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#15023 From: Brent Allsop <brent.allsop@...>
Date: Sat Nov 1, 2008 2:34 am
Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] Re: Steve Lehar takes early lead as top 'Mind Expert'
b_a_allsop
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Hi Michael,

Michael Cecil wrote:
  >
  >
  > --- In MindBrain@yahoogroups.com, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop@...> wrote:
  > >
  > >
  > > The goal of the 'Mind Experts' topic here:
  > >
  > > http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/81
  > >
  > > is to have 'peers' rank who they think are the top 'Mind Experts'.
  >
  > And, as long as we are talking about things which do not even exist;
perhaps, next, we should have 'peers' rank who they 'think' are the top
"Phlogiston Experts", or the top "Cycle and Epi-cycle Experts" (from the
Ptolemaic system).
  >

You are completely missing the point.  The problem you are pointing out
already exists in our hierarchical 'ivory tower' and religious
establishment society today.  The majority tends to abuse the minority.
All but what is well accepted by the masses is excommunicated or
censored.  The goal of canonizer.com is to address and improve this
situation your are pointing out, not make it worse as you are accusing.

Everyone knows that the majority does not dictate truth.  A good example
is when there was near perfect consensus amongst physicists that F = M *
A. (and your examples of phlogiston and so on are also good examples of
the majority being abusively wrong.) When Einstein came along he was the
first in his 'camp'.  And finally the evidence proved his new minority
camp was THE right camp or at least a much better camp.  And everyone
quickly jumped to his camp.  Canonizer.com is simply a comprehensive,
rigorous and quantitative way to measure and track these types of
processes.  And to allow such to happen much more efficiently.

Unlike all journals, religious 'canonon' and everything else in society
today, nothing is cencored at canonier.com.  It is a comprehensive
survey of what everyone believes or wants.  Yet the quality is
maintained by allowing readers of the data to prioritize or 'filter'
stuff any way they want by selecting their own personal 'canonizer' on
the side bar.

There is also history built in, so when people like Einstein do show up,
they can be detected much sooner, tracked, and given much higher
reputations by future canonizer algorithms, so these correct camps can
be brought forward much more efficiently.  All the intelligent and wise
people (Not just the few Einsteins) that recognize the 'right' camps
first, before everyone else, can be given much more influence the next
time around.  This already happens today for a few, but this process
makes it much more comprehensive, rigorous, and quantitative.  It
enables the good data to stand out from the noise of the ignorant masses
by rigorously tracking and quantifying it all for everyone - especially
the more intelligent minority camps that might otherwise be censored by
the hierarchies.

  > (And, in another few hundred years, I suggest we will have precisely
similar views about such so-called 'Mind Experts'; such a paradigm
having long been recognized as being fundamentally deficient.)
  >
  > >If you think there are better ways
  > > to think about consciousness,
  >
  > No, I don't.
  >
  > The problem is with the assumption that thought itself is the only
way to understand consciousness.

But this is precisely what you think is a better way to think about it.
Which, like most ways to think about it, at least some people probably
disagree with it.

  > > we also invite you to get just what you
  > > believe 'canonized' collaboratively with everyone else that may share
  > > your beliefs.
  >
  > It is a question of observation rather than belief.
  > Belief originates in thought.
  >
  > But, according to Eastern esotericists such as J. Krishnamurti, the
best way to understand the mechanisms of human consciousness is to
observe them directly without thought.
  > >

This is precisely the kind of information we would like to concisely
collect while quantitatively measuring how many people (and who for
reputation purposes) think this way since when, and for how long.

  > > May the best theories become the most well developed and supported.
  >
  > I suggest what is needed here is more than a theory.

Whatever it is that is 'more than a theory', one still should be able to
state it concisely, or at least as best as is possible, and
quantitatively measure how many people think that way right?

Precisely that is one of the goals at http://canonizer.com

Brent Allsop

#15024 From: "Robert Karl Stonjek" <stonjek@...>
Date: Sat Nov 1, 2008 9:06 am
Subject: News: Religious belief and devotion linked to sense of personal control
r_karl_s
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Religious belief and devotion linked to sense of personal control

(PhysOrg.com) -- An individual's level of commitment to religious rituals like praying and attending service is directly linked to their sense of personal control in life, according to new University of Toronto research.

U of T sociology professor Scott Schieman interviewed 1,800 Americans in a groundbreaking survey that examined the link between levels of religious beliefs and sense of personal control over events and outcomes in everyday life.

Among the study's surprising results:

People who believe in a powerful and influential God but aren't as strongly devoted to religious rituals like praying or attending service report a lower sense of personal control in their lives; by contrast, individuals who believe that God's will influences outcomes in everyday life do not report a deflated sense of personal control if they actively participate in religious rituals.

This study is published in the October issue of the journal Sociology of Religion.

"One might think the most devout religious practitioners would feel a lack of personal control in their lives because they have such faith in divine control," said Schieman. "Surprisingly, we found the opposite. It's those who believe in God but don't dedicate much time to practising religion who feel the least in control of their lives."

Schieman says these findings are particularly important in the current economic climate, when many people are losing their jobs, their homes and their savings.

"Some people feel unable to change the important events and outcomes in their daily lives. Some people turn to a divine power or authority for support. In some cases, this also implies a sense that one's own fate is influenced or determined by powerful external forces, especially God," Schieman said. "This notion of divine control is reflected in common phrases like 'It is all in God's hands.'"

Provided by University of Toronto
http://www.physorg.com/printnews.php?newsid=144677225
 
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

#15025 From: "Michael Cecil" <mececil@...>
Date: Sat Nov 1, 2008 8:00 am
Subject: [Mind and Brain] Re: Steve Lehar takes early lead as top 'Mind Expert'
deadseascrolls1
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--- In MindBrain@yahoogroups.com, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> Hi Michael,
>
> Michael Cecil wrote:
> >
> >
> > --- In MindBrain@yahoogroups.com, Brent Allsop brent.allsop@ wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > The goal of the 'Mind Experts' topic here:
> > >
> > > http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/81
> > >
> > > is to have 'peers' rank who they think are the top 'Mind Experts'.
> >
> > And, as long as we are talking about things which do not even exist;
> perhaps, next, we should have 'peers' rank who they 'think' are the top
> "Phlogiston Experts", or the top "Cycle and Epi-cycle Experts" (from the
> Ptolemaic system).
> >
>
> You are completely missing the point.

Hi, Brent,

That may very well be; but not intentionally, however.

> The problem you are pointing out
> already exists in our hierarchical 'ivory tower' and religious
> establishment society today. The majority tends to abuse the minority.

You got that right. In spades.

More than a year ago I e-mailed probably every major researcher on consciousness on your list and have been ignored.

They don't even have the courtesy to respond.

My reply to this same post on the JCS-online group was, as happens quite often, ignored by the moderator.

This happens to probably 50% of my notes and comments on that group; and that journal appears to claim to be the 'state of the art' in the understanding of consciousness.

> All but what is well accepted by the masses is excommunicated or
> censored. The goal of canonizer.com is to address and improve this
> situation your are pointing out, not make it worse as you are accusing.

As I read it, it seems to emphasize that people must have others who 'agree' with them before they are allowed to present or affirm a position; which, to me, creates a problem.

I don't know of even one other person, other than Krishnamurti, who has the same approach to this issue as I have. And he is dead.

It would be like Copernicus trying to vote for people who did not accept the Ptolemaic description of the universe. How many could he find?
>
> Everyone knows that the majority does not dictate truth.

But this is precisely what you seem to be effecting.

Those who get fewest votes are assumed to be so far off the mark as to be what? Crazy? or Deluded?

The implication is that those who receive the most votes are closest to the truth.

I understand this to be a problem in paradigm.

So, we have found the absolute EXPERT at 'phlogiston theory'.

So what?

I am saying the entire paradigm is deficient because the existence of the 'thinker' or the 'mind' is based upon a foundation of sand and an illusion.

> A good example
> is when there was near perfect consensus amongst physicists that F = M *
> A. (and your examples of phlogiston and so on are also good examples of
> the majority being abusively wrong.)

Precisely my point.

> When Einstein came along he was the
> first in his 'camp'.

But someone is not allowed to vote for themselves. This comes across as fairly obvious.

> And finally the evidence proved his new minority
> camp was THE right camp or at least a much better camp. And everyone
> quickly jumped to his camp. Canonizer.com is simply a comprehensive,
> rigorous and quantitative way to measure and track these types of
> processes. And to allow such to happen much more efficiently.

Then I wish you all the success in the world.

Perhaps I'll have to re-examine my fairly jaded perceptions.
>
> Unlike all journals, religious 'canonon' and everything else in society
> today, nothing is cencored at canonier.com. It is a comprehensive
> survey of what everyone believes or wants. Yet the quality is
> maintained by allowing readers of the data to prioritize or 'filter'
> stuff any way they want by selecting their own personal 'canonizer' on
> the side bar.
>
> There is also history built in, so when people like Einstein do show up,
> they can be detected much sooner, tracked, and given much higher
> reputations by future canonizer algorithms, so these correct camps can
> be brought forward much more efficiently.

Well, this is all quite encouraging; but I have no particular regard for my 'reputation'.
I am unemployed. I have no tenure or other such things to worry about; and my writings have been suppressed by academic journals and the media for more than 30 years.

The issue here is much more important than that.

> All the intelligent and wise
> people (Not just the few Einsteins) that recognize the 'right' camps
> first, before everyone else, can be given much more influence the next
> time around. This already happens today for a few, but this process
> makes it much more comprehensive, rigorous, and quantitative. It
> enables the good data to stand out from the noise of the ignorant masses
> by rigorously tracking and quantifying it all for everyone - especially
> the more intelligent minority camps that might otherwise be censored by
> the hierarchies.

This is very encouraging, as no one has asked me to submit any of my writing to any of the journals on consciousness or to give a presentation at an important conference on consciousness, other than an invitation I received to a "Quantum Mind" conference about a year and a half ago in Eastern Europe; but I was unable to attend because I have been unemployed for quite some time and have no money for such things.
>
> > (And, in another few hundred years, I suggest we will have precisely
> similar views about such so-called 'Mind Experts'; such a paradigm
> having long been recognized as being fundamentally deficient.)
> >
> > >If you think there are better ways
> > > to think about consciousness,
> >
> > No, I don't.
> >
> > The problem is with the assumption that thought itself is the only
> way to understand consciousness.
>
> But this is precisely what you think is a better way to think about it.
> Which, like most ways to think about it, at least some people probably
> disagree with it.
>
> > > we also invite you to get just what you
> > > believe 'canonized' collaboratively with everyone else that may share
> > > your beliefs.
> >
> > It is a question of observation rather than belief.
> > Belief originates in thought.
> >
> > But, according to Eastern esotericists such as J. Krishnamurti, the
> best way to understand the mechanisms of human consciousness is to
> observe them directly without thought.
> > >
>
> This is precisely the kind of information we would like to concisely
> collect while quantitatively measuring how many people (and who for
> reputation purposes) think this way since when, and for how long.

I really do appreciate this clarification of what you are trying to do.
>
> > > May the best theories become the most well developed and supported.
> >
> > I suggest what is needed here is more than a theory.
>
> Whatever it is that is 'more than a theory', one still should be able to
> state it concisely, or at least as best as is possible, and
> quantitatively measure how many people think that way right?
>
> Precisely that is one of the goals at http://canonizer.com

Thanks so much for the reply.

