given problem that have proved to be effective in the past.
"A key region of the hippocampus, known as the CA1 region, has been hypothesized to support the human ability to retrieve relevant memories to forecast future outcomes, by creating predictive models that roughly represent what could happen in different scenarios. While many neuroscientists have been investigating this hypothesis, the ways in which these models are established and updated over time remain poorly understood.
***
"'When we think about memory, we often might think of it as a way to recall our past experiences—a sort of 'reminiscing device,'" Paul Frankland, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Medical Xpress. "But another way to look at memory is in thinking how it can be used to predict the future. This is the question we explored in our study, where we asked: how do our past experiences allow us to better anticipate what the future holds?"
***
"The researchers found that over time, the mice did not only learn to solve individual problems, but also learned the rule underlying all the puzzles. Ultimately, they were able to apply this rule to future trials, effectively solving new puzzles that they did not encounter before.
"'As we were training the mice and observing them, we also imaged neural activity in the hippocampus—an area of the brain that is important for solving these types of puzzles," Frankland explained. "Remarkably, as soon as the mice 'got it'—that is, learned the rule—we noticed that their neural activity patterns settled into a reliable state. We think that it is this state that corresponds to the predictive model—a state that allows the mice to make predictions of novel, future events based on their past experience."
"Overall, the findings gathered by this team of researchers confirm that the CA1 region of the hippocampus supports the development of predictive models, by combining memories of past events with new sensory information. In the future, their work could pave the way for further studies focusing on this brain region, which could further elucidate the ways in which the brain utilizes memories to guide future behavior.
"'Our study shifts the focus of memory research from thinking about how memory is useful for thinking about the past to how it is important for making predictions about the present or future," Frankland added. "We are interested in what kinds of things affect the how efficiently predictive models form in the hippocampus. Maybe stress disrupts the formation of these models, or perhaps these sorts of models form more readily in early development—in younger brains that have less experience of the world and need to quickly form models about how the world works.'"
Comment: to use memories there must be an integrated circuit or circuits to the frontal cortex for analysis.
Introducing the brain: finding awareness
by David Turell , Saturday, July 22, 2023, 20:09 (272 days ago) @ David Turell
Perceiving and being aware are different parts of consciousness:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230718225629.htm
"After a stroke in the brain's right half, for example, a person might eat only what's on the right side of the plate because they're unaware of the other half. The person may see only the right half of a photo and ignore a person on their left side.
***
"This puzzling affliction, called unilateral neglect, highlights a longstanding question in brain science: What's the difference between perceiving something and being aware or conscious of perceiving it? You may not consciously note that you passed a shoe store while scrolling through your Instagram feed, yet you started searching online for shoe sales. Your brain records things that you don't consciously take note of.
"Neuroscientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of California, Berkeley, now report that they may have found the region of the brain where these sustained visual images are retained during the few seconds we perceive them.
***
"'The inspiration for my whole scientific career comes from patients with stroke who suffer from unilateral neglect, where they just ignore half of the world," said senior author Leon Deouell, a Hebrew University professor of psychology and member of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for brain research. "That actually triggered my whole interest in the question of conscious awareness...What is required for something not only to be sensed by the brain, but for you to have a subjective experience? Understanding that would eventually help us understand what is missing in the cognitive system and in the brains of patients who have this kind of a syndrome."
***
"'The inspiration for my whole scientific career comes from patients with stroke who suffer from unilateral neglect, where they just ignore half of the world," said senior author Leon Deouell, a Hebrew University professor of psychology and member of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for brain research. "That actually triggered my whole interest in the question of conscious awareness. How is it that you can have the information, but still not acknowledge it as something that you're subjectively experiencing, not act upon it, not move your eyes to it, not grab it? What is required for something not only to be sensed by the brain, but for you to have a subjective experience? Understanding that would eventually help us understand what is missing in the cognitive system and in the brains of patients who have this kind of a syndrome."
***
"...the team found that, contrary to earlier studies that saw only a brief burst of activity in the brain when something new was perceived, the visual areas of the brain actually retained information about the percept at a low level of activity for much longer. The sustained pattern of neural activity was similar to the pattern of the initial activity and changed when a person viewed a different image.
"'This stable representation suggests a neural basis for stable perception over time, despite the changing level of activity," Deouell said.
***
"The sequence of events in the brain could be interpreted in various ways. Knight and Vishne lean toward the idea that conscious awareness comes when the prefrontal cortex accesses the sustained activity in the visual cortex. Deouell suspects that consciousness arises from connections among many areas of the brain, the prefrontal cortex being just one of them.
"The team's findings have been confirmed by a group that calls itself the Cogitate Consortium. Though the consortium's results are still awaiting peer review, they were described in a June event in New York City that was billed as a face-off between two "leading" theories of consciousness. Both the Cell Reports results and the unpublished results could fit either theory of consciousness.
***
"'Regarding the predictions of the two theories which we were able to test, both are correct. But looking at the broader picture, none of the theories in their current form work, even though we find each to have some grain of truth, at the moment," Vishne said. "With so much still unknown about the neural basis of consciousness, we believe that more data should be collected before a new phoenix can rise out of the ashes of the previous theories.'"
Comment: my view is consciousness involves integration of much of the brain's activity areas.
Introducing the brain: the role of lactate
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 25, 2023, 17:50 (269 days ago) @ David Turell
Lactate is produced by exercise:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230724122207.htm
"Lactate is a byproduct of exercise and metabolism, fueling our brain when oxygen is limited. More recently, scientists have become aware of the many roles it plays in developing our nervous system. Now, researchers have unearthed the cellular mechanisms by which lactate helps our brains develop.
***
"Scientists at Tohoku University have discovered the critical role that lactate plays in helping neural stem cells develop into specialized neurons, a process dubbed neuronal differentiation. They also unearthed a means by which lactate sends signals to the cells, helping modify and strengthen neuronal functions.
***
"Lactate is a byproduct of exercise and metabolism. Glucose gets converted into lactate when oxygen supplies to cells are limited, giving the brain a source of energy. Lactate levels in fetal brains increase from the middle state of gestation, highlighting the significant role it has in brain development and neuronal differentiation.
"Recent studies and reports have demonstrated that lactate is a vital component of our nervous system. They have shown that lactate functions as an important cellular signaling molecule in the nervous system, and that lactate metabolism is involved in neuronal functions, including neuroplasticity and memory consolidation. However, the role of lactate signaling in neuronal cells has, until now, remained unknown.
"'Given the growing evidence that shows lactate providing signal-regulatory functions in various cell types under physiological and pathological conditions, we hypothesized that lactate affects neuronal function through changing comprehensive gene expression," says Professor Ryoichi Nagatomi from Tohoku University's Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering.
***
"The researchers tested their hypothesis by examining the gene regulation of cells treated with lactate when NDRG3, a protein previously identified to mediate gene regulation when lactate is present, was removed from neuroblastoma cell SH-SY5Y. They found that lactate helps with neural differentiation through ways that depend on NDRG3 and ways that don't. Additionally, they identified that two specific transcription factors, TEAD1 and ELF4, are controlled by both lactate and NDRG3 during neuronal differentiation."
Comment: the brain needs a constant fuel supply. The design of this system is not surprising. Early H sapiens had to be very active just to survive. Young sapiens children's activities helping to nourish their growing brains explains why this design is in place.
Introducing the brain: controls of dopamine
by David Turell , Saturday, August 12, 2023, 20:10 (251 days ago) @ David Turell
Two channels found:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-08-dopamine-ion-channel-mice-smarter.html
"Researchers have identified two ion channel switches that regulate the release of dopamine in the brain, a first step that might one day lead to therapeutics for a wide range of diseases and disorders that currently have few solutions.
"The switches help regulate learning and motivational state in mice. Humans also have hundreds of these channels, which govern many chemical and hormonal processes that influence behavior and mood.
***
"The researchers hypothesized that two ion channels, Kv4.3 and BKCa1.1, were integral to dopamine release. They discovered that these channels governed the pattern of dopamine neuron firing and dopamine release on different time scales to influence separate phases of reinforced behavior in mice.
"When dopamine is released in the brain, it comes out in two differing patterns: a slow, constant release called "tonic" and a rapid, high-concentration release called "phasic." The two patterns of dispersal regulate the brain in different ways to allow it to perform specific functions.
"The scientists hypothesized that the patterns are regulated by these two channels, so they genetically mutated them to see whether and how the release patterns—and the animals' behavior—would change.
"When the researchers removed the channel that controls tonic activity, it drove the mice to a hypertonic flow, which in turn created an increased motivational state. In this condition, once the animals learned a task, they were more motivated to re-attempt it, and performed the task more quickly. When researchers removed the channel that controls phasic activity, it increased the transient high levels of dopamine in response to specific events. This caused the animals to learn much faster."
Comment: another demonstration of the complexity in the brain, not only in its networks of neurons but its control of humoral substances like dopamine. Not by chance, designed for present and future use.
Introducing the brain: controls of sleep not here
by David Turell , Wednesday, August 16, 2023, 19:13 (247 days ago) @ David Turell
It is from the somatic body:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news/the-body-not-the-brain-regulates-sleep-71277
"Now, a new study published in Cell Reports has turned sleep research on its head. Researchers from the University of Tokyo and University of Tsukuba reported three key genes that are critical for regulating sleep—not in the brain, but in peripheral tissues. The findings demonstrate that sleep is all about protein homeostasis: endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and downregulation of protein biosynthesis in peripheral tissues trigger pathways that induce sleep.
**
"Two of the mutations that Kawano and the team identified were in sel-1 and sel-11, which are involved in the degradation of misfolded proteins in the ER. Mutated worms showed protein accumulation via the unfolded protein response (UPR) pathway and subsequent ER stress.5
"The team also identified a third gene that affected worm sleep patterns, methionyl-tRNA synthetase (mars-1), which is critical for the translational initiation and elongation steps of protein biosynthesis. The team observed that in the mars-1 mutants, global translation was inhibited, leading to increased sleep in worms.
"Since sleep loss causes ER stress6 and impairs protein synthesis,7 Kawano and his colleagues believe that organisms cope with ER stress in peripheral tissues by signaling to the brain that sleep is required.
"The team next used tissue-specific promoters to rescue expression of these genes in different parts of the body and found that expression in the epidermis of the worms restored a normal sleep phenotype. With these results, the researchers confirmed, for the first time, that these three genes are involved in the regulation of sleep and they function specifically in peripheral tissues, with neuronal signaling occurring downstream of these pathways.
"Amita Sehgal, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved in the study, was impressed with the team’s methods. “The authors of this study took an unbiased approach. They didn’t go in with any preconceived notions of what is required for sleep. With forward genetic screens, you let the animals tell you what’s important for sleep,” she commented.
"Lastly, the team performed experiments in mice to confirm that the same function is conserved in mammals. Both pharmacological and genetic inhibition of these same genes and pathways increased sleep duration in mice."
Comment: the results fit common sense. At the end of a day the body is filled with waste products that need to be dissipated. So, constant food and constant sleep are required for all living animal organisms.
Introducing the brain: appetite controls in cold weather
by David Turell , Wednesday, August 16, 2023, 19:42 (247 days ago) @ David Turell
Found in the brain:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-08-cold-temperatures-trigger-brain-boost.html
Neuroscientists at Scripps Research have identified brain circuits that make mammals want to eat more when they are exposed to cold temperatures.
"Mammals automatically burn more energy to maintain normal body temperature when exposed to cold. This cold-activated increase in energy expenditure triggers an increase in appetite and feeding, although the specific mechanism controlling this had been unknown. In the new study, published in Nature, the researchers identified a cluster of neurons that work as a "switch" for this cold-related, food-seeking behavior in mice. The discovery could lead to potential therapeutics for metabolic health and weight loss.
***
"Using techniques called whole-brain clearing and light sheet microscopy, the researchers compared the activity of neurons across the brain during cold versus warm conditions. Soon they made a key observation: While most of the neuronal activity across the brain was much lower in the cold condition, portions of a region called the thalamus showed higher activation.
"Eventually, the team zeroed in on a specific cluster of neurons called the xiphoid nucleus of the midline thalamus, showing that activity in these neurons spiked under cold conditions just before the mice stirred from their cold-induced torpor to look for food. When less food was available at the onset of the cold condition, the activity increase in the xiphoid nucleus was even greater—suggesting that these neurons respond to a cold-induced energy deficit rather than cold itself.
"When the researchers artificially activated these neurons, the mice increased their food-seeking, but not other activities. Similarly, when the team inhibited the activity of these neurons, the mice decreased their food-seeking. These effects appeared only under the cold condition, implying that cold temperatures provide a separate signal that must also be present for appetite changes to occur.
"In a last set of experiments, the team showed that these xiphoid nucleus neurons project to a brain region called the nucleus accumbens—an area long known for its role in integrating reward and aversion signals to guide behavior, including feeding behavior."
Comment: it appears that very specific requirement like cold exposure relates to a very specific region in the brain. We knew the brain was specific and generalized in its functions.
Introducing the brain: complexity of synapse controls
by David Turell , Thursday, August 17, 2023, 16:53 (246 days ago) @ David Turell
Many proteins involved:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/08/230816114059.htm
"The Noelin family of secreted proteins bind to the external portion of AMPA glutamate receptors and stabilize them on the neuronal cellular membrane, a process necessary for transmission of full-strength signals between neurons, according to a study in mice from the National Eye Institute (NEI) and the University of Freiberg, Germany. Without this external, stabilizing protein network, the AMPA receptors are no longer retained at the synapse, leading to weak, short-lived synaptic signals.
***
"Neurons pass signals from one cell to the next via synapses, specialized connection points between the two cells. The main excitatory synapses in the brain are glutamatergic, meaning that they use the chemical messenger glutamate to transmit their signals across the synapse. The presynaptic "sending" cell emits glutamate, which travels across the synaptic cleft and is sensed by glutamate receptors on the postsynaptic "receiving" cell. These glutamate receptors are ion channels; when the channels sense glutamate, they open, generating a new neuronal signal within the postsynaptic cell. In order to generate a strong signal, sufficient receptors must be present in the correct location of the cell's surface at the synapse.
***
"The researchers first took mouse brain tissue, and isolated cellular membranes and their attached proteins. Using mass spectroscopy and specialized analytic techniques, the team worked out which proteins were associating with AMPA receptors in these membranes. The Noelin family of proteins (primarily Noelin 1, but also Noelins 2 and 3, also known as Olfactomedins 1, 2, and 3, respectively), were strongly associated with the AMPA receptors. The researchers also found secreted and membrane-anchored proteins like Neuritin and Brorin, which are known to be present at synapses.
"To better understand how the Noelins help regulate neuronal activity, the researchers developed mice lacking all three Noelin proteins. Without Noelins present, synapses in the mouse hippocampus had many fewer AMPA glutamate receptors. And when the researchers attempted to stimulate neurons lacking Noelins, the neuronal signals were much lower than normal.
"However, the neuronal signals weren't just lower. One of the key steps in memory formation is long-term neuron signaling, also known as long-term potentiation. This is achieved through recruitment and stabilization of additional glutamate receptors at the synapse over time, leading to a sustained signal through the neuron. In the brains of mice lacking Noelins, this stabilization didn't take place, meaning that not only were the neural signals low, they were short-lived as well.
'"While this first study showed the Noelins' role in the brain, these proteins are highly prevalent in the retina as well," Tomarev said."
Comment: conundrum here. Note the complexity of synapse controls. How did brains evolve? What caused the first brain that allowed perception and then a degree of thought. Both of those are immaterial. Brains were part of the Cambrian Explosion. Can't escape a designing God.
Introducing the brain: imagined or real
by David Turell , Friday, August 18, 2023, 14:56 (246 days ago) @ David Turell
Studies in distinguishing:
https://psyche.co/ideas/this-is-how-your-brain-distinguishes-reality-from-imagination?u...
"In terms of brain activity, imagining something is very similar to seeing it, so why don’t you confuse the two more often?
"In 1910, the psychologist Mary Cheves West Perky asked volunteers what you’d think would be an easy question for them to answer: is what you’re seeing real or imaginary? In her research, she told people to imagine objects, such as an apple, while looking at a wall. Then, secretly, she used an early projector called a magic lantern to cast the same image. The participants had trouble distinguishing what they perceived with their eyes from what they imagined in their heads.
"This seminal experiment, and many since, have suggested that seeing and imagining seeing involve similar processes in the brain. This leads to a conundrum: ‘If the brain is treating imagination so similar to how it treats reality, why are we not confusing the two all the time?’ says Nadine Dijkstra, a cognitive neuroscientist at University College London.
"In a modern-day exploration of what’s become known as the ‘Perky effect’, published recently in Nature Communications, Dijkstra and her colleagues asked more than 600 people to look at a static-filled screen, to imagine diagonal lines on the screen, and to report back how vivid the lines were on a scale of 1 to 5. As the experiment went on, similar to Perky’s study, the researchers secretly introduced real diagonal lines, to test how it affected what people thought they saw.
"Like in Perky’s work, they found that people can quite easily mistake imagination and reality. But not always: and the key factor seemed to be how vivid or clear they perceived the image to be. People who said they saw a vivid diagonal line were more likely to say they thought it was real – whether or not it was.
"Dijkstra says their findings imply that people check what’s real and what’s imagined against a ‘reality threshold’, in a process called perceptual reality monitoring. If a signal is weaker than that threshold, a person is more likely to consider what they see to be imaginary. If it’s as strong or stronger – then it’s more likely that they will consider it to be real. Dijkstra found further evidence of this same principle by re-analysing one of her earlier brain-imaging experiments: when study participants imagined seeing something, their brains showed similar patterns of activation in the visual cortex as when they were looking at that same thing, but the activation was generally weaker.
"This means that people who have very vivid mental imagery could find distinguishing between reality and imagination more difficult; there has been some association between having vivid imagery and an increased likelihood of experiencing hallucinations. The results also have implications for how we might navigate a future with ever-more realistic augmented or virtual reality.
"Intriguingly, our reality thresholds are probably always changing – so, as technology changes, so might we. Back when Perky was conducting her experiment, videos were rare, and people always believed what they were seeing was coming from their own minds. After all, what else could it have been? ‘If I hadn’t known I was imagining, I would have thought it real,’ one participant said."
Comment: we look at clouds and see familiar patterns. The brain helps us see those patterns,
and that relates to these studies. The brain is in the business of helping us understand what we are visualizing.
Introducing the brain: the skull protects the brain
by David Turell , Monday, August 21, 2023, 21:05 (242 days ago) @ David Turell
New connections found:
https://www.sciencealert.com/your-skull-plays-a-mysterious-role-in-brain-health-we-neve...
"Bone marrow cells in the skull have a distinct response to disease, and scientists say this means the skull could be a useful way to watch and potentially treat inflammation in the brain.
"Neuroinflammation plays a significant role in many disorders of the brain and nervous system, activating immune cells and releasing inflammatory molecules that help protect and heal our tissues. Yet it can come at a cost, risking damage and compromising healing. What's more, the skull and other membranes protect the brain, making accessing it for treatment of errant inflammation challenging.
"Scientists have recently discovered pathways from the bone marrow of the skull through the brain's outermost surface of the protective membranes, the meninges, permitting immune cell movement and challenging the notion that the skull and the brain have no direct interchange.
***
"The researchers observed cellular architecture of the skull-meninges connections (SMCs) that extend closer to the brain's surface than was previously believed, often penetrating that outermost and toughest meninges membrane, the dura mater.
"These findings carry profound implications, suggesting a far more complex connection between the skull and the brain than previously believed" says Ilgin Kolabas, a neuroimmunologist from Munich University.
"Kolabas and colleagues also studied cells from six different bones, the dura mater, and the brain, finding different bones have different molecular profiles, with unique immune cells detected in the skull.
"Protein analysis of human postmortem skull, spine, and pelvic bone samples once again uncovered the skull's unique molecular profile. The calvaria, which forms part of the top of the skull, had the most differentially expressed genes and cellular receptors, mostly related to migration and inflammation.
"The team also found both human and mouse skulls contain specialized neutrophil cells, a type of white blood cell that plays a crucial role in the body's immune defense.
"Using a form of functional imaging called positron emission tomography (PET), the team detected changes in signals in the skull that mirror those from the underlying brain in human patients with Alzheimer's disease and stroke. They also detected increases in disease-specific translocator protein (TPSO) signals in various parts of the skull in many neurological diseases."
Comment: importantly protecting the brain is shown by the existing blood-brain barrier, but this protection is from a different avenue than the blood supply. This certainly supports the concept of purposeful design.
Introducing the brain: control of behaviors
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 22, 2023, 17:23 (241 days ago) @ David Turell
Certain proteins are necessary to control compulsive behaviors:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-08-deficiency-brain-proteins-shown-compulsive.html
"A research team has now demonstrated that the absence of two proteins, Intersectin1 and Intersectin2, in mice leads to disrupted neural signaling and compulsive repetitive behavior, which is also observed in patients with Intersectin 1 mutations. This supports the idea that such defects can cause neuropsychiatric diseases.
"Our brain is essentially our body's computer. Through a complex interplay of various nerve cells in different areas, it controls and regulates all vital functions, such as breathing, how we move and speak, and how we respond to environmental stimuli with specific behavioral patterns. The so-called cortico-striatal circuit, which connects the cortex and striatum, two parts of the cerebrum, plays a key role in guiding goal-directed behavior.
"'We already know that human behavioral disorders, in which a specific behavior is compulsively repeated, are associated with this circuit or network," says Professor Dr. Tanja Maritzen, who studies nanophysiology at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU). However, much of what happens in this part of the brain at the molecular level remains a mystery to science.
***
"'Intersectin 1 and Intersectin 2 are large scaffold proteins that have many interaction sites," says Professor Haucke. "Previous research has shown that their mutation in humans correlates with behavioral abnormalities."
"To explore their exact role, the team inhibited the production of these proteins in mice. The results showed that the Intersectin proteins are vital for the organism, as some of the mice died early. A different subset displayed behavioral abnormalities: they stood on their hind legs in the corner and repeatedly jumped up and down.
"Such symptoms, where a particular, essentially pointless behavior is compulsively repeated, are also known in neuropsychiatric diseases," Professor Maritzen notes, citing autism spectrum disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorders as examples.
"But what goes wrong at the molecular level? The team specifically looked at the NMDA receptor. "We observed that the absence of the two proteins results in fewer of these receptors at the ends of nerve cells, the synapses," explains Professor Haucke. This is crucial for the transmission of signals from one nerve cell to another. Neurotransmitters, chemical messengers, carry the excitation between cells by binding to receptors. "The Intersectin proteins, as scaffold proteins, are important to stabilize the NMDA receptor at the synapse."
"The deficiency of these proteins isn't solely responsible for the onset of behavioral abnormalities. It is rather one component in a complex molecular system. This study has helped us to understand a part of it better, reinforcing the notion that mutations in Intersectin can lead to neurological symptoms. "
Comment: When such biochemical complexity is revealed it always raises the same issue of how chance evolution finds the exactly needed molecule. A designer is required.
Introducing the brain: the vagus nerve
by David Turell , Friday, August 25, 2023, 00:37 (239 days ago) @ David Turell
The tenth cranial nerve has a multitude of controls of bodily functions:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25934530-500-unravelling-the-secrets-of-the-vagu...
"...recent research has revealed the vagus nerve’s role in a wider array of processes than we ever realised – not only monitoring organ function, but helping discern facial expressions and even regulating mood. Most enticingly, we are starting to understand how it governs inflammation, the immune response that runs rampant in conditions ranging from heart disease to Parkinson’s.
***
"The vagus nerve is a bundle of neural fibres that starts at the brain stem. It splits into two channels that run along either side of the neck, then rejoin at the heart before descending to the gut and other organs.
***
"Subsequent experiments revealed that the vagus nerve regulates functions of the heart, stomach, lungs, liver and more. But it wasn’t until about three decades ago that we began to tap into it for medical treatments.
***
"Most tantalising is the role the vagus nerve plays in controlling inflammation. Hints of this first emerged in the 1990s, when Kevin Tracey, now at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, and his colleagues developed an anti-inflammatory drug to block production of proteins called cytokines, which spur the body’s immune response to infection or illness. In modest amounts, cytokines and the ensuing inflammation fend off foreign pathogens and heal injuries, but an overabundance of them has the opposite effect, damaging tissues and potentially causing chronic illness or even organ failure.
***
"Tracey dubbed the vagus nerve’s ability to mediate inflammation the inflammatory reflex. It kicks in when specialised neurons detect cytokines and send signals to the brain, which in turn relays messages to the spleen to start churning out white blood cells. The discovery suggested that we might be able to interrupt inflammation with an electrode, not just drugs, he says.
"In 2012, a device using an electrode that Tracey designed while at SetPoint Medical, a biotechnology company in California, was tested in a small group of people with the chronic inflammatory condition rheumatoid arthritis. Of those, 70 per cent had at least a 20 per cent reduction in symptoms, and almost half saw a 50 per cent improvement.
"The effect is similar to that of some drugs, but there is a major advantage: anti-inflammatory medications often severely suppress immune function, leaving people vulnerable to infection. Not so with this approach. Vagus nerve stimulation causes white blood cells to shut down cytokine production enough to avoid runaway inflammation, but not so much that our immune system is disarmed completely, says Tracey.
"SetPoint Medical is now conducting a trial of the device in about 250 people. Tracey is hopeful that the FDA could approve the treatment for rheumatoid arthritis within a few years. Meanwhile, similar devices have also shown promise in treating conditions characterised by chronic inflammation, including inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.
***
"We can tell what types of signals neurons ferry based on their distinct anatomical features. Afferent neurons transmit sensory information towards the brain, while efferent neurons relay signals for controlling movement from the brain to our muscles. Fibres that are insulated in a fatty coating called myelin generally fire faster than those without it. “So, if it is myelinated and efferent, we know that most likely mediates muscle contractions,” says Zanos.
***
"Stephen Liberles at Harvard University believes we can achieve even greater precision by elucidating the mechanisms of specific neurons with genetic sequencing. Of particular interest are sensory neurons, which constitute about 80 per cent of all nerve fibres in the vagus and use specialised receptors to detect changes in an environment. “Some of our landmark discoveries in the external senses were discovering odourant receptors or vision receptors,” says Liberles. “We don’t know the receptors for almost any internal organ sense.”
"Already, he and his colleagues have identified previously unknown types of vagal neurons that mediate breathing, control blood pressure and detect nutrients in the gut.
Comment: Previous entries about gut connection:
2021-03-03, 20:50; 2020-09-04, 20:46; 2018-12-05, 20:55
The Vagus, as a direct brain nerve, offers feedback sensory and motor information, just like all the feedback biochemical controls in working cells. A master design of this sort cann ot develop by chance. Taken from an article about stimulation of the Vagus.
Introducing the brain: tongue and hand relationship
by David Turell , Monday, August 28, 2023, 20:37 (235 days ago) @ David Turell
In some people:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-brain-connections-between-our-hands-and-tongu...
"One day, while threading a needle to sew a button, I noticed that my tongue was sticking out. The same thing happened later, as I carefully cut out a photograph. Then another day, as I perched precariously on a ladder painting the window frame of my house, there it was again!
***
"Yet as I would learn, our tongue and hand movements are intimately interrelated at an unconscious level. This peculiar interaction’s deep evolutionary roots even help explain how our brain can function without conscious effort.
***
"Tracing the neural anatomy of tongue and hand control to pinpoint where a short circuit might happen, we find first of all that the two are controlled by completely different nerves. This makes sense: A person who suffers a spinal cord injury that paralyzes their hands does not lose their ability to speak. That’s because the tongue is controlled by a cranial nerve, but the hands are controlled by spinal nerves.
***
"That connection is borne out by research showing that hand and mouth movements are tightly coordinated. In fact, that interplay often improves performance. Martial artists scream short explosive utterances, called kiai in karate, as they execute thrusting movements; tennis players often shout as they smack the ball. And research shows that coupling hand movements with specific mouth movements, often with vocalization, shortens the reaction time needed to do both. This neural coupling is so innate, we are usually oblivious to it, but we do this continually without awareness because the neural circuitry involved is in a region of the brain that operates automatically — it literally lies beneath brain regions providing conscious awareness.