I'll see if I can come up with a cogent statement summarizing my position.

Michael Cecil

http://science-of-consciousness.blogspot.com/

>
> Brent Allsop
>

#15026 From: "John Clem" <yanniru@...>
Date: Sat Nov 1, 2008 1:57 pm
Subject: ‘Magnetized’ brains are slower
yanniru
Send Email Send Email
 
In NATURE Precedings/Neuroscience:
http://precedings.nature.com/documents/2443/version/1
a free pre-pub source for NATURE papers in the life sciences


`Magnetized' brains are slower: The cognitive effects of fMRI
Jack R. Foucher1, Daniel Gounot2, Bich-Thuy Pham3, Corinne Marrer4, &
Andre Dufour5

1.ULP / HUS / INSERM, Physiology & Psychiatry
2.ULP / HUS / LINC, Biophysics
3.ULP / INSERM
4.ULP / LINC
5.ULP / LINC, Psychology

Abstract:
MRI is generally thought to have no impact on cognition. Although
safety experiments have shown that MRI is not harmful, its finer
effects have not been investigated. Because we repeatedly observed
delayed response time during functional MRI (fMRI), we designed an
experiment to confirm this effect and to identify its causal factor
(s), including environment, noise, static magnetic field and/or
gradient switch. Here we show that the participants had increased
response times of +70 ms (up to +30%) in two different detection
tasks, with most of this effect due to the 2 Tesla static magnetic
field. The latter also specifically accounted for the longer time
interval needed to detect two stimuli as occurring successively
rather than simultaneously. These observations demonstrate that brain
processes are slowed during fMRI, and that this slowing is caused by
the static magnetic field. This may be the behavioral counterpart of
the effects of static magnetic fields on neuronal excitability.
Consequences on fMRI data should be taken into account especially
considering the forthcoming very high field MRI. The ability of
magnetic fields to modify brain activity suggest that they may be
used for therapeutic purposes.

#15027 From: "JohnM" <jamikes@...>
Date: Fri Oct 31, 2008 10:34 pm
Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] Paper: Practicing a Musical Instrument in Childhood is Associated with Enhanced Verbal Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning
janosapu
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Ha-ha, fellow 'musician'? (if you really call rock 'music' - some jazz maybe, indeed).
Category mistake you do: express one plane of aspects by another plane's means even more so than e.g. emotions by math formulae, or 'dancing away your static bridge-design' .
Sorry for my initial remark: indeed rock maybe closer to the evolutionary origins of music (and dance?) than Bach or Scriabin. But the music of these and similar others is VERY precise AS MUSIC, not as 'words' to describe something of a different and totally unrelated domain.
When I play I am absorbed in MUSIC and the world (Obama, Einstein, Garbo. etc.) are not even marginally present.
 
John M
(having a musical schizophrenia to my polymer engineering and list-topics).
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 10:10 PM
Subject: RE: [Mind and Brain] Paper: Practicing a Musical Instrument in Childhood is Associated with Enhanced Verbal Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning



> -----Original Message-----
> From: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MindBrain@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of JohnM
> Sent: Friday, 31 October 2008 2:49 AM
> To: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] Paper: Practicing a Musical
> Instrument in Childhood is Associated with Enhanced Verbal
> Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning
>
> Wrong, Chris.
> Music is not 'vague' you just seem to have no 'understanding'
> within. The words of the linguistic languages are vague how
> one tries to describe music (mostly the kind who do not
> 'live' in THAT language) by not-musical terms for non-musicians.
>

wrong John - having spent 15 years of my life as a professional musician
(rock and jazz) I have a good appreciation/understanding of the dynamics of
such and the play on emotions and secondary harmonics (and being around my
mother's world also added to that knowledge (http://www.geryscott.com)).
Music is a 'language of the vague' in that it cannot communicate precise
meanings since its nature elicits emotional harmonics that are parallel but
also general WHEN COMPARED to what high precision, verbal expressions can
get across.

Thus music can drive the masses and strongly so when linked with
well-structure rhetoric, but it will not clearly solve a quadratic equation
due to representation problems ;-) (you probably could come up with a
musical form to do such but a waste when considered what is possible using
mathematical representations)

Music as a language is a mediating system and so is not the emotions it sets
off but the instigator of such, as are all languages as they serve to push
meanings and so elicit instincts/habits/memories.

Chris.
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/introIDM.html

> John M
>
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: chris lofting
>   To: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com
>   Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 11:10 PM
>   Subject: RE: [Mind and Brain] Paper: Practicing a Musical
> Instrument in Childhood is Associated with Enhanced Verbal
> Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning
>
>
>   More so the process enhances secondary harmonics processing and the
>   development of a rich associative memory (MORE right brain
> stuff in the
>   context of memory development/processing) - since music is
> a 'language of
>   the vague' so it serves as an alternative source of meaning
> derivation and
>   the association with other methods.
>
>   Chris
>   http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/introIDM.html
>   
>
>   > -----Original Message-----
>   > From: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com
>   > [mailto:MindBrain@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Robert
> Karl Stonjek
>   > Sent: Thursday, 30 October 2008 9:44 AM
>   > To: Mind and Brain; Cognitive NeuroScience
>   > Subject: [Mind and Brain] Paper: Practicing a Musical
>   > Instrument in Childhood is Associated with Enhanced Verbal
>   > Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning
>   >
>   >
>   > Practicing a Musical Instrument in Childhood is Associated
>   > with Enhanced Verbal Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning
>   >
>   >
>   > Marie Forgeard 1, Ellen Winner 2,3, Andrea Norton 1,
>   > Gottfried Schlaug 1
>   >
>   > 1 Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical
>   > Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts,
>   > United States of America,
>   > 2 Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill,
>   > Massachusetts, United States of America,
>   > 3 Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education,
>   > Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
>   >
>   >
>   > Abstract
> <Snip>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>



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#15028 From: "chris lofting" <lofting@...>
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2008 3:06 am
Subject: RE: [Mind and Brain] Paper: Practicing a Musical Instrument in Childhood is Associated with Enhanced Verbal Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning
ddiamondaus
Send Email Send Email
 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MindBrain@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of JohnM
> Sent: Saturday, 1 November 2008 9:35 AM
> To: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] Paper: Practicing a Musical
> Instrument in Childhood is Associated with Enhanced Verbal
> Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning
>
> Ha-ha, fellow 'musician'? (if you really call rock 'music' -
> some jazz maybe, indeed).

LOL! - my personal tastes are wide although when pushed a bias emerges to
progressive metal (tool, dream theater, pain of salvation, early genesis etc
etc etc - THEIR roots in Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple (the early years), Yes,
Cream, King Crimson (still going), Pink Floyd etc etc etc -- the Jazz bias
is to Bill Evens/Herbie Hancock/John Coltrane (the latter since I used to
play tenor and alto sax besides sing) - the classics bias to Baroc styles
(note the 'riff' and so sequencing bias overall here) but also progressive
classical (Paderewski etc)

> Category mistake you do: express one plane of aspects by
> another plane's means even more so than e.g. emotions by math
> formulae, or 'dancing away your static bridge-design' .
> Sorry for my initial remark: indeed rock maybe closer to the
> evolutionary origins of music (and dance?) than Bach or
> Scriabin. But the music of these and similar others is VERY
> precise AS MUSIC, not as 'words' to describe something of a
> different and totally unrelated domain.
> When I play I am absorbed in MUSIC and the world (Obama,
> Einstein, Garbo. etc.) are not even marginally present.
>

music will not feed the world, it can aid in healing emotions but also can
work as a distraction away from the work required to do more. As such it an
ALTERNATIVE and so runs in parallel to 'main stream' languages.

My mother's realm (as you can see in the website) was more cabaret style and
so influenced through female Jazz singers (for the last 15+ years of her
life my mother taught Jazz Vocal at the ANU's School of Music but when not
listening to Jazz she listened to classical) so I had exposure to that style
as well.

As for precision, I repeat, music is a "Language of the Vague" when compared
to spoken/written forms. If you are totally absorbed in the music and so
cannot differentiate text from context since all is 'one' then this issue of
precision will not be noticed as one is washed in emotional highs and lows
and all with some 'order' through sequencing. This play of serial and
parallel gives a holistic, organic, experience that then requires a lot of
prose to convert into clearly defined, precise meanings allowing for
communication of a musical pieces through spoken/written form - BUT that
prose brings out fine details not covered/identified in the 'total
experience' since that experience can be emotionally overwhelming and so
knock-out consciousness and its analytical nature.

This gets back to the original paper covered in the subject line where
TRAINING in music can aid in enhancing verbal and non-verbal reasoning since
it opens an alternative language channel that can seed development of
intuitions - and it does so easily through its focus on rhythm (sequencing)
mixed with pitch (magnitudes, emotional highs/lows etc)

Chris
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/introIDM.html

#15029 From: "Robert Karl Stonjek" <stonjek@...>
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2008 6:03 am
Subject: News: Molecular Motor Tied to Memory
r_karl_s
Send Email Send Email
 

Molecular Motor Tied to Memory

By Lauren Cahoon
ScienceNOW Daily News
31 October 2008

How does the brain record a memory? Somehow our experiences and interactions can be imprinted in the mind, but exactly how neurons alter their connections to enable memory has been murky. Now scientists say they have identified the molecular machinery that links experience with learning--and it all comes down to one microscopic motor.

Scientists believe that recording memories involves a process, called long-term potentiation (LTP), that enhances communication between pairs of neurons. Neurons communicate by releasing neurotransmitters that stimulate receptors on their neighbors, and LTP triggers more receptors to accumulate at the receiving cell's membrane--making it more sensitive to incoming messages.

Previous research had suggested that actin and myosin, two proteins with key roles in muscle contraction, might play a role in clustering receptors in neurons. To investigate this possibility, Michael Ehlers, a neurobiologist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, and his colleagues used time-lapse imaging and biochemical methods to examine brain slices from rats. These experiments revealed what happens after an incoming signal triggers a rush of calcium into a neuron. The calcium activates a myosin protein called myosin Vb, prompting it to latch onto packets of receptors stored deeper in cells and drag them out to the neuron's signaling site, where the receptors can receive neurotransmitters and contribute to LTP.

To make sure that myosin Vb was indeed the motor that made the learning process possible, Ehlers and his colleagues chemically inhibited myosin Vb in neurons. The cells were incapable of generating LTP, the researchers report today in Cell. "We were surprised that one motor molecule could account for the bulk of membrane trafficking events," says Ehlers. "It may in fact be a motor that makes memories."

"What they've done is connect a lot of dots," says Marie Wooten, a neurobiologist who studies cell signaling at Auburn University in Alabama. The paper shows step by step how neurons move receptors to their outer membrane during LTP, Wooten says. Bettina Winckler, a neuroscientist at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, agrees. "This paper is like a jewel," says Winckler--or, perhaps, a well-engineered motor. "It all fits everything together so beautifully," she says.