***
"Where did this coordination come from? It likely originated in our ancient ancestors’ hand-to-mouth feeding movements and their development of language, because spoken language is typically accompanied by automatic hand movements. Presumably, hand gestures were the first type of communication to evolve, and they gradually blended with appropriate syllabic utterances — mouth sounds — that allowed for language. Indeed, functional brain imaging studies show that specific tongue and hand movements activate the same region of the brain in the premotor cortex (the F5 region). (my bold)
***
"With all these connections, it’s no wonder the tongue peeks out during moments of manual concentration. It probably just seems strange to us because we tend to think of the brain as a sophisticated machine, engineered to take in bits of information, compute them and control muscles to interact with our environment. But the brain is an agglomeration of cells, not an engineered system. It evolved to maximize survival in a complex world. To achieve that aim efficiently, the brain mixes functions in ways that can seem like something’s gone wrong, but it does have a good reason. The brain mixes tongue and hand movements with sounds and emotion because it encodes experiences and executes complex movements in a holistic way — not as discrete entities strung together like lines of computer code, but as pieces of a larger conceptual purpose and context." (my bold)
Comment: I have never experienced this connection. I would guess it is intermittent among humans. But the thought about hand and gestures before speech was developed in right on point. We still gesture with speech to add meaning. My bolds also emphasize my theory that the brain is organized to help us do everything without us realizing it.
Introducing the brain: sleep and anesthesia differences
by David Turell , Saturday, September 02, 2023, 16:21 (230 days ago) @ David Turell
Quite different:
https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(23)00618-9?dgcid=raven_jbs_aip_email#se...
Decreased complexity and connectivity, with increased variability when unconscious.
Changes were more pronounced during propofol-induced general anesthesia than sleep.
During sleep, changes were homogeneously distributed across the human brain.
During anesthesia, substantial prefrontal disconnection is related to lack of arousability.
Summary:
"What happens in the human brain when we are unconscious? Despite substantial work, we are still unsure which brain regions are involved and how they are impacted when consciousness is disrupted. Using intracranial recordings and direct electrical stimulation, we mapped global, network, and regional involvement during wake vs. arousable unconsciousness (sleep) vs. non-arousable unconsciousness (propofol-induced general anesthesia). Information integration and complex processing we`re reduced, while variability increased in any type of unconscious state. These changes were more pronounced during anesthesia than sleep and involved different cortical engagement. During sleep, changes were mostly uniformly distributed across the brain, whereas during anesthesia, the prefrontal cortex was the most disrupted, suggesting that the lack of arousability during anesthesia results not from just altered overall physiology but from a disconnection between the prefrontal and other brain areas. These findings provide direct evidence for different neural dynamics during loss of consciousness compared with loss of arousability."
Comment: these differences are not surprising.
Introducing the brain: wandering controls
by David Turell , Monday, September 04, 2023, 17:14 (228 days ago) @ David Turell
Many areas involved:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-09-art-vertebrates-neurons-involved-locomotion.html
"Walking is a complex mechanism involving both automatic processes and conscious control. Its dysfunction can have multiple, sometimes extremely subtle causes, within the motor cortex, brain stem, spinal cord, or muscles.
***
"In a study published in Nature Neuroscience, they show that it involves a region classically called the mesencephalic locomotor region, which controls the vigor and speed of movement and transmits the nervous message to the spinal cord via control neurons located in the brainstem.
***
"...movement initiation relies on the activation of so-called reticulospinal control neurons, which form an intertwined network in the most posterior part of the brain—the brainstem. These neurons relay nerve signals between the brain and the spinal cord and are essential for motor control of the limbs and trunk and movement coordination.
"Upstream of the reticulospinal neurons is the mesencephalic locomotor region (MLR), which is also essential for locomotion since, in animals, its stimulation triggers forward propulsion. It is found in many vertebrates, including monkeys, guinea pigs, cats, salamanders, and even lampreys.
"'Because the role of the MLR is conserved in many vertebrate species, we assume that it is an ancient region in their evolution—essential for initiating walking, running, flying, or swimming," he adds. "But until now, we didn't know how this region transmits information to the reticulospinal neurons. This prevented us from gaining a global view of the mechanisms that enable the vertebrae to set themselves in motion and, therefore, from pointing out possible anomalies in this fascinating machinery."
***
"'We observed that neurons in the mesencephalic locomotor region are stimulated when the animal moves spontaneously, but also in response to a visual stimulus. They project through the pons—the central part of the brain stem—and the medulla to activate a subpopulation of reticulospinal neurons called V2a," Claire Wyart says.
"'These neurons control the finer details of movement, such as starting, stopping, and changing direction. In a way, they give steering instructions. Previous work on mice had revealed that reticulospinal neurons control turning; Martin and Mathilde have discovered the control circuit that triggers forward locomotion."
***
"'Quadrupeds can adopt different gaits, such as walking, trotting, or galloping. But aquatic animals also mark gait transitions," Martin Carbo-Tano adds. "We think that MLR has a role to play in this intensification of movement, which we have observed in zebrafish."
'For the first time, this work made it possible to map the neuronal circuits involved in initiating forward movement—a deficient function in patients with Parkinson's disease. This is an essential step in shedding light on the motor control mechanisms upstream of the spinal cord.
"'Because the role of the MLR is conserved in many vertebrate species, we assume that it is an ancient region in their evolution—essential for initiating walking, running, flying, or swimming," he adds. "But until now, we didn't know how this region transmits information to the reticulospinal neurons. This prevented us from gaining a global view of the mechanisms that enable the vertebrae to set themselves in motion and, therefore, from pointing out possible anomalies in this fascinating machinery."
***
"'We observed that neurons in the mesencephalic locomotor region are stimulated when the animal moves spontaneously, but also in response to a visual stimulus. They project through the pons—the central part of the brain stem—and the medulla to activate a subpopulation of reticulospinal neurons called V2a," Claire Wyart says.
"'These neurons control the finer details of movement, such as starting, stopping, and changing direction. In a way, they give steering instructions. Previous work on mice had revealed that reticulospinal neurons control turning; Martin and Mathilde have discovered the control circuit that triggers forward locomotion.'"
Comment: only humans are fully upright walkers. This study adds to the complexity of human evolution. A major evolutionary change in the nervous system to allow the balance mechanism to fully note position of the whole body as maintained by activated muscles in legs and in the upright spinal back. The bony pelvic changes are just part of the equation. The fossils like Lucy show tree climbing shoulders but do not tell us how the ape to human transition really occurred. It was not simple.
Introducing the brain: a new brain cell
by David Turell , Wednesday, September 06, 2023, 16:38 (226 days ago) @ David Turell
A glial cell that transmites:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-09-discovery-kind-cell-neuroscience.html
"A research team from University of Lausanne (UNIL) and the Wyss Center, has discovered a new type of cell essential for brain function. Hybrid in composition and function, in between the two types of brain cells known so far—the neurons and the glial cells—these cells of a new order are present in several brain regions in mice and humans.
"The study published in the journal Nature shows that these cells promote the ability to memorize, the brain control of movements, and contrast the insurgence of epileptic seizures.
"Neuroscience is in great upheaval. The two major families of cells that make up the brain, neurons and glial cells, secretly hid a hybrid cell, halfway between these two categories. For as long as neuroscience has existed, it has been recognized that the brain works primarily thanks to the neurons and their ability to rapidly elaborate and transmit information through their networks.
"To support them in this task, glial cells perform a series of structural, energetic and immune functions, as well as stabilize physiological constants. Some of these glial cells, known as astrocytes, intimately surround synapses, the points of contact where neurotransmitters are released to transmit information between neurons.
"This is why neuroscientists have long suggested that astrocytes may have an active role in synaptic transmission and participate in information processing. However, the studies conducted to date to demonstrate this have suffered from conflicting results and have not reached a definitive scientific consensus yet.
***
"'The precision allowed by single-cell transcriptomics approaches enabled us to demonstrate the presence in cells with astrocytic profile of transcripts of the vesicular proteins, VGLUT, in charge of filling neuronal vesicles specific for glutamate release. These transcripts were found in cells from mice, and are apparently preserved in human cells. We also identified other specialized proteins in these cells, which are essential for the function of glutamatergic vesicles and their capacity to communicate rapidly with other cells," says Ludovic Telley, Assistant professor at UNIL, co-director of the study.
***
"'We have identified a subgroup of astrocytes responding to selective stimulations with rapid glutamate release, which occurred in spatially delimited areas of these cells reminiscent of synapses," says Andrea Volterra, honorary professor at UNIL and visiting faculty at the Wyss Center, co-director of the study.
"In addition, this glutamate release exerts an influence on synaptic transmission and regulates neuronal circuits. The research team was able to demonstrate this by suppressing the expression of VGLUT by the hybrid cells.
"'They are cells that modulate neuronal activity, they control the level of communication and excitation of the neurons," says Roberta de Ceglia, first author of the study and senior researcher at UNIL. And without this functional machinery, the study shows that long-term potentiation, a neural process involved in the mechanisms of memorization, is impaired and that the memory of mice is impacted.
"The implications of this discovery extend to brain disorders. By specifically disrupting glutamatergic astrocytes, the research team demonstrated effects on memory consolidation, but also observed links with pathologies such as epilepsy, whose seizures were exacerbated. Finally, the study shows that glutamatergic astrocytes also have a role in the regulation of brain circuits involved in movement control and could offer therapeutic targets for Parkinson's disease."
Comment: The brain becomes even more complex.
Introducing the brain: choreography of movement
by David Turell , Friday, September 08, 2023, 22:27 (224 days ago) @ David Turell
From Zebra fish brain studies:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-09-ballet-brain-choreography-movement.html
"Zebrafish, like humans, possess an innate ability to stabilize their vision and position in response to movement. When the world around them spins, their eyes and body move in tandem to maintain stability. This is akin to us steadying our gaze on a fixed point while on a merry-go-round.
"But how does the brain coordinate this behavior? Previous research by the team had shown that different parts of the zebrafish brain were associated with different types of movements. However, the precise relationship between these brain areas and the actual behavior remained unclear.
***
"By applying their analytical approach to a region of the zebrafish brain called the hindbrain, the researchers were able to condense the cacophony of neuronal activity into two main "features," or patterns of activity, that corresponded to specific types of movements, and are presumably generated by separate circuits in the zebrafish hindbrain.
"The first circuit they found is primarily concerned with eye movements, specifically the rotation of the eyes, either clockwise or anti-clockwise. Imagine a fish seeing something spin around in its environment. To keep a stable view of this spinning object, the fish's eyes also rotate, and its tail may move. Essentially, this circuit helps the fish adjust its eyes to keep a constant and stable image of what it's seeing.
"As Feierstein explains, "It's like the brain's way of saying, 'Okay, the world is spinning around me, I need to move my eyes to keep track of it.'" Moreover, the researchers discovered that neurons associated with leftward and rightward rotation were anatomically segregated in the left and right hemispheres of the brain, respectively.
"The second circuit is more involved in what researchers call "vergence" and tail movement. Vergence is the ability of the eyes to move in opposite directions—both eyes moving towards or away from the nose—in response to stimuli.
"This circuit comes into play when the fish perceives a stimulus moving from back to front. Feeling as though it's drifting backward, the fish swims forward to stabilize its position. At the same time, its eyes converge to maintain a stable image. Consequently, this circuit helps the fish adjust its body and eye movements to stay in a stable position.
"As Orger summarizes, "One brain circuit is primarily concerned with eye movements, particularly rotation, to maintain a stable image on the retina. The other circuit is mostly involved in body movement, particularly swimming, in response to visual stimuli to maintain a stable position in the environment. These circuits help the fish adapt to changes in their environment, allowing them to maintain a stable view and position. While the exact mechanisms are still not entirely clear, the study provides valuable insights into how separate circuits in the brain control different types of movements."
***
"What surprised Feierstein and her team the most was the robustness of their findings. "We found these circuits consistently across each individual fish," she notes. (my bold)
"The study suggests that these circuits are neither purely sensory nor purely motor but lie somewhere in between, possibly translating sensory information into motor actions. In essence, the researchers may have found two different "choreographers," each directing their own set of movements to help the fish interact effectively with its environment.
"The team's research not only enhances our understanding of how the brain controls movement but also introduces an analytical method to the field that could serve as a valuable tool for other researchers. "The nice thing about this method," says Feierstein, "is that it can be used by other scientists to better understand the link between neural activity and behavior."
"The study's findings could potentially open up new avenues for understanding conditions where the translation of sensory information to motor commands might be disrupted, such as in certain neurological disorders. Furthermore, the results could inspire new approaches in robotics and machine learning, where the concept of translating sensory data into movement is a fundamental principle."
Comment: this study must apply to the human brain also. Note my bold. Consider the gymnast on a balance beam flipping over landing on her feet. Apes may look like trapeze artists, but they don't become anywhere close.
Introducing the brain: hormonal behavior control
by David Turell , Friday, September 08, 2023, 22:56 (224 days ago) @ David Turell
Studied extensively in ants and seen in other animals:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/09/230907130345.htm
"In many animals, including ants, the blood-brain barrier (BBB) ensures normal brain function by controlling the movement of various substances in and out of the brain. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Cell on September 7 have made the unexpected discovery that the BBB in carpenter ants plays an active role in controlling behavior that's essential to the function of entire ant colonies. The key is production in the BBB of a particular hormone-degrading enzyme.
"'In these ants, the BBB produces a special version of the enzyme Juvenile hormone esterase (Jhe), which degrades Juvenile Hormone (JH3)," says Karl Glastad, the co-lead author along with Linyang Ju, both in the lab of senior author Shelley Berger in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
"'Typically, Jhe enzymes are secreted into the hemolymph (insect blood); however the copy produced by the ant BBB is retained in the cells of the BBB where it controls the amount of JH3 hormone entering the brain of the worker ant," Ju says.
"JH3 hormone is known to promote foraging among social insect workers. Different types of worker ants within the same colony do very different "jobs." The new findings show that this results, in part, from different levels of the JH3-degrading enzyme in their BBB, leading to different levels of the hormone JH3 in the brain.
"The finding underscores how a single protein expressed in the right place at the right time can have major effects on individual behaviors underlying complex societies, the researchers say. And it isn't just ants; the researchers already have evidence that similar mechanisms may play a role in mouse behavior, too. (my bold)
"The researchers made the discovery after applying single-cell RNA sequencing to understand differences in gene activity across cells in the brain in two ant behavioral castes: foragers and soldiers. Their analysis revealed that the gene encoding Jhe, the degrading enzyme for the hormone JH3, was found only in BBB cells. It also showed striking differences between the BBB cells of foragers and soldiers. They wanted to know more about what it meant for ant behavior.
"Their studies show that intentional manipulation of the level of the Jhe degrading enzyme reprograms the brain and complex behaviors that differ between ant castes, switching the soldier caste to foraging behavior. They went on to show in Drosophila fruit flies that Jhe enzyme is naturally outside of cells. When they made the fly BBB express the ant version of the Jhe enzyme, they saw behavioral changes similar to those observed in the ants.
"'Differences in expression of this single enzyme [Jhe] between the BBB of different castes control the hugely important decision to forage or to stay inside the nest for defense as soldiers and can even reprogram flies to change food-seeking behavior," Glastad said. (my bold)
"To see if similar mechanisms apply in other animals, the researchers also analyzed published data from a panel of mouse endothelial cells, including those from the mouse BBB. They found that mouse BBB cells also expressed several hormone-degrading enzymes at higher levels than any other endothelial cell type. Most notably, these include enzymes that degrade the hormone testosterone.
"'This suggests that gating hormone entry into the brain by the BBB is a function extending well beyond ants and that gating a hormone differentially between behavioral conditions as seen in ants may exist in other organisms, including mammals," Berger says."
Comment: this explains other research findings that individual ants react automatically in a way that is spontaneous across an entire group of ants making the colony become entirely coordinated in an activity as noted in my bolds above. Intelligent DNA design makes an entire colony look s if it is acting intelligently at the individual level.
Introducing the brain: how is language handled
by David Turell , Wednesday, September 20, 2023, 17:44 (212 days ago) @ David Turell
Still confused as experts create and debate studies:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2393046-the-entire-brain-may-be-involved-in-langua...
"Brain regions identified as “language centres” are actually hubs that coordinate the processing of language throughout the brain, argues a controversial new study.
"We have misunderstood how the brain processes language, says a controversial new analysis. The brain regions that have been identified as specialised language processing centres are actually hubs that coordinate the processing of language across multiple brain regions, argue Jeremy I. Skipper at University College London and his colleagues.
"Their idea runs counter to most models of language in the brain and has been met with scepticism.
"Since the late 1800s, there has been growing evidence that specific brain areas process language. For example, Broca’s area in the frontal cortex is thought to be involved in speech. People with damage to this area understand what is said to them, but can struggle to speak. Brain imaging studies consistently show activity in this and other areas when performing language tasks.
"Skipper doesn’t dispute that regions like Broca’s area are involved in language processing, but he thinks much of the rest of the brain also plays a role. “There’s a ton of processes that go into language,” he says. “It’s the most complicated thing we do as human beings.”
"To demonstrate this, he and his colleagues conducted a two-part study. In the first part, they reanalysed data from existing meta-analyses of previous studies of brain imaging data. They confirmed that research looking at language processing showed activation was localised to regions like Broca’s area.
"However, when they looked at more specific forms of language processing, for example of nouns versus verbs, they saw many more brain regions coming online.
***
“'Those language regions that survive, when you average, are actually connectivity hubs,” says Skipper. “Those are the regions that coordinate lots of other regions in the brain.”
The researchers also scanned people’s brains as they watched movies. The films had been annotated so the team knew when characters were speaking and what they were saying, so they could see changes in brain activity as people processed language. Again, activation wasn’t confined to regions like Broca’s area, but encompassed up to 67 per cent of the brain.
"Evelina Fedorenko at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology disputes the work’s conclusions. She has studied a network of brain regions known as the multiple demand network, which she says is sometimes activated during language processing, but that isn’t specific to language. Instead, she says these areas “are active during diverse demanding tasks”, and that is what the team’s meta-analysis picked up.
"Skipper, however, says he and his colleagues don’t believe that such a fixed multiple demand network could exist anatomically. Rather, they believe that nearly any part of the brain can kick in as needed.
***
"For example, Simonyan and her colleagues have used brain imaging to find six distinct communities of neurons involved in speech control, including in brain structures like the putamen and thalamus that are far removed from regions like Broca’s area. Simonyan has also been involved in work showing that a different set of regions is activated depending on whether people are saying meaningful sentences or meaningless syllables. For this reason, she describes the new study as “confirmatory” rather than “life-changing”.
"For Fedorenko, the key point about regions like Broca’s area is that they respond selectively to language. She says other brain regions can be involved, but those regions aren’t language specific.
"But Skipper doesn’t think that regions like Broca’s area are only selective for language. Most brain regions participate in many tasks, he says, something called neural reuse. “Any given ‘language region’ is talking to more than 40 per cent of the rest of the brain at any given moment, which means, by definition, that those other regions are language specific in those moments,” says Skipper."
Comment: this debate exists because the brain is so complex in its activities, it is difficult to sort out specificities of action. When sapiens appeared 315,000 years ago they had to communicate in some simple way with specific sounds and hand gestures. The sapiens brain handled that activity easily, but as sapiens learned more and finally spoke a reasonably simple language, the brain accommodated because it had the initial capacity to do so. Under God's design the sapiens brain arrived planned for future use. Now in the last 1,000 years of civilization our brain handles an enormous number of highly complexity tasks with no sign of running out of capacity! This is one of the best examples of speciation with preparation for future use.
Introducing the brain: how jellyfish learn
by David Turell , Friday, September 22, 2023, 18:25 (210 days ago) @ David Turell
With just a few neurons:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02975-x?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_c...
"A tiny jellyfish has, for the first time, demonstrated a mighty cognitive capacity — the ability to learn by association. Although it has no central brain, the finger-tip-sized Caribbean box jellyfish (Tripedalia cystophora) can be trained to associate the sensation of bumping into something with a visual cue, and to use the information to avoid future collisions.
"The experiment shows a type of learning called associative learning — made famous by neurologist Ivan Pavlov’s experiments with dogs in the late-nineteenth century — in which an animal learns to associate one stimulus with another through training.
***
“'The box jellyfish finding is very important because it shows that a centralized nervous system, or brain, is not necessary for associative learning,” says Pamela Lyon, a cognitive biologist at the University of Adelaide, Australia.
“'It’s super,” says Gaëlle Botton-Amiot, a neurobiologist at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, who published a study in March1 showing that the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis is also capable of associative learning. Sea anemones and jellyfish both belong to a group of organisms known as cnidarians, and Botton-Amiot thinks that “this ability to do associative learning is present across probably the entire cnidarian tree”.
***
"In the wild, T. cystophora forage for tiny crustaceans between the roots of mangroves. To mimic this environment, Bielecki’s colleagues at the University of Copenhagen placed the box jellies in cylindrical tanks that had either black and white or grey and white vertical stripes on the walls. To the jellyfish, the dark stripes looked like mangrove roots in either clear or murky water.
"In the ‘murky water’ tanks, the jellyfish bumped into the wall because their visual system couldn’t detect the grey stripes very clearly. But after a few minutes — and bumps — they learnt to adjust their behaviour, pulsing rapidly to swim away from the wall when they got too close. “It was only when they had a combination of visual stimulation and mechanical stimulation that they would actually learn something” says Bielecki.
***
"To better understand the mechanisms at play, Bielecki dissected out individual rhopalia — small ‘eye-brain’ complexes in the jellyfish, each containing six rudimentary eyes plus nerve centres, called pacemakers, that control the animals’ swimming pulses.
***
"Just like the living box jellies in tanks, excised rhopalia could be trained to associate an electrical ‘bump’ with the appearance of a grey bar. After five minutes of training with the grey bar and the ‘bump’, the rhopalia responded to the visual cue alone by increasing their swim-pulse frequency. This confirms that the rhopalia are “where learning happens”, says Bielecki."
Comment: it shows a small network of neurons can learn. It means to me individual neurons have enormous capacity to analyze.
Introducing the brain: language and animals signals
by David Turell , Sunday, September 24, 2023, 16:22 (208 days ago) @ David Turell
We talk and animals have sounds and signals:
https://dnyuz.com/2023/09/20/the-animals-are-talking-what-does-it-mean/
"Ev Fedorenko, a cognitive neuroscientist at M.I.T., thought this was “a cool idea,” so, about a decade ago, she set out to test it. If language is the medium of thought, she reasoned, then thinking a thought and absorbing the meaning of spoken or written words should activate the same neural circuits in the brain, like two streams fed by the same underground spring.
***
"In a 2011 study, she asked healthy subjects to make computations and decipher snatches of spoken and written language while she watched how blood flowed to aroused parts of their brains using an M.R.I. machine, taking their unique neural circuitry into account in her subsequent analysis. Her fM.R.I. studies showed that thinking thoughts and decoding words mobilized distinct brain pathways. Language and thought, Fedorenko says, “really are separate in an adult human brain.” (my bold)
***
"Because children intuit the rules that govern linguistic structure with little if any explicit instruction, philosophers and linguists argued that it must be a product of some uniquely human cognitive process.
***
"Earlier efforts to find linguistic capacities in other species failed, in part, he explained, because we assumed they would look like our own. But the communication systems of other species might, in fact, be “truly exotic to us,” Magnasco said. A species that can recognize objects by echolocation, as cetaceans and bats can, might communicate using acoustic pictographs, for example, which might sound to us like meaningless chirps or clicks. To disambiguate the meaning of animal signals, such as a string of dolphin clicks or whalesong, scientists needed some inkling of where meaning-encoding units began and ended, Reiss explained. “We, in fact, have no idea what the smallest unit is,” she said. If scientists analyze animal calls using the wrong segmentation, meaningful expressions turn into meaningless drivel: “ad ogra naway” instead of “a dog ran away.”
***
"In a study published in 1993, Reiss offered bottlenose dolphins at a facility in Northern California an underwater keypad that allowed them to choose specific toys, which it delivered while emitting computer-generated whistles, like a kind of vending machine. The dolphins spontaneously began mimicking the computer-generated whistles when they played independently with the corresponding toy, like kids tossing a ball and naming it “ball, ball, ball,” Reiss told me. “The behavior,” Reiss said, “was strikingly similar to the early stages of language acquisition in children.”
***
"In a seminal 1980 study, for example, the primatologists Robert Seyfarth and Dorothy Cheney used the “playback” technique to decode the meaning of alarm calls issued by vervet monkeys at Amboseli National Park in Kenya. When a recording of the barklike calls emitted by a vervet encountering a leopard was played back to other vervets, it sent them scampering into the trees. Recordings of the low grunts of a vervet who spotted an eagle led other vervets to look up into the sky; recordings of the high-pitched chutters emitted by a vervet upon noticing a python caused them to scan the ground.
***
"So far, her team’s analysis of 15 years’ worth of video-recorded exchanges has pinpointed dozens of ape gestures that trigger “apparently satisfactory outcomes.”
"These gestures may also be legible to us, albeit beneath our conscious awareness. Hobaiter applied her technique on pre-verbal 1- and 2-year-old children, following them around recording their gestures and how they affected attentive others, “like they’re tiny apes, which they basically are,” she says. She also posted short video clips of ape gestures online and asked adult visitors who’d never spent any time with great apes to guess what they thought they meant. She found that pre-verbal human children use at least 40 or 50 gestures from the ape repertoire, and adults correctly guessed the meaning of video-recorded ape gestures at a rate “significantly higher than expected by chance,”
***
"Many species are social and practice cultural transmission, satisfying what might be prerequisite for a structured communication system like language. And yet a stubborn fact remains. The species that use features of language in their communications have few obvious geographical or phylogenetic similarities. And despite years of searching, no one has discovered a communication system with all the properties of language in any species other than our own.
***
"...the absence of clear evidence of all the components of language in other species is, in fact, evidence of their absence. In a 2016 book on language evolution titled “Why Only Us,” written with the linguist Robert C. Berwick, Chomsky describes animal communications as “radically different” from human language. Seyfarth and Cheney, in a 2018 book, note the “striking discontinuities” between human and nonhuman loquacity. (my bold)
Comment: Our brain is the dominating difference. Of course, all animals communicate, but they are not us.
Introducing the brain: neuron comlplexity
by David Turell , Tuesday, September 26, 2023, 22:05 (206 days ago) @ David Turell
With long axons and dendrites there is constant biochemical activity:
read://https_www.the-scientist.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.the-scientist.com%2Ffeatures%...
"Unlike most cells, neurons expand beyond their spherical cell bodies into a complex labyrinth of protrusions that evoke visions of naked trees in winter. Axons and dendrites sprout from the cell body, branching out in different directions in search of connections. Dendritic branches are densely populated with even smaller budding protrusions called spines, which make synapses with other neurons to receive important messages. Researchers have demonstrated how, at its most basic level, memory is modulated by strengthening weakening synaptic connections.
"A single neuron can receive messages through several thousand independent synapses spread across the dendritic arbor. “We estimate that around 80% of the volume of a neuron is not in the cell body but rather in the dendrites and the axons,” said Schuman.
***
"...She was curious if brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a chemical messenger she knew to be important for the growth and survival of developing neurons, also had a functional role in mature neurons. To her surprise, BDNF dramatically increased synaptic activity for hours, similar to what was seen with LTP [long-term potentiation], but activity was completely blocked when she bathed the slices in a protein synthesis inhibitor.7 Unlike LTP, BDNF-induced activity required immediate access to new proteins.
***
"When she bathed the disconnected dendrites in BDNF, they still exhibited synaptic plasticity, and therefore immediate protein synthesis, despite being physically separated from the protein factories.8 Rather than making use of premade proteins until reinforcements arrive, as was suggested with LTP, these findings suggested that synapses could produce their own proteins on demand.
***
"...The work of Schuman and others highlighted how neurons could synthesize proteins locally, but many questions regarding the specificity and underlying mechanisms remained.
***
"...A tsunami of evidence in the late 1990s and early 2000s made it clear that neurons could engage in local translation, but it was still unclear how neurons achieved such speed and precision.
***
"compared to other cells, neurons pose a unique challenge to cell biology. With thousands of independently modified synapses, RNA localization and translation must be precise to maintain synaptic specificity while avoiding mislocalization or improper protein production. “In the neuron where you have such huge distances, I think the neuron has evolved a more elaborate model,” said Robert Singer, a cell biologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. (my bold)
"Local translation makes sense from a logistics point of view. A single mRNA transcript can produce numerous protein copies, labor that the cell body can outsource too far away regions in the neuron. Furthermore, with protein building materials nearby, far away synapses can rapidly respond to incoming information and infrastructure demands without waiting for the cell body to complete their supplies order.
***
"Moving down the assembly line, components needed for translation, including mRNA, ribosomes, and regulatory proteins, get packed and loaded into RNA transport granules.12 These transport granules orchestrate the spatiotemporal transport and translation of mRNA and protect the transcripts from degradation.
"Delivery of the RNA granules is powered by motor proteins that move these packages along the neuron’s vast microtubule and actin cytoskeleton road network to reach far away compartments.