Source: Science
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/1031/1?etoc

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek


#15030 From: "chris lofting" <lofting@...>
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2008 8:23 am
Subject: RE: [Mind and Brain] News: Molecular Motor Tied to Memory
ddiamondaus
Send Email Send Email
 
The AI focus on "Confabulation Theory" (Google it, you will get refs and
some videos) gets into this focus on motor etc - the 4K 'thalmocortical'
columns equate with the IDM self-referencing dynamics where the "WHOLE" is
divided into X 'categories' that get sorted 'best fit' to 'worst fit' for an
experience. The number of actualised categories depends on the pressures to
make distinctions as one adapts to context - the more distinctions the more
categories available for 'precision' actions/memories/instincts/habits. -
the shift from 2^6 categories to 2^12 categories reflects a property of
hyperbolic development where the WHOLE of the current is applied to EACH
part and so we see development of categories along the line of N^2 rather
than 2^N (and so 8, 64, 4096 etc - equates with the dynamics of addition to
multiplication to exponentiation to tetration (hyperbolic focus)).

Thus each moment has a 'full spectrum response' of, say, 8 or 64 or 4096,
'states' that are sorted in response to the emotional assessment of the
context (done unconsciously). Since consciousness handles at best 7+/-2
states at once, so a lot of data at high precision levels can be
ignored/filtered-out. Less precise areas cover generic versions of those
high precision levels and present an intuitive element - I can make
intuitive assessments with seemingly few categories but are in fact being
seeded by unconscious activities and experiences refine these intuitive
assessments.

In categorisation systems such as the I Ching or MBTI or basic emotions etc,
the WHOLE set of POSSIBLES works as one, with local context sorting that set
into best to worst fit. Our unconscious deals with a whole that is  a lot
larger than the one we deal with consciously (see refs etc in
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/wavedicho.html) such that we
can not recognise or filter-out the contributions of the full spectrum of
categories to each moment. It is this dynamic that gets people to believe in
the 'magical' nature of such systems as the I Ching, not realising that
EVERY hexagram applies to the moment, and, with the aid of a consciousness
seeking answers, use 'magical/random' methods to acquire a particular
hexagram and it all appears to be 'meaningful' - unaware that all hexagrams
can contribute to the moment. The EIC work covers this dynamic through use
of emotions and asking of questions rather than 'magical/random' methods.

We can see in all of this the specialist form of the above in Schrodinger's
wave equation - IOW the methodology used in QM has neurological correlates
and so brings out the externalisation of the methodology of the neurology in
information processing at all scales - it is just that Schrodinger et al had
no idea how 'in here' worked and so what they were projecting - they thought
it was all 'original thinking' ;-) - the LABELS may have been but the
methodology labelled is hard-coded 'in here' and seeds all thought.

Chris
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/introIDM.html

> -----Original Message-----
> From: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MindBrain@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Robert Karl Stonjek
> Sent: Sunday, 2 November 2008 5:03 PM
> To: Mind and Brain; Cognitive NeuroScience
> Subject: [Mind and Brain] News: Molecular Motor Tied to Memory
>
>
> Molecular Motor Tied to Memory
>
>
> By Lauren Cahoon
> ScienceNOW Daily News
> 31 October 2008
>
> How does the brain record a memory? Somehow our experiences
> and interactions can be imprinted in the mind, but exactly
> how neurons alter their connections to enable memory has been
> murky. Now scientists say they have identified the molecular
> machinery that links experience with learning--and it all
> comes down to one microscopic motor.
>
> Scientists believe that recording memories involves a
> process, called long-term potentiation (LTP), that enhances
> communication between pairs of neurons. Neurons communicate
> by releasing neurotransmitters that stimulate receptors on
> their neighbors, and LTP triggers more receptors to
> accumulate at the receiving cell's membrane--making it more
> sensitive to incoming messages.
>
> Previous research had suggested that actin and myosin, two
> proteins with key roles in muscle contraction, might play a
> role in clustering receptors in neurons. To investigate this
> possibility, Michael Ehlers, a neurobiologist at Duke
> University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, and his
> colleagues used time-lapse imaging and biochemical methods to
> examine brain slices from rats. These experiments revealed
> what happens after an incoming signal triggers a rush of
> calcium into a neuron. The calcium activates a myosin protein
> called myosin Vb, prompting it to latch onto packets of
> receptors stored deeper in cells and drag them out to the
> neuron's signaling site, where the receptors can receive
> neurotransmitters and contribute to LTP.
>
> To make sure that myosin Vb was indeed the motor that made
> the learning process possible, Ehlers and his colleagues
> chemically inhibited myosin Vb in neurons. The cells were
> incapable of generating LTP, the researchers report today in
> Cell. "We were surprised that one motor molecule could
> account for the bulk of membrane trafficking events," says
> Ehlers. "It may in fact be a motor that makes memories."
>
> "What they've done is connect a lot of dots," says Marie
> Wooten, a neurobiologist who studies cell signaling at Auburn
> University in Alabama. The paper shows step by step how
> neurons move receptors to their outer membrane during LTP,
> Wooten says. Bettina Winckler, a neuroscientist at the
> University of Virginia, Charlottesville, agrees. "This paper
> is like a jewel," says Winckler--or, perhaps, a
> well-engineered motor. "It all fits everything together so
> beautifully," she says.
>
> Source: Science
> http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/1031/1?etoc
>
> Posted by
> Robert Karl Stonjek
>
>
>

#15031 From: "Robert Karl Stonjek" <stonjek@...>
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2008 9:12 am
Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] News: Molecular Motor Tied to Memory
r_karl_s
Send Email Send Email
 
Chris Lofting
> The AI focus on "Confabulation Theory" (Google it, you will get refs and
> some videos) gets into this focus on motor etc - the 4K 'thalmocortical'
> columns equate with the IDM self-referencing dynamics where the "WHOLE" is
> divided into X 'categories' that get sorted 'best fit' to 'worst fit' for an
> experience. The number of actualised categories depends on the pressures to
> make distinctions as one adapts to context - the more distinctions the more
> categories available for 'precision' actions/memories/instincts/habits. -
> the shift from 2^6 categories to 2^12 categories reflects a property of
> hyperbolic development where the WHOLE of the current is applied to EACH
> part and so we see development of categories along the line of N^2 rather
> than 2^N (and so 8, 64, 4096 etc - equates with the dynamics of addition to
> multiplication to exponentiation to tetration (hyperbolic focus)).
RKS:
It appears to me that 'Confabulation Theory' is one member of a set of theories that confounds physical and functional elements of cognition.  Postulating a particular structure of the brain does not explain how the mind works (including cognition), it explains how the brain might work. 
 
But some other device may well arrive at the same functional solution from an entirely different structural base.
 
For these type of theories to hold water, a comprehensive model of mind and/or cognition needs to be completed first.  Then a comprehensive understanding of how the brain works must be established experimentally.  Only then can a complete model incorporating structure and function be considered ie to bring together the known function with the known structure.
 
Let's consider vision.  We not only see what is supplied by the eyes but also a filled in or truncated version of reality as the case may be.  So we may miss big changes in a visual scene, known as change blindness.  Or we may not consciously see a particular thing yet it still influences our behaviour.  Or we may think we see something that subsequent investigation finds was not there.  Or we may see motion where there is none.
 
All this shows us that the visual function and the processing of information from the eyes do not have a one to one correspondence - filled in material, visual contrivances and optical illusion are not generated by the light falling on the retina and may not occur in the visual area at all.
 
Robert

#15032 From: "chris lofting" <lofting@...>
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2008 10:36 am
Subject: RE: [Mind and Brain] News: Molecular Motor Tied to Memory
ddiamondaus
Send Email Send Email
 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MindBrain@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Robert Karl Stonjek
> Sent: Sunday, 2 November 2008 8:13 PM
> To: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] News: Molecular Motor Tied to Memory
>
> Chris Lofting
>
> > The AI focus on "Confabulation Theory" (Google it, you will
> get refs
> > and some videos) gets into this focus on motor etc - the 4K
> 'thalmocortical'
> > columns equate with the IDM self-referencing dynamics where the
> > "WHOLE" is divided into X 'categories' that get sorted
> 'best fit' to
> > 'worst fit' for an experience. The number of actualised categories
> > depends on the pressures to make distinctions as one adapts
> to context
> > - the more distinctions the more categories available for
> 'precision'
> > actions/memories/instincts/habits. - the shift from 2^6
> categories to
> > 2^12 categories reflects a property of hyperbolic development where
> > the WHOLE of the current is applied to EACH part and so we see
> > development of categories along the line of N^2 rather than
> 2^N (and
> > so 8, 64, 4096 etc - equates with the dynamics of addition
> to multiplication to exponentiation to tetration (hyperbolic focus)).
>
> RKS:
> It appears to me that 'Confabulation Theory' is one member of
> a set of theories that confounds physical and functional
> elements of cognition.  Postulating a particular structure of
> the brain does not explain how the mind works (including
> cognition), it explains how the brain might work.
>

So you believe mind is independent of brain? no need for such. What is
required is understanding the neural hierarchy and how different levels can
work semi-autonomously, as shown by direct example in the Emotional I Ching
work. Given this dynamic and the mediation role of consciousness so we see
consciousness emerge from a mix of high numbers of neurons together with
high levels of connectivities to bring out mediation abilities. The
emergence of analogy-making from self-referencing is given in the IDM
Categories of Mediation material - with the first 'language' being emotions
(we can consider the basic neurology as forming categories alone - it takes
DEPTH in that process of creation to generate analogy usage and so language
usage in the act of mediating)

> But some other device may well arrive at the same functional
> solution from an entirely different structural base.
>
> For these type of theories to hold water, a comprehensive
> model of mind and/or cognition needs to be completed first.
> Then a comprehensive understanding of how the brain works
> must be established experimentally.  Only then can a complete
> model incorporating structure and function be considered ie
> to bring together the known function with the known structure.
>
> Let's consider vision.  We not only see what is supplied by
> the eyes but also a filled in or truncated version of reality
> as the case may be.  So we may miss big changes in a visual
> scene, known as change blindness.  Or we may not consciously
> see a particular thing yet it still influences our behaviour.
>  Or we may think we see something that subsequent
> investigation finds was not there.  Or we may see motion
> where there is none.
>
> All this shows us that the visual function and the processing
> of information from the eyes do not have a one to one
> correspondence - filled in material, visual contrivances and
> optical illusion are not generated by the light falling on
> the retina and may not occur in the visual area at all.
>

Focus on sensation skips over the filtering system that sits in-between the
senses and our experiences. There is no direct experience of the essential
sensory data we use to derive meaning - there is analogue-to-digital
translation, AM to FM dynamics such that, from an AI perspective there is no
need for any focus on sensory systems re a 'meaning module' - the patterns
are present in the neurology and so the filtering systems - as synaesthesia
shows us, the mixing of sensory information channels can allow for visual
harmonics to be experienced as auditory harmonics and visa versa but the
meaning elicited is still categorised into meaning sensations, abstractions,
of wholeness, partness, static relatedness, dynamic relatedness. What is
considered 'whole' or 'part' is learnt from local context customisations but
the core sensations of such come out of the filtering.

The validity of this perspective (the IDM point of view) is in the ability
to trace basic categories derived from the neurology, through cognition and
emotion and into the properties/methods of our symbols and metaphors. There
is no sensory-based perspective that has done that to date since the focus
on sensory systems and meaning generation is false due to the experiences
being potentially 'false/confused' - what is consistent is the neurology
with its patterns of differentiating/integrating, FM/AM, pulse/wave
anti-symmetric/symmetric - and out of the middle of these asymmetric
dichotomies comes consciousness language in the role of mediating.