***
"...they used a technique called Ribo-seq to capture and sequence mRNA that are actively undergoing translation.19 While most proteins are synthesized in both the cell body and distal compartments, they found around 800 mRNA transcripts that exhibited more translation in axons and dendrites, suggesting that local translation contributes significantly to the local proteome. “This was another surprise for us because the thinking was that most of the mRNA are still primarily translated in the cell body, but actually, for a huge number of mRNA, their primary source of synthesis is local,” said Schuman.
***
"Translational control drives many processes, including neuronal development, learning and memory, and axonal repair. To manage local translation across huge distances, the neuron has evolved an elaborate model with specialized packages and sophisticated road networks." (my bold)
Comment: a long historical review. The neuron is like no other cell, but like a city phone system. It had to be designed, not by chance, since brains first appeared de novo in the Cambrian explosion.
Introducing the brain: single neuron complexity
by David Turell , Thursday, September 28, 2023, 15:37 (205 days ago) @ David Turell
In C. elegans worm:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)01168-5?dgcid=raven_jbs_aip...
"Animals generate a wide range of highly coordinated motor outputs, which allows them to execute purposeful behaviors. Individual neurons in the circuits that generate behaviors have a remarkable capacity for flexibility as they exhibit multiple axonal projections, transmitter systems, and modes of neural activity. How these multi-functional properties of neurons enable the generation of adaptive behaviors remains unknown. Here, we show that the HSN neuron in C. elegans evokes multiple motor programs over different timescales to enable a suite of behavioral changes during egg laying. Using HSN activity perturbations and in vivo calcium imaging, we show that HSN acutely increases egg laying and locomotion while also biasing the animals toward low-speed dwelling behavior over minutes. The acute effects of HSN on egg laying and high-speed locomotion are mediated by separate sets of HSN transmitters and different HSN axonal compartments. The long-lasting effects on dwelling are mediated in part by HSN release of serotonin, which is taken up and re-released by NSM, another serotonergic neuron class that directly evokes dwelling. Our results show how the multi-functional properties of a single neuron allow it to induce a coordinated suite of behaviors and also reveal that neurons can borrow serotonin from one another to control behavior."
Comment: a single neuron acts like a tiny brain. Any other single cell, metabolizing along, is very complex enough to give anyone pause to wonder how did it appear? The neuron does much more in that it produces instructive proteins as well as messages through synapses it modulates for varying strength of signaling.
Introducing the brain: thalamus role in adaptability
by David Turell , Sunday, October 08, 2023, 17:21 (194 days ago) @ David Turell
A new aspect of thalamus activity:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/10/231006104518.htm
"It is generally believed that the adaptability of the adult brain mainly takes place in the cortex. However, a new study from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience shows that the thalamus, a relay station for incoming motor and sensory information, plays an unexpectedly important role in this process. "This could be an interesting starting point for various therapies," says Christiaan Levelt.
"Learning new things requires a tremendous capacity of our brains. The adaptation of our brain as a result of new experiences is called plasticity. There are periods during our development when neural networks show a lot of plasticity, known as critical periods. But also the adult brain is capable of adapting. Where this plasticity takes place in adult brain is not well understood.
***
"To gain more insight into this question, Yi Qin and his colleagues, under the supervision of Christiaan Levelt, examined the visual system of mice. This is a popular model for studying plasticity due to its ease of manipulation. Visual information reaches the thalamus through the retina. This brain nucleus then transmits processed information to the visual cortex and vice versa. An experiment in mice can clearly demonstrate how well the adult brain is able to adapt. When one eye of the mouse is occluded for several days, the visual cortex starts to respond less effectively to the closed eye and better to the open eye. How this is precisely regulated has been unclear for a long time. But these new results bring an important player to the forefront: the thalamus.
***
"Yi Qin: "In the current study, we performed the same experiment in adult mice and observed similar results. We observed that plasticity also took place in the adult thalamus, but disappeared when we removed the alpha-1 subunit. Consequently, there was no longer a shift in the cortex either.
"Christiaan Levelt: "Five years ago, we discovered that the thalamus plays a crucial role in the plasticity of the visual cortex during critical periods of development. This has changed our perspective on how this whole system works. We all thought that this process was regulated by the visual cortex, but it turned out not to be the whole story. We found out by removing a very specific component, the GABA-alpha 1 subunit, in the thalamus of mice during their critical period for vision. This component is responsible for inhibiting the thalamus, so its removal resulted in reduced inhibition.
***
"Yi Qin: "In the current study, we performed the same experiment in adult mice and observed similar results. We observed that plasticity also took place in the adult thalamus, but disappeared when we removed the alpha-1 subunit. Consequently, there was no longer a shift in the cortex either. Since we know that the visual cortex also sends information back to the thalamus through a feedback mechanism, we were curious if the visual cortex also plays a role in plasticity of the thalamus. We investigated this by reversing the experiment and shutting down the visual cortex. What happens to the shift in responses in the thalamus then? In adult animals, we did not see any difference: the shift persisted. However, in animals during their critical period, we observed that when we shut down the visual cortex, the shift reverted back in the thalamus. So, at a young age, plasticity in the thalamus and cortex influence each other much more, while in the adult brain, the thalamus is particularly important for plasticity in the cortex but not the other way around."
"Levelt continues: "Plasticity is important in many processes. We are currently focusing on sensory plasticity (vision), but plasticity is also fundamental for memory and other functions. These new insights could be relevant, for example, in understanding learning disabilities. It is possible that the origin of these problems lies in the thalamus rather than the cortex. Therefore, a different approach is needed. Instead of solely looking at the cortex, we should also consider the thalamus when it comes to therapies and the pathogenesis of these issues. This is an important new interpretation."
Comment: All plasticity involves recruitment of neuron connections, not new neurons. We see how it happens but not how the process is directed.
Introducing the brain: How human compares to primates
by David Turell , Friday, October 13, 2023, 16:57 (189 days ago) @ David Turell
Apes, Chimps, etc.:
https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/library/item/13_october_2023/414...
"RATIONALE: Single-nucleus RNA sequencing (snRNA-seq) offers a relatively unbiased characterization of cellular diversity of brain regions. Comparative transcriptomic analysis enables the identification of molecular and cellular features that are conserved and specialized but is often limited by the number of species analyzed. We applied deep transcriptomic profiling of the cerebral cortex of humans and four nonhuman primate (NHP) species to identify homologous cell types and human specializations.
***
"Profiling gorillas enabled discrimination of which human and chimpanzee expression differences are specialized in humans. We discovered that chimpanzee neurons have gene expression profiles that are more similar to those of gorilla neurons than to those of human neurons, despite chimpanzees and humans sharing a more-recent common ancestor. By contrast, glial expression changes were consistent with evolutionary distances and were more rapid than neuronal expression changes in all species. Thus, our data support a faster divergence of neuronal, but not glial, expression on the human lineage...We leveraged published datasets to link human-specific DEGs (differentially expressed genes) to regions of the genome with human-accelerated mutations or deletions (HARs and hCONDELs). This led to the surprising discovery that a large fraction of human-specific DEGs (15 to 40%), and particularly those associated with synaptic connections and signaling, were near these genomic regions that are under adaptive selection.
"CONCLUSION: Our study found that MTG (middle temporal gyrus) cell types are largely conserved across approximately 40 million years of primate evolution, and the composition and spatial positioning of cell types are shared among great apes. In each species, hundreds of genes exhibit cell type–specific expression changes, particularly in pathways related to neuronal and glial communication. Human-specific DEGs are enriched near likely adaptive genomic changes and are poised to contribute to human-specialized cortical function.re largely conserved across approximately 40 million years of primate evolution, and the composition and spatial positioning of cell types are shared among great apes. In each species, hundreds of genes exhibit cell type–specific expression changes, particularly in pathways related to neuronal and glial communication. Human-specific DEGs are enriched near likely adaptive genomic changes and are poised to contribute to human-specialized cortical function.
"Profiling gorillas enabled discrimination of which human and chimpanzee expression differences are specialized in humans. We discovered that chimpanzee neurons have gene expression profiles that are more similar to those of gorilla neurons than to those of human neurons, despite chimpanzees and humans sharing a more-recent common ancestor. By contrast, glial expression changes were consistent with evolutionary distances and were more rapid than neuronal expression changes in all species. Thus, our data support a faster divergence of neuronal, but not glial, expression on the human lineage. For all primate species, many differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were specific to one or a few cell types and were significantly enriched in molecular pathways related to synaptic connectivity and signaling. Hundreds of genes had human-specific differences in transcript isoform usage, and these genes were largely distinct from DEGs...This led to the surprising discovery that a large fraction of human-specific DEGs (15 to 40%), and particularly those associated with synaptic connections and signaling, were near these genomic regions that are under adaptive selection."
Comment: somehow, with very similar DNA's our brain cells are very different in type and organization. HAR's have been described here in the past as a driving reason for our evolutionary differences. None of the differences should be surprising. From a teleological viewpoint we are a very different result than one would expect based on what preceded us.
Introducing the brain: How human compares to primates
by David Turell , Friday, October 13, 2023, 19:51 (189 days ago) @ David Turell
Another review of the articles:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03192-2?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_cam...
"Researchers have created the largest atlas of human brain cells so far, revealing more than 3,000 cell types — many of which are new to science.
***
"Kimberly Siletti, a neuroscientist now at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands, and her team laid the cornerstone for the atlas by sequencing the RNA of more than 3 million individual cells from 106 locations covering the entire human brain, using tissue samples from three deceased male donors1. They also included one motor cortex dissection from a female donor that had been used in previous studies. Their analysis documented 461 broad categories of brain cell that included more than 3,000 subtypes.
***
"Neurons — cells in the brain and nervous system that send and receive signals — varied widely in different parts of the brain, suggesting different functions and developmental histories. The mix of neurons and other cell types also differed across each region; some cells were only found in specific locations. The brainstem — a relatively under-studied structure connecting the brain to the spinal cord — harboured a particularly high number of neuron types, says study co-author Sten Linnarsson, a molecular systems biologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. “One of the big surprises here is how incredibly complex the brainstem is.”
"Other studies drilled into the mechanisms of gene regulation and expression in different cells...They analysed chemical markers that switch genes on or off in more than 500,000 individual cells. The various molecules that acted as switches enabled the team to identify nearly 200 brain cell types. Even the same gene in the same type of cell could have different characteristics across the brain. One gene was turned on with one switch at the front of the brain and with another at the back. “There are remarkable regional differences,” says study co-author Wei Tian, a computational biologist at the Salk Institute. (my bold)
***
"Ren and his colleagues used the cell-type data to predict how the genetic switches influence gene regulation and increase the risk of neurological diseases. For instance, in cells called microglia , which clear away dead or damaged cells, the presence of some genetic switches was strongly linked to risks of Alzheimer's disease. Such findings can be used to test whether particular genes or faulty switches contribute directly to the onset of disease. “This is made possible because we have — for the first time — delineated the genetic switches for hundreds of different cell types,” says Ren."
Comment: this is different view limited to just the human brain and its enormous complexity. Such complexity shows that that it is irreducibly complex and cannot have developed step-by- step as the Darwin theory proposes.
Introducing the brain: changes in menstruation
by David Turell , Monday, October 16, 2023, 16:29 (186 days ago) @ David Turell
A study of thirty women:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGtxddjkJhHNtMMRrVwJMZkhgbX
"...the researchers behind the preprint recruited 30 young, healthy people who menstruate and imaged their brains over the course of their menstrual cycle, making sure to get images when they were ovulating, during menses, and in between, as the uterine lining thickens before a person’s period. They also measured the participants’ hormone levels at the time of the scans, so they could correlate brain analyses with hormone levels.
"Both white and gray matter changed notably over the menstrual cycle, in sync with hormone levels, they report. Overall, the hormones 17β-estradiol and luteinizing hormone, which surge just before ovulation, coincided with structural changes that suggest faster information transfer. Meanwhile, levels of follicle stimulating hormone, which peaks in between menstruation and ovulation, were generally tied to an increase in gray matter thickness. However, different parts of the brain responded differently to fluctuating hormones. For instance, in some parts of the brain, rising levels of progesterone led to thicker gray matter—but in others, the exact opposite occurred.
"According to the authors, the paper is the first to examine changes across the whole brain in both white and grey matter and connect them to menstrual cycle–related hormone levels. “Although we do not currently report functional consequences or correlates of structural brain changes, our findings may have implications for hormone-driven alterations in behavior and cognition,” the team writes.
"More importantly, though, the findings help establish baseline information about how hormones impact the brain on a regular basis. After all, a person may undergo some 450 menstrual cycles in their lifetime, the team notes. “Investigation of brain-hormone relationships across networks is necessary to understand human nervous system functioning on a daily basis, during hormone transition periods, and across the human lifespan,” they assert."
Comment: These findings are what one would expect, bodily accommodations for a possible pregnancy run by the brain. From a teleological view the necessity for design is obvious,
Introducing the brain: human milk grows infant brain
by David Turell , Tuesday, October 17, 2023, 20:43 (185 days ago) @ David Turell
Latest study:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news/myo-inositol-in-human-breast-milk-improves-brain-con...
"Researchers find that the sugar myo-inositol is abundant early in lactation and increases synapse size and abundance in the developing brain.
***
"Biederer became interested in the effect of diet on postnatal brain connectivity because researchers reported that breastfed infants performed better in intelligence tests later in life. These results suggested that diet influences infant brain development, but it was unknown which micronutrients and bioactive compounds within breast milk were responsible for this effect. In an earlier study, Biederer’s group determined that an omega-3 fatty acid, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), that is present in breast milk improves synaptic connectivity and information processing in the maturing cortex.
***
"The researchers looked for micronutrients that changed in abundance over the course of lactation and that were independent of race or diet, as this conservation would suggest that these components are functionally important. They found that the carbocyclic sugar myo-inositol was abundant during early lactation when the infant’s brain is rapidly forming new synaptic connections but decreased in concentration over the course of lactation.
"The researchers tested if myo-inositol could affect brain connectivity by exposing primary human glutamatergic and rat neuronal cultures to the bioactive compound and immunostaining the synapses’ presynaptic and postsynaptic sites. They found that myo-inositol increased the size and abundance of postsynaptic sites. Because scientists have correlated synaptic size with transmission strength,7 this indicated that myo-inositol improved neuronal connectivity. Furthermore, the number of areas showing colocalization between presynaptic and postsynaptic markers in rat neuronal cultures rose with increasing myo-inositol concentration, which suggested that this micronutrient promotes synapse formation."
Comment: if looked at from the standpoint of purposeful evolution design helped prepare the baby brain's development. There is no way Darwin theory explains this since the mother is a separate individual from the baby and cannot infer the need for the brain stimulation the milk offers. It is the same issue as adapting a mother' pelvis to a larger brain size.
Introducing the brain: consciousness connected to universe
by David Turell , Friday, October 20, 2023, 19:36 (182 days ago) @ David Turell
An old theory revived:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a45574179/architecture-of-consciousness/
"...we may soon be able to identify a true architecture of consciousness.
The new work builds upon a theory Nobel Prize-winning physicist Roger Penrose, Ph.D., and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, M.D., first posited in the 1990s: the Orchestrated Objective Reduction theory (Orch OR). Broadly, it claims that consciousness is a quantum process facilitated by microtubules in the brain’s nerve cells.
***
"Penrose and Hameroff suggested that consciousness is a quantum wave that passes through these microtubules. And that, like every quantum wave, it has properties like superposition (the ability to be in many places at the same time) and entanglement (the potential for two particles that are very far away to be connected).
***
"To explain quantum consciousness, Hameroff recently told the TV program Closer To Truth that it must be scale invariant, like a fractal. A fractal is a never-ending pattern that can be very tiny or very huge, and still maintain the same properties at any scale. Normal states of consciousness might be what we consider quite ordinary—knowing you exist, for example. But when you have a heightened state of consciousness, it’s because you’re dealing with quantum-level consciousness that is capable of being in all places at the same time, he explains. That means your consciousness can connect or entangle with quantum particles outside of your brain—anywhere in the universe, theoretically.
***
"In a recent interview, Tuszynski reports that, across 22 independent experiments, the excitations from the tryptophan created quantum reactions that lasted up to five nanoseconds. This is thousands of times longer than coherence would be expected to last in a microtubule. It’s also more than long enough to perform the biological functions required. “So we are actually confident that this process is longer lasting in tubulin than … in chlorophyll,” he says. (my bold)
***
"Shining the light into microtubules and measuring how long the microtubules take to emit that light “is a proxy for the stability of certain … postulated quantum states,” he says, “which is kind of key to the theory that these microtubules may be having coherent quantum superpositions that may be associated with mind or consciousness.” Put simply, the brain is not too warm or wet for consciousness to exist as a wave that connects with the universe.
***
"Palmer believes that our universe may be just one trajectory, one car, on a cosmological state space like the Lorenz attractor. When we imagine “what if …?” scenarios, we’re actually getting information about versions of ourselves in other universes who are also navigating the same strange attractor—others’ “cars” on the track, he explains. This also accounts for our sense of consciousness, of free will, and of being connected with a greater universe.
“'I would at least hypothesize that it may well be the case that it’s evolving on very special fractal subsets of all conceivable states in state space,” Palmer tells Popular Mechanics. If his ideas are correct, he says, “then we need to look at the structure of the universe on its very largest scales, because these attractors are really telling us about a kind of holistic geometry for the universe.”
"Tuszynksi’s experiment and Palmer’s theory still don’t tell us what consciousness is, but perhaps they tell us where consciousness lives—what kind of a structure houses it. That means it’s not just an ethereal, disembodied concept. If consciousness is housed somewhere, even if that somewhere is a complicated state space, we can find it. And that’s a start."
Comment: and the theory gets full support from evidence in NDE reports where consciousness exists apart from a non-functioning brain. We are well aware of quantum .mechanics in chlorophyl as mentioned
Introducing the brain: centers for sex and social drives
by David Turell , Friday, October 27, 2023, 17:13 (175 days ago) @ David Turell
Areas in the hypothalamus:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adh8489?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=emai...
"Abstract
Sexual, parental, and aggressive behaviors are central to the reproductive success of individuals and species survival and thus are supported by hardwired neural circuits. The reproductive behavior control column (RBCC), which comprises the medial preoptic nucleus (MPN), the ventrolateral part of the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMHvl), and the ventral premammillary nucleus (PMv), is essential for all social behaviors. The RBCC integrates diverse hormonal and metabolic cues and adjusts an animal’s physical activity, hence the chance of social encounters. The RBCC further engages the mesolimbic dopamine system to maintain social interest and reinforces cues and actions that are time-locked with social behaviors. We propose that the RBCC and brainstem form a dual-control system for generating moment-to-moment social actions. This Review summarizes recent progress regarding the identities of RBCC cells and their pathways that drive different aspects of social behaviors."
***
"The RBCC orchestrates all innate social behaviors that subserve reproduction. The MPOA drives male sexual, paternal, and maternal behaviors, whereas the VMHvl and PMv promote female sexual behavior and aggression in both sexes. The MPOA and the VMHvl and PMv may have an antagonistic relationship, as indicated by their opposing roles in multiple social behaviors. At the baseline, the RBCC adjusts an animal’s physical activity, hence the chance of social encounters, on the basis of hormonal and metabolic signals. Upon encountering a social target, the RBCC engages the dopamine system to sustain the social interest and reinforce the actions and contexts that lead to the successful completion of social behaviors. The PAG has emerged as a critical midbrain relay for executing VMHvl-driven social behaviors, but the midbrain region that transforms MPOA signals into motor actions remains elusive. Regardless of the exact circuit, we propose a hypothalamic and brainstem–spinal cord dual-control system for the motor execution of each social action. In this model, medial hypothalamus activity determines the broad behavior category based on the animal’s internal state and opponent’s social identity and opens the gates to allow specific brainstem–spinal cord circuits to respond to the immediate sensory cues and drive moment-to-moment motor output. Though not discussed here, the RBCC also drives a suite of autonomic responses to prepare the body for social actions and triggers neuropeptide and hormone releases that are essential for reproduction after mating (102). Lastly, it is worth mentioning that although the RBCC circuit is hardwired developmentally, it remains plastic. The input-output relationship of the circuit can be shaped through experience during development and adulthood, enabling widely different tendencies in the expression social behaviors across individuals."
Comment: The hypothalamus is a large structure on the underside of the brain. To stimulate an act it receives visual, mental and physical stimuli. Viewed as a necessary purposeful development all of the disparate parts of the mechanism must be viewed as irreducible complex. Stepwise would not achieve the goal because the function of each part separately would not achieve a useful partial goal to be maintained until it is all put together. Design required
Introducing the brain: importance of the hypothalamus
by David Turell , Friday, October 27, 2023, 17:43 (175 days ago) @ David Turell
A review of all its functions:
https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/library/item/27_october_2023/414...
"...a small area buried deep inside the brain, called the hypothalamus, is responsible for coordinating neuronal signals related to these activities. By controlling the homeostasis of the neuroendocrine, limbic, and autonomic nervous systems, the hypothalamus is a key brain region for many physiological and pathological processes. Despite its small size, the hypothalamus has a complex cellular organization and circuitry that determine its structural and functional organization. It is composed of 11 nuclei grouped by their location and has vast, mostly bidirectional connections with many neuronal and endocrine systems.
"...we highlight the main role that the hypothalamus plays in integrating the many body functions required for the maintenance of homeostasis. If that wasn’t enough, it also modulates social interactions, including aff ective, sexual, and aggressive behaviors. Yet another still not completely understood function of the hypothalamus is the way it controls sleep. Finally, to avoid missing the forest for the trees, we have to take a broader view of the neural circuits that mediate motivated behaviors and their interactions with the dopaminergic system to reinforce ongoing or planned actions to fulfill motivational demands.
"The hypothalamus may be small, but it has a colossal impact on a wide range of behaviors. Once again, the power of David over Goliath resides in organization and action, not size."
Comment: the hypothalamus acts in so many ways as a coordinating center. To create this coordinating system, it must have been designed.
Introducing the brain: grid cells catalog our environment
by David Turell , Monday, October 30, 2023, 20:04 (172 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Monday, October 30, 2023, 20:11
AI designs mimic our brain's ability to help us understand our environmental issues such as place:
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-10-brain-world.html
"To make our way through the world, our brain must develop an intuitive understanding of the physical world around us, which we then use to interpret sensory information coming into the brain.
"How does the brain develop that intuitive understanding? Many scientists believe that it may use a process similar to what's known as "self-supervised learning." This type of machine learning, originally developed as a way to create more efficient models for computer vision, allows computational models to learn about visual scenes based solely on the similarities and differences between them, with no labels or other information.
***
"The researchers found that when they trained models known as neural networks using a particular type of self-supervised learning, the resulting models generated activity patterns very similar to those seen in the brains of animals that were performing the same tasks as the models.
"The findings suggest that these models are able to learn representations of the physical world that they can use to make accurate predictions about what will happen in that world, and that the mammalian brain may be using the same strategy, the researchers say.
***
"To create a more efficient alternative, in recent years researchers have turned to models built through a technique known as contrastive self-supervised learning. This type of learning allows an algorithm to learn to classify objects based on how similar they are to each other, with no external labels provided.
"This is a very powerful method because you can now leverage very large modern data sets, especially videos, and really unlock their potential," Nayebi says.
***
"These types of models, also called neural networks, consist of thousands or millions of processing units connected to each other. Each node has connections of varying strengths to other nodes in the network. As the network analyzes huge amounts of data, the strengths of those connections change as the network learns to perform the desired task.
"As the model performs a particular task, the activity patterns of different units within the network can be measured. Each unit's activity can be represented as a firing pattern, similar to the firing patterns of neurons in the brain. Previous work from Nayebi and others has shown that self-supervised models of vision generate activity similar to that seen in the visual processing system of mammalian brains.
***
"Once the model was trained, the researchers had it generalize to a task they call "Mental-Pong." This is similar to the video game Pong, where a player moves a paddle to hit a ball traveling across the screen. In the Mental-Pong version, the ball disappears shortly before hitting the paddle, so the player has to estimate its trajectory in order to hit the ball.
The researchers found that the model was able to track the hidden ball's trajectory with accuracy similar to that of neurons in the mammalian brain, which had been shown in a previous study by Rajalingham and Jazayeri to simulate its trajectory—a cognitive phenomenon known as "mental simulation." Furthermore, the neural activation patterns seen within the model were similar to those seen in the brains of animals as they played the game—specifically, in a part of the brain called the dorsomedial frontal cortex. No other class of computational model has been able to match the biological data as closely as this one, the researchers say.
***
"The study led by Khona, Schaeffer, and Fiete focused on a type of specialized neurons known as grid cells. These cells, located in the entorhinal cortex, help animals to navigate, working together with place cells located in the hippocampus. (my bold)
"While place cells fire whenever an animal is in a specific location, grid cells fire only when the animal is at one of the vertices of a triangular lattice. Groups of grid cells create overlapping lattices of different sizes, which allows them to encode a large number of positions using a relatively small number of cells.
In recent studies, researchers have trained supervised neural networks to mimic grid cell function by predicting an animal's next location based on its starting point and velocity, a task known as path integration. However, these models hinged on access to privileged information about absolute space at all times—information that the animal does not have.
"Inspired by the striking coding properties of the multiperiodic grid-cell code for space, the MIT team trained a contrastive self-supervised model to both perform this same path integration task and represent space efficiently while doing so. For the training data, they used sequences of velocity inputs. The model learned to distinguish positions based on whether they were similar or different—nearby positions generated similar codes, but further positions generated more different codes.
***
"Once the model was trained, the researchers found that the activation patterns of the nodes within the model formed several lattice patterns with different periods, very similar to those formed by grid cells in the brain.
Comment: we see how the brain helps us, but the black box is knowing how the neurons activate and organize. At least we can mimic it . Note the bold. Hippocampus is involved.
Introducing the brain: bat hippocampal cell uses
by David Turell , Tuesday, October 31, 2023, 19:58 (171 days ago) @ David Turell
All about grid cells and place cells in a variety of uses:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/bats-use-the-same-brain-cells-to-map-physical-and-social...
"The researchers had an idea: that as a bat navigates its physical environment, it’s also navigating a network of social relationships. They wanted to know whether the bats use the same or different parts of their brain to map these intersecting realities.
"In a new study published in Nature in August, the scientists revealed that these maps overlap. The brain cells informing a bat of its own location also encode details about other bats nearby — not only their location, but also their identities. The findings raise the intriguing possibility that evolution can program those neurons for multiple purposes to serve the needs of different species.
"The neurons in question are located in the hippocampus, a structure deep within the mammalian brain that is involved in the creation of long-term memories. A special population of hippocampal neurons, known as place cells, are thought to create an internal navigation system.
***
"To gain insight into how the brain might navigate the social environment, Yartsev and his postdoctoral fellow Angelo Forli looked to Egyptian fruit bats, which they had previously used in studies of the brain’s navigation wiring.
***
"As expected, the place cells for a given bat changed their activity based on the bat’s location in the cave. Certain place cells fired more frequently when the bat was in a particular spot, while others increased their firing when the bat was someplace else.
"The presence or absence of other bats also influenced the neurons’ firing. As a bat went in for a landing, the place cells behaved differently depending on whether there was a roostmate at the landing site. What’s more, the neurons appeared to encode the identity of specific bats, distinguishing friends from acquaintances. If a bat landed next to a close social contact, the neurons behaved differently than if it landed near a bat it didn’t spend much time with.
"In short, the bats’ navigation system appeared to do double duty as a social map. The mammals weren’t just moving around their home — they were also using the exact same brain cells to track who was on the premises.
***
"The discovery immediately spurred questions about whether this reuse of hippocampal place cells applies beyond Egyptian fruit bats in the evolution of the social brain. The hippocampus is an ancient brain structure: It is highly conserved among mammals with diverse lifestyles and degrees of sociality, from largely solitary platypuses to highly communal people. It’s possible that the hippocampus’s navigation system logs the social environment similarly across species. However, it’s equally possible that the place circuitry evolved this dual purpose only in the Egyptian fruit bat. Only additional research can fill in the gaps.
"The findings go beyond the social map. They also fit with the concept of mixed selectivity, Alexander said: the idea that it’s more computationally efficient for single neurons to encode multiple features of the environment.
"In that sense, Forli said, the hippocampus may be like a powerful graphics card in a computer, which can have many uses, from rendering graphics for video games to performing machine learning computations. The hippocampus may be great at particular kinds of computations and may have the ability to be modified or programmed by evolution.
“'We’ve classically thought of the hippocampus as having these [place] cells that code particular locations in space,” Alexander said. “But I think more and more we’re discovering that it’s actually highly adaptive and flexible, and that the hippocampus will code for all sorts of things depending on what you present to it.'”
Comment: not a surprising discovery. The brain is designed to help us navigate our reality.