The adaptability of the neuron to any form of information processing brings
out its flexibility and lack of need for any sensory system 'bias' since
they all conform to patterns of differentiating/integrating as far as we are
concerned in describing such experiences. As such it is possible to build a
'meaning module' for ANY sensory system or set of such - it is this that
allows some to be deaf, dumb, and blind and yet still live some form of life
(e.g. discretisaton and amplification of gustatory/olfactory data etc etc)

The neuron existed well before we did and its robustness brings out its
success in managing the interface of life form with environment regardless
of the unique structure/process of a sensory system - since it all gets
transformed into frequencies/wavelengths/amplitudes 'in here' and that seeds
our meaning derivations through self-referencing.

The comprehensive IDM model on meaning derivation presents a 'comprehensive
understanding' of how the brain works at the generic levels of meaning
derivation and language development and it does so through references to a
wide range of material covering neurology, sensory systems, cognition and on
into symbol/metaphor creations to communicate with others. It brings out the
point that there is no need, from an AI system point of view, to mimic
sensory systems to elicit meaning where such meanings are forms of
analogy/metaphor, something built-in to the neurology (as shown in the
coverage on the Categories of Mediation work)

I made the reference to Confabulation Theory since IT focuses on motor
neurology practice/methods seeding thought and so covers what the original
paper covered re tie of motor dynamics and memory. What the ConFab people
have NOT done is extend their considerations into meaning generation in
general, something I HAVE done with the focus on a "Language of the Vague".
With the IDM template there is a 'plug n play' meaning system available for
any sensory system or collection of in communicating those experiences to
others - human or silicon;. IOW we have the foundations for giving AI
systems emotions and so a sense of 'meaning' ;-)

Chris.
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/introIDM.html

#15033 From: "Robert Karl Stonjek" <stonjek@...>
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2008 10:54 am
Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] News: Molecular Motor Tied to Memory
r_karl_s
Send Email Send Email
 
 
> > RKS:
> > It appears to me that 'Confabulation Theory' is one member of
> > a set of theories that confounds physical and functional
> > elements of cognition.  Postulating a particular structure of
> > the brain does not explain how the mind works (including
> > cognition), it explains how the brain might work. 
> > 
>
> So you believe mind is independent of brain? no need for such. What is
> required is understanding the neural hierarchy and how different levels can
> work semi-autonomously, as shown by direct example in the Emotional I Ching
> work. Given this dynamic and the mediation role of consciousness so we see
> consciousness emerge from a mix of high numbers of neurons together with
> high levels of connectivities to bring out mediation abilities. The
> emergence of analogy-making from self-referencing is given in the IDM
> Categories of Mediation material - with the first 'language' being emotions
> (we can consider the basic neurology as forming categories alone - it takes
> DEPTH in that process of creation to generate analogy usage and so language
> usage in the act of mediating)
>
RKS:
I said nothing whatsoever about the independence of the mind.  The mind is entirely dependant on the brain.  But more than one structure may contribute a particular function, and a particular function may be generated by different structures on various occasions.
 
There is no one-to-one correspondence between the handling of a car and the physical structure of a car.  If a car does not turn into a corner (oversteer) the handling effect may be caused by tyres, suspension, sub-chassis or steering.  But a fault in any one of those systems may cause the same effect because they all contribute to the car's ability to steer around a corner.
 
Likewise, depression can be caused physically as with illness, emotionally as with depression news such as death in the family, from circumstances such as loosing a job or being unable to get ahead, from low serotonin levels and so on.  Well being has many contributors.
 
So the mind can both be generated by the brain and yet have few one-to-one correspondences for particular functions.
 
You say as much here "so we see consciousness emerge from a mix of high numbers of neurons together with high levels of connectivities to bring out mediation abilities".
 
Robert
 
> > But some other device may well arrive at the same functional
> > solution from an entirely different structural base.
> > 
> > For these type of theories to hold water, a comprehensive
> > model of mind and/or cognition needs to be completed first. 
> > Then a comprehensive understanding of how the brain works
> > must be established experimentally.  Only then can a complete
> > model incorporating structure and function be considered ie
> > to bring together the known function with the known structure.
> > 
> > Let's consider vision.  We not only see what is supplied by
> > the eyes but also a filled in or truncated version of reality
> > as the case may be.  So we may miss big changes in a visual
> > scene, known as change blindness.  Or we may not consciously
> > see a particular thing yet it still influences our behaviour.
> >  Or we may think we see something that subsequent
> > investigation finds was not there.  Or we may see motion
> > where there is none.
> > 
> > All this shows us that the visual function and the processing
> > of information from the eyes do not have a one to one
> > correspondence - filled in material, visual contrivances and
> > optical illusion are not generated by the light falling on
> > the retina and may not occur in the visual area at all.
> > 
>
> Focus on sensation skips over the filtering system that sits in-between the
> senses and our experiences. There is no direct experience of the essential
> sensory data we use to derive meaning - there is analogue-to-digital
> translation, AM to FM dynamics such that, from an AI perspective there is no
> need for any focus on sensory systems re a 'meaning module' - the patterns
> are present in the neurology and so the filtering systems - as synaesthesia
> shows us, the mixing of sensory information channels can allow for visual
> harmonics to be experienced as auditory harmonics and visa versa but the
> meaning elicited is still categorised into meaning sensations, abstractions,
> of wholeness, partness, static relatedness, dynamic relatedness. What is
> considered 'whole' or 'part' is learnt from local context customisations but
> the core sensations of such come out of the filtering.
>
> The validity of this perspective (the IDM point of view) is in the ability
> to trace basic categories derived from the neurology, through cognition and
> emotion and into the properties/methods of our symbols and metaphors. There
> is no sensory-based perspective that has done that to date since the focus
> on sensory systems and meaning generation is false due to the experiences
> being potentially 'false/confused' - what is consistent is the neurology
> with its patterns of differentiating/integrating, FM/AM, pulse/wave
> anti-symmetric/symmetric - and out of the middle of these asymmetric
> dichotomies comes consciousness language in the role of mediating.
>
> The adaptability of the neuron to any form of information processing brings
> out its flexibility and lack of need for any sensory system 'bias' since
> they all conform to patterns of differentiating/integrating as far as we are
> concerned in describing such experiences. As such it is possible to build a
> 'meaning module' for ANY sensory system or set of such - it is this that
> allows some to be deaf, dumb, and blind and yet still live some form of life
> (e.g. discretisaton and amplification of gustatory/olfactory data etc etc)
>
> The neuron existed well before we did and its robustness brings out its
> success in managing the interface of life form with environment regardless
> of the unique structure/process of a sensory system - since it all gets
> transformed into frequencies/wavelengths/amplitudes 'in here' and that seeds
> our meaning derivations through self-referencing.
>
> The comprehensive IDM model on meaning derivation presents a 'comprehensive
> understanding' of how the brain works at the generic levels of meaning
> derivation and language development and it does so through references to a
> wide range of material covering neurology, sensory systems, cognition and on
> into symbol/metaphor creations to communicate with others. It brings out the
> point that there is no need, from an AI system point of view, to mimic
> sensory systems to elicit meaning where such meanings are forms of
> analogy/metaphor, something built-in to the neurology (as shown in the
> coverage on the Categories of Mediation work)
>
> I made the reference to Confabulation Theory since IT focuses on motor
> neurology practice/methods seeding thought and so covers what the original
> paper covered re tie of motor dynamics and memory. What the ConFab people
> have NOT done is extend their considerations into meaning generation in
> general, something I HAVE done with the focus on a "Language of the Vague".
> With the IDM template there is a 'plug n play' meaning system available for
> any sensory system or collection of in communicating those experiences to
> others - human or silicon;. IOW we have the foundations for giving AI
> systems emotions and so a sense of 'meaning' ;-)
>
> Chris.
>
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/introIDM.html
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
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#15034 From: "chris lofting" <lofting@...>
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2008 11:34 am
Subject: RE: [Mind and Brain] News: Molecular Motor Tied to Memory
ddiamondaus
Send Email Send Email
 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MindBrain@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Robert Karl Stonjek
> Sent: Sunday, 2 November 2008 9:55 PM
> To: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] News: Molecular Motor Tied to Memory
>
>
> > > RKS:
> > > It appears to me that 'Confabulation Theory' is one
> member of a set
> > > of theories that confounds physical and functional elements of
> > > cognition.  Postulating a particular structure of the
> brain does not
> > > explain how the mind works (including cognition), it explains how
> > > the brain might work.
> > >
> >
> > So you believe mind is independent of brain? no need for
> such. What is
> > required is understanding the neural hierarchy and how different
> > levels can work semi-autonomously, as shown by direct
> example in the
> > Emotional I Ching work. Given this dynamic and the
> mediation role of
> > consciousness so we see consciousness emerge from a mix of high
> > numbers of neurons together with high levels of connectivities to
> > bring out mediation abilities. The emergence of analogy-making from
> > self-referencing is given in the IDM Categories of
> Mediation material
> > - with the first 'language' being emotions (we can consider
> the basic
> > neurology as forming categories alone - it takes DEPTH in
> that process
> > of creation to generate analogy usage and so language usage
> in the act
> > of mediating)
> >
>
> RKS:
> I said nothing whatsoever about the independence of the mind.
>  The mind is entirely dependant on the brain.  But more than
> one structure may contribute a particular function, and a
> particular function may be generated by different structures
> on various occasions.
>

Sure - as we see in the EIC work covering the assessment of contexts by two
semi-independent entities in the neural hierarchy but with the 'last to
develop' showing high levels of precision in making an assessment and so
able to suppress/repress the concerns of sub/un-conscious in the form of
primary emotions where THEY function to look out for No1 through
instincts/habits but lack precision in doing so (and so in need of 'calming
down' at times!)

The consciousness level, in mediation mode and so high levels of
differentiation skills combined with socialisation dynamics (and so
including coverage of what is 'appropriate at this time'), brings out
frontal lobe/pfc dynamics as we mature from our 'primate' being to our
singular being as unique forms.

This then gets into McLean's Triune brain model and so covering
semi-independent activities from our reptilian, through mammalian, and on
into our neo-mammalian structures. His bias was Freudian and the
preservation-of-the-self/preservation-of-the-species dichotomy and the
dynamics of the neurology and behaviours does bring out a lot of
multi-tasking at work (Schore is doing work on ties of some psychoanalytic
perspectives to brain functions) and it is 'logical' for early experiences
to set down the foundations for later developments/expressions given the
energy-conserving nature of instincts/habits formation and so influence of
'first impressions'. From a Freud perspective, the social dynamics of
Austrian social classes circa late 19th century then seed interpretations
where some can be a touch 'imaginary' due to lack of understanding.

This social emphasis brings out the contribution of immediate social
consciousness upon the formation of personal consciousness and with the
differences in mental states between the more cooperative, collective,
natures vs the more competitive, individualisation, natures - and so my
previous coverage of language development and rich sense of self to form a
debating, critical, consciousness as compared to the less critical, more
environmentally 'integrated' but also dependent sense of self.

Thus we find evidence even in the deceptively simple EIC for what Freud
called a 'super-ego' - as we do for the sub/unconscious assessing we see
take place by our emotions and their instinctive focus on self-preservation
split into cooperative or competitive dynamics.