Introducing the brain: fainting involves a heart reflex
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 01, 2023, 21:26 (170 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Wednesday, November 01, 2023, 21:41
The heart actively informs the brain:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-brain-heart.html
"Nearly 40% of people experience syncope, or fainting spells, at least once in their lives. These brief losses of consciousness, whether brought by pain, fear, heat, hyperventilation or other causes, account for a significant portion of hospital emergency room visits. Yet the exact root mechanisms at play when people "pass out" largely have remained a mystery.
***
"'What we are finding is that the heart also sends signals back to the brain, which can change brain function," said Augustine. Information resulting from the study could be relevant to better understanding and treating various psychiatric and neurological disorders linked with brain-heart connections, the researchers note in their paper. "Our study is the first comprehensive demonstration of a genetically defined cardiac reflex, which faithfully recapitulates characteristics of human syncope at physiological, behavioral and neural network levels."
"Augustine,... studied neural mechanisms related to Bezold-Jarisch reflex (BJR), a cardiac reflex first described in 1867. For decades researchers have hypothesized that the BJR, which features reduced heart rate, blood pressure and breathing, may be associated with fainting. But information lacked in proving the idea since the neural pathways involved in the reflex were not well known.
"The researchers focused on the genetics behind a sensory cluster known as the nodose ganglia, which is part of the vagus nerves that carry signals between the brain and visceral organs, including the heart. Specifically, vagal sensory neurons, or VSNs, project signals to the brainstem and are thought to be associated with BJR and fainting. In their search for a novel neural pathway, they discovered that VSNs expressing the neuropeptide Y receptor Y2 (known as NPY2R) are tightly linked to the well-known BJR responses.
"Studying this pathway in mice, the researchers were surprised to find that when they proactively triggered NPY2R VSNs using optogenetics, a method of stimulating and controlling neurons, mice that had been freely moving about immediately fainted. During these episodes, they recorded data from thousands of neurons in the brains of the mice, as well as heart activity and changes in facial features, including pupil diameter and whisking.
" Once NPY2R neurons were activated, the researchers found, mice exhibited rapid pupil dilation and the classic "eye-roll" seen during human fainting, as well as suppressed heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate. They also measured reduced blood flow to the brain, an area of collaboration with Professor David Kleinfeld's laboratory in the UC San Diego Departments of Neurobiology and Physics.
***
"The findings therefore implicate the activation of the newly genetically identified VSNs and their neural pathways not only with BJR, but more centrally in overall animal physiology, certain brain networks and even behavior.
"Such findings were difficult to tease out previously because neuroscientists study the brain and cardiologists study the heart, but many do so in isolation of the other. "Neuroscientists traditionally think the body just follows the brain, but now it is becoming very clear that the body sends signals to the brain and then the brain changes function," said Augustine." (my bold)
Comment: note my bold. Augustine's revelation that the brain and body send signals back and forth in both directions is not a new concept. I was taught it in Med school. This article confirms:
https://www.the-scientist.com/ts-digest/issue/bacterial-time-capsules-21-5?utm_campaign...
"Evidence suggested that the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) is essential for airway epithelia and gut barrier immunity.1,2 So, Wack led a team of scientists to investigate the function of AHR in the lung endothelium. In the journal Nature, he and his collaborators described how AHR signaling prevents endothelium damage after an infection and pinpointed the contribution of dietary AHR ligands to this end."
"AHR ligands come from the diet (mainly from cruciferous vegetables) or from the metabolism of gut bacteria, so the team next tested whether adding an AHR ligand to the mouse food would affect AHR activity and disease progression. The enriched diet led to fewer signs of lung damage, which according to Wack, provides an example of how gut-derived molecules can affect barrier integrity in other parts of the body.
“'A lesson for all immunologists is that you want to embed your lung immune response research into a bigger context,” said Wack. “The lung is clearly communicating with other barrier sites and organs, and we need to think about this.'”
***
The other form of fainting is orthostatic hypotension fainting: a soldier at very still attention suddenly keels over. It is due to much blood pooling in his legs. It also occurs in some folks. My brother as a young child had to get up from a night's sleep very slowly, and not just jump out of bed, which often led him to be out cold flat on the floor. When a person gets up a Vagus nerve reflex tells the leg veins to contract.
Introducing the brain: how information flows
by David Turell , Thursday, November 02, 2023, 23:28 (169 days ago) @ David Turell
Electric and molecular signals at synapses:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-unraveling-mysteries-brain-worm.html
"...a team of neuroscientists and physicists at Princeton University are helping to shine a clarifying light on how information flows in the brain by studying, of all things, the brain of a very small but ubiquitous worm known as Caenorhabditis elegans. The details of the experiment are chronicled in a recent issue of Nature. The team consisted of Francesco Randi, Sophie Dvali and Anuj Sharma and was led by Andrew Leifer, a neuroscientist and physicist.
"'Brains are exciting and mysterious," said Leifer. "Our team is interested in the question of how collections of neurons process information and generate action."
***
:The worm is approximately one millimeter in length and is found in many bacteria-rich environments. Especially pertinent to the current study is the fact that the organism has a nervous system of only 302 neurons in its entire body, 188 of which reside in its brain.
"By contrast, a human brain has hundreds of billions of neurons," said Leifer. "So, these worms are much simpler to study. In fact, these worms are excellent for experimentation because they strike just the right balance between simplicity and complexity."
***
"An additional advantage in using C. elegans in laboratory experiments is that the worm is transparent, and in certain cases, its tissue has been genetically engineered to be light sensitive. This area of research is known as optogenetics, and it has revolutionized many aspects of experimentation in biological neuroscience.
"Instead of the more conventional system of using an electrode to deliver a current into a neuron and thereby stimulate a response, the optogenetic technique involves using light-sensitive proteins from certain organisms and implanting those cells in another organism so that researchers can control an organism's behavior or responses using light signals
***
"These optical tools allowed Leifer's team to begin the painstaking task of understanding how information flows through the worm's brain. The goal was to understand how signals flow directly through the worm's entire brain, so each neuron had to be measured. This involved isolating one neuron at a time, shining a light on it so that it was activated, and then observing how the other neurons responded.
***
"'We concluded that in many cases, many molecular details that you can't see from the wiring diagram are actually very important for predicting how the network should respond," said Leifer.
"The researchers suggest that there is a form of signaling—part of the "molecular details that you can't see"—that does not progress along neural wires. Leifer and his group characterized these as "wireless signals." Although wireless signaling is well known among neuroscientists, it has largely been underappreciated for studying neural dynamics because it had often thought to be a process that occurs very slowly.
"Wireless signaling is a form of signaling by which a neuron releases molecules, called neuropeptides, into the extracellular space—or "extracellular milieu"—between neurons. These chemicals diffuse and bind to other neurons even if there is no physical connection between them."
Comment: an elegant study confirming that signaling is both electric and molecular. What is not known is a black box: how do neurons know how to develop new connected axons to other neurons to handle new mental activity?
Introducing the brain: rat brain develops concepts
by David Turell , Friday, November 03, 2023, 17:56 (168 days ago) @ David Turell
Traveling a virtual route from memory:
https://www.livescience.com/animals/land-mammals/can-rats-imagine-rodents-show-signs-of...
"Rats may be capable of a type of imagination that's crucial for route planning, research from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) suggests. Although the creative arts spring to mind when we think of imagination, the ability also plays roles in everyday tasks, like navigating our environment. People constantly imagine the route they will take to get to places, whether it's a routine commute to work or a trip to an unfamiliar location.
"This type of imagination is controlled by the hippocampus, a brain region involved in learning and memory. People with a damaged hippocampus struggle to imagine scenarios, including future routes, co-lead study author Chongxi Lai, a research specialist at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus in Virginia, told Live Science. Until now, scientists couldn't determine whether other animals, such as rats, possess this form of imagination.
***
'The team implanted electrodes into the rats' brains to measure their hippocampal activity. They then immersed them in a VR world by putting them in an arena surrounded by a 360-degree screen that displayed a virtual environment. The rats were placed on a spherical treadmill that allowed them to rotate freely and view the entire panorama.
"The researchers then trained the rats to run toward a virtual goalpost to receive a treat. The treadmill's movements updated the rat's position in the virtual environment. After several rounds, each with the same goalpost at a random location, the rats had explored the whole landscape.
"For each set of coordinates in the virtual environment, the electrodes detected a specific pattern of activity in the hippocampus. The team hypothesized that rats could recreate those patterns if they imagined following a route along those coordinates, rather than actually running the route.
"So, they set up a game where rats only had to think about moving toward a goalpost; the virtual environment jumped to coordinates based on the electrode readings instead of treadmill movements. Named after a 2008 movie about teleportation, this "Jumper" game showed that rats planned efficient routes to the goalpost without meandering and regardless of how they physically moved.
"Lastly, the researchers tested whether the rats could imagine moving an object toward the goalpost, rather than themselves.
"Nicknamed the "Jedi" game, this required the rats to "use the Force" to move a virtual box toward the goalpost. The rodents' success showed that they could harness their mental maps to think about navigating an object through their environment, without moving themselves.
"Lai noted that scientists already knew about patterns of hippocampal activity that correspond to environmental locations in humans and rats. "But it hasn't been shown that animals can control it" until now.
"Similar to humans, the rats took only a few seconds to plan routes, suggesting this form of imagination may be similar between these species. "I could see the same experiment being run in human subjects and producing similar results, which by itself gets at the potential similarity," Kay said."
Comment: planning route is not a simple concept. I'm sure wild rats do it all the time in order to survive. This result is just confirmation.
Introducing the brain: rat brain develops concepts
by David Turell , Friday, November 03, 2023, 20:48 (168 days ago) @ David Turell
Another version:
Another study:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/jedi-rats-move-digital-object-using-brain
"Neuroscientist and engineer Chongxi Lai, also now at Beth Israel Deaconess, Lee and colleagues trained rats to move on a spherical treadmill in the midst of a 3-D virtual world projected onto a surrounding screen. While the rats poked around their virtual world, electrodes recorded signals from nerve cells in the rats’ hippocampi, brain structures known to hold complex spatial information, among other things (SN: 10/6/14). In this way, researchers matched patterns of brain activity with spots in the virtual world.
"Next, the researchers wanted to know if the rats could imagine their way through the world. The animals were trained to mentally move a virtual cube to a twisty column, using only brain activity patterns in the hippocampus. If the rodents Jedied the cube correctly, they’d get a reward of water. In this experiment, the virtual reality world was controlled by the rats’ brains; the rats’ physical movements on the treadmill no longer mattered.
"After some training, the furry apprentices mastered the task, their brain activity showed. By activating the right pattern of cells in their hippocampi, the rats could concentrate and hold the cube near the twisty column for several seconds. In another task, the rats mentally teleported through the virtual world to reach the twisty column.
"The results are “strong evidence that rats can use imagination to perform novel, artificial tasks,” says neuroscientist Daoyun Ji of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, who wasn’t involved in the new study. And it’s not just rats. “It is likely we humans imagine by activating hippocampal memories too,” he says."
Comment: just another take on the rat studies
Introducing the brain: cilia in the cortex
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 08, 2023, 16:57 (163 days ago) @ David Turell
Neurons have cilia with questionable functions:
https://www.livescience.com/health/neuroscience/3d-map-plots-human-brain-cell-antennae-...
"Tiny, hairlike "antennae" protrude from the surface of brain cells, and now, scientists have unveiled a detailed map of these wires across the whole human cortex. They hope the new map will guide future research into a class of diseases that cause these structures to malfunction.
"The hairlike structures, known as cilia, are actually found on the surface of most eukaryotic cells, meaning complex cells that house their DNA in a nucleus. Some cilia can move; for example, cilia in the lungs collectively beat to clear the airways of harmful pathogens. Others, called primary cilia, are immobile and instead act like antennae, sensing signals from their environment and passing them to the nucleus of the cell.
"In the brain, neurons and their associated helper cells, called glia, need primary cilia to effectively receive and send signals. However, until now, little has been known about cilia's structure or organization in the brain or how they slot into the network of interactions between neurons in the brain known as the "connectome."
"In a new study, published Oct. 27 in the journal Neuron, scientists constructed a three-dimensional map of the primary cilia in the brain's outer layer, or cortex, which is part of the cerebrum, the largest portion of the brain. The researchers hope the new map, which details 56,000 cells, will guide research into ciliopathies, a class of diseases tied to disruptions in cilia function.
***
"The cilia differed in size and shape depending on the type of cell they interacted with and the layer of the cortex where they were located. Cilia were also a key component of the structure of some synapses — the junctions between neurons that allows these cells to communicate with each other — suggesting that cilia are firmly embedded in the brain's connectome.
"The diversity of the cilia raises the "intriguing possibility" that different types of cilia in the cortex can regulate the activity of neurons in unique ways, the authors said.
"Going forward, the team would like to delve further into how these primary cilia influence neural circuits in the brain and how this knowledge could be used to treat neurological disorders where cilial function is impeded,..."
Comment: the deeper we dig, the more the complexity becomes more complex.
Introducing the brain: number sense estimates
by David Turell , Thursday, November 09, 2023, 20:51 (162 days ago) @ David Turell
The key is number four:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-the-human-brain-perceives-small-numbers-better-20231...
'More than 150 years ago, the economist and philosopher William Stanley Jevons discovered something curious about the number 4. While musing about how the mind conceives of numbers, he tossed a handful of black beans into a cardboard box. Then, after a fleeting glance, he guessed how many there were, before counting them to record the true value. After more than 1,000 trials, he saw a clear pattern. When there were four or fewer beans in the box, he always guessed the right number. But for five beans or more, his quick estimations were often incorrect.
***
"Now, a new study in Nature Human Behaviour has edged closer to an answer by taking an unprecedented look at how human brain cells fire when presented with certain quantities. Its findings suggest that the brain uses a combination of two mechanisms to judge how many objects it sees. One estimates quantities. The second sharpens the accuracy of those estimates — but only for small numbers.
***
"The ability to instantly judge the number of items in a set doesn’t have anything to do with counting. Human infants have this number sense even before they learn language. And it’s not limited to humans: Monkeys, bees, fish, crows and other animals also have it.
"A monkey needs to be able to quickly judge the number of apples in a tree, and also how many other monkeys it’s competing against for those apples. A lion, when confronted by other lions, has to decide whether to fight or flee. Honeybees need to know which area has the most flowers for foraging. A guppy has better chances of escaping a predator if it joins a shoal. “The bigger the shoal, the safer that little fish is,” said Brian Butterworth, a cognitive neuroscientist.
"This innate number sense is therefore critical to survival, increasing an animal’s chances of finding food, avoiding predators and ultimately reproducing. “It simply pays off for the survival of an animal to be able to differentiate numeric quantities,” said Andreas Nieder, the chair in animal physiology at the University of Tübingen in Germany, who co-led the new study. The fact that this ability is found in diverse animals, from insects to humans, suggests that it arose a long time ago, and its neural basis has interested cognitive scientists for decades. (my bold)
***
"Nieder and Mormann launched a new study to find out how the neurons represent odd and even numbers. The researchers recruited 17 epilepsy patients and showed them flashes of dots, ranging in number from one to nine, on computer screens. The participants indicated whether they saw an odd or even number while electrodes recorded their brain activity.
"Over the next few months, as Esther Kutter, a graduate student studying with Nieder, analyzed the resulting data, she saw a clear pattern emerge — right around the number 4.
"The data, which comprised 801 recordings of single neurons firing, showed two distinct neural signatures: one for small numbers and one for large. Above the number 4, the neurons’ firing for their preferred number grew progressively less precise, and they erroneously fired for numbers close to the preferred one. But for 4 and below, the neurons fired precisely — with the same small amount of error whether firing for one, two, three or four objects. The misfiring in response to other numbers was largely absent.
***
“'This boundary popped out in different ways,” Nieder said. The neural patterns suggested that there is an additional mechanism that suppresses smaller-number neurons from firing for the wrong numbers."
***
"However, one more major uncertainty remains. The researchers didn’t study the prefrontal or parietal cortices, where the majority of number neurons are located in monkeys. Instead, because of where the patients’ electrodes were inserted, the study focused on the medial temporal lobe, which is involved in memory.
***
"It’s not clear why number neurons are present in this region, Butterworth said. “The things that we thought were specific to the parietal lobe seem to be reflected also in parts of the medial temporal lobe.”
***
"The level of analysis is “just really outstanding,” said Marinella Cappelletti, a cognitive neuroscientist at Goldsmiths, University of London. The researchers provide “compelling evidence” for dual mechanisms in the medial temporal lobe. She thinks it would be valuable, however, to see whether these mechanisms operate in other brain regions as well, if the opportunity presents.
***
"People use numbers frequently and in a variety of ways, and we and our ancestors have used math to describe the world for millennia. In that sense, math is a fundamental part of being human.
"And, as this study starts to show, this calculation prowess might all stem from a finely tuned network of neurons in the brain."
Comment: Counting for survival is an obvious point. Animal counting is no surprise. I would guess the small numbers to four is designed into the brain for survival, and large numbers are an addition we humans have added.
Introducing the brain: neurons viruses and inflammation
by David Turell , Tuesday, November 14, 2023, 17:56 (157 days ago) @ David Turell
How neuron activity incites inflammation:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.adg2979?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=e...
In summary, neurons are specialized cells where PRRs constantly sense “self” dsRNAs to "preemptively induce protective antiviral immunity, but maintaining RNA homeostasis is paramount to prevent pathological neuroinflammation."
***
"Editor’s summary
The central nervous system relies on pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) to trigger innate immune responses against neurotropic viruses, but excessive PRR activation can also contribute to neurodegenerative diseases. Dorrity et al. found that human neurons express particularly high levels of long double-stranded RNAs (dsRNA) that activate PRRs, leading to constitutive production of type I interferon (IFN-I). The ELAV-like RNA-binding proteins HuB and HuC generated elongated 3’ untranslated regions (UTRs) that gave rise to neuronal dsRNA structures. Loss of HuB and HuC increased susceptibility to herpes simplex virus 1 and Zika virus infection in wild-type neurons but improved survival of neurons lacking ADAR1, the gene mutated in Aicardi-Goutières syndrome. Together, these results identify elongated 3’UTRs as a source of immunostimulatory dsRNA in neurons that couples antiviral responses with pathological inflammation."
***
A full review:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGwHfrfhGnmNHQnhnRSZwPzMXvc
"According to research published recently in Science Immunology, one of these extra defenses is the production of double-stranded RNA by neurons (in red above), which essentially puts the brain’s immune system on high alert. Unfortunately, this may also predispose neurons to damaging levels of inflammation when there isn’t a virus to battle.
"Many viral genomes are packaged as double-stranded RNA, as opposed to the double-stranded DNA of our genomes. So, the human immune system generally considers long double-stranded RNA strings to be a sign of a viral infection. But our cells also can produce the stuff, and researchers studying the brain discovered that neurons produce a ton of double-stranded RNA all the time—even when they’re healthy.
"This appears to prime them to battle against viruses. When researchers lowered neurons’ production of these molecules, the cells were more susceptible to viral infections. On the flip side, they survived for longer when not infected. “The findings show how this tricky balance between susceptibility to infection and inflammation in the brain works in both health and disease,” Lawrence Tabak, former acting director of the National Institutes of Health, writes in a blog post . “It also leads to the tantalizing suggestion that treatments targeting these various players or others in the same pathways may offer new ways of treating brain infections or neuroinflammatory conditions.” Such treatments might work by ramping up or down the production of double-stranded RNA, he writes."
Comment: mimicking a virus to fight virus is an interesting trick and sets up a situation on a knife edge of danger as an autoimmune attack. From a designer standpoint, it is a designed mechanism to thwart viruses, recognizing the dangers viruses offer.
Introducing the brain: cuttlefish pass child's test
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 15, 2023, 16:15 (156 days ago) @ David Turell
In a food foraging study:
https://www.sciencealert.com/cephalopods-have-passed-a-cognitive-test-designed-for-huma...
"Cuttlefish were given a new version of the marshmallow test, and the results may demonstrate that there's more going on in their strange little brains than we knew.
"Their ability to learn and adapt, the researchers said, could have evolved to give cuttlefish an edge in the cutthroat eat-or-be-eaten marine world they live in.
"The marshmallow test, or Stanford marshmallow experiment, is pretty straightforward.
"A child is placed in a room with a marshmallow. They are told if they can manage not to eat the marshmallow for 15 minutes, they'll get a second marshmallow, and be allowed to eat both.
***
"Because it's so simple, it can be adjusted for animals. Obviously you can't tell an animal they'll get a better reward if they wait, but you can train them to understand that better food is coming if they don't eat the food in front of them straight away.
***
"In 2020, cuttlefish also passed a version of the marshmallow test. Scientists showed that common cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) can refrain from eating a meal of crab meat in the morning once they have learnt dinner will be something they like much better - shrimp.
"However, as a team of researchers led by behavioral ecologist Alexandra Schnell of the University of Cambridge pointed out, in this case it was difficult to determine whether this change in foraging behavior in response to prey availability was also being governed by an ability to exert self-control.
***
"The researchers found that all of the cuttlefish in the test condition decided to wait for their preferred food (the live shrimp), but didn't bother to do so in the control group, where they couldn't access it.
"'Cuttlefish in the present study were all able to wait for the better reward and tolerated delays for up to 50-130 seconds, which is comparable to what we see in large-brained vertebrates such as chimpanzees, crows and parrots," Schnell said back in 2021.
"The other part of the experiment was to test how good the six cuttlefish were at learning. They were shown two different visual cues, a grey square and a white one.
"When they approached one, the other would be removed from the tank; if they made the "correct" choice, they would be rewarded with a snack.
"Once they had learnt to associate a square with a reward, the researchers switched the cues, so that the other square now became the reward cue.
"Interestingly, the cuttlefish that learnt to adapt to this change the quickest were also the cuttlefish that were able to wait longer for the shrimp reward.
"That seems like cuttlefish can exert self control, all right, but what's not clear is why.
"In species such as parrots, primates, and corvids, delayed gratification has been linked to factors such as tool use (because it requires planning ahead), food caching (for obvious reasons) and social competence (because prosocial behavior – such as making sure everyone has food – benefits social species).
"Cuttlefish, as far as we know, don't use tools or cache food, nor are they especially social. The researchers think this ability to delay gratification may instead have something to do with the way cuttlefish forage for their food.
"'Cuttlefish spend most of their time camouflaging, sitting and waiting, punctuated by brief periods of foraging," Schnell said at the time.
"'They break camouflage when they forage, so they are exposed to every predator in the ocean that wants to eat them. We speculate that delayed gratification may have evolved as a byproduct of this, so the cuttlefish can optimize foraging by waiting to choose better quality food." (my bold)
"It's a fascinating example of how very different lifestyles in very different species can result in similar behaviors and cognitive abilities.
"Future research should, the team noted, try to determine if indeed cuttlefish are capable of planning for the future."
Comment: note my bold. It is not clear how much deep cognition is happening. That cuttlefish make choices when foraging is obvious. And they must delay until the choice is made.
Introducing the brain: many neuropeptides signal
by David Turell , Friday, November 17, 2023, 15:24 (154 days ago) @ David Turell
A plethora of different types do signaling:
https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/library/item/17_november_2023/41...
"CommunicatIon between neurons in the brain involves the release of either fast (for example, glutamate, γ-aminobutyric acid) or slow neurotransmitters (for example, catecholamines, histamine) from the presynaptic terminal, alone or together with neuromodulators. Fast neurotransmitters induce ion currents in the postsynaptic neuron. By contrast, slow neurotransmitters and neuromodulators act on metabotropic G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs) in the postsynaptic membrane to trigger intracellular second messenger cascades. Neuropeptides are a superfamily of neuromodulators—more than 100 have been identified.
***
"Wang et al. (1) describe GPCR-activation–based sensors (GRABs) that can track neuropeptide action in vivo. Such GRABs have the potential to provide new information on physiological processes (2) and the role of GPCRs in brain diseases.
***
"Accordingly, the type of neurotransmitter used would determine whether that neuron inhibited or activated its partner postsynaptic neuron or neurons. Fast neurotransmitters are limited in number and produce almost binary (“yes” or “no” codes for neurotransmission. This communication needs continuous recalibration to optimize its strength. Neuropeptides are ideal for this role.
***
"Most, if not all, synapses contain both a neurotransmitter and a neuropeptide, at least in some brain regions (6). Neuropeptide precursors (prepropeptides) can often be cleaved into alternative short fragments, each with different (or overlapping) action. Therefore, neuropeptides could produce combinatorial codes to modulate the action or prime the sensitivity of neurons to neurotransmitters. This notion is supported by the observation that neuropeptides commonly have multiple cognate GPCRs—some stimulating (through Gαq and Gas protein cascades) and some inhibiting (through Gαi and Gαo protein signaling) the postsynaptic neuron. Thus, GPCRs augment or dampen the efficacy of neurotransmitters, respectively.
***
"Neuropeptides are also released by nonneuronal cells, including endocrine cells of the gastrointestinal tract and pancreas, for long-range signaling. In the pancreas, SST [somatostatin] is a marker of δ cells (14), whose activity modulates the release of both insulin and glucagon."
Comment: the complexity of signaling is shown in this article. The coordinating of signals and receptors and the modulation of those signals are markers of irreducible complexity and require design.
Introducing the brain: controlling hunger
by David Turell , Friday, November 17, 2023, 18:00 (154 days ago) @ David Turell
From the underside of the hippocampus:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/11/231116141050. aus
"A hunger hormone produced in the gut can directly impact a decision-making part of the brain in order to drive an animal's behaviour,...
"The study in mice, published in Neuron, is the first to show how hunger hormones can directly impact activity of the brain's hippocampus when an animal is considering food.
***
"'We found that a part of the brain that is crucial for decision-making is surprisingly sensitive to the levels of hunger hormones produced in our gut, which we believe is helping our brains to contextualise our eating choices."
***
"The researchers were focusing on brain activity in the ventral hippocampus (the underside of the hippocampus), a decision-making part of the brain which is understood to help us form and use memories to guide our behaviour.
"The scientists found that activity in a subset of brain cells in the ventral hippocampus increased when animals approached food, and this activity inhibited the animal from eating.
"But if the mouse was hungry, there was less neural activity in this area, so the hippocampus no longer stopped the animal from eating. The researchers found this corresponded to high levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin circulating in the blood.
***
"This finding has demonstrated how ghrelin receptors in the brain are put to use, showing the hunger hormone can cross the blood-brain barrier (which strictly restricts many substances in the blood from reaching the brain) and directly impact the brain to drive activity, controlling a circuit in the brain that is likely to be the same or similar in humans.
"Dr MacAskill added: "It appears that the hippocampus puts the brakes on an animal's instinct to eat when it encounters food, to ensure that the animal does not overeat -- but if the animal is indeed hungry, hormones will direct the brain to switch off the brakes, so the animal goes ahead and begins eating.'"
Comment: this shows necessary crossings of the blood-brain barrier. The complexity of this mechanism requires design. It is irreducibly complex.
Introducing the brain: how neurons sense smells
by David Turell , Tuesday, November 28, 2023, 20:12 (143 days ago) @ David Turell
Through the use of two specific proteins:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-11-neurotransmitters-discriminate-odors.html
"A longstanding hypothesis in neurobiology was that a single neuron releases a single type of neurotransmitter, a molecule used by neurons to communicate with one another. In recent decades, several neurons have been found to release more than one neurotransmitter. This phenomenon called co-transmission is increasingly gaining recognition as a powerful and versatile molecular mechanism useful for the dynamic regulation of diverse neural circuits.
"However, precisely how co-transmission affects the firing of target neurons and the overall behavior of an animal remains to be elucidated.
"A recent study in the laboratory of Dr. Benjamin Arenkiel, professor at Baylor College of Medicine...has dissected how co-transmission of two neurotransmitters—gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and dopamine—from a specific group of olfactory bulb neurons modulates the activity of the entire circuit.
"GABA and dopamine are both present and co-transmitted in many brain cells. The Arenkiel lab focused on a type of olfactory inhibitory neurons called the superficial short axon cells (sSACs) that receive inputs from various olfactory sensory neurons.
***
"Using a behavioral assay that hinges on the innate ability of mice to detect hidden food, they found that mice that lack both GABA and dopamine were unable to detect odors. Inhibiting either of these neurotransmitters individually did not lead to any impairments in odor detection. However, mice in which either GABA or dopamine release was blocked could not differentiate between pairs of molecularly similar odors that normal mice could easily tell apart.
"'Based on these observations, we conclude that both GABA and dopamine are individually sufficient to detect odors, whereas they likely act cooperatively with one another to discriminate similar odors," added Dr. Lyons-Warren.
"The sSACs receive inputs from various olfactory sensory neurons and send those signals to tufted cells and mitral cells, the primary output neurons that synapse with granule cell neurons present in the deepest layer of the olfactory bulb. Thus, sSACs are a part of the initial circuitry in the olfactory bulb that helps detect, decode, and process olfactory information that the brain receives from the external environment.
***
"First, they found GABA and D1 dopamine receptors, which are present throughout the olfactory bulb and importantly, on the known and new targets of sSACs were involved in odor detection.
"Using Channelrhodopsin-assisted circuit mapping (CRACM), they found that although sSACs are connected to external tufted cells via both GABA and dopamine receptors, they only release dopamine to granule cells. Furthermore, they found that impaired release of sSAC GABA or dopamine impacts mitral cell firing frequency, which in turn increases the number of glomeruli that respond to a given odor and leads to reduced odor discrimination.
"'This study provides crucial mechanistic insights into co-transmission specifically in the context of olfaction and shows how this type of neuromodulation sculpts distinct responses to sensory inputs," Dr. Arenkiel said.
"'It also nicely illustrates how co-transmission allows a single cell type to mount varied responses to the same stimuli by differentially modulating different target neurons. Given that co-transmission is now known to occur in various brain cell types, this will serve as the foundation for further explorations on neuromodulatory effects of multiple neurotransmitters in olfaction as well as in other sensory processes.'"
Comment: Of course, infants have to experience each new smell and learn to recognize it. Our sense of smell has declined as we use other senses to help us live. It is a specifically complex system requiring design (Dempski).
Introducing the brain: breast milk enhances connectivity
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 29, 2023, 17:09 (142 days ago) @ David Turell
Specifically, myo-inositol:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news/myo-inositol-in-human-breast-milk-improves-brain-con...
"In an earlier study, Biederer’s group determined that an omega-3 fatty acid, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), that is present in breast milk improves synaptic connectivity and information processing in the maturing cortex.
***
"The researchers looked for micronutrients that changed in abundance over the course of lactation and that were independent of race or diet, as this conservation would suggest that these components are functionally important. They found that the carbocyclic sugar myo-inositol was abundant during early lactation when the infant’s brain is rapidly forming new synaptic connections but decreased in concentration over the course of lactation.
"The researchers tested if myo-inositol could affect brain connectivity by exposing primary human glutamatergic and rat neuronal cultures to the bioactive compound and immunostaining the synapses’ presynaptic and postsynaptic sites. They found that myo-inositol increased the size and abundance of postsynaptic sites. Because scientists have correlated synaptic size with transmission strength, this indicated that myo-inositol improved neuronal connectivity. Furthermore, the number of areas showing colocalization between presynaptic and postsynaptic markers in rat neuronal cultures rose with increasing myo-inositol concentration, which suggested that this micronutrient promotes synapse formation."
Comment: breast milk is the gold standard in feeding infants. Myo-inositol is a glaring proof. Natural evolution cannot produce this result. The mother is not the infant. Their DNA differ. The lactation cells in the breast cannot 'know' of the need. There is no way to create a trial-and-error approach. This is a direct example of design for future use just as female babies are designed for future pregnancies even if one never occurs. Hopefully these examples will teach dhw design for future use exists in humans and all of evolution.
Introducing the brain: genes driving human brain size
by David Turell , Wednesday, December 06, 2023, 19:03 (135 days ago) @ David Turell
Just discovered:
https://phys.org/news/2023-12-reveals-genes-humans-primates-cognitive.html
"An international team led by researchers at the University of Toronto has uncovered over 100 genes that are common to primate brains but have undergone evolutionary divergence only in humans—and which could be a source of our unique cognitive ability.
"The researchers, led by Associate Professor Jesse Gillis ...found the genes are expressed differently in the brains of humans compared to four of our relatives—chimpanzees, gorillas, macaques and marmosets. (my bold)
***
"'The team, which includes researchers from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the Allen Institute for Brain Science in the U.S, created a brain map for each primate species based on single-cell analysis, a relatively new technique that enables more specific genetic sequencing than standard methods. They used a BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN) dataset created from samples taken from the middle temporal gyrus of the brain.
"'In all, the team found 139 genes that are common across the primate groups but highly divergent in their expression in human brains. These genes displayed a stronger ability to withstand mutations without impacting their function, suggesting they may have evolved under more relaxed selective pressure.
"'The genes that have diverged in humans must be tolerant to change," said Hamsini Suresh, first author on the study and a research associate at the Donnelly Center. "This manifests as tolerance to loss-of-function mutations, and seems to allow for rapid evolutionary change in the human brain."
"'Our higher cognitive function may have resulted from the adaptive evolution of human brain cells to a multitude of less threatening mutations over time. It's also worth noting that around a quarter of the human-divergent genes identified in the study are associated with various brain disorders. (my bold)
"'The divergent genes the researchers identified are found in 57 brain cell types, grouped by inhibitory neurons, excitatory neurons and non-neurons. A quarter of the genes were only expressed differently in neuronal cells, also known as gray matter, and half were only expressed differently in glial cells, which are white matter.'"
Comment: the findings are not surprising when we look at the differences in mental ability. That these special genes relate to disease states simply shows how important the genes are.
Introducing the brain: farm animal intelligence
by David Turell , Friday, December 08, 2023, 17:42 (133 days ago) @ David Turell
Studies in pigs, cows, goats suggest their thought patterns:
https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/library/item/08_december_2023/41...
"The work is part of a small, but growing field that’s beginning to overturn the idea that livestock are dumb and unworthy of scientific attention. Over the past decade, researchers at FBN and elsewhere have shown that pigs show signs of empathy, goats rival dogs in some tests of social intelligence, and, in one of the field’s, um, splashiest recent finds, cows can be potty trained, suggesting a self-awareness behind the blank stares and cud chewing that has shocked even some experts.
“'There’s a lot to be learned by studying the mental lives of these creatures,” says Christopher Krupenye, a Johns Hopkins University psychologist who explores cognition in humans and more traditional animal models such as chimpanzees and dogs. Ignoring livestock, he says, has been a “missed opportunity” by the scientific community.
"The field faces challenges, however, and not just because of rambunctious goats. Farm animals can be huge, many are hard to train, and traditional funders and high-profile journals have generally spurned such studies. But as scientists push past these obstacles, they are gaining insights not only into the minds of livestock, but into the evolution of our own cognition as well. What they learn could even change the way we house and treat these creatures.
“'If we don’t understand how these animals think, then we won’t understand what they need,” says Jan Langbein, an applied ethologist at FBN. “And if we don’t understand what they need, we can’t design better environments for them.'”
Comment: It is impossible to truncate this very long descriptive article. The point is well made. We know our own horses think, react, make friends and show dislike for others.
Introducing the brain: intelligence of brain organoids
by David Turell , Wednesday, December 13, 2023, 17:17 (128 days ago) @ David Turell
Compute and think:
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-built-a-functional-computer-with-human-brain-ti...
"There is no computer even remotely as powerful and complex as the human brain. The lumps of tissue ensconced in our skulls can process information at quantities and speeds that computing technology can barely touch.
"Key to the brain's success is the neuron's efficiency in serving as both a processor and memory device, in contrast to the physically separated units in most modern computing devices.
"There have been many attempts to make computing more brain-like, but a new effort takes it all a step further – by integrating real, actual, human brain tissue with electronics.
'It's called Brainoware, and it works. A team led by engineer Feng Guo of Indiana University Bloomington fed it tasks like speech recognition and math problems such as nonlinear equation prediction.
"It was slightly less accurate than a pure hardware computer running on artificial intelligence, but the research demonstrates an important first step in a new kind of computer architecture.
***
"The human brain is kind of jaw-droppingly amazing. It contains an estimated 86 billion neurons, on average, and up to a quadrillion synapses. Each neuron is connected to up to 10,000 other neurons, constantly firing and communicating with each other.
"To date, our best effort to simulate the activity of the brain in an artificial system barely scratched the surface.
"In 2013, Riken's K Computer – then one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world – made an attempt to mimic the brain. With 82,944 processors and a petabyte of main memory, it took 40 minutes to simulate one second of the activity of 1.73 billion neurons connected by 10.4 trillion synapses – around just one to two percent of the brain.
***
"Brainoware consists of brain organoids connected to an array of high-density microelectrodes, using a type of artificial neural network known as reservoir computing. Electrical stimulation transports information into the organoid, the reservoir wherein that information is processed before Brainoware spits out its calculations in the form of neural activity.
"Normal computer hardware is used for the input and output layers. These layers had to be trained to function with the organoid, with the output layer reading the neural data and making classifications or predictions based on the input.
"To demonstrate the system, the researchers gave Brainoware 240 audio clips from eight male speakers making Japanese vowel sounds, and asked it to identify one specific individual's voice.
"They started with a naive organoid; after training for just two days, Brainoware was able to identify the speaker with 78 percent accuracy.
"They also asked Brainoware to predict a Hénon map, a dynamical system that exhibits chaotic behavior. They left it unsupervised to learn for four days – each day representing a training epoch – and found it was able to predict the map with better accuracy than an artificial neural network without a long short-term memory unit.
***
"There are still significant limitations, including the issue of keeping the organoids alive and healthy, and the peripheral equipment power consumption levels. But, bearing ethical considerations in mind, Brainoware has implications not just for computing, but understanding the mysteries of the human brain."
Comment: this is reminder of how powerful one neuron is. That explains our amazing ability to conceptualize and design for future use. Anyone who argues that natural selection created the brain is not thinking clearly.
Introducing the brain: higher energy costs in human brain
by David Turell , Thursday, December 14, 2023, 15:56 (127 days ago) @ David Turell
Creates our marked degree of intelligence:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi7632?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email...
"Abstract
In comparison to other species, the human brain exhibits one of the highest energy demands relative to body metabolism. It remains unclear whether this heightened energy demand uniformly supports an enlarged brain or if specific signaling mechanisms necessitate greater energy. We hypothesized that the regional distribution of energy demands will reveal signaling strategies that have contributed to human cognitive development. We measured the energy distribution within the brain functional connectome using multimodal brain imaging and found that signaling pathways in evolutionarily expanded regions have up to 67% higher energetic costs than those in sensory-motor regions. Additionally, histology, transcriptomic data, and molecular imaging independently reveal an up-regulation of signaling at G-protein-coupled receptors in energy-demanding regions. Our findings indicate that neuromodulator activity is predominantly involved in cognitive functions, such as reading or memory processing. This study suggests that an up-regulation of neuromodulator activity, alongside increased brain size, is a crucial aspect of human brain evolution." (my bold)
***
A lay explanation: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGwJJVnFxbtNGtSXZVwmbGHhZdM
"The cost of a complex brain
"The human brain is a voracious organ. Despite only weighing about three pounds, it consumes a whopping 20% of the body’s metabolic energy, or around 500 calories per day—a much larger portion than the brain of any other species. Now, a new study in Science Advances reveals that some parts of the brain are hungrier than others—a fact that could shed light on how our species came to be so smart.
"Using scans from 30 people, researchers analyzed the distribution of energy usage across brain regions. They found that the frontoparietal network, a collection of brain structures that has expanded the most throughout human evolution and plays a major role in memory and decision-making, has a higher energy cost than networks responsible for movement and sensation. Slow-acting circuits regulated by neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin also demand a lot of energy.
"Scientists have long hypothesized that increased brain size is what allowed humans to develop extraordinary cognitive abilities. But some mammals have larger brains, higher brain-to-body-mass ratios, and more neurons than we do, casting doubt on this idea. These new findings provide a different perspective, supporting the idea that it wasn’t just growth in size overall but rather the expansion of specific networks that contributed to the evolution of human smarts." (my bold)
Comment: note the bolds. High energy use in cognitive areas is what makes us so intelligent. A different way to measure brain cognitive capacity.
Introducing the brain: DNA facilitators
by David Turell , Thursday, December 14, 2023, 19:31 (127 days ago) @ David Turell
A new driver in for gene expression:
https://phys.org/news/2023-12-class-regulatory-element-dna.html
"In this study, the authors introduce the concept of "facilitators," a newly identified type of non-coding DNA that can help to drive gene expression.
"All of the cells in your body contain the same DNA. However, these cells are able to develop into over 200 different types and make up a variety of different specialized tissues such as the skin, the blood, and the brain.
***
"One type of regulatory element in DNA is enhancers, which sit in between genes and are needed to switch genes on and off in different combinations, at different times, and at different levels. Despite being discovered over 40 years ago, how enhancers work is still not fully understood. More recently, "super-enhancers" have also been identified, which are composed of teams of individual regulatory elements that work together to drive very high levels of gene expression.
"It was previously thought that the individual elements of these super-enhancers might each carry out the same role. However, the authors of this study found that these elements actually have distinct roles and are able to work together to make the super-enhancer greater than the sum of its parts.
"In particular, this study identified a new kind of regulatory element, which the authors have named "facilitators." These facilitators do not have any intrinsic enhancer activity but are able to help the classical enhancers do their job more effectively.
"In this paper, researchers used a mouse α-globin super-enhancer as a model system to study the individual roles of its five constituent elements. Previous studies have suggested that this super-enhancer was composed of two classical enhancers and three inactive elements.
***
"they were able to show that these 'inactive' elements were really facilitators. The authors also reviewed past analyses of other super-enhancers and found evidence that these facilitators could be a common feature of super-enhancers.
"Lead author Dr. Mira Kassouf said, "In addition to the other known fundamental regulatory elements (enhancers, promoters, and insulators), our new observations have identified a new type of regulatory element called a facilitator. As for the original three elements, it is likely that identifying facilitators and understanding how they work will provide new insights into the mechanisms by which genes are normally switched on and off and how this goes awry in human genetic disease.'"
Comment: Note it is genes that 'go awry'. Every level of control in DNA is required by design. Finding inactivity simply means not enough research has been achieved.
Introducing the brain: DNA facilitators
by David Turell , Friday, December 15, 2023, 15:35 (126 days ago) @ David Turell
Another artic le:
https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(23)01316-8?dgcid=raven_jbs_aip_email
"Super-enhancers are compound regulatory elements that control expression of key cell identity genes. They recruit high levels of tissue-specific transcription factors and co-activators such as the Mediator complex and contact target gene promoters with high frequency. Most super-enhancers contain multiple constituent regulatory elements, but it is unclear whether these elements have distinct roles in activating target gene expression. Here, by rebuilding the endogenous multipartite α-globin super-enhancer, we show that it contains bioinformatically equivalent but functionally distinct element types: classical enhancers and facilitator elements. Facilitators have no intrinsic enhancer activity, yet in their absence, classical enhancers are unable to fully upregulate their target genes. Without facilitators, classical enhancers exhibit reduced Mediator recruitment, enhancer RNA transcription, and enhancer-promoter interactions. Facilitators are interchangeable but display functional hierarchy based on their position within a multipartite enhancer. Facilitators thus play an important role in potentiating the activity of classical enhancers and ensuring robust activation of target genes."
Comment: a better description than the last entry. This complexity of controls demonstrates how DNA is precisely designed to outline exact production of all functions.
Introducing the brain: human vs animal traffic patterns
by David Turell , Monday, December 18, 2023, 17:07 (123 days ago) @ David Turell
We have many more parallel patterns:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-12-parallel-traffic-human-brains-animals.html
"In a study comparing human brain communication networks with those of macaques and mice, EPFL researchers found that only the human brains transmitted information via multiple parallel pathways, yielding new insights into mammalian evolution.
"When describing brain communication networks, EPFL senior postdoctoral researcher Alessandra Griffa likes to use travel metaphors. Brain signals are sent from a source to a target, establishing a polysynaptic pathway that intersects multiple brain regions "like a road with many stops along the way."
"She explains that structural brain connectivity pathways have already been observed based on networks ("roads") of neuronal fibers. But as a scientist in the Medical Image Processing Lab (MIP:Lab) in EPFL's School of Engineering, and a research coordinator at CHUV's Leenaards Memory Centre, Griffa wanted to follow patterns of information transmission to see how messages are sent and received.
***
"The researchers' approach revealed that in the non-human brains, information was sent along a single "road", while in humans, there were multiple parallel pathways between the same source and target. Furthermore, these parallel pathways were as unique as fingerprints, and could be used to identify individuals.
"'Such parallel processing in human brains has been hypothesized, but never observed before at a whole-brain level," Griffa summarizes.
"Griffa says that the beauty of the researchers' model is its simplicity, and its inspiration of new perspectives and research avenues in evolution and computational neuroscience. For example, the findings can be linked to the expansion of human brain volume over time, which has given rise to more complex connectivity patterns.
"'We could hypothesize that these parallel information streams allow for multiple representations of reality, and the ability to perform abstract functions specific to humans."
"She adds that although this hypothesis is only speculative, as the Nature Communications study involved no testing of subjects' computational or cognitive ability, these are questions that she would like to explore in the future.
"'We looked at how information travels, so an interesting next step would be to model more complex processes to study how information is combined and processed in the brain to create something new.'"
Comment: one issue is size, another is number of neurons, but the key is the roadmap of enhanced networking of the neurons' connectivity. Networking complexity creates a greater basis for immaterial conceptualization.
Introducing the brain: toddler brain development
by David Turell , Wednesday, December 20, 2023, 17:09 (121 days ago) @ David Turell
The brain keeps developing into toddlerhood:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-12-scientists-uncover-secrets-brain-extensive.html
"The new research suggests that a subset of inhibitory neurons within the entorhinal cortex, or EC—an area of the brain essential for forming memories—continue to migrate into this region where they build new neuronal connections from birth through toddlerhood.
"The study suggests that extensive postnatal neuronal migration across the EC might underlie critical neuroplasticity periods during which the brain is especially receptive to changes and adaptations. The discovery also points to a possible reason why EC neurons are more susceptible to neurodegeneration, since other recent studies have found that this same type of neuron is impacted early in Alzheimer's disease.
"By analyzing brain samples that were provided, in part, by the epilepsy tissue bank at UPMC Children's Hospital and the Neuropathology Department at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital, Sorrells' research team was first to show that, unlike what was previously thought, neuronal migration of such scale and duration is extensive within regions that control thoughts and emotions.
"The discovery offers an explanation for how the human brain makes billions of new neurons over a very short time span through a mechanism that allows neurons to continue arriving after birth.
"'It is generally thought that the brain is done recruiting neurons by the time an individual is born," said Sorrells. "We were incredibly excited to learn that not only does large-scale neuronal migration continue into specific brain regions, but that this process also continues into ages when children are crawling and beginning to walk.'"
Comment: this could explain why memories do not appear until two years old or more. It is amazing that a full supply of neurons is available at that point for a lifetime. Of course, the answer is the complexification process.
Introducing the brain: how neurons sense smells
by David Turell , Wednesday, December 20, 2023, 17:21 (121 days ago) @ David Turell
A genetic study:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-12-sensory-magic-emerges-mechanism-tailors.html
"The mammalian nose is a work of evolutionary art. Its millions of nerve cells, each tailored with just one of thousands of specific odor-chemical receptors encoded in the genome, can collectively distinguish a trillion distinct scents. Those sensations, in turn, inform many behaviors, from assessing food options to discerning friends from foes to sparking memories.
"In the journal Nature, a research team led by scientists at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute describes a previously undetected mechanism in mice—starring the genetic molecule RNA—that could explain how each sensory cell, or neuron, in mammalian noses becomes tailored to detect a specific odor chemical.
***
"In their study, Dr. Lomvardas and his team uncover details of the final stage of this process when the winner emerges from the finalist genes.
"'It's basically a battle between a 1,000 contenders," said Ariel Pourmorady, the paper's first author and an M.D.-Ph.D. candidate at the Zuckerman Institute in the Lomvardas lab.
"The action is exceedingly complex and involves a dizzying cast of molecular characters. Playing roles that either dial up or down each gene's ability to produce olfactory receptors are a variety of gene-regulating molecules. By gathering into various alliances within the genome, these molecular players help turn specific genes on or off.
"Also in the fray is another set of molecular hubs that reshape portions of the genome in ways that favor specific receptor genes. When his team first observed these in the genome in 2014, Dr. Lomvardas dubbed them "Greek Islands" because they reminded him of islands in the Aegean Sea.
"'It turns out that the genome has a certain spatial organization in the nucleus and changes in this structure are pivotal when it comes to which genes are expressed into proteins, like olfactory receptors," said Pourmorady. "We are learning just how important this process is within maturing olfactory cells."
***
"'It looks like the RNA the cell makes during gene expression also is altering the genome's architecture in ways that bolster the expression of one olfactory receptor gene while also shutting down all the others," Pourmorady said.
"Big gaps in this genome-controlling story remain, but the researchers say the outline is becoming more defined. It starts with maturing olfactory cells, which initially express many receptor genes at those genomic hubs where gene-regulating molecules and complexes, including Greek Islands, converge.
"Then the RNA winnows the contending olfactory-receptor genes down to one. The particular hub in each cell where the molecular stars align to produce the highest amount of RNA wins the competition. At this hub, receptor-gene expression soars. But, like a slinky saboteur, RNA from that same hub may wind its way to all the other hubs. In those locations, the RNA causes shape changes in the genome that shut down gene expression. The result is a nose's worth of mature olfactory neurons, each of which bears on its surface only one odorant receptor."
Comment: The previous paper showed a protein level of control and this paper studies genes, and the effect of RNA activating expressions.
Introducing the brain: speed of eyesight
by David Turell , Friday, December 29, 2023, 00:26 (113 days ago) @ David Turell
Follow the pitched ball if you can:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2409000-peoples-speed-of-sight-varies-and-this-may...
"Our speed of sight is also known as the flicker fusion threshold, because if a light is flashing on and off at a frequency above someone’s threshold, it appears to them to be shining steadily.
“It’s comparable to how many ‘frames per second’ our visual system processes,” says Haarlem.
"This threshold varies widely in the animal kingdom, being higher in creatures that can move faster, especially if they hunt other speedy animals. For instance, the peregrine falcon, the fastest creature on Earth thanks to its plummeting hunting dives, has a flicker fusion frequency of about 130 images per second, or 130 hertz.
***
'To find out how much this ability varies between individuals, Haarlem and his colleagues asked 88 people from the university to view a flickering light, the frequency of which could be adjusted. They used three methods: asking the person to turn the frequency up until the light stopped flickering, asking them to turn the frequency down until flickering began or asking them to say whether the light was flickering over a series of randomly chosen frequencies.
"The participants repeated all the tests on three occasions to see if their threshold changed from day to day.
"Using the last method, thought to be the most accurate, the average flicker threshold for the whole group was about 50 Hz, but it varied from 34 to 61 Hz.
***
“If something were to fly past your eyes very rapidly, but you have a threshold high enough to capture that image, your brain would probably turn it into a blur going in a certain direction,” says Haarlem. “Whereas in someone with a very low threshold, that flying object might not be captured at all.”
"It isn’t known what causes people’s flicker threshold to vary, but it could involve innate features of the cells at the back of the eye that react to light or the parts of the brain that process vision. “There are multiple levels of processing that get an image presented to our conscious perception,” says Haarlem. “I think it’s a combination.”
“'This is a very nice study because it’s completely new,” says biologist Simon Potier. He speculates that people may be able to increase their flicker threshold with training, for instance, if they play fast-moving sports such as baseball or squash."
Comment: it may depend upon brain reception speed or bioreaction time in the retina, or a mix of both.
Introducing the brain: deepest meditation
by David Turell , Friday, December 29, 2023, 15:06 (112 days ago) @ David Turell
In Tibetan traditions:
https://psyche.co/ideas/what-happens-to-the-brain-during-consciousness-ending-meditatio...
"There’s a meditative state described in ancient Buddhist scriptures that is hard to imagine because it is not something – but nothing. Referred to as nirodha-samāpatti, it roughly translates as ‘the cessation of thought and feeling’, and it is the highest meditative state possible in Theravada Buddhism, following eight others called jhānas. Each jhāna requires deepening levels of concentration, and a retreat into the mind, away from typical consciousness.
"According to David Vago, a psychologist at Vanderbilt University, nirodha-samāpatti refers to a ‘state of profound concentration or absorption in which all mental activity is temporarily suspended’. It’s said the state leads to a total absence of sensation and awareness, which would help explain the stories of monks who stayed in this deep trance while fires burned around them.
***
"Ruben Laukkonen, who researches the psychology and cognitive neuroscience of insight and meditation at Southern Cross University in Australia, heard about the man who could ‘turn off his consciousness’ through a friend of a friend.
"This man was Delson Armstrong, a meditation teacher with extensive training in various forms of the practice, who could reportedly enter nirodha-samāpatti for durations that he determined beforehand. The longest he had ceased to be conscious was six days. (It’s been recommended that meditators don’t stay in nirodha-samāpatti for longer than six days, because it could be harmful to the body.) ‘It’s like a shutting off of functions,’ Armstrong described in a recent interview. ‘The mind just disconnects completely from all perception and tension, and then it’s like you’re sinking into something.’
***
"For a recent paper in Progress in Brain Research, Laukkonen and his colleagues published the first preliminary data using scientific methods to investigate nirodha-samāpatti, as practised by Armstrong. They used electroencephalography (EEG) to record Armstrong’s surface electrical brain activity during ‘cessation events’.
"In the paper, the researchers report measuring many aspects of Armstrong’s physiology, such as his heart rate, breathing, eye movement, temperature and brain activity, and comparing them with the same measures taken during other states, including a nap.
"The researchers found some notable brain changes while Armstrong was in a state of nirodha-samāpatti. Specifically, his overall brain synchronisation was reduced. Usually, certain parts of the brain are active at the same time, firing electrically together. ‘One part of the brain has a relationship with the activity of another part of the brain in a way that’s predictable,’ Laukkonen says. These parts of the brain are usually communicating with each other, but the new findings suggest that during nirodha-samāpatti that feature quietens down. Similar brain desynchronisation has been observed when people are given anaesthetic doses of propofol or ketamine, but not during sleep.
"If you watched a person in nirodha-samāpatti, they might appear so still and serene that you would worry that they were dead. Although Armstrong’s physiological readings were all reduced during nirodha-samāpatti, his brain didn’t ‘turn off’ and his breathing didn’t stop. This would appear to be consistent with some of the ancient teachings. For instance, according to the Maha Vedalla Sutta: ‘In the case of a monk who has attained the cessation of perception and feeling … his vitality is not exhausted, his heat has not subsided, and his faculties are exceptionally clear.’
"Laukkonen and his co-authors offered some theories about how we might understand the neuroscience behind these cessations. It could be that, when brain activity is desynchronised in this way, our brains can’t build a coherent model of the world anymore. The way we experience the world is thought by some scientists to come from predictions we’re making based on experience – called predictive processing. The cessation could represent a breaking down of that process, and a resulting loss in conscious experience.
***
"‘The goal is not to validate the existence of the state,’ Laukkonen says, but to show that there is an unusual subjective experience unfolding, and some associated brain activity that might reflect how it is happening. And if nirodha-samāpatti does have the benefits that are reported by many meditators (upon awakening, Buddhists report undergoing a profound reset, and describe a sense of clarity and relief, ease and peace), Laukkonen says it makes it even more worthwhile to understand how exactly those feelings of relief and insight come to be.
***
{"Laukkonen himself has experienced nirodha. He describes it as a gap in his conscious experience. Afterwards, ‘everything was brand new. Quite literally all my problems disappeared (for a while). My subjective reality was never the same. It was like waking from the longest sleep of your life after just milliseconds of absence.’"
Comment: that consciousness is controllable to this extent is amazing, but still does not explain it. How could Darwinian evolution develop such a process? Why would a God-designed brain have this function, possibly a way to reach a God level of reality ?
Introducing the brain: information transfer mechanisms
by David Turell , Saturday, December 30, 2023, 16:25 (111 days ago) @ David Turell
Different in humans:
https://www.sciencealert.com/unique-flow-of-information-identified-in-the-human-brain?u...
"A team led by researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland used advanced data analysis techniques on top of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans to analyze brain activity in humans, mice, and macaques.
"Comparing the resulting brain 'traffic maps', the researchers found that the human brain uses multiple parallel pathways to shift information from one region to another, whereas the mice and macaque brains use just single channels.
"'What's new in our study is the use of multimodal data in a single model combining two branches of mathematics: graph theory, which describes the polysynaptic roadmaps; and information theory, which maps information transmission (or traffic) via the roads," says Alessandra Griffa, a biomedical engineer from EPFL.
"'The basic principle is that messages passed from a source to a target remain unchanged or are further degraded at each stop along the road, like the telephone game we played as children."
"To use another analogy, the information traffic moving around the brain is like traffic traveling down a road with multiple stops along the way. Our brains seem to be wired to simultaneously use multiple roads to get the convoy of signals to its destination. (my bold)
"What's more, the researchers discovered that these parallel pathways are as unique as fingerprints: studying the particular way that information flows around a brain can distinguish individual nervous systems.