At the so-called ego level we find an influence of genetics in the formation
of a species member with specialisations. These are identified in such
typologies as the MBTI etc and knowledge of such by consciousness can force
a biasing to behaving to temperament! as such there is a dynamic across our
personal nature as a genetically-determined member of the species and our
personal nature as a socially-determined member of the local context; the
result being our singular nature as unique being. Thus we can detect the
Freudian grounded categories (or more so the formal focus on such) covering
superego, ego, and id (to this we add the Jungian sense of Self). Thus
observations of these distinctions has some value but the interpretations of
their dynamics needs a little work given we are now in the 21st century and
a little more 'refined' in our understandings of 'in here'.

Chris
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/introIDM.html

#15035 From: "JohnM" <jamikes@...>
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2008 2:08 pm
Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] consciousness & chemical combination
janosapu
Send Email Send Email
 
Tom,
interesting question.
-  Expands a bit on my 'down-to-bottom' ID of Ccness: the 'response to information' - the noun - now showing a similar situation with its adjective: 'conscious'.
Why not include the adjective into the 'noun' meaning-domain? Meaning: that conscious would be some sort of accepting *information* (which is in my vocabulary "the acceptance of a difference", rather than the meaningless 'bit').
(I definitely expand the generalized domain from 'human' - even animal - living -  into the entire totality of existence, with due identifications allowed for the special groups we may handle).
 
Now - in my mind - the continuation is stirring: what should I call 'acceptance'?
 
Easy: forming a relation(ship?). That can be paraphrased as 'collision' etc. in the lingo of physical natural sciences or any other (meaningless) term (energy, mass, living, etc.) which conventional sciences are using. I would not specify 'relation' at this early level of our thinking. Leave it open, until we learn more.
*
I had already 'my' definition of the "observer": the one that 'accepts' information, (see my extension above on 'accept' - be it a photon, or G.B.Shaw with anything in between that 'accepts' = undergoes relation-forming to the 'difference').
*
The Na 'atom(?)' and 'water(?)' exchange information(?) formulating a 'relationship' what we acknowledge by phenomena assigned as 'it burns into a chemically bound compound: [ NaOH ] and proceeds with completing the relation into a  gradually weakening 'hydration' - as we call it - into a diffuse (diminishing) [ hydrate sphere ] of the NaOH [compound molecule] within the surrounding water - by oriented [ H-O-H ]disks (molecules?) as the books say. Then the 'relational change is 'satisfied'  - (whatever that may mean) - they" call it 'equilibrium reached'. It is highly semantical.
*
Thanks, Tom, for scratching up some old memory-terms to kick me into translating them by my terms of the new thinking ways.
And please, if I may ask, sign your post.
 
John M
----- Original Message -----
From: tom9401
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2008 3:24 PM
Subject: [Mind and Brain] consciousness & chemical combination

When sodium and water are mixed together, or any two atoms that combine, when they actually do 'find' each other, is there a sense of each being conscious of the other?  I understand that chemistry has its own way of characterizing the situation, but why can't we say they are conscious of each other? Is there a sense of 'conscious' that characterizes the situation?  Yes, I've read about how the combination relates to the energy of the situation, but why do we attribute there knowing where each other is to the behavior of energy itself?

------------------------------------

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#15036 From: "JohnM" <jamikes@...>
Date: Sun Nov 2, 2008 2:50 pm
Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] Paper: Practicing a Musical Instrument in Childhood is Associated with Enhanced Verbal Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning
janosapu
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Chris,
 
I bow to your knowledge in the rock-etc. culture.
But you still try to express 'music' in the linguistically 'spoken' language means.
Chris:
"music will not feed the world,..."
it is not economic, political, etc. etc., so do not await from it irrelevant (practical in quotidian sense) goals.
"... it can aid in healing emotions but also can work as a distraction away from the work required to do more. ... "
See?
"...As such it an ALTERNATIVE and so runs in parallel to 'main stream' languages."
Maybe not 'alternative to' - but 'different from'. And it is a personally different way which one supersedes the other. If there is a 'background music' on TV I have a hard time to concentrate on the words (the main program).
Maybe my deficiency in rock etc.: I hear the ever repeating drum-led tunes and have less concentration (understanding?) on the 'words' in this 5th language I learned.
(And I would not call B. Bartok a 'baroque' - I knew him personally).
John
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2008 10:06 PM
Subject: RE: [Mind and Brain] Paper: Practicing a Musical Instrument in Childhood is Associated with Enhanced Verbal Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning



> -----Original Message-----
> From: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MindBrain@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of JohnM
> Sent: Saturday, 1 November 2008 9:35 AM
> To: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] Paper: Practicing a Musical
> Instrument in Childhood is Associated with Enhanced Verbal
> Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning
>
> Ha-ha, fellow 'musician'? (if you really call rock 'music' -
> some jazz maybe, indeed).

LOL! - my personal tastes are wide although when pushed a bias emerges to
progressive metal (tool, dream theater, pain of salvation, early genesis etc
etc etc - THEIR roots in Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple (the early years), Yes,
Cream, King Crimson (still going), Pink Floyd etc etc etc -- the Jazz bias
is to Bill Evens/Herbie Hancock/John Coltrane (the latter since I used to
play tenor and alto sax besides sing) - the classics bias to Baroc styles
(note the 'riff' and so sequencing bias overall here) but also progressive
classical (Paderewski etc)

> Category mistake you do: express one plane of aspects by
> another plane's means even more so than e.g. emotions by math
> formulae, or 'dancing away your static bridge-design' .
> Sorry for my initial remark: indeed rock maybe closer to the
> evolutionary origins of music (and dance?) than Bach or
> Scriabin. But the music of these and similar others is VERY
> precise AS MUSIC, not as 'words' to describe something of a
> different and totally unrelated domain.
> When I play I am absorbed in MUSIC and the world (Obama,
> Einstein, Garbo. etc.) are not even marginally present.


music will not feed the world, it can aid in healing emotions but also can
work as a distraction away from the work required to do more. As such it an
ALTERNATIVE and so runs in parallel to 'main stream' languages.

My mother's realm (as you can see in the website) was more cabaret style and
so influenced through female Jazz singers (for the last 15+ years of her
life my mother taught Jazz Vocal at the ANU's School of Music but when not
listening to Jazz she listened to classical) so I had exposure to that style
as well.

As for precision, I repeat, music is a "Language of the Vague" when compared
to spoken/written forms. If you are totally absorbed in the music and so
cannot differentiate text from context since all is 'one' then this issue of
precision will not be noticed as one is washed in emotional highs and lows
and all with some 'order' through sequencing. This play of serial and
parallel gives a holistic, organic, experience that then requires a lot of
prose to convert into clearly defined, precise meanings allowing for
communication of a musical pieces through spoken/written form - BUT that
prose brings out fine details not covered/identified in the 'total
experience' since that experience can be emotionally overwhelming and so
knock-out consciousness and its analytical nature.

This gets back to the original paper covered in the subject line where
TRAINING in music can aid in enhancing verbal and non-verbal reasoning since
it opens an alternative language channel that can seed development of
intuitions - and it does so easily through its focus on rhythm (sequencing)
mixed with pitch (magnitudes, emotional highs/lows etc)

Chris
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/introIDM.html



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#15037 From: "Robert Karl Stonjek" <stonjek@...>
Date: Tue Nov 4, 2008 1:52 am
Subject: News: Study Shows Brain Functions Same Way Awake or Asleep
r_karl_s
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Study Shows Brain Functions Same Way Awake or Asleep

(PhysOrg.com) -- Johns Hopkins researchers have found strong evidence supporting the view that the sleeping mind functions the same as the waking mind, a discovery that could significantly alter basic understanding of the normal and abnormal brain.

The evidence comes from a study, to appear online this month in the journal Human Brain Mapping, of 11 healthy male and female participants whose rapid eye movements (REM) in "dream" sleep were timed using a video camera. The REM tracking was accompanied by special MRI images designed to visualize brain activity.

Results revealed activity in areas of the brain that control sight, hearing, smell, touch, balance and body movements.

"This is the first time we have been able to detect brain activity associated with REM in areas that control senses other than sight," says lead researcher Charles Hong, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "After comparing our data to other studies on awake people, we learned that our findings lend great support to the view that the waking brain functions in a similar way."

Hong says this method may allow simultaneous examination of major brain systems that are activated when REMs occur and are reported to be abnormal in some psychiatric diseases.

In addition, Hong says, their method may be useful in people with Alzheimer's disease or schizophrenia and even infants. In awake studies, it's required that subjects follow instructions and perform tasks to stimulate brain activity, tasks that these groups might have difficulty completing.

Their method may also be useful in people with movement disorders like Parkinson's disease.

"Head movements can create false data in MRI studies," says Hong, "while conveniently, REM sleep greatly reduces muscle tone, thus head movements."

Finally, Hong says that in order to obtain reliable results from awake participants it would require studying multiple subjects.

"In contrast, only six minutes of MRI data from a single participant in our REM study produced robust results," says Hong.

He added that the ability to draw results from a single person permits researchers to compare results with other data that is specific to an individual.

"We can also analyze changes over time within a single person with a psychiatric disease. Our method may make a powerful tool to study the development of the brain starting from birth," he says.

Provided by Johns Hopkins University
http://www.physorg.com/news144952452.html
 
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

#15038 From: "Robert Karl Stonjek" <stonjek@...>
Date: Tue Nov 4, 2008 1:50 am
Subject: News: Brain slows at 40, starts body decline
r_karl_s
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Brain slows at 40, starts body decline

(AP) -- Think achy joints are the main reason we slow down as we get older? Blame the brain, too: The part in charge of motion may start a gradual downhill slide at age 40. How fast you can throw a ball or run or swerve a steering wheel depends on how speedily brain cells fire off commands to muscles. Fast firing depends on good insulation for your brain's wiring.

Now new research suggests that in middle age, even healthy people begin to lose some of that insulation in a motor-control part of the brain - at the same rate that their speed subtly slows.

That helps explain why "it's hard to be a world-class athlete after 40," concludes Dr. George Bartzokis, a neurologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who led the work.

And while that may sound depressing, keep reading. The research points to yet another reason to stay physically and mentally active: An exercised brain may spot fraying insulation quicker and signal for repair cells to get to work.

To Bartzokis, the brain is like the Internet. Speedy movement depends on bandwidth, which in the brain is myelin, a special sheet of fat that coats nerve fibers.

Healthy myelin - good thick insulation wound tightly around those nerve fibers - allows prompt conduction of the electrical signals the brain uses to send commands. Higher-frequency electrical discharges, known as "actional potentials," speed movement - any movement, from a basketball rebound to a finger tap.

Consider someone like Michael Jordan. "The circuitry that made him a great basketball player was probably myelinated better than most other mortals," Bartzokis notes.

But while myelin builds up during adolescence, when does production slow enough that we fall behind in the race to repair fraying, older insulation?

Enter the new research. First, Bartzokis recruited 72 healthy men, ages 23 to 80, to perform a simple test: How fast they tapped an index finger. Anyone can do this; it doesn't depend on strength or fitness.

Researchers counted how many taps the men made in 10 seconds, recording the two fastest of 10 attempts. Then, brain scans checked for myelin in need of repair in the region that orders a finger to tap.

Strikingly, tapping speed and myelin health both peaked at age 39. Then both gradually declined with increasing age, the researchers reported last month in the journal Neurobiology of Aging.