"'Such parallel processing in human brains has been hypothesized, but never observed before at a whole-brain level," says Griffa.
"How these multiple channels affect thought processing, and why we have them when other animals don't, is beyond the scope of this study. However, the researchers think our larger brains have enabled more complex patterns of connectivity."
Comment: not a surprising discovery. The degree of mental activity evidenced by our brain's conceptual capacity tells us the circuits are extremely complex.
Introducing the brain: intermittent fasting has brain effect
by David Turell , Saturday, December 30, 2023, 19:06 (111 days ago) @ David Turell
Gut and brain change with weight loss:
https://www.sciencealert.com/intermittent-fasting-seems-to-result-in-dynamic-changes-to...
"Researchers from China studied 25 volunteers classed as obese over a period of 62 days, during which they took part in an intermittent energy restriction (IER) program – a regime that involves careful control of calorie intake and fasting on some days.
"Not only did the participants in the study lose weight – 7.6 kilograms (16.8 pounds) or 7.8 percent of their body weight on average – there was also evidence of shifts in the activity of obesity-related regions of the brain, and in the make-up of gut bacteria.
***
"'The observed changes in the gut microbiome and in the activity in addiction-related brain regions during and after weight loss are highly dynamic and coupled over time."
"Right now it's not clear what causes these changes, or whether the gut is influencing the brain or vice versa. However, we do know that the gut and the brain are closely linked, so treating certain regions of the brain could be a way to control food intake.
"The changes in brain activity, spotted via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, were in regions known to be important in the regulation of appetite and addiction – including the inferior frontal orbital gyrus.
"What's more, the gut microbiome changes, analyzed via stool samples and blood measurements, were linked to particular brain regions.
"For example, the bacteria Coprococcus comes and Eubacterium hallii were negatively associated with activity in the left inferior frontal orbital gyrus, an area involved in executive function, including our willpower when it comes to food intake.
"'The gut microbiome is thought to communicate with the brain in a complex, two-directional way," says medical scientist Xiaoning Wang from the State Clinic Center for Geriatrics in China. (my bold)
"'The microbiome produces neurotransmitters and neurotoxins which access the brain through nerves and the blood circulation. In return the brain controls eating behavior, while nutrients from our diet change the composition of the gut microbiome.'"
Comment: the brain-gut commutativity is obvious, even if we do not yet know all the working parts. Those pesky bacteria are really necessary, even when criticized in a theodicy discussion.
Introducing the brain: definite patterns of neurons
by David Turell , Monday, January 01, 2024, 16:05 (109 days ago) @ David Turell
In all areas of brain and in many species studied:
https://www.sciencealert.com/neurons-in-the-brain-appear-to-follow-a-distinct-mathemati...
"Researchers taking part in the Human Brain Project have identified a mathematical rule that governs the distribution of neurons in our brains.
"The rule predicts how neurons are distributed in different parts of the brain, and could help scientists create precise models to understand how the brain works and develop new treatments for neurological diseases.
"In the wonderful world of statistics, if you consider any continuous random variable, the logarithm of that variable will often follow what's known as a lognormal distribution. Defined by the mean and standard deviation, it can be visualized as a bell-shaped curve, only with the curve being wider than what you'd find in a normal distribution.
"A team of researchers from the Jülich Research Center and the University of Cologne in Germany found the number of neurons in areas of the outer layer of neural tissue in different mammals fits a lognormal distribution.
"Mathematics aside, a simple and important distinction is the symmetry of the normal distribution bell curve and the asymmetry and heavy right-skewed tail of the lognormal distribution, due to a large number of small values and a few significantly large values.
***
"'The distribution of neuron densities influences the network connectivity," says neuroscientist Sacha van Albada of the Jülich Research Center.
"'For instance, if the density of synapses is constant, regions with lower neuron density will receive more synapses per neuron."
"The statistical distributions of neuron densities are still largely unknown, though research has certainly provided us with fascinating discoveries about our brain's cellular tissues.
***
"'Our results are in agreement with the observation that surprisingly many characteristics of the brain follow lognormal distributions," the authors write in their paper.
"A lognormal distribution is a natural result of processes that multiply, just like normal distribution is a natural result of adding up many independent variables.
***
"previous research suggests brain neural network variation is more than just a byproduct and may actively help animals learn in changing environments. And the fact that the same organization can be seen in different species and in most parts of the cortex suggests that the lognormal distribution is used for something." (my bold)
Comment: this distinctive distribution in so many species suggests it is convergent evolution, a concept that suggests a designer at work. The bold suggests my contention brains are designed to help us.
Introducing the brain: fine controls of synapses
by David Turell , Wednesday, January 03, 2024, 16:10 (107 days ago) @ David Turell
It is not goes go or not go, but nuances in between:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGwJcXsSGKtbVTTXHGvGpdrMSWW
"Looks can be deceiving. In the brain, several types of proteins act as receptors for the neurotransmitter glutamate, exciting neurons by opening ion channels when the neurotransmitter binds. But one kind—so-called glutamate delta (GluD) receptors—don’t respond to glutamate at all, even though they look a lot like the ones that do. Now, neuroscientists have discovered that one of these receptors, called GluD1, actually binds a completely different neurotransmitter, and in doing so, has a dampening effect on neurons.
"Glutamate receptors are usually found at the synapses between neurons that predominantly use glutamate. So, researchers were puzzled to find GluD1 receptors at synapses dominated by the neurotransmitter GABA—which quiets neurons instead of exciting them. Further examination in mouse brain tissue revealed that these receptors bind GABA, and in doing so, play an unexpected role in dampening neuronal activity, as they report in the most recent issue of Science.
“'This challenges the dogmatic distinction between glutamate and GABA receptors and identifies GluD1 as a regulator of inhibitory signaling,” Ian Coombs and Mark Farrant note in an accompanying Perspective. The exact role of GluD1 in human brains needs further investigation, they say, especially given that mutations in the human version of the gene have been associated with neurological conditions, including schizophrenia and seizures."
From the article:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf3406?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=emai...
"The high (10 mM) concentrations of neurotransmitter reached at fast chemical synapses after vesicular releas indicate substantial activation of GluD1 receptors by GABA despite their relatively low affinity for this agonist. The detailed mechanisms that couple GluD1 activation to the modulation of GABAAR activity, however, remain to be deciphered. The question of whether this previously unknown form of GABAergic synaptic plasticity interacts with other forms of inhibitory plasticity also remains open. Because GluD1 receptors are broadly expressed in the forebrain, including at inhibitory synapses in the neocortex, GABA signaling through GluD1 receptors likely represents a general mechanism that extends the computational rules of inhibitory plasticity with consequences on neuronal circuit function.
"In humans, GluD1 mutations are associated with susceptibility to autism and schizophrenia as well as major depressive disorders. With their dual ability to reside at excitatory and inhibitory synapses, GluD1 receptors are not only specially equipped to act as powerful regulators of synaptic circuits but are also vulnerable nodes of excitation-inhibition imbalance during neuropsychiatric disorders. In that context, our finding that GluD1 receptors are molecular machines with hybrid features—functionally GABAergic but structurally glutamatergic—opens fresh perspectives on GluD1-targeted neuropharmacology." (my bold)
Comment: all processes in living organisms have positive and negative influences as well as feedback loops to maintain a very delicate balance of fine control at all times.
Introducing the brain: what do oligodendrites do?
by David Turell , Friday, January 12, 2024, 19:52 (98 days ago) @ David Turell
Newly explored synapses with oligodendrocytes:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-01-reveals-function-understood-synapse-brain.html
"Neuroscientists focused on the junction, or synapse, connecting neurons to a non-neuronal cell, known as oligodendrocyte precursor cells, or OPCs. OPCs can differentiate into oligodendrocytes, which produce a sheath around nerves known as myelin. Myelin is the protective sheath covering each nerve cell's axon—the threadlike portion of a cell that transmits electrical signals between cells.
"The study found that these synapses play a pivotal role in producing that myelin.
***
"The findings are likely the tip of the iceberg in terms of understanding the importance of these synapses, said lead author Jiaxing Li, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in Monk's lab.
"Oligodendrocyte precursor cells comprise about 5% of all cells in the brain—meaning the synapses they form with neurons could be relevant to many disease conditions, including the formation of cancerous tumors.
***
"Even though these precursor cells comprise roughly 5% of all human brain cells, only a fraction go on to form oligodendrocytes.
"'It's becoming pretty clear that these OPCs have other functions aside from forming oligodendrocytes," Monk said. "From an evolutionary perspective, it doesn't make sense to have so many of these precursor cells in your brain if they're not doing something." (my bold)
"Their synaptic connection to neurons therefore likely plays a fundamental role in the brain, and is worthy of future exploration, she said."
Comment: our complex brain is still filled with mysteries. Five percent of all brain cells is a large minority still not understood. Note my bold. Everything existing in life is there for a purpose. Nothing is vestigial, to Darwinists sad surprise.
Introducing the brain: changes in pregnancy
by David Turell , Saturday, January 13, 2024, 18:57 (97 days ago) @ David Turell
Some areas decrease in size and then regrow:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2412048-some-brain-regions-shrink-in-pregnancy-and...
"Brain scans show that some brain regions become smaller and thinner during pregnancy, and that most of these changes reverse after giving birth. This suggests the brain is restructuring itself during and immediately after pregnancy, potentially to prepare for parenthood.
“'Pregnancy is probably the most intense hormonal event that a human being can go through. So, it was reasonable to think the brain will change during pregnancy,” says Susana Carmona at the General University Hospital Gregorio Marañón in Spain.
***
"The researchers found significant changes in the cortex, or the outer region of the brain, during and after pregnancy. On average, the cortex was 2.5 per cent thinner and 4.6 per cent smaller in volume in pregnant women than in those who didn’t have children. Most of these differences attenuated in the postpartum period, except in two brain networks called the default mode network and frontoparietal network. Regions in these networks were at least 2 per cent thinner and almost 3.6 per cent smaller in volume in new mothers than in women who didn’t have children.
"The default mode network is critical for self-perception and social interaction, and the frontoparietal network is important in executive functions like planning and carrying out tasks. More data is needed to elucidate why pregnancy alters these networks, but one widely accepted hypothesis is these changes help prepare for parenthood, says Catherine Monk at Columbia University in New York.
***
"It would make sense for the brain to refine pathways in these regions to facilitate empathising and caring for a child, says Carmona. “If you ask any mother, most of them will tell you, ‘I feel completely different [after giving birth].’ These changes might be behind this feeling, but we still don’t know,” says Carmona.
"Yet, the fact that most cortical changes reverse in postpartum suggests another, more dynamic mechanism is also at play. Carmona believes this might be widespread decreases in microglia, the brain’s immune cells. “Your whole immune system has to adapt so you can gestate a person that is genetically different from you, and we know that microglia change shape and number pretty quickly,” she says. (my bold)
"These findings could also help us better understand neurological and mental health conditions associated with pregnancy, like postpartum depression, says Carmona. “It’s important to realise that parenting begins before birth,” says Monk. “There’s so much brain plasticity and change happening that we could get in there, then, to promote optimal wellbeing. And that could help families get off to a better start.'”
Comment: these changes in size cannot be loss of neurons, since that number is fixed for life. My bold is a key point. A mother is harboring a stranger for nine months without having her immune system reject him. A vital aspect of pregnancy .
Introducing the brain: variable neuron responses
by David Turell , Tuesday, January 16, 2024, 20:27 (94 days ago) @ David Turell
Controlled by dendrites:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-01-aims-secrets-neuronal-variability-dendrites.html
"...the study tackles the many-layered mystery of the "response variability" of neurons, brain cells that use electric signals and chemicals to process information and green lights all the remarkable aspects of human consciousness.
"The findings unveil the nuts and bolts of how neuronal variability is controlled by dendrites, the antenna that reaches out from each neuron to receive synaptic inputs in our own personal neural communication networks. The rigorous study establishes properties of dendrites that potently control output variability, a property that's been shown to control synaptic plasticity in the brain.
"'The intensity of a neuron's response is controlled by inputs to its core, but the variability of a neuron's response is controlled by the inputs to its little antennas—the dendrites," says Dr. Naud, an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine's Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and the uOttawa Department of Physics.
"'This study establishes more precisely how single neurons can have this crucial property of controlling response variability with their inputs."
***
"The model predictions were validated by analysis of in vivo recording data and observed over a wide range of model parameters.
"He managed to solve the math in a record time and solved a number of theoretical challenges I had not foreseen," Dr. Naud says.
"Dr. Naud believed that their technique could provide insight into the neuronal response to variable inputs. So, they began working on a technique that would be able to compute statistics from a neuronal model with an active dendrite.
"One of the work's reviewers noted that the theoretical analysis "provides key insight into biological computation and will be of interest to a broad audience of computational and experimental neuroscientists.'"
Comment: it is just as one would expect. Neuron variability in action is the key to the brain's activity.
Introducing the brain: connectivity patterns
by David Turell , Thursday, January 18, 2024, 19:23 (92 days ago) @ David Turell
Not a large number:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/01/240117143741.htm
"A new study by physicists and neuroscientists from the University of Chicago, Harvard and Yale describes how connectivity among neurons comes about through general principles of networking and self-organization, rather than the biological features of an individual organism.
***
"'You don't expect it to work as well when you dig into the minutiae, but when we did that here, it ended up explaining things in a way that was really satisfying."
"Understanding how neurons connect
"Neurons form an intricate web of connections between synapses to communicate and interact with each other.
"While the vast number of connections may seem random, networks of brain cells tend to be dominated by a small number of connections that are much stronger than most.
"This "heavy-tailed" distribution of connections (so-called because of the way it looks when plotted on a graph) forms the backbone of circuitry that allows organisms to think, learn, communicate and move.
***
"To understand how neurons form connections to one another, they developed a model based on Hebbian dynamics, a term coined by Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb in 1949 that essentially says, "neurons that fire together, wire together." This means the more two neurons activate together, the stronger their connection becomes.
"Across the board, the researchers found these Hebbian dynamics produce "heavy-tailed" connection strengths just like they saw in the different organisms.
"The results indicate that this kind of organization arises from general principles of networking, rather than something specific to the biology of fruit flies, mice, or worms.
"The model also provided an unexpected explanation for another networking phenomenon called clustering, which describes the tendency of cells to link with other cells via connections they share."
Comment: a good designer sets up simple patterns to repeat. It means all neurons follow the same developmental rules throughout evolution..
Introducing the brain: latest cerebellar research
by David Turell , Tuesday, January 23, 2024, 20:24 (87 days ago) @ David Turell
It controls motion and to a degree emotions:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-part-of-the-brain-that-controls-movement-also-guides...
"The cerebellum contains three-quarters of all the brain’s neurons, which are organized in an almost crystalline arrangement, in contrast to the tangled thicket of neurons found elsewhere.
"Encyclopedia articles and textbooks underscore the fact that the cerebellum’s function is to control body movement. There is no question that the cerebellum has this function. But scientists now suspect that this long-standing view is myopic.
***
"...a pair of neuroscientists organized a symposium on newly discovered functions of the cerebellum unrelated to motor control. New experimental techniques are showing that in addition to controlling movement, the cerebellum regulates complex behaviors, social interactions, aggression, working memory, learning, emotion and more.
***
"The principal type of neuron in the cerebellum, called the Purkinje cell, is widely branching like a fan coral, yet flattened and nearly two-dimensional. The fan’s blades are the neuron’s dendrites, which receive incoming signals. These flat neurons are arranged in parallel, as if millions of fan corals were stacked atop each other in a tight bundle. Thousands of tiny neurons run axons — the brain’s transmission cables for electrical impulses — perpendicularly through the stack of dendrites, like threads in a loom. Each axon connects with the dendrites of tens of thousands of Purkinje cells.
***
"This circuitry, unique to the cerebellum, can crunch enormous amounts of incoming data from the senses to regulate body movement. The fluid movement of a ballerina leaping across the stage requires the cerebellum to rapidly process information from all senses while tracking the changing positions of limbs, maintaining balance, and mapping the space through which the body is moving. The cerebellum uses that dynamic information to control muscles with precise timing, and to do so in the right social context, driven by emotion and motivation.
***
"I had not fully appreciated the complexity of the motor control required for speech before. The physicality includes not only the intricate gymnastics of tongue and lips — to produce sound as well as adjust pitch and volume — but also gesticulation. Our words are timed so we don’t talk over the other person, and they are regulated for the social context: infused with the proper emotion and driven by motivation, thought, anticipation and mood.
"Coordinating these diverse functions requires tapping into nearly everything the brain does — from regulation of heart rate and blood pressure, performed in deep brain regions, to the processing of sensory and emotional information, performed by the limbic system. It also requires engaging with the highest-level cognitive functions of comprehension, inhibition and decision-making in the prefrontal cerebral cortex.
***
"Jessica Verpeut of Arizona State University reported data describing the intricate and expansive network of cerebellar connections that are activated throughout the brain in mice when they socialize or learn to negotiate a maze.
"Rudolph shared experiments showing that maternal behavior, studied in female mice caring for their pups, was affected by hormones acting on the cerebellum, especially the hormone oxytocin, which promotes maternal bonding. When this mechanism was disrupted experimentally, the mother no longer cared for her pups.
"Yi-Mei Yang of the University of Minnesota showed that when she disrupted certain cerebellar neurons, mice lost interest in engaging with unfamiliar mice introduced into their cage. However, they had no difficulties interacting with and remembering novel inanimate objects. This indicated a deficit in complex social-recognition memory, similar to what autistic people experience.
"In fact, the cerebellum is often smaller in autistic people, and Aleksandra Badura from Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam presented new data suggesting that the cerebellum is involved in autism because it is a hub of sensory input, especially for signals related to social contexts.
***
"These new, groundbreaking studies show that in addition to controlling movement, the cerebellum regulates complex social and emotional behavior. To achieve this global influence, the cerebellum must be a data-crunching hub with connections throughout the brain. No wonder it has so many neurons. To accomplish this high-order command and control on its own, it must be, in fact, a little brain."
Comment: movements occur within different emotional contexts: Sports, ballet, speech, for example. The need for cerebellar input is obvious, but it took intense biochemical research to dig it out. Not by chance.
Introducing the brain: lymphatic fluid drainage
by David Turell , Wednesday, January 31, 2024, 16:48 (79 days ago) @ David Turell
In a plexus behind the nasopharynx:
https://www.sciencealert.com/discovery-points-to-a-sewage-system-for-the-brain-right-be...
"If the findings extend to humans, it could fundamentally change how scientists understand the circulation of fluid that bathes the brain and spinal cord.
"Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is a colorless liquid that carries nutrients to the central nervous system, maintains fluid balance, and clears away waste products from brain tissue.
"In humans, CSF is drained and replaced constantly, turning over three to five times a day. That clearance can slow with age, it is correlated with sleep quality and cognitive function.
***
"CSF might not drain through the vascular system at all, but through the body's lymph nodes.
"A new study, led by researchers at South Korea's Institute for Basic Science and the University of Missouri in the United States, has identified a previously unknown thoroughfare that carries CSF from the brain to lymph nodes in the neck.
"According to the international team of researchers, a distinctive network of lymphatic vessels lies near the top part of the throat in mice, just behind their nose, that has never been clearly identified before.
***
"In a review for Nature, University of Bern physiologists Irene Spera and Steven Proulx applaud the recent discovery. As authors of studies suggesting the possibility of such a 'secret passage', they say the results provide "indisputable evidence that, at least in mice, the nasopharyngeal lymphatic plexus has a crucial involvement in CNS clearance."
"'This plexus, beautifully rendered in three dimensions… is composed of a dense network of lymphatic vessels that wraps around the circumference of the nasopharynx," Spera and Proulx write.
"Even more promising, this lymphatic plexus is not just present in mice. Lead researchers Jin-Hui Yoon, Hokyung Jin, and Hae Jin Kim also examined the brains of crab-eating macaques and found a similar structure in the exact same spot.
"Although the team didn't get to see the vessels draining in action like they did in mice, the findings among primates suggest this pathway is conserved across diverse mammalian species.
***
"Among humans, some recent evidence does suggest that CSF can drain into the nasal cavity at the top of the throat via cranial nerves.
***
"'We plan to verify all the findings from the mice in primates, including monkeys and humans," says supervisor Gou Young Koh from the Institute for Basic Science.
Comment: the findings fit the fact that the lymphatic system drains fluids from all over the body. That this exists in mice and macaques strongly suggests humans have it. When evolution finds a working system it is conserved and appears in all related species.
Introducing the brain: how coded implant can work
by David Turell , Sunday, February 04, 2024, 20:16 (75 days ago) @ David Turell
Coded to fit brain's abnormal impulses:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-patient-happy-brain-implant-epilepsy.html
"...the repetitive rituals of her condition are largely consigned to memory, thanks to a revolutionary brain implant that is being used to treat both her epilepsy and her OCD.
***
"...the idea of inserting a device into the brain is not new, and for decades doctors have known that precisely applied electrical stimulation can affect the way the brain operates.
"Such deep-brain stimulation is used in the treatment of Parkinson's disease and other conditions affecting movement, including epilepsy.
***
"There had previously been some study of the use of deep brain stimulation for people suffering from OCD, but, says Raslan, it had never been combined with treatment for epilepsy.
"Doctors worked with Pearson to see exactly what happens in her brain when she gets trapped in an obsessive loop.
"The technique involved exposing her to known stressors—in this case, seafood—and recording the electrical markers.
***
"It is "the only device in the world that treats two conditions," says Raslan.
"And it's programmed independently. So the program for epilepsy is different than the program for OCD."
"It's a breakthrough he thinks only someone like Pearson could have come up with.
"This is the first time in the world that's been done. Usually we think of devices either for OCD or for epilepsy.
***
"For Pearson, there was an eight-month wait after the 2019 procedure to see any noticeable difference.
"But gradually, the all-consuming rituals that had taken up eight or nine hours every day since her teenage years began to ebb.
"The endless pre-bed checklists of window-shutting, and the constant hand-washing diminished to a manageable 30 minutes a day.
"And the fear of contamination from eating with others is now gone.
"'I'm happy again and excited to go out and live and be with my friends and my family," she said."
Comment: electrical impulses in sick brain can be controlled. I still view this with dualism. A sick receiver will offer a damaged message.
Introducing the brain: when on idle
by David Turell , Monday, February 05, 2024, 18:13 (74 days ago) @ David Turell
The default mode:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-your-brain-is-doing-when-youre-not-doing-anything-2...
"Over the past two decades they’ve defined what’s known as the default mode network, a collection of seemingly unrelated areas of the brain that activate when you’re not doing much at all. Its discovery has offered insights into how the brain functions outside of well-defined tasks and has also prompted research into the role of brain networks — not just brain regions — in managing our internal experience.
***
"The discovery of the default mode network ignited curiosity among neuroscientists about what the brain is doing in the absence of an outward-focused task.
***
"According to research, the effects of the default mode network include mind wandering, remembering past experiences, thinking about others’ mental states, envisioning the future and processing language. While this may seem like a grab bag of unrelated aspects of cognition, Vinod Menon, the director of the Stanford Cognitive & Systems Neuroscience Laboratory, recently theorized that all of these functions may be helpful in constructing an internal narrative. In his view, the default mode network helps you think about who you are in relation to others, recall your past experiences and then wrap up all of that into a coherent self-narrative.
***
"She’s particularly interested in how the default mode network interacts with the salience network, which seems to help us identify the most relevant piece of information at any given time. Her work suggests that the salience network detects when something is important to pay attention to and then acts as an off switch for the default mode network.
***
"Meanwhile, Menon has developed what he calls the triple network theory. It posits that abnormal interactions between the default mode network, the salience network and a third one called the frontoparietal network could contribute to mental health disorders including schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, dementia and autism. Typically, the activity of the default mode network decreases when someone is paying attention to an external stimulus, while activity in the two other networks increases. This push and pull between networks may not work the same way in people with psychiatric or developmental disorders, Menon suspects.
***
"The current understanding of the default mode network is surely not its endpoint, either. Since its discovery, it has pushed neuroscientists to think beyond the responsibilities of single brain regions to the effects of interactions between brain networks. And it’s driven many people to appreciate the inward-focused activities of the mind — that even when we’re daydreaming or at rest, our brain is hard at work making it happen."
Comment: not mentioned is the work the brain does while sleep creating dreams. That the brain has interlocking regions is not surprising.
Introducing the brain: the effects of stress
by David Turell , Wednesday, February 07, 2024, 18:29 (72 days ago) @ David Turell
Major effects through the immune system:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-stress-brain-psyche-immune.html
"Chronic stress has far-reaching consequences for our bodies. For example, many stress-related psychiatric illnesses, such as depression, are associated with changes in the immune system. However, the underlying mechanisms of how these changes affect the brain remain largely unknown.
***
"'We were able to show that stress increases the amount of the matrix metalloproteinase-8 (MMP-8), an enzyme in the blood of mice. The same changes were found in patients with depression," says author Flurin Cathomas. MMP-8 travels from the blood to the brain, where it alters the functioning of certain neurons. In the affected mice, this leads to behavioral changes: they withdraw and avoid social contact.
"According to Cathomas, the findings are novel in two respects: "Firstly, they indicate a new 'body-mind mechanism,' which might be relevant not only for stress-related mental illness but also for other diseases that affect both the immune and nervous systems." Secondly, says the psychiatrist, identification of the specific MMP-8 protein could be a potential starting point to develop new treatments for depression.
***
"The researchers were able to use animal models to show that stress increases the migration of a specific type of white blood cells called monocytes into the vascular system of the brain, particularly into the reward center regions. These monocytes produce MMP-8. MMP-8 is involved in the restructuring and regulation of the net-like frame that surrounds neurons in the brain—called the extracellular matrix.
"'If MMP-8 penetrates the brain tissue from the blood, it changes the matrix structure and thus disrupts the functioning of the neurons. Mice who are affected by this process display changes in behavior that are similar to those seen in humans with depression," says Cathomas.
"In order to prove that MMP-8 was really responsible for the behavioral changes, the researchers removed the MMP-8 gene from some of the mice. Compared to the control mice, these animals did not display stress-related negative behavioral changes.
"'Blood analyses of patients with depression indicate that the findings from the mouse models are also relevant for humans: both the monocytes and MMP-8 were increased in the blood of people with depression in comparison to healthy participants.'"
Comment: we come back to the same issue: depression is immaterial but is produced by a sick brain which is material. In dualism theory the separate consciousness sends a proper message which is then interpreted in a distorted fashion by the sick brain.
Introducing the brain: addressing novelty
by David Turell , Thursday, February 08, 2024, 20:09 (71 days ago) @ David Turell
Mice in a different maze:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news/novelty-activates-a-long-noncoding-rna-for-spatial-l...
"Recently, a team from the Weizmann Institute of Science showed in a paper published in Cell Reports that Silc1, a lncRNA, regulated spatial learning in an unfamiliar environment in mice. Unraveling the inner workings of these complex systems could help scientists understand how the loss of learned information in neurological diseases occurs.
***
"To explore the function of this lncRNA further, the team reviewed publicly available RNA-seq data sets and saw that Silc1 and Sox11 are highly expressed in the hippocampus. “This led us to focus on studying brain functions that are related to the hippocampus,” Ulitsky said. According to Ulitsky, spatial memory formation is a key function in this region of the brain.
***
"Compared to mice in their usual housing, animals placed in a new environment expressed more Sox11 and Silc1. The researchers then determined if Silc1 expression drove Sox11 expression by deleting Silc1. In the absence of Silc1 in adult mice, these Sox11 targets when placed in the novel environment, and this translated to reduced production of Sox11 protein. “We were really surprised to see that it acts like an immediate early gene,” Perry said.
***
"Silc1-deficient mice took longer to learn where the platform and escape tunnel were in the respective mazes compared to mice with normal Silc1 expression. However, Silc1-deficient mice and normal mice performed comparably by the end of the maze probes, indicating that Silc1 deficiency does not impair long-term memory.
“'It is really cool that the long noncoding is regulated by novelty—that you have a physiological stimulus that regulates so specifically this long noncoding RNA, and that you then also can discriminate between, for example, two types of memories that it affects: spatial memory, but not long-term memory,” said Jeroen Pasterkamp, a translational neuroscientist at University Medical Center Utrecht who was not involved in the study.
***
"In a follow up analysis, the team performed single-nucleus RNA sequencing followed by gene ontology analysis on hippocampus tissues from normal and Silc1-deficient mice to explore the functions of Sox11-regulated genes. They showed that many of these genes corresponded to activities such as synaptic transmission, axon guidance, and dendritic localization. They concluded that many of the pathways that Sox11 uses for neurogenesis during development also are used for learning in the adult brain, at which time their activity through Sox11 depends on Silc1.
“'We see that a program that is typically thought to be happening only as the brain is growing and as it is forming is reactivated during memory formation,” said Ulitsky. “But on the other hand, we see that this long noncoding RNA, which is activating this program, is actually not found in the embryo at all.'”
Comment: it is interesting that a memory program only appears after birth and infants start remembering around age two to three. I don't think we need to remember swimming in the uterus.
Introducing the brain: a part of visual interpretation:
by David Turell , Friday, February 09, 2024, 19:17 (70 days ago) @ David Turell
The superior colliculus:
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-tiny-pea-sized-thing-in-your-brain-may-be-much-more-impo...
"A new study suggests this tiny brain region plays a much more significant role in our vision than previously thought.
And the superior colliculus has been diligently doing its duty for a long, long time, preserved through millions of years of evolution. While it's relatively large in fish and amphibians though, it's a small pea-sized region in the human brain.
"Researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience wanted to dig deeper into how animals, including humans, can separate objects from their backgrounds.
"This ability has always been something of a mystery: the visual cortex is known to be involved, but in some animals this part of the brain is underdeveloped, or not present at all.
***
"Together with the visual cortex, it receives direct sensory input from the eyes, so to examine its function further, the researchers set up experiments in mice.
***
"Once the superior colliculus part of the brain had been disabled, the mice were less able to detect objects around them. That suggests that, together with the visual cortex, it's crucial in interpreting the immediate surroundings.
"Using eye tracking and recording electrical signals in the brain, the researchers also noticed increased activity inside the superior colliculus when the mice detected objects around them. This was observed for both simple and more complex visual tasks.
"'Our measurements also showed that information about the visual task is present in the superior colliculus, and that this information is less present the moment a mouse makes a mistake," says Heimel.
"From spotting friends in the street to spotting predators before they get too close, the ability to distinguish an object from its background is a vital part of the visual processing mechanism in the brain, and this is valuable new insight into how it works.
"That said, while mice brains and human brains are quite similar in several key aspects – including the parallel pathway that is the visual cortex and the superior colliculus – all of this needs to be demonstrated in people too, before any conclusions are made.
"What we do know about humans is that the superior colliculus helps to direct our gaze, and that damage to the visual cortex doesn't necessarily mean that our ability to detect visual information goes away completely.
"'Our research shows that the superior colliculus might be responsible for this and may therefore be doing more than we thought," says Heimel."
Comment: obviously vision must be fully interpreted as to near and far.
Introducing the brain: the bilingual infant's brain
by David Turell , Monday, February 12, 2024, 21:27 (67 days ago) @ David Turell
Different at four months:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2416169-babies-in-bilingual-homes-have-distinct-br...
"Babies as young as 4 months old who are born into a bilingual environment show distinct brain patterns related to how they process speech. The findings emphasise how language exposure shapes the brain during early life.
***
"Previous studies have shown that babies who hear just one language can distinguish between people speaking their mother tongue and unfamiliar languages at only 3-and-a-half months old, suggesting that they are already adapting to language exposure. But few studies have looked into the brain mechanisms that underlie bilingual speech-processing in infants.
***
"In the Spanish-only babies, the recordings elicited activity in areas of the left frontal and temporal lobes, which are known to play a role in speech-processing. In the bilingual-exposed babies, the recordings similarly evoked responses in these areas, but they were larger and wider. These infants also had activation in the equivalent areas of their brains’ right hemispheres.
"In another part of the experiment, where the same recordings were played backwards, the two groups of infants also responded differently. While the infants exposed to both Spanish and Basque showed similar brain activation patterns for the backwards and forwards recordings, those who were only exposed to Spanish exhibited larger responses to the backwards speech.
***
"Writing in their paper, the researchers say their study provides evidence that a bilingual environment induces changes in the brain mechanisms underlying speech-processing in young infants, adding weight to the idea that the neural basis of learning two or more languages is established very early in life.
“'This is interesting because it tells us that left hemisphere lateralisation for language is the product of development and is strongly influenced by language experience,” says Evelyne Mercure at Goldsmiths, University of London. “A more diverse language environment that includes more than one language leads to more widespread and bilateral activation."”
Comment: just more evidence how baby brains sop up language like a sponge. That bilingualism creates differences in the brain is expected.
Introducing the brain: how novelty stores memory
by David Turell , Wednesday, February 14, 2024, 00:03 (66 days ago) @ David Turell
Create a lncRNA:
https://www.the-scientist.com/novelty-activates-a-long-noncoding-rna-for-spatial-learni...
Learning spatial elements of a new environment is important for people and animals. However, how this process occurs in the brain remains poorly understood. Long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) are abundantly expressed in the brain; although they’re predominantly studied for their roles during development, increasing evidence points to their function in the adult brain. Recently, a team from the Weizmann Institute of Science showed in a paper published in Cell Reports that Silc1, a lncRNA, regulated spatial learning in an unfamiliar environment in mice.
***
Compared to mice in their usual housing, animals placed in a new environment expressed more Sox11 and Silc1. The researchers then determined if Silc1 expression drove Sox11 expression by deleting Silc1. In the absence of Silc1 in adult mice, these Sox11 targets when placed in the novel environment, and this translated to reduced production of Sox11 protein. “We were really surprised to see that it acts like an immediate early gene,” Perry said.
***
“It is really cool that the long noncoding is regulated by novelty—that you have a physiological stimulus that regulates so specifically this long noncoding RNA, and that you then also can discriminate between, for example, two types of memories that it affects: spatial memory, but not long term memory,” said Jeroen Pasterkamp, a translational neuroscientist at University Medical Center Utrecht who was not involved in the study.
***
“We see that a program that is typically thought to be happening only as the brain is growing and as it is forming is reactivated during memory formation,” said Ulitsky. “But on the other hand, we see that this long noncoding RNA, which is activating this program, is actually not found in the embryo at all.” (my bold)
Comment: I could flood this website with new science stories about the intricacies of living biochemical reactions, but the key here to notice is my bold. A noncoding RNA is created by the brain's neurons to act as if it is a gene! It shows an extraordinary amount of purposeful planning for a future, result which I attribute to a designer, not cell committees.
Introducing the brain: the evolution of myelin
by David Turell , Thursday, February 15, 2024, 22:34 (64 days ago) @ David Turell
Including a retrovirus:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/02/240215113551.htm
"Researchers report February 15 in the journal Cell that ancient viruses may be to thank for myelin -- and, by extension, our large, complex brains. The team found that a retrovirus-derived genetic element or "retrotransposon" is essential for myelin production in mammals, amphibians, and fish. The gene sequence, which they dubbed "RetroMyelin," is likely a result of ancient viral infection, and comparisons of RetroMyelin in mammals, amphibians, and fish suggest that retroviral infection and genome-invasion events occurred separately in each of these groups.
"'Retroviruses were required for vertebrate evolution to take off," says senior author and neuroscientist Robin Franklin of Altos Labs-Cambridge Institute of Science.
"'If we didn't have retroviruses sticking their sequences into the vertebrate genome, then myelination wouldn't have happened, and without myelination, the whole diversity of vertebrates as we know it would never have happened."
"Myelin is a complex, fatty tissue that ensheathes vertebrate nerve axons.
"It enables rapid impulse conduction without needing to increase axonal diameter, which means nerves can be packed closer together.
"It also provides metabolic support to nerves, which means nerves can be longer.
Myelin first appeared in the tree of life around the same time as jaws, and its importance in vertebrate evolution has long been recognized, but until now, it was unclear what molecular mechanisms triggered its appearance.
"The researchers noticed RetroMyelin's role in myelin production when they were examining the gene networks utilized by oligodendrocytes, the cells that produce myelin in the central nervous system.
***
"'Retrotransposons compose about 40% of our genomes, but nothing is known about how they might have helped animals acquire specific characteristics during evolution," says first author Tanay Ghosh, a computational biologist at Altos Labs-Cambridge Institute of Science.
"'Our motivation was to know how these molecules are helping evolutionary processes, specifically in the context of myelination."
***
"To examine whether RetroMyelin is present in other vertebrate species, the team searched for similar sequences within the genomes of jawed vertebrates, jawless vertebrates, and several invertebrate species.
"They identified analogous sequences in all other classes of jawed vertebrates (birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians) but did not find a similar sequence in jawless vertebrates or invertebrates.
***
"The analysis revealed that RetroMyelin sequences were more similar within than between species, which suggests that RetroMyelin was acquired multiple times through the process of convergent evolution.
"The team also showed that RetroMyelin plays a functional role in myelination in fish and amphibians.
***
"The study highlights the importance of non-coding regions of the genome for physiology and evolution, the researchers say. "Our findings open up a new avenue of research to explore how retroviruses are more generally involved in directing evolution," says Ghosh."
Comment: more evidence that viruses helped necessary evolutionary steps, which is more evidence viruses were necessary organisms to be on Earth. The question of why some are dangerous is answered by noting they are dangerous only if they wander into wrong places.
Introducing the brain: new synapse signals:
by David Turell , Thursday, February 29, 2024, 20:22 (50 days ago) @ David Turell
A calcium channel:
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-first-of-its-kind-signal-was-detected-in-the-human-brain...
"Brains – especially those of the human variety – are often compared to computers. The analogy has its limits, but on some levels they perform tasks in similar ways.
"Both use the power of an electrical voltage to carry out various operations. In computers it's in the form of a rather simple flow of electrons through intersections called transistors.
"In neurons, the signal is in the form of a wave of opening and closing channels that exchange charged particles such as sodium, chloride, and potassium. This pulse of flowing ions is called an action potential.
"Instead of transistors, neurons manage these messages chemically at the end of branches called dendrites.
***
"Dendrites are the traffic lights of our nervous system. If an action potential is significant enough, it can be passed on to other nerves, which can block or pass on the message.
"This is the logical underpinnings of our brain – ripples of voltage that can be communicated collectively in two forms: either an AND message (if x and y are triggered, the message is passed on); or an OR message (if x or y is triggered, the message is passed on).
"Arguably, nowhere is this more complex than in the dense, wrinkled outer section of the human central nervous system; the cerebral cortex. The deeper second and third layers are especially thick, packed with branches that carry out high order functions we associate with sensation, thought, and motor control.
***
"While the team had carried out similar experiments on rats, the kinds of signals they observed buzzing through the human cells were very different.
"More importantly, when they dosed the cells with a sodium channel blocker called tetrodotoxin, they still found a signal. Only by blocking calcium did all fall quiet.
"Finding an action-potential mediated by calcium is interesting enough. But modelling the way this sensitive new kind of signal worked in the cortex revealed a surprise.
"In addition to the logical AND and OR-type functions, these individual neurons could act as 'exclusive' OR (XOR) intersections, which only permit a signal when another signal is graded in a particular fashion.
"'Traditionally, the XOR operation has been thought to require a network solution," the researchers wrote.
"More work needs to be done to see how dCaAPs behave across entire neurons, and in a living system. Not to mention whether it's a human-thing, or if similar mechanisms have evolved elsewhere in the animal kingdom.
"Technology is also looking to our own nervous system for inspiration on how to develop better hardware; knowing our own individual cells have a few more tricks up their sleeves could lead to new ways to network transistors.
"Exactly how this new logic tool squeezed into a single nerve cell translates into higher functions is a question for future researchers to answer."
Comment: this very precise control of electrical potential strengths is what makes our brain so special. This intricate design is not by chance.
Introducing the brain: stimulating improvement
by David Turell , Sunday, March 03, 2024, 18:43 (47 days ago) @ David Turell
Commercial offerings rated:
https://www.reviewscout.org/top-5-nootropics/?utm_term=&utm_campaign=RS+-+BRN+Remar...
"Should contain: #1 Choline. Choline is an essential nutrient crucial to producing acetylcholine, which supports memory, learning, concentration, and motor skills.^31
***
"#2 Phosphatidylserine
Phosphatidylserine is a phospholipid nutrient, found in the cerebral cortex, which covers and protects brain cells and helps carry messages between them.^12 Studies show that supplementing with phosphatidylserine can improve memory function, especially delayed recall, in both middle-aged and older adults.
***
"#3 Bacopa Monnieri
Bacopa monnieri is an herb used for centuries in Ayurvedic medicine.15 Numerous clinical studies found that Bacopa monnieri enhances memory retention, improves spatial learning, the ability to take in new information about one’s environment, and reduces stress.^16-18
***
"#4 Huperzine A
Huperzine A, an extract of the Huperzia serrata plant, has been shown in studies to improve memory and learning from young students to seniors.^21, 22
Top 5:
"1) Stonehenge Health’s Dynamic Brain is Review Scout’s top choice. This formula contains a potent dose of 40 different vitamins, minerals, and nutrients, including all three of the essential ingredients Phosphatidylserine, Bacopa Monnieri, and Huperzine A.
"2) Qualia Mind is a popular brand thanks in part to their heavy web advertising. The product contains a robust array of 28 different vitamins and nutrients, including all three of our top recommended ingredients. However, Qualia has about 30% fewer ingredients than the top-ranked brand on our list, yet it is more than three times the price for a 30-day supply.
"3) Genius Consciousness by The Genius Brand is a popular product that contains ten different ingredients, including two out of the three critical ingredients. It is missing the inclusion of the essential Bacopa Monnieri. While we liked that the product contains Lion’s Mane Mushroom, which has a variety of health benefits, we were disappointed to see a lack of essential vitamins and nutrients, such as a B complex.
"4) Neuriva by Schiff Vitamins is a relatively new product intended to improve brain performance. Neuriva comes in “Original” and “Plus” formulas, containing Phosphatidylserine and Coffee Fruit Extract. The “Plus” formula adds vitamins B6, B12, and B9. However, neither version contains our top-ranking ingredients Bacopa Monnieri and Huperzine A, and the vital nutrient Choline.
"5) Prevagen by Quincy Biosciences is a product made famous thanks to their massive spending on television advertising...Prevagen by Quincy Biosciences is a product made famous thanks to their massive spending on television advertising.
***
"While some users have reported benefits from taking Prevagen, we recommend avoiding the marketing hype and possible side effects. Choose a formula with a variety of vitamins, minerals, and neuro-nutrients such as Phosphatidylserine, Bacopa Monnieri, and Huperzine A, shown in studies over the years to help support memory and cognitive health."
Comment: I agree with the last paragraph. Presented av important information.
Introducing the brain: speech and breathing controls
by David Turell , Thursday, March 07, 2024, 20:36 (43 days ago) @ David Turell
We breath out to speak:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-03-brain.html
"The newly discovered circuit controls two actions that are required for vocalization: narrowing of the larynx and exhaling air from the lungs. The researchers also found that this vocalization circuit is under the command of a brainstem region that regulates the breathing rhythm, which ensures that breathing remains dominant over speech.
***
"They knew that vocal cord adduction is controlled by laryngeal motor neurons, so they began by tracing backward to find the neurons that innervate those motor neurons.
"This revealed that one major source of input is a group of premotor neurons found in the hindbrain region called the retroambiguus nucleus (RAm). Previous studies have shown that this area is involved in vocalization, but it wasn't known exactly which part of the RAm was required or how it enabled sound production.
"The researchers found that these synaptic tracing-labeled RAm neurons were strongly activated during USVs [mouse ultrasonic vocalizations]. This observation prompted the team to use an activity-dependent method to target these vocalization-specific RAm neurons, termed as RAmVOC.
"When the researchers blocked the RAmVOC neurons, the mice were no longer able to produce USVs or any other kind of vocalization. Their vocal cords did not close, and their abdominal muscles did not contract, as they normally do during exhalation for vocalization.
"Conversely, when the RAmVOC neurons were activated, the vocal cords closed, the mice exhaled, and USVs were produced. However, if the stimulation lasted two seconds or longer, these USVs would be interrupted by inhalations, suggesting that the process is under control of the same part of the brain that regulates breathing.
"'Breathing is a survival need," Wang says. "Even though these neurons are sufficient to elicit vocalization, they are under the control of breathing, which can override our optogenetic stimulation."
"Additional synaptic mapping revealed that neurons in a part of the brainstem called the pre-Bötzinger complex, which acts as a rhythm generator for inhalation, provide direct inhibitory input to the RAmVOC neurons.
"'The pre-Bötzinger complex generates inhalation rhythms automatically and continuously, and the inhibitory neurons in that region project to these vocalization premotor neurons and essentially can shut them down," Wang says.
"This ensures that breathing remains dominant over speech production, and that we have to pause to breathe while speaking.
"The researchers believe that although human speech production is more complex than mouse vocalization, the circuit they identified in mice plays the conserved role in speech production and breathing in humans."
Comment: breathing is so important there had to be a mechanism to control both. All animals are generally vocal. It is a necessary attribute: alarm, pay attention to me, hello, etc.
Introducing the brain:during sleep waves of fluid clean it
by David Turell , Saturday, March 09, 2024, 16:48 (41 days ago) @ David Turell
Movements of cerebrospinal fluid moved by neurons:
https://www.sciencealert.com/hidden-waves-wash-fluid-through-the-brain-while-you-sleep?...
"The brain produces these waste substances as it expends energy and sucks up nutrients during the day. Taking out the trash is the job of the glymphatic system, however we don't yet have a full picture of how this network of drainage channels functions.
"Researchers from Washington University in St Louis observed neurons coordinating electrical signals in mice. These signals generated rhythmic waves, which then helped to wash fluid through the brain, cleaning it up along the way.
"Disabling specific regions in the mice brains prevented the flow of cerebrospinal fluid, showing that the brain wave patterns produced by the neurons were an essential part of the brain-cleaning process.
"We already know that there are oscillating brain waves passing through our heads while we sleep, linked to everything from cognitive processes to consolidating memories. This new study suggests these patterns play a big role in tidying up the brain, too.
***
"'These neurons are miniature pumps," says neuroscientist Li-Feng Jiang-Xie, from Washington University in St Louis. "Synchronized neural activity powers fluid flow and removal of debris from the brain."
"'If we can build on this process, there is the possibility of delaying or even preventing neurological diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease."
"The team found that taller brain waves, with more amplitude, were more forceful at moving fluid around. It's possible that the brain cleans itself a bit like we might wash dishes: using broad strokes and then extra force to get rid of waste that's more difficult to shift."
Comment: although the article doesn't mention it the waste material is probably picked up by the brain's lymphatic system, delivered to circulatory blood and then to the kidneys.
Introducing the brain:during sleep waves of fluid clean it
Introducing the brain: Sleep waves of fluid clean it
DAVID: although the article doesn't mention it the waste material is probably picked up by the brain's lymphatic system, delivered to circulatory blood and then to the kidneys.
Thank you for this comment. I was wondering where the waste went!
I’m always struck by the fact that while we spend a great deal of time admiring the wonders of the human brain, all this research is done on the brains of mice. In the hope of finding a definitive rundown of what distinguishes our brain from that of other mammals, I hit on an article which turned out to be enormous. Eventually I had to skip to the conclusion, but on the way I found myself bewildered by what seemed like an obvious contradiction concerning the remarkable but unremarkable, exceptional but unexceptional number of neurons. I don’t want to subject you to a long read, as the problem is encapsulated in the two quotes below. I’m just wondering if you can explain the apparent anomaly.
The Remarkable, Yet Not Extraordinary, Human Brain as a Scaled-Up Primate Brain and Its Associated Cost
National Institutes of Health (NIH) (.gov)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › books › NBK20718
QUOTE: Compared with other primates, the human brain is therefore not exceptional in its number of neurons, nor should it be considered an evolutionary outlier. If absolute brain size is the best predictor of cognitive abilities in a primate (Deaner et al., 2007), and absolute brain size is proportional to number of neurons across primates (Herculano-Houzel et al., 2007; Gabi et al., 2010), our superior cognitive abilities might be accounted for simply by the total number of neurons in our brain, which, based on the similar scaling of neuronal densities in rodents, elephants, and cetaceans, we predict to be the largest of any animal on Earth (Herculano-Houzel, 2009). (dhw’s bold)
CONCLUSION: REMARKABLE, YET NOT EXTRAORDINARY
Despite our ongoing efforts to understand biology under the light of evolution, we have often resorted to considering the human brain as an outlier to justify our cognitive abilities, as if evolution applied to all species except humans. Remarkably, all the characteristics that appeared to single out the human brain as extraordinary, a point off the curve, can now, in retrospect, be understood as stemming from comparisons against body size with the underlying assumptions that all brains are uniformly scaled-up or scaled-down versions of each other and that brain size (and, hence, number of neurons) is tightly coupled to body size. Our recently acquired quantitative data on the cellular composition of the human brain and its comparison to other brains, both primate and nonprimate, strongly indicate that we need to rethink the place that the human brain holds in nature and evolution, and to rewrite some basic concepts that are taught in textbooks. The human brain has just the number of neurons and nonneuronal cells that would be expected for a primate brain of its size, with the same distribution of neurons between its cerebral cortex and cerebellum as in other species, despite the relative enlargement of the former; it costs as much energy as would be expected from its number of neurons; and it may have been a change from a raw diet to a cooked diet that afforded us its remarkable number of neurons, possibly responsible for its remarkable cognitive abilities. (dhw’s bold)
Introducing the brain:during sleep waves of fluid clean it
by David Turell , Sunday, March 10, 2024, 19:10 (40 days ago) @ dhw
Introducing the brain: Sleep waves of fluid clean it
DAVID: although the article doesn't mention it the waste material is probably picked up by the brain's lymphatic system, delivered to circulatory blood and then to the kidneys.
dhw; Thank you for this comment. I was wondering where the waste went!
I’m always struck by the fact that while we spend a great deal of time admiring the wonders of the human brain, all this research is done on the brains of mice. In the hope of finding a definitive rundown of what distinguishes our brain from that of other mammals, I hit on an article which turned out to be enormous. Eventually I had to skip to the conclusion, but on the way I found myself bewildered by what seemed like an obvious contradiction concerning the remarkable but unremarkable, exceptional but unexceptional number of neurons. I don’t want to subject you to a long read, as the problem is encapsulated in the two quotes below. I’m just wondering if you can explain the apparent anomaly.
Brain size is not the key to mental ability. If so, elephants could out-think us.
The Remarkable, Yet Not Extraordinary, Human Brain as a Scaled-Up Primate Brain and Its Associated Cost
National Institutes of Health (NIH) (.gov)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › books › NBK20718QUOTE: Compared with other primates, the human brain is therefore not exceptional in its number of neurons, nor should it be considered an evolutionary outlier. If absolute brain size is the best predictor of cognitive abilities in a primate (Deaner et al., 2007), and absolute brain size is proportional to number of neurons across primates (Herculano-Houzel et al., 2007; Gabi et al., 2010), our superior cognitive abilities might be accounted for simply by the total number of neurons in our brain, which, based on the similar scaling of neuronal densities in rodents, elephants, and cetaceans, we predict to be the largest of any animal on Earth (Herculano-Houzel, 2009). (dhw’s bold)
CONCLUSION: REMARKABLE, YET NOT EXTRAORDINARY
Despite our ongoing efforts to understand biology under the light of evolution, we have often resorted to considering the human brain as an outlier to justify our cognitive abilities, as if evolution applied to all species except humans. Remarkably, all the characteristics that appeared to single out the human brain as extraordinary, a point off the curve, can now, in retrospect, be understood as stemming from comparisons against body size with the underlying assumptions that all brains are uniformly scaled-up or scaled-down versions of each other and that brain size (and, hence, number of neurons) is tightly coupled to body size. Our recently acquired quantitative data on the cellular composition of the human brain and its comparison to other brains, both primate and nonprimate, strongly indicate that we need to rethink the place that the human brain holds in nature and evolution, and to rewrite some basic concepts that are taught in textbooks. The human brain has just the number of neurons and nonneuronal cells that would be expected for a primate brain of its size, with the same distribution of neurons between its cerebral cortex and cerebellum as in other species, despite the relative enlargement of the former; it costs as much energy as would be expected from its number of neurons; and it may have been a change from a raw diet to a cooked diet that afforded us its remarkable number of neurons, possibly responsible for its remarkable cognitive abilities. (dhw’s bold)
The thoughts about cooking, calories and the brain are fully established. Our gut is different in small bowel size and colon size compared to apes. The 'garbaged' up discussion about our body size, our brain size and neuron number still comes down to our very unusual prefrontal area with five exact layers of pyramidal neurons like none other. Simply no other brain compares to ours. We are very unusual and these folks are simply trying to undo that approach. Our unusualness cannot be explained by natural evolution despite their attempt. Human exceptionalism grates on some folks.
Introducing the brain:during sleep waves of fluid clean it
The brain: number of neurons
dhw: I found myself bewildered by what seemed like an obvious contradiction concerning the remarkable but unremarkable, exceptional but unexceptional number of neurons. I don’t want to subject you to a long read, as the problem is encapsulated in the two quotes below. I’m just wondering if you can explain the apparent anomaly.
DAVID: Brain size is not the key to mental ability. If so, elephants could out-think us.
That is clear. I just wanted clarification concerning the number of neurons. Here are the relevant, apparent contradictions:
QUOTES: Compared with other primates, the human brain is therefore not exceptional in its number of neurons, […] our superior cognitive abilities might be accounted for simply by the total number of neurons in our brain,which, based on the similar scaling of neuronal densities in rodents, elephants, and cetaceans, we predict to be the largest of any animal on Earth…
The human brain has just the number of neurons and nonneuronal cells that would be expected for a primate brain of its size, with the same distribution of neurons between its cerebral cortex and cerebellum as in other species,[…] and it may have been a change from a raw diet to a cooked diet that afforded us its remarkable number of neurons, possibly responsible for its remarkable cognitive abilities.
DAVID: The thoughts about cooking, calories and the brain are fully established. Our gut is different in small bowel size and colon size compared to apes. The 'garbaged' up discussion about our body size, our brain size and neuron number still comes down to our very unusual prefrontal area with five exact layers of pyramidal neurons like none other. Simply no other brain compares to ours. We are very unusual and these folks are simply trying to undo that approach. Our unusualness cannot be explained by natural evolution despite their attempt. Human exceptionalism grates on some folks.
The author acknowledges our “remarkable cognitive abilities”, but I can’t understand the apparent contradictions about the number of neurons. She says the number is not exceptional, but then she says the number may account for our superior cognitive abilities. Nothing to do with your false dichotomy of nature versus God. Maybe the apparent contradiction is simply a matter of muddled thinking, but I thought you might have been able to resolve it for me. We needn’t pursue the matter.
Introducing the brain:during sleep waves of fluid clean it
by David Turell , Monday, March 11, 2024, 22:40 (39 days ago) @ dhw
The brain: number of neurons
dhw: I found myself bewildered by what seemed like an obvious contradiction concerning the remarkable but unremarkable, exceptional but unexceptional number of neurons. I don’t want to subject you to a long read, as the problem is encapsulated in the two quotes below. I’m just wondering if you can explain the apparent anomaly.
DAVID: Brain size is not the key to mental ability. If so, elephants could out-think us.
dhw: That is clear. I just wanted clarification concerning the number of neurons. Here are the relevant, apparent contradictions:
QUOTES: Compared with other primates, the human brain is therefore not exceptional in its number of neurons, […] our superior cognitive abilities might be accounted for simply by the total number of neurons in our brain,which, based on the similar scaling of neuronal densities in rodents, elephants, and cetaceans, we predict to be the largest of any animal on Earth…
The human brain has just the number of neurons and nonneuronal cells that would be expected for a primate brain of its size, with the same distribution of neurons between its cerebral cortex and cerebellum as in other species,[…] and it may have been a change from a raw diet to a cooked diet that afforded us its remarkable number of neurons, possibly responsible for its remarkable cognitive abilities.
DAVID: The thoughts about cooking, calories and the brain are fully established. Our gut is different in small bowel size and colon size compared to apes. The 'garbaged' up discussion about our body size, our brain size and neuron number still comes down to our very unusual prefrontal area with five exact layers of pyramidal neurons like none other. Simply no other brain compares to ours. We are very unusual and these folks are simply trying to undo that approach. Our unusualness cannot be explained by natural evolution despite their attempt. Human exceptionalism grates on some folks.
dhw: The author acknowledges our “remarkable cognitive abilities”, but I can’t understand the apparent contradictions about the number of neurons. She says the number is not exceptional, but then she says the number may account for our superior cognitive abilities. Nothing to do with your false dichotomy of nature versus God. Maybe the apparent contradiction is simply a matter of muddled thinking, but I thought you might have been able to resolve it for me. We needn’t pursue the matter.
Let's not. Garbled thinking got past her editors.
Introducing the brain: thalamic controls of functions
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 13, 2024, 16:10 (37 days ago) @ David Turell
It follows the heart and lung functions:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240312133747.htm
"The human brain constantly receives information from the body, specifically from internal organs such as the heart and lungs. This information seldom reaches consciousness but is crucial for maintaining a healthy body and for influencing performance in the brain, including perception, emotion, and cognition. Now, researchers are investigating how exactly the brain processes the incoming stream of information from the heart and lungs.