That doesn't mean the rest of the brain is equally affected. Bartzokis has some evidence that myelin starts to fray a decade or so later in brain regions responsible for cognitive functions - higher-level thinking - than in motor-control areas.

So back to his example of Jordan, who last played professionally at age 40: "Even he started getting older. That circuitry started breaking down a little," contends Bartzokis. "He can become Michael Jordan the big-shot businessman ... but not be Michael Jordan the super-duper basketball player anymore."

Bartzokis isn't looking to build a better athlete. His ultimate goal is to fight Alzheimer's disease. The connection: Building memories requires high-frequency electrical bursts, too, and Bartzokis' earlier research suggests an Alzheimer's-linked gene may thwart myelin repair.

But the new research has broader implications because it sheds light on normal aging, says Dr. Zoe Arvanitakis, a neurologist at Chicago's Rush University Medical Center.

"We knew at some age you peak and there's a sense it would disintegrate as you grow older. But we didn't have a sense of where that age would be," says Arvanitakis, who next wants to see if myelin and cognitive functions show a similar trajectory.

Bartzokis' research supports a recent report from German scientists, that with age comes a weakening of the system that's supposed to repair broken myelin, adds Dr. Bradley Wise of the National Institute on Aging.

"Any disruption in these neural circuits and networks will have problems for functioning," says Wise, who says the two reports are spurring increased interest into myelin's role in aging. Until recently, most myelin research has focused on multiple sclerosis, where myelin doesn't gradually degrade but disappears.

While much more research is needed, Bartzokis has some practical advice:

-Keeping active and treating high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes already are deemed important for good brain health. But physical and mental activity also may stimulate myelin repair, while unused neural pathways wouldn't send out a "help" signal, he says.

"Remember, these are average people I tested," Bartzokis says. "Someone that's really practicing could make it (myelin) last longer because you're sending the signals to repair, repair, repair."

-Stress hormones, however, may hurt myelin.

-He's also testing whether consumption of omega-3 fatty acids - the oils, found in fatty fish, already recommended for cardiovascular health - might help maintain myelin.

---

© 2008 The Associated Press.
 
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

#15039 From: "chris lofting" <lofting@...>
Date: Tue Nov 4, 2008 3:36 am
Subject: RE: [Mind and Brain] News: Study Shows Brain Functions Same Way Awake or Asleep
ddiamondaus
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:MindBrain@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Robert Karl Stonjek
> Sent: Tuesday, 4 November 2008 12:53 PM
> To: Cognitive NeuroScience; Mind and Brain; Psychiatry-Research
> Subject: [Mind and Brain] News: Study Shows Brain Functions
> Same Way Awake or Asleep
>
> Study Shows Brain Functions Same Way Awake or Asleep
>
> (PhysOrg.com) -- Johns Hopkins researchers have found strong
> evidence supporting the view that the sleeping mind functions
> the same as the waking mind, a discovery that could
> significantly alter basic understanding of the normal and
> abnormal brain.
>
>

duh! - research back in the 70s identified the REM cycle as general and so
reflected in awake states - IOW there is a 90/100 minute general oscillation
that is brought out in sleep studies. Combined with the brain's indifference
to imagine or real sensory experiences (lots of research on such going back
to early PET/cbf studies although true a lot was vision biased but
synaesthesia work brings out the sharing of neurons by sensory system data)
so the differences overall are in the blocking mechanism of 'living' a
dream.

The cycle brings out a general focus on classes of dreams where a dreaming
left side is logical, sequences, matter-of-fact formats and so
anti-symmetric to asymmetric, and the dreaming right side (REM) is reduced
in logic precision by being symmetry-focused and so excluding the
conditional of logic to present symmetric dynamics considered 'illogical' by
our awake consciousness. This difference in dream styles brings out the
sequencing(direction-setting, vectoring) vs magnitudes (sensory harmonics
eliciting emotional magnitudes, scalars) biases across the brain.
Self-reference the sequence/magnitudes dichotomy to elicit a range of
categories covering the mix of the elements.

Implicit in the cycle is that during a right-sided phase, general asymmetric
thinking will be biased to be more influenced by integrating but vague,
symmetry-focused, when compared to left-side phase where general asymmetric
thinking will be biased to more differentiating, precise,
anti-symmetry-focus.

The right-side bias in REM covers the realm of hypothesis 'storage' and a
sense of 'all is connected' lacking any direction and so all percolates and
'strange' associations possible but also possible insightful images. From a
computing perspective the right side symmetry bias brings out a RAM (random
access memory) as compared to the rigid serial focus of the left side that
give us local sense of direction('reason' etc).

The work of reasoning abilities brings out the right as DEDUCTIVE and so the
implication of stored facts/models from which to deduce. OTOH the left
reasoning bias is to INDUCTIVE/ABDUCTIVE reasoning and so
particular-to-general dynamics with an emphasis on risk, probabilities
thinking and so a partial, anti-symmetry bias that covers order and so LOCAL
integrations within a discrete form to make it all 'clear', logical, but
local.

With this focus on a right having a model of reality (with the basic model
being in the form of our set of instincts acquired from genetics) so this
covers a CLOSED system and so symmetric form open to amplification/damping
and so a topological dynamic brought out in emotional highs/lows that
distort the whole to make some point and so an overall general-to-particular
form of expression. This leads into the emerging of refined anti-symmetric
skills from the symmetry bias as this is brought out in early development
when context pressures elicit a swing from the early right hemisphere
dominance bias to the left where DETAILS analysis elicits discretisation
(positive feedback) and local context precision. With this dynamic we move
from the topological, monadic, perspective, to an increasingly mereological,
dyadic, perspective (differentiating to the point of the perception of
'breaking free' of the original 'whole' - as we do when we create symbols.

Mediation dynamics increases the focus on part/whole relationships that
include the confusion of parts as if wholes (and so emerges issues of
metonymy) where the asymmetry of mediation across these asymmetric
dichotomies allows for paradox experiences (high level mediation
oscillations elicited from trying to differentiate a 'whole' from a whole
where the perception is in fact an illusion.).

A feature of emotional communication, especially brought out through facial
expressions eliciting resonance in others, is the ability to communicate an
emotional magnitude WITHOUT an accompanying history - and so the
immediate/parallel is experienced without the delay/serial that grounds the
emotion and so we can experience an intense emotional state without it being
associated with a reason - IOW we can experience someone else's emotion
through resonance and, if the look etc is not questioned but the look
repeated, we start to resonate emotionally and try to seek some history,
real (ask) or imagined (unable to ask). Vivid dream states cover a focus on
emotion-painted images and the attempt to interpret such - to give the image
sequence, a history. If this DIRECTION setting mechanism is off-line or
'resting' then images can run riot with their emotional expression causing
large highs/lows in emotion experiences - but at the same time these times
of sequencing-at-rest allow for in-depth research onto these sorts of brain
states that cover sensory harmonics processing translated into emotional,
intense but historically vague or even apparently 'random' experiences.

The advantage of a well-developed consciousness is that its mediating skills
can 'calm the waters' of experiencing emotional resonance without an
accompanying history in that the interpreting ability allows one to imagine
a history and turn that into a 'fact' to aid in processing the emotion,
calming it down from its 'bull in a china shop' experience that can elicit,
in dreams, nightmares. This gets into the observation that 'talking cures'
work better for the over-educated (and so highly differentiated, high
distinction-making brains) where imagination and reality can form a hybrid
history to rationalise some extreme emotions apparently lacking a history
(or it is suppressed by the social aspect of consciousness)

This then moves us into the realm of dream interpretations where a
hodge-podge of images, some applicable to some experience, others derived
from random associations possible when the directing, sequencing, mechanisms
are at rest, can be analysed when awake to see if they have some history to
explain them.

The Emotional I Ching work brings out the emotion-loaded images of the
unconscious where such contain, compress, lots of details of some event
represented in that image, but also lacking in precision when compared to
what consciousness can do with its advanced resolution power. The dangers
here are in over-interpretations as well as imaginative interpretations, the
latter being in the form of randomly-generated images that have no
application but are interpreted as if they do and so forced to be
'meaningful' when not. This then gets into issues of experiencing the
real/imagined and so issues with such disorders as schizophrenia and the
manifest 'anomalies' of low level neurotransmitter dynamics where such could
be observed in sleep states.

Chris
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/introIDM.html

#15040 From: "Michael Cecil" <mececil@...>
Date: Tue Nov 4, 2008 1:10 pm
Subject: A New "Hard Problem" & the Three Dimensions of Consciousness
deadseascrolls1
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Current efforts regarding the development of a science of consciousness appear to be sharply restricted to a study of only the consciousness of the 'thinker', the origin of which can be traced to Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy. And this consciousness of the 'thinker' or the "self", or the 'mind" is approximately equivalent to what Freud would later call the "ego consciousness".

In other words, the fundamental assumption of Western philosophy, the scientific method, Western theology, and those who are attempting to develop, specifically, a science of consciousness is that there is, in fact, only one dimension of consciousness worthy of consideration; and that that consciousness can, itself, be described necessarily and completely from within its own frame of reference, which is thought (for example, cognitive philosophy, bio-chemistry, neurology, theology, etc).

As indicated in the opening passages of the Second Meditation, however, ("I feel as though I have all of a sudden fallen into deep water. I can no longer plant my foot on the bottom or swim on the surface.") there is, in fact, another dimension of consciousness which is not the consciousness of the 'thinker'; a second dimension of consciousness which is referred to by Western psychology as the 'unconscious'; something which emerges with the collapse of the consciousness of the 'thinker'.

But these words describing the immediate experiences of Descartes not only affirm the existence of a second dimension of consciousness--that is, the 'unconscious'. The very existence of these words, in and of themselves, demonstrates the existence of a third dimension of consciousness capable of describing the immediate experience of that 'unconscious'. And that consciousness is the "observing consciousness".

Thus, any *complete* description of human consciousness must include and address not only the consciousness of the 'thinker'-- which is the proper concern of, specifically, a science of consciousness (within and upon which the vast majority of the scientists of consciousness are currently focusing)--but, also, descriptions of both the 'unconscious' and the "observing consciousness" from the frame of reference not of thought or the consciousness of the 'thinker', but the "observing consciousness" itself.

A principal difference between the descriptions of and by the consciousness of the 'thinker' and the descriptions of and by the "observing consciousness" [through which the experience of the 'unconscious' is conveyed (as above, by Descartes)] occurs at the level of language itself; descriptions of and by the consciousness of the 'thinker' consisting of "thought" words (in relation to which it can be said that a person either "agree" or "disagrees", since this occurs at the level of thought), but descriptions of and by the "observing consciousness" consisting of "picture" (of which it can be said that a person either "sees" or does "not see" inasmuch as this occurs at the level of observation) words as conveyed by poetry, songs, parables, archetypal symbols in art and movies, in novels, in the Eastern esoteric descriptions of the mechanisms of consciousness, and in the Revelations (but not the theologies, which originate in thought) of the monotheistic religions.

Now, on the one hand, the consciousness of and by the 'thinker', which is described in "thought" words, and the experience of the 'unconscious', which is described in "picture" words, can, together, be referred to as the 'classical' consciousness'; that is, a consciousness which originates in the 'movement' of self-reflection and is at the very foundation of Cartesian philosophy, the scientific method, and Western psychology and theology; all of which originate in thought.