***
"'Each heartbeat and every breath create a rich, incoming stream of sensory information for the human brain," said Krishna. "However, a deeper understanding of how the brain integrates this information has remained elusive. We have been interested in discovering how the human brain achieves the integration of cardio-respiratory information and whether its breakdown is linked to any disorders of the brain, heart, or lungs observed in the clinic."
***
"They found that about 70% of the recorded neurons were modulated by either the heartbeat, the cardiac inter-beat interval, or the respiration.
"These cardiac and respiratory response patterns varied largely across neurons both in terms of timing and their kind of modulation, the authors wrote. A substantial proportion of these visceral neurons -- about 30% -- were responsive to more than one of the tested signals, underlining specialization and integration of cardiac and respiratory signals in subthalamic nucleus and thalamic neurons.
***
"Applauding this research as a significant step forward, Nelson Oyesiku, MD, PhD, chair of the UNC Department of Neurosurgery, said, "We understand that the brain maintains homeostasis throughout the body through direct neurological and endocrine regulation. This research reveals that the incoming information from the heart and lungs is processed in the thalamic and subthalamic brain regions, besides other regions, enabling our brain to effectively assume its role in regulating bodily functions.'"
Comment: the thalamus and hypothalamus constantly receive information from the entire body to analyze and control automatic functions. This is conducted by feedback loops to mintain tight control in designated limits.
Introducing the brain: mitochondria stationary in neurons
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 13, 2024, 20:02 (37 days ago) @ David Turell
All along the axons and dendrites:
https://www.the-scientist.com/how-mitochondria-stay-still-in-neurons-71720?utm_campaign...
"In a recent study, Rangaraju and her team described how the vesicle-associated membrane protein-associated protein (VAP) stabilizes mitochondria in dendrites, the branch-like structures neurons use to receive information from other neurons. They also showed that knocking out the VAP gene impaired the plasticity of dendritic spines. These findings, published in Nature Communications, suggest a role for VAP in mitochondria spatial stability and synaptic plasticity in dendrites.
***
"Mitochondria are the main suppliers of energy to neurons, but they look and behave differently depending on where they are situated in the brain cell. Mitochondria located in the axon, a neuron’s output structure, are discrete organelles that are either stationary or motile.2 In contrast, mitochondria are jammed together and often overlap in dendrites.
***
"Rangaraju and her colleagues found that, in dendrites, the organelles form long structures called mitochondrial compartments that often consist of stacked mitochondrial filaments.3 The team also showed that these compartments tether to the cytoskeleton and stay in the same place for up to two hours, providing energy for local protein synthesis and synaptic plasticity.
***
"Mitochondria lacking the candidate protein VAP showed a reduction in length after photoactivation, suggesting destabilization of the dendritic mitochondrial compartment.
"The team next explored the functional relevance of these findings by assessing how VAP affected synaptic plasticity, the ability of synapses to strengthen or weaken over time. They measured changes in dendritic spine head size after stimulating the neurons since increases in the head size of these tiny protrusions often correlate with synaptic plasticity and brain processes, such as memory formation. The absence of VAP reduced the expected increase in spine head size after neuronal stimulation. Moreover, the dendritic spines of neurons lacking VAP did not maintain their sizes, but shrank over time.
“'It's really interesting that VAP was important for sustaining the anatomical change,” noted Schwarz.
"While Wang found the results compelling and convincing, she believes that an important next step is to evaluate whether the same mechanism can be detected in an in vivo setting. Additionally, because VAP is implicated in neurological diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), she is curious to see if the same mechanism might be important in a disease context. Rangaraju plans to examine the role of VAP in ALS-related motor learning deficits in animal models and to obtain samples from patients with ALS to see if defects in mitochondrial stabilization and synaptic plasticity appear in patient-derived neurons."
Comment: stabilization of mitochondria is of extreme importance in neurons considering the length of many axons. Mitochondria supply localized energy.
Introducing the brain: Primate brain pattern
by David Turell , Monday, March 18, 2024, 18:37 (32 days ago) @ David Turell
One fractal formula fits all primates:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2422268-single-mathematical-model-governs-primate-...
"A single mathematical model can explain the pattern of folds seen on the brains of a range of primates, from bush babies to macaques to humans.
"Bruno Mota at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and his colleagues have spent years trying to find out whether there is a mathematical description for the crumpled, fractal shape of the cerebral cortex, which is the outer layer of a brain region called the cerebrum.
“'The question seems trivial because you can just pick up an MRI image [of a brain] and say this is the shape,” says Mota. “But what if I wanted to compare my description to another [brain]?”
"They have now discovered that some aspects of the mathematics are universal across many primate species.
"The researchers focused on how the cortex structure changes at different scales. For instance, their analysis involved zooming in on the fine details of individual folds and, at the other extreme, zooming out and considering only the coarse outline of the cerebral cortex.
***
"They found that the graphs for 11 primate species lay on the same kind of line, pointing to a fundamental mathematical similarity in the way the cerebral cortex folds across a wide range of primate species.
"To check the algorithm was detecting a real biological signal specific to primates, Mota and his colleagues applied it to scans of walnuts, the surface of which are wrinkled a little like the cerebral cortex, and to bell peppers, which are smooth but have roughly similar dimensions to the primate brain. The graphs for these foodstuffs did not form the same kind of line as the primates brains did, he says.
"Raul Muresan at the Transylvanian Institute of Neuroscience in Romania says this is an “amazing addition” to our understanding of how the functions of the brain depend on scale, something that researchers previously only captured with less realistic, two-dimensional analyses. The new approach leaves out some biological details, but the universality it uncovers may point to a kind of biological efficiency that relieves the cortex of having to develop many different folding mechanisms at different scales, he says."
From the paper abstract:
"The mammalian cerebral cortex is a morphologically complex structure spanning a wide range of sizes and shapes across species. We have previously demonstrated that the cortical folding across various mammalian species follows a universal scaling law that can be derived from a simple statistical physics model. The same law also applies across healthy humans and cortical regions. Here, we show that, despite all this diversity, cortical shape can be universally and explicitly expressed as the hierarchical composition of folded structures of different sizes.
"More specifically, using a new set of theory-inspired morphological variables that capture shape and size of the cortex as functions of length scale, we show that for 11 different primate species, there is a natural cortical surface-preserving coarse-graining procedure that in all cases recapitulates a common scale-invariant morphometric trajectory. This indicates these cortices are approximations of a single archetypical fractal shape, differing solely on the range of length scales for which the approximation holds. These results suggest the existence of a universal gyrification mechanism operating on all scales, and that there is only a small number of effective degrees of freedom through which Darwinian natural selection can select cortical shapes. This new way of expressing morphology can be used to parametrize stages of cortical development and aging, and to characterize different conditions such as Zika-induced microcephaly and Alzheimer's. We hope that this systematic approach may help elucidate the processes underlying cortical gyrification in health and disease." (my bold)
Comment: note my bold. Rather than restrictions in a Darwinism approach I see a designer God using a fractal pattern in this case as He used throughout evolution. Design is more efficient if it follows patterns.
Introducing the brain: quantum analysis of opinions
by David Turell , Friday, March 29, 2024, 18:09 (21 days ago) @ David Turell
Sabine Hossenfelder again:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGxSRQsPVhWsZrZhNwfmHldpfTh
"...a mathematician has come up with the idea of quantum cognition. Yes, quantum cognition.
"...quantum cognition is about borrowing the mathematics of quantum physics to better understand human thinking. The idea is that this could explain why humans sometimes use reasoning that doesn’t follow the rules of classical logic.
"An interesting example of human irrationality comes from a 2002 study in which an American researcher found that when people were asked whether Al Gore is honest, 68 percent said yes. Asked afterwards whether Bill Clinton was honest, 57 percent said yes.
"But if the participants were first asked whether Clinton was honest, then he got only 50 percent and Al Gore then got 60. In both cases, Al Gore came out ahead, but the baseline was lower stating from Clinton.
"Basically, people don’t agree with themselves so how do you make sense of this? Well, you do it by taking into account that their opinion depends on the order in which you ask the questions. This order-dependence also happens in quantum physics. And that’s what this quantum cognition business is about. (my bold)
***
"The upshot of the paper is really that certain observations about the probability of making one choice or the other can be modelled with equations that are also being used in quantum physics, like those operations where the outcome depends on the order. Indeed the author says that he can explain the experiment where people give honesty-ratings to Clinton and Al Gore depending on the order “to within a plus minus 10 percent error margin”.
"You see if you want to sound really sciency, you put an error margin on it.
"He also says that his formalism can explain confirmation bias. It works roughly like this. You know how a quantum particle can’t have a precisely defined position and momentum at the same time? Now suppose you have a quantum particle that’s very well localized. If you measure the position, you get a lot of information about where the particle is. But if you measure momentum, you just learn that it’s all over the place.
"So, the author’s idea is that if you give information, say, a news article, to people’s quantum brains, they will measure different quantities. Depending on what they “measure”, some will learn a lot, others, not so much.
***
"What this quantum cognition business means to me is that the mathematical tools that we develop in physics are very versatile and can often be employed in many circumstances. It might well be that some equations used in quantum mechanics can be used to describe human decision making."
Comment: I presented this article because dhw is so sure the past colors decision making. This careful study uses only democrats, removing political bias. Note the bold. It is how the issue is presented that dictates the results. The order of questions is what influences the result, not the past influences.
Introducing the brain: chickadees memory system
by David Turell , Friday, March 29, 2024, 20:10 (21 days ago) @ David Turell
Certain neurons at work:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/chickadees-memory-food-neuroscience-bird
"Much like squirrels, black-capped chickadees hide their food, keeping track of many thousands of little treasures wedged into cracks or holes in tree bark. When a bird returns to one of their many food caches, a particular set of nerve cells in the memory center of their brains gives a brief flash of activity. When the chickadee goes to another stash, a different combination of neurons lights up.
"These neural combinations act like bar codes, and identifying them may give key insights into how episodic memories — accounts of specific past events, like what you did on your birthday last year or where you’ve left your wallet — are encoded and recalled in the brain, researchers report March 29 in Cell.
"This kind of memory is challenging to study in animals, says Selmaan Chettih, a neuroscientist at Columbia University. “You can’t just ask a mouse what memories it formed today.” But chickadees’ very precise behavior provides a golden opportunity for researchers. Every time a chickadee makes a cache, it represents a single, well-defined moment logged in the hippocampus, a structure in the vertebrate brain vital for memory.
***
"When the birds were caching and retrieving their seeds, a specific subset of neurons representing 7 percent or less of the entire hippocampus would briefly light up with activity, Chettih says. Each cache appeared to have its own unique combination of neurons, or neural bar code, and those bar codes differed even for individual caches at the same location.
"It’s possible bar codes are a type of engram, the proposed physical manifestations of a memory (SN: 1/24/18). Such bar codes are probably used across many species, considering how similar hippocampus physiology is between animals separated by hundreds of millions of years of evolution, Chettih says. However, more research is needed to confirm this.
"Those bar codes seem to work in parallel with another group of neurons in the hippocampus called place cells, which encode information on an animal’s location. Place cells have been widely theorized as the foundation of episodic memory.
"This is partly because our perceptions of memory are enmeshed with location, says Kazumasa Tanaka, a neuroscientist at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan who was not involved with the study. “When you recall some specific event that happened in the past, that episodic memory cannot be dissociated from where that event happened, or when that event happened.”
"Place cells didn’t change their activity during caching, surprising the researchers. But the findings suggest an added nuance to this understanding of memory, Chettih says, where the hippocampus creates a separate “index” that binds together all the different inputs making up an experience into a distinct memory."
Comment: a new insight into the functioning of the hippocampus. Note this article, like many others, assumes constant use of convergence. A good designer would use it constantly.
Introducing the brain: human memory system
by David Turell , Saturday, March 30, 2024, 20:45 (20 days ago) @ David Turell
Daytime activities reviewed in sleep:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240328162613.htm
"Neuroscientists have established in recent decades the idea that some of each day's experiences are converted by the brain into permanent memories during sleep the same night. Now, a new study proposes a mechanism that determines which memories are tagged as important enough to linger in the brain until sleep makes them permanent.
***
"Large groups of neurons in a brain region called the hippocampus fire together in rhythmic cycles, creating sequences of signals within milliseconds of each other that can encode complex information.
"Called "sharp wave-ripples," these "shouts" to the rest of the brain represent the near-simultaneous firing of 15 percent of hippocampal neurons, and are named for the shape they take when their activity is captured by electrodes and recorded on a graph.
"While past studies had linked ripples with memory formation during sleep, the new study, published online in the journal Science on March 28, found that daytime events followed immediately by five to 20 sharp wave-ripples are replayed more during sleep and so consolidated into permanent memories. Events followed by very few or no sharp wave-ripples failed to form lasting memories.
"'Our study finds that sharp wave-ripples are the physiological mechanism used by the brain to 'decide' what to keep and what to discard," said senior study author György Buzsáki, MD, PhD, the Biggs Professor of Neuroscience...
"The new study is based on a known pattern: mammals including humans experience the world for a few moments, then pause, then experience a little more, then pause again. After we pay attention to something, say the study authors, brain computation often switches into an "idle" re-assessment mode. Such momentary pauses occur throughout the day, but the longest idling periods occur during sleep.
"Buzsaki and colleagues had previously established that no sharp wave-ripples occur as we actively explore sensory information or move, but only during the idle pauses before or after. The current study found that sharp wave-ripples represent the natural tagging mechanism during such pauses after waking experiences, with the tagged neuronal patterns reactivated during post-task sleep.
"Importantly, sharp wave-ripples are known to be made up the firing of hippocampal "place cells" in a specific order that encodes every room we enter, and each arm of a maze entered by a mouse. For memories that are remembered, those same cells fire at high speed, as we sleep, "playing back the recorded event thousands times per night." The process strengthens the connections between the cells involved.
***
"'We worked to take the external world out of the equation, and looked at the mechanisms by which the mammalian brain innately and subconsciously tags some memories to become permanent," said first author Wannan (Winnie) Yang, PhD, a graduate student in Buzsáki's lab. "Why such a system evolved is still a mystery, but future research may reveal devices or therapies that can adjust sharp wave-ripples to improve memory, or even lessen recall of traumatic events.'" (my bold)
Comment: note my bold. Everything that happened as humans evolved seems to be driven by purpose. All beyond the reasonable needs to survive
Introducing the brain: proprioception
by David Turell , Wednesday, April 03, 2024, 18:01 (16 days ago) @ David Turell
How we know where all parts are:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240321155342.htm
"Proprioception involves a complex network of sensors embedded in our muscles that relay information about limb position and movement back to our brain.
"However, little is known about how the brain puts together the different signals it receives from muscles.
"A new study led by Alexander Mathis at EPFL now sheds light on the question by exploring how our brains create a cohesive sense of body position and movement.
***
"'It is widely believed that sensory systems should exploit the statistics of the world and this theory could explain many properties of the visual and auditory system," says Mathis.
"'To generalize this theory to proprioception, we used musculoskeletal simulators to compute the statistics of the distributed sensors."
"The researchers used this musculoskeletal modeling to generate muscle spindle signals in the upper limb to generate a collection of "large-scale, naturalistic movement repertoire." They then used this repertoire to train thousands of "task-driven" neural network models on sixteen computational tasks, each of which reflects a scientific hypothesis about the computations carried out by the proprioceptive pathway, which includes parts of the brainstem and somatosensory cortex.
"The approach allowed the team to comprehensively analyse how different neural network architectures and computational tasks influence the development of "brain-like" representations of proprioceptive information.
"They found that neural network models trained on tasks that predict limb position and velocity were most effective, suggesting that our brains prioritize integrating the distributed muscle spindle input to understand body movement and position.
"The research highlights the potential of task-driven modeling in neuroscience.
"Unlike traditional methods that focus on predicting neural activity directly, task-driven models can offer insights into the underlying computational principles of sensory processing.
"The research also paves the way for new experimental avenues in neuroscience, since a better understanding of proprioceptive processing could lead to significant advancements in neuroprosthetics, with more natural and intuitive control of artificial limbs."
Comment: knowing where body parts are is similar to knowing what is touching any part of the skin. Newborns must learn all of each sense and teach their proprioceptive systems. It is "task driven"
Introducing the brain: definine sex differences
by David Turell , Thursday, April 04, 2024, 20:33 (15 days ago) @ David Turell
A large study:
https://www.the-scientist.com/biological-sex-influences-brain-protein-expression-71763?...
"The findings, published in Nature Medicine, are a first step toward mechanistically understanding why some neurological conditions have pronounced sex-biases, which could guide improved treatments.1
"The team used donated post-mortem brain samples from individuals over the age of 60 with and without neurologic conditions. Using mass spectrometry, the researchers studied the proteome in six brain regions from more than 1,200 brains. After quality control analysis, the team evaluated just under 10,200 proteins for sex-based differences. More than 1,300 of these proteins exhibited different expression levels based on sex.
***
"Because several brain conditions exhibit sex biases, the researchers compared the identified sex-biased proteins and their genes to gene-protein pairs that they previously associated with causal roles in a set of psychiatric, neurologic, or morphologic traits.2 The team identified 35 proteins from this group with sex-biased expression. Dalla noted that a strength of the present study was that it did not focus on a single disorder. “It really makes it unique that it manages to investigate so many different causal genes and proteins,” she said.
"Aliza Wingo explained that this is only the beginning for this work. “I believe that we can find more [sex-biased risk genes] when we have access to more sex-stratified genome wide association studies because, right now, those are limited,” she said, adding that more data could improve the design of therapeutic interventions.
"The team anticipates that factors such as the environment can influence brain protein expression between sexes, but they are excited about their current findings. “The fact that we are able to detect things that are changing or different between the brain that are relevant to these outcomes may start to help us understand why there’s prevalence differences for these traits,” said Thomas Wingo. “That’s an interesting new avenue to explore.'”
Comment: this shows how each different sex has a very different brain. What does that mean for the propaganda stating 'change your sex to whatever you wish/feel'?
Introducing the brain: olfactory neurons
by David Turell , Monday, May 30, 2022, 16:16 (690 days ago) @ David Turell
Constant change found:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-05-olfactory-neurons-environment.html
"How do these neurons manage to detect a large variability of signals and adapt to different levels of stimulation? A joint team from the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva (UNIGE) investigated the gene expression profile of these neurons in the presence or absence of odorant stimulation. The scientists discovered an unsuspected variability in these profiles depending on the expressed olfactory receptor and previous exposure to odors. These results, to be read in the journal Nature Communications, highlight a wide range of identities of olfactory neurons, and their adaptation to the surrounding environment.
"In mammals, the perception of odors is ensured by millions of olfactory neurons, located in the mucosa of the nasal cavity. These neurons have on their surface receptors able to bind specifically to an odorant molecule. Each olfactory neuron expresses only one gene coding for an olfactory receptor, chosen from a repertoire of about 450 in humans and 1,200 in mice.
"When a volatile molecule is recognized by a receptor, it is activated and generates a signal that is transmitted to the olfactory bulb in the brain, a signal that is then translated into an odor. The olfactory system responds to highly variable environments and must be able to adapt very quickly. For example, during a continuous stimulation by certain odorant molecules, the perceived intensity decreases progressively and sometimes disappears.
***
"'To our surprise, we found that at rest, meaning in an environment without stimulation, the profiles of the messenger RNAs of the populations of olfactory sensory neurons of the mouse are already very different from each other, and are specific to the olfactory receptor they express," reports Luis Flores Horgue, a doctoral student in the Department of Genetics and Evolution and co-first author of the study. Neurons expressing the same receptor do not only share this receptor but also differ in the expression of hundreds of other genes. Genes whose expression level seems to be directed by the expressed olfactory receptor, which would thus play a double role.
"The biologists then analyzed the expression of genes in these neurons after stimulation by odorant molecules. They observed that these molecules induce massive changes in the expression of genes in the activated neurons. "While it was thought that the binding of an odorant molecule would only lead to the activation of the corresponding receptor, we discover that olfactory neurons drastically change their identity by modulating the expression of hundreds of genes after activation. And this new identity is again dependent on the expressed receptor. We are facing an unexpected, massive, rapid and reversible adaptation mechanism," explains Ivan Rodriguez, co-corresponding author of the study.
"This work reveals that olfactory neurons are not to be considered as sensors simply passing from a resting state to a stimulated state, but that their identity is in permanent evolution, not only according to the expressed receptor but also according to past experiences. This discovery adds another level to the complexity and flexibility of the olfactory system."
Comment: scenting odors is an important protective. This design had to be present as each new species appeared.
Introducing the brain: evidence of quantum functions
by David Turell , Wednesday, November 09, 2022, 23:07 (527 days ago) @ David Turell
From a new study:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/10/221019090732.htm
"Scientists from Trinity believe our brains could use quantum computation after adapting an idea developed to prove the existence of quantum gravity to explore the human brain and its workings. The discovery may shed light on consciousness, the workings of which remain scientifically difficult to understand and explain. Quantum brain processes could also explain why we can still outperform supercomputers when it comes to unforeseen circumstances, decision making, or learning something new.
"The brain functions measured were also correlated to short-term memory performance and conscious awareness, suggesting quantum processes are also part of cognitive and conscious brain functions.
"If the team's results can be confirmed -- likely requiring advanced multidisciplinary approaches -they would enhance our general understanding of how the brain works and potentially how it can be maintained or even healed. They may also help find innovative technologies and build even more advanced quantum computers.
***
"He said: "We adapted an idea, developed for experiments to prove the existence of quantum gravity, whereby you take known quantum systems, which interact with an unknown system. If the known systems entangle, then the unknown must be a quantum system, too. It circumvents the difficulties to find measuring devices for something we know nothing about.
"'For our experiments we used proton spins of 'brain water' as the known system. 'Brain water' builds up naturally as fluid in our brains and the proton spins can be measured using MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging). Then, by using a specific MRI design to seek entangled spins, we found MRI signals that resemble heartbeat evoked potentials, a form of EEG signals. EEGs measure electrical brain currents, which some people may recognise from personal experience or simply from watching hospital dramas on TV."
"Electrophysiological potentials like the heartbeat evoked potentials are normally not detectable with MRI and the scientists believe they could only observe them because the nuclear proton spins in the brain were entangled.
"Dr Kerskens added: "If entanglement is the only possible explanation here then that would mean that brain processes must have interacted with the nuclear spins, mediating the entanglement between the nuclear spins. As a result, we can deduce that those brain functions must be quantum.
"'Quantum brain processes could explain why we can still outperform supercomputers when it comes to unforeseen circumstances, decision making, or learning something new. Our experiments performed only 50 metres away from the lecture theatre, where Schrödinger presented his famous thoughts about life, may shed light on the mysteries of biology, and on consciousness which scientifically is even harder to grasp.'"
Comment: Penrose and Hameroff proposed this possibility with some experimental brain findings we covered in the past here. The findings do suggest why our brains are powerful
Introducing the brain: preparing the brain for birth
by David Turell , Friday, October 06, 2023, 15:59 (197 days ago) @ David Turell
Mouse brain studies:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGtxdQCZPrjlTZTLFcJlHBjRvCL
"Pregnant mammals, from mice to humans, experience surges of hormones that prepare their bodies for the task of gestation. These hormones also reprogram the brain to induce parental behaviors, and now—thanks to clever genetic engineering—researchers have uncovered how this reprogramming happens in the brains of female mice.
"During pregnancy, the levels of steroid hormones like estradiol and progesterone rise. In addition to signaling changes in organs like the uterus and mammary glands, these hormones influence the brain to induce “mothering” behaviors such as nest building and an increased propensity for nurturing babies. To figure out how this happens, researchers developed mice where the hormones’ receptors could be selectively destroyed in specific neurons. This revealed that the two hormones have different effects: Estradiol tweaks which neurons respond to the sounds of pups temporarily, while progesterone leads to the formation of new synapses that promote mothering behaviors long-term.
"Intriguingly, blocking just these two hormones from signaling to certain neurons in a part of the brain was enough to get rid of a mouse’s maternal behavior entirely. “This was unexpected given the broad hormonal milieu of pregnancy,” Margaret McCarthy says in a related Perspective, and warrants further investigation."
From the paper itself:
"This was unexpected given the broad hormonal milieu of pregnancy, which includes increased oxytocin and prolactin, and because many other neuronal types express both steroid receptors. It may be that some component of pregnancy creates this specificity— a hypothesis that can be tested by inducing maternal behavior in virgins by other means. Regardless, the specificity is essential to avoid steroids promoting behaviors that are incompatible with parenting, such as mating or aggression."
https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.adk2495?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium...
Comment: this should be viewed from the standpoint of purposeful design, as the intricacies of the hormonal actions are so precise in their controls. With so many organs needing preparation (uterus, breasts, brain) how does chance evolution organize this birth event? It cannot.
Introducing the brain: special neurons spot the unexpected
by David Turell , Friday, October 06, 2023, 19:50 (196 days ago) @ David Turell
Learning produces expectations:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-10-brains-wrong.html
"Whether improperly closing a door or shanking a kick in soccer, our brains tell us when we've made a mistake because these sounds differ from what we expect to hear. While it's long been established that our neurons spot these errors, it has been unclear whether there are brain cells that have only one job—to signal when a sound is unexpected or "off."
"A team of New York University neuroscientists has now identified a class of neurons—what it calls "prediction-error neurons"—that are not responsive to sounds in general, but only respond when sounds violate expectations, thereby sending a message that a mistake has been made.
"'Brains are remarkable at detecting what's happening in the world, but they are even better at telling you whether what happened was expected or not," explains David Schneider, an assistant professor in NYU's Center for Neural Science. "We found that there are specific neurons in the brain that don't tell you what happened, but instead tell you what went wrong."
***
"Previous research has shown that in the brains of humans and other animals, neurons have significant responses when a sound violates the animal's expectation and weaker responses when a sound matches expectation. But it had been unclear whether there were neurons that only had one job—to signal when a sound was unexpected.
***
"they found that individual prediction-error neurons in the mice's auditory cortex not only signaled when something went wrong, but they also signaled what went wrong.
"For example, every time the sound was too quiet, one group of prediction-error neurons was activated. However, when the sound was the expected volume but came too late, a completely different group of prediction-error neurons was active.
"'When a movement makes an unexpected sound, it can violate our expectations in a lot of different ways," explains Schneider. "Different neurons are active when a movement makes too quiet a sound, and other neurons when the movement makes the wrong sound.'"
Comment: more support for my theory that our brains are designed to help us fully relate to our reality. Expectation is a major learned process.
Introducing the brain: different cells genes from others
by David Turell , Friday, August 26, 2022, 18:01 (602 days ago) @ David Turell
Compared to other primates' brains:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220825164033.htm
"What makes the human brain distinct from that of all other animals -- including even our closest primate relatives? In an analysis of cell types in the prefrontal cortex of four primate species, researchers identified species-specific -- particularly human-specific -- features, they report.
***
"For the study, the researchers looked specifically at the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), a brain region that is unique to primates and essential for higher-order cognition. Using a single cell RNA-sequencing technique, they profiled expression levels of genes in hundreds of thousands of cells collected from the dlPFC of adult humans, chimpanzees, macaque, and marmoset monkeys.
***
"...the researchers first asked whether there are there any cell types uniquely present in humans or other analyzed non-human primate species. After grouping cells with similar expression profiles they revealed 109 shared primate cell types but also five that were not common to all species. These included a type of microglia, or brain-specific immune cell, that was present only in humans and a second type shared by only humans and chimpanzees.
"The human-specific microglia type exists throughout development and adulthood, the researchers found, suggesting the cells play a role in maintenance of the brain upkeep rather than combatting disease.
***
"An analysis of gene expression in the microglia revealed another human-specific surprise -- the presence of the gene FOXP2. This discovery raised great interest because variants of FOXP2 have been linked to verbal dyspraxia, a condition in which patients have difficulty producing language or speech. Other studies have also shown that FOXP2 is associated with other neuropsychiatric diseases, such as autism, schizophrenia, and epilepsy.
"Sestan and colleagues found that this gene exhibits primate-specific expression in a subset of excitatory neurons and human-specific expression in microglia.
"'FOXP2 has intrigued many scientists for decades, but still we had no idea of what makes it unique in humans versus other primate species," said Shaojie Ma, a postdoctoral associate in Sestan's lab and co-lead author. We are extremely excited about the FOXP2 findings because they open new directions in the study of language and diseases.'"
Comment: it is no surprise our genetics are different. It is interesting to catalogue how we differ. All FOX genes are major drivers of embryology and form changing.