But, on the other hand, the third dimension of consciousness--that is, the "observing consciousness" --which, because it exists prior to both the 'movement' of self-reflection and the thought of the 'thinker', *must* be considered as independent from both the consciousness of the 'thinker' and the 'unconscious'.

This is the consciousness expressed and described in the writings and conversations of such Eastern esotericists as J. Krishnamurti, as well as in and by the Revelations of the monotheistic religions; a consciousness which is referred to in Genesis 1:27 as the consciousness Created 'by and in the image of God'; the implication of which being that that the 'classical' consciousness--that is, the consciousness of the 'thinker' and the 'unconscious'--is, in fact, a 'fallen' consciousness; a particular and *restricted* 'frame of reference' for the understanding of both the dimensions and the potentials of human consciousness itself.

In other words, in order to develop a more complete understanding of all of the dimensions of human consciousness, it is necessary to step outside of and beyond the boundaries of the fundamental metaphysical duality and the other metaphysical assumptions of the scientific method itself; and, in fact, to establish a new paradigm for the understanding of consciousness; a paradigm which includes both the Wisdom of the Eastern religions, the Knowledge concerning human consciousness Revealed in the monotheistic religions, and the knowledge conveyed in music, art, dance, and literature.

And, in this regard, the *new* 'hard problem' of consciousness is not in any way related to the 'hard problem' posed by David Chalmers--which, from the perspective of the "observing consciousness", is nothing more than a re-wording of the metaphysical duality itself (which is the origin of its power to hypnotize 'thinkers'); but, rather, the *determined* unwillingness of the consciousness of the 'thinker' to acknowledge the existence of not only one, but two additional dimensions of consciousness; and, thus, the severe limitations and restricted frame of reference of a "science of consciousness" originating in self-reflection and thought in the first place.

Additional information at:

http://science-of-consciousness.blogspot.com/


#15041 From: "Robert Karl Stonjek" <stonjek@...>
Date: Tue Nov 4, 2008 2:04 pm
Subject: News: How Signals Flow Between Neurons - New Research Explains Membrane Fusion At Synapse
r_karl_s
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How Signals Flow Between Neurons: New Research Explains Membrane Fusion At Synapse

ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2008) — Imagine a bathtub with two soap bubbles colliding but never fusing. Then you add detergent, and the surface of the water goes flat as the walls of the bubbles collapse and merge.

Dr. Christian Rosenmund, professor of neuroscience and molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, and graduate student Mingshan Xue use that analogy to describe the action of synaptotagmin-1, which acts to catalyze the fusion of the membranes of tiny neurotransmitter-filled bubbles called vesicles with the wall membrane of a neuron. This action allows signals to flow between neurons.

In a report in the current issue of Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, Rosenmund, Xue and colleagues from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas turn the notion of how synaptotagmin-1 accomplishes this task upside down, making an important step forward in understanding how synaptotagmin-1 accomplishes this task.

In fact, said Xue, bringing the two membranes together involves both the top and bottom of a key domain of the protein. He demonstrated this in a series of elegant experiments that validated the importance of the bottom of the domain.

"We are looking at the molecular mechanism of synaptic transmission or how neurons communicate in the brain," said Xue.

Previously, experts had thought that only the top areas of the so-called C2B domain of synaptotagmin-1 were involved in facilitating fast neurotransmitter release.

When the neuron is in a pre-synapse phase, it explodes in electrical activity that opens a channel allowing positively charged calcium ions to go to the balloon-shaped vesicles inside the presynapse to trigger the release of neurotransmitter. Transferring neurotransmitters from one neuron to another requires the fusion of the vesicle's membrane with its host plasma membrane. This allows the neurotransmitter to diffuse to the postsynaptic part of the synapse.

Neurons send and receive information via two structures that make up the synapse. On the sending site, the electrical activity of the neuron needs to be rapidly converted into a chemical signal via release of a hormone or neurotransmitter.

The trigger for this is the flux of calcium ions into the nerve terminal. The receiving neuron on the other site of the synapse detects the neurotransmitter via receptors and converts it again into electrical activity.

It takes no more than 1/1,000th of a second for this to occur. Neuroscientists are not only fascinated by this astonishing speed, but they also recognize that disturbing the speed of synaptic transmission has deleterious consequences on brain function and can lead to various diseases of the nervous system including schizophrenia, depression, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease.

Rosenmund and colleagues found that synaptotagmin-1 plays an important role in maintaining this speed. Bringing two fusing membranes close enough so that they fuse with each other is a crucial step in the process. The housekeeping machinery that accomplishes this in many biological processes is made up of the so-called SNARE proteins that form protein bundles across vesicle and plasma membranes, hurling the vesicle or balloon-like structure close to the membrane. While this process works very well, it is just too slow for synapses operating in a millisecond.

"That's where synaptotagmin-1 and calcium come into the game," said Rosenmund. "Its C2B domain binds at the top site to calcium ions, allowing the subsequent attachment to of the two membranes."

In their current work, Xue, Rosenmund and colleagues showed that the bottom of the C2B domain is also critical in bringing the membranes of the neuron together with the vesicle's membrane, allowing the release of neurotransmitter.

"Nature invented SNARE first to help the process," said Xue. "But that did not take into account the high demand of the neurons. When the calcium comes, we need a fast neurotransmitter release. Nature then invented synaptotagmin-1 to respond to the calcium. It's a trigger. The molecule is turned on and interacts with both membranes."

Others who took part in this research include Cong Ma, Timothy K. Craig and Josep Rizo of UT Southwestern at Dallas.

Funding for this work came from the Baylor College of Medicine Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Center and the National Institutes of Health.


Adapted from materials provided by Baylor College of Medicine, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Baylor College of Medicine (2008, November 3). How Signals Flow Between Neurons: New Research Explains Membrane Fusion At Synapse. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 5, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081029181617.htm
 
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

#15042 From: "Robert Karl Stonjek" <stonjek@...>
Date: Tue Nov 4, 2008 1:47 pm
Subject: Brain Table of Contents for November 2008; Vol. 131, No. 11
r_karl_s
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**************************ANNOUNCEMENT**********************

Brain Impact Factor Increases by 12%

In the recently released 2007 ISI Science Citation Index, Brain
increased its Impact Factor to 8.568* - an increase of 12% on
the 2006 figure of 7.617*. Ranked 3rd out of 146 journals in
Clinical Neurology, this reinforces its position as one of the
most highly cited journals in the field today.

For more information, visit http://www.oxfordjournals.org/page/3253/6

* 2007 and 2006 ISI Science Citation Index

**************************ANNOUNCEMENT**********************


Brain -- Table of Contents Alert

A new issue of Brain
has been made available:


November 2008; Vol. 131, No. 11

URL: http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/vol131/issue11/index.dtl?etoc



----------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial
----------------------------------------------------------------

  Alastair Compston
Editorial
Brain 2008 131: 2803-2804; doi:10.1093/brain/awn284.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/131/11/2803?etoc

----------------------------------------------------------------
From The Archives
----------------------------------------------------------------

  Alastair Compston
A mitochondrial myopathy characterised by a deficiency in reducible
cytochrome b. By JA Morgan-Hughes, P Darveniza, SN Kahn, DN Langdon, RM
Sherratt, JM Land and JB Clark (From the Institute of Neurology, Queen
Square, London WC1 and the Biochemistry Department, St Bartholomew's
Hospital Medical College, London EC1) Brain 1977; 100: 617-640.
Brain 2008 131: 2805-2808; doi:10.1093/brain/awn286.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/131/11/2805?etoc

----------------------------------------------------------------
Scientific Commentary
----------------------------------------------------------------

  Massimo Zeviani
Train, train, train! No pain, just gain
Brain 2008 131: 2809-2811; doi:10.1093/brain/awn264.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/131/11/2809?etoc

----------------------------------------------------------------
Review Article
----------------------------------------------------------------

  Barry S. Oken
Placebo effects: clinical aspects and neurobiology
Brain 2008 131: 2812-2823; doi:10.1093/brain/awn116.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2812?etoc

----------------------------------------------------------------
Original Articles
----------------------------------------------------------------

  Marie Louise Sveen, Tina D. Jeppesen, Simon Hauerslev, Lars Kober, Thomas
  O. Krag, and John Vissing
Endurance training improves fitness and strength in patients with Becker
muscular dystrophy
Brain 2008 131: 2824-2831; doi:10.1093/brain/awn189.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2824?etoc

  Julie L. Murphy, Emma L. Blakely, Andrew M. Schaefer, Langping He, Phil
  Wyrick, Ronald G. Haller, Robert W. Taylor, Douglass M. Turnbull, and
  Tanja Taivassalo
Resistance training in patients with single, large-scale deletions of
mitochondrial DNA
Brain 2008 131: 2832-2840; doi:10.1093/brain/awn252.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2832?etoc

  Alexandra Gotz, Pirjo Isohanni, Helena Pihko, Anders Paetau, Riitta
  Herva, Outi Saarenpaa-Heikkila, Leena Valanne, Sanna Marjavaara, and Anu
  Suomalainen
Thymidine kinase 2 defects can cause multi-tissue mtDNA depletion syndrome
Brain 2008 131: 2841-2850; doi:10.1093/brain/awn236.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2841?etoc

  Valerio Leoni, Caterina Mariotti, Sarah J. Tabrizi, Marta Valenza, Edward
  J. Wild, Susie M. D. Henley, Nicola Z. Hobbs, Maria Luisa Mandelli,
  Marina Grisoli, Ingemar Bjorkhem, Elena Cattaneo, and Stefano Di Donato
Plasma 24S-hydroxycholesterol and caudate MRI in pre-manifest and early
Huntington's disease
Brain 2008 131: 2851-2859; doi:10.1093/brain/awn212.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2851?etoc

  Marios Politis, Nicola Pavese, Yen F. Tai, Sarah J. Tabrizi, Roger A.
  Barker, and Paola Piccini
Hypothalamic involvement in Huntington's disease: an in vivo PET study
Brain 2008 131: 2860-2869; doi:10.1093/brain/awn244.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2860?etoc

  R. De Diego-Balaguer, M. Couette, G. Dolbeau, A. Durr, K. Youssov, and
  A.-C. Bachoud-Levi
Striatal degeneration impairs language learning: evidence from
Huntington's disease
Brain 2008 131: 2870-2881; doi:10.1093/brain/awn242.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2870?etoc

  Sigurros Davidsdottir, Robert Wagenaar, Daniel Young, and Alice
  Cronin-Golomb
Impact of optic flow perception and egocentric coordinates on veering in
Parkinson's disease
Brain 2008 131: 2882-2893; doi:10.1093/brain/awn237.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2882?etoc

  Jennifer C. Gidley Larson, Amy J. Bastian, Opher Donchin, Reza Shadmehr,
  and Stewart H. Mostofsky
Acquisition of internal models of motor tasks in children with autism
Brain 2008 131: 2894-2903; doi:10.1093/brain/awn226.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2894?etoc

  Niklas Lenfeldt, Anne Larsson, Lars Nyberg, Micael Andersson, Richard
  Birgander, Anders Eklund, and Jan Malm
Idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus: increased supplementary motor
activity accounts for improvement after CSF drainage
Brain 2008 131: 2904-2912; doi:10.1093/brain/awn232.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2904?etoc

  W. Ilg, M. A. Giese, E. R. Gizewski, B. Schoch, and D. Timmann
The influence of focal cerebellar lesions on the control and adaptation of
gait
Brain 2008 131: 2913-2927; doi:10.1093/brain/awn246.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2913?etoc

  Andreas Zwergal, Jean Buttner-Ennever, Thomas Brandt, and Michael Strupp
An ipsilateral vestibulothalamic tract adjacent to the medial lemniscus in
humans
Brain 2008 131: 2928-2935; doi:10.1093/brain/awn201.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2928?etoc

  Maartje M. L. de Win, Gerry Jager, Jan Booij, Liesbeth Reneman, Thelma
  Schilt, Cristina Lavini, Silvia D. Olabarriaga, Gerard J. den Heeten, and
  Wim van den Brink
Sustained effects of ecstasy on the human brain: a prospective
neuroimaging study in novel users
Brain 2008 131: 2936-2945; doi:10.1093/brain/awn255.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2936?etoc

  Maria-Salud Garcia-Ayllon, Omar Cauli, Maria-Ximena Silveyra, Regina
  Rodrigo, Asuncion Candela, Antonio Compan, Rodrigo Jover, Miguel
  Perez-Mateo, Salvador Martinez, Vicente Felipo, and Javier Saez-Valero
Brain cholinergic impairment in liver failure
Brain 2008 131: 2946-2956; doi:10.1093/brain/awn209.  Open Access
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2946?etoc

  David S. Knopman, Joel H. Kramer, Bradley F. Boeve, Richard J. Caselli,
  Neill R. Graff-Radford, Mario F. Mendez, Bruce L. Miller, and Nathaniel
  Mercaldo
Development of methodology for conducting clinical trials in
frontotemporal lobar degeneration
Brain 2008 131: 2957-2968; doi:10.1093/brain/awn234.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2957?etoc

  Stefan Kloppel, Cynthia M. Stonnington, Josephine Barnes, Frederick Chen,
  Carlton Chu, Catriona D. Good, Irina Mader, L. Anne Mitchell, Ameet C.
  Patel, Catherine C. Roberts, Nick C. Fox, Clifford R. Jack, Jr, John
  Ashburner, and Richard S. J. Frackowiak
Accuracy of dementia diagnosis--a direct comparison between radiologists
and a computerized method
Brain 2008 131: 2969-2974; doi:10.1093/brain/awn239.  Open Access
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2969?etoc

  Angela O. Ballantyne, Amy M. Spilkin, John Hesselink, and Doris A.
  Trauner
Plasticity in the developing brain: intellectual, language and academic
functions in children with ischaemic perinatal stroke
Brain 2008 131: 2975-2985; doi:10.1093/brain/awn176.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2975?etoc

  Miriam H. Beauchamp, Deanne K. Thompson, Kelly Howard, Lex W. Doyle, Gary
  F. Egan, Terrie E. Inder, and Peter J. Anderson
Preterm infant hippocampal volumes correlate with later working memory
deficits
Brain 2008 131: 2986-2994; doi:10.1093/brain/awn227.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2986?etoc

  Madeleine Fortin, Patrice Voss, Catherine Lord, Maryse Lassonde, Jens
  Pruessner, Dave Saint-Amour, Constant Rainville, and Franco Lepore
Wayfinding in the blind: larger hippocampal volume and supranormal spatial
navigation
Brain 2008 131: 2995-3005; doi:10.1093/brain/awn250.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/2995?etoc

  Yifat Glikmann-Johnston, Michael M. Saling, Jian Chen, Kimberlea A.
  Cooper, Richard J. Beare, and David C. Reutens
Structural and functional correlates of unilateral mesial temporal lobe
spatial memory impairment
Brain 2008 131: 3006-3018; doi:10.1093/brain/awn213.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/3006?etoc

  Ik-Hyun Cho, Jinpyo Hong, Eun Cheng Suh, Jae Hwan Kim, Hyunkyoung Lee,
  Jong Eun Lee, Soojin Lee, Chong-Hyun Kim, Dong Woon Kim, Eun-Kyeong Jo,
  Kyung Eun Lee, Michael Karin, and Sung Joong Lee
Role of microglial IKK{beta} in kainic acid-induced hippocampal neuronal
cell death
Brain 2008 131: 3019-3033; doi:10.1093/brain/awn230.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/3019?etoc

  Jana Fassunke, Michael Majores, Achim Tresch, Pitt Niehusmann, Alexander
  Grote, Susanne Schoch, and Albert J. Becker
Array analysis of epilepsy-associated gangliogliomas reveals expression
patterns related to aberrant development of neuronal precursors
Brain 2008 131: 3034-3050; doi:10.1093/brain/awn233.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/3034?etoc

  Teresa Sevilla, Teresa Jaijo, Dolores Nauffal, Diego Collado, Maria Jose
  Chumillas, Juan J. Vilchez, Nuria Muelas, Luis Bataller, Rosalia
  Domenech, Carmen Espinos, and Francesc Palau
Vocal cord paresis and diaphragmatic dysfunction are severe and frequent
symptoms of GDAP1-associated neuropathy
Brain 2008 131: 3051-3061; doi:10.1093/brain/awn228.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/3051?etoc

  Karl Ng, James Howells, John D. Pollard, and David Burke
Up-regulation of slow K+ channels in peripheral motor axons: a
transcriptional channelopathy in multiple sclerosis
Brain 2008 131: 3062-3071; doi:10.1093/brain/awn180.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/3062?etoc

  S. Jarius, F. Aboul-Enein, P. Waters, B. Kuenz, A. Hauser, T. Berger, W.
  Lang, M. Reindl, A. Vincent, and W. Kristoferitsch
Antibody to aquaporin-4 in the long-term course of neuromyelitis optica
Brain 2008 131: 3072-3080; doi:10.1093/brain/awn240.  Open Access
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/3072?etoc

  Laura Piccio, Cecilia Buonsanti, Marina Cella, Ilaria Tassi, Robert E.
  Schmidt, Chiara Fenoglio, John Rinker, II, Robert T. Naismith, Paola
  Panina-Bordignon, Nadia Passini, Daniela Galimberti, Elio Scarpini, Marco
  Colonna, and Anne H. Cross
Identification of soluble TREM-2 in the cerebrospinal fluid and its
association with multiple sclerosis and CNS inflammation
Brain 2008 131: 3081-3091; doi:10.1093/brain/awn217.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/3081?etoc

  David Wheeler, Veera Venkata Ratnam Bandaru, Peter A. Calabresi, Avindra
  Nath, and Norman J. Haughey
A defect of sphingolipid metabolism modifies the properties of normal
appearing white matter in multiple sclerosis
Brain 2008 131: 3092-3102; doi:10.1093/brain/awn190.  Open Access
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/11/3092?etoc

----------------------------------------------------------------
Book Review
----------------------------------------------------------------

  Raymond Tallis
A foxed mirror
Brain 2008 131: 3103-3107; doi:10.1093/brain/awn205.
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/131/11/3103?etoc

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek


_______________________________________________________________________
Copyright (c) 2008 by the Guarantors of Brain.

#15043 From: Mark Peaty <mpeaty@...>
Date: Tue Nov 4, 2008 3:50 pm
Subject: Re:[Mind and Brain] News: Are You Evil? Ethics versus shibbolethics Profiling That Which Is Truly Wicked
markpeaty
Send Email Send Email
 
 Hi John,

I would like to clarify how I use words around this potentially tricky area of discourse.
By ethics I mean the true study of right and wrong, i.e. the search for a universally useful basic understanding. I think by definition it has to be a question of choice because if not, how could anyone either accept or ascribe true responsibility. But it is not rocket science; the stumbling block for most people juts out from their belief that religious morality is the same thing as ethics. I believe however that in the modern era asserting a particular brand of religious moral prescription to be "the" true ethical position is pretty much indefensible. To make this point I contrast "ethics" - the study of right and wrong, with "shibbolethics" - the assertion of the dogmas of a particular religion or social tradition.

I owe homage to the English author Terry Pratchett for showing the clear and simple idea that "there is only one sin: and that is to treat another human being as a thing!"  [One of his characters - a witch called Granny Weatherwax - tells this to a fundamentalist disciple of the god "Om" during a fireside chat, in the novel Carpe Juggulem.] A little thought then shows clearly that the essence of evil is to treat a person as a thing. I think also this includes oneself amongst all the persons that one can meet.

The religionists can protest all they like, but I have yet to see clear and unambiguous evidence supporting the idea that uncritical belief in a deity is intrinsically good. And neither have
I seen any respectable demonstration of how reference to some kind of supernatural being adds anything of value to the question of what is good and bad or what is worthy versus unworthy conduct for a civilised human being.

NB: For the curious - the derivation of the word 'shibboleth' in its modern usage can be found:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges%2012:4,5,6;&version=31  [though maybe that website is a bit off colour at the moment]

Regards

Mark Peaty  CDES
mpeaty@...
http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/


JohnM wrote:
>
> RegardsMark, nice hogwash. But I like it, never thought it this way.
> Thanks. My hogwash: Evil is a behavior (Glen???) contrary to the
> appreciative maxims of a given culture. Contrary (in this respect!)
> to ethical/moral, which also are culture-defined. Religions belong to
> (or form) certain cultures and so their definition is different. John


#15044 From: "Robert Karl Stonjek" <stonjek@...>
Date: Wed Nov 5, 2008 3:03 am
Subject: News: Brain recognises verbal 'Oh-shit' wave
r_karl_s
Send Email Send Email
 
Brain recognises verbal 'Oh-shit' wave

It seems that our brain can correct speech errors in the same way that it controls other forms of behaviour. Niels Schiller and Lesya Ganushchak, NWO researchers in Leiden, made this discovery while studying how the brain reacts to verbal errors. This research can contribute to improvements in the treatment of people who have problems with speaking or in understanding language.

Our brain is fairly good at preventing mistakes in speech. Unfortunately it does make the odd mistake. George W. Bush, famous for his verbal errors, made the mistake of referring to weapons of 'mass production' instead of 'mass destruction'. Former UK deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, had the same problem when he spoke of solving industrial disputes through 'meditation' instead of 'mediation'.

To see how the brain reacts to these kinds of mistakes, Schiller and Ganushchak asked volunteers to indicate whether or not certain sounds were in the words matching different pictures. So, for example, when shown a picture of a spoon, the volunteer was required to indicate whether or not a 'p' was in the word. This does not usually give any problems, but under pressure, when given less time, the volunteers make more mistakes. They then indicate for example that there is an 'f' in the word 'spoon' or that there is no 'p' in 'spoon'.

The researchers showed that the brain responds to such faulty utterances with a specific electrophysiological signal. It was already known that this wave occurs when making behavioural errors, such as pressing a wrong button by accident. This wave, called Error-Related Negativity, is informally known as the 'Oh-shit' wave. The brain registers at once that something is amiss.

The most important conclusion of the study is that the way in which the brain uses language is not fundamentally different from how other actions such as grabbing or walking are carried out. The 'Oh-shit' wave registers errors so rapidly that they can sometimes be corrected in time. In this way you can stop yourself from falling down the stairs or saying the wrong thing.

The results of this research provide a better understanding of the brain and how it processes languages. Such new insights into the mechanisms that affect speech can help to improve therapy methods for people with language impairments.

This study is part of a broader research project that attempts to analyse the working of the brain when using language. Niels Schiller set up the project in 2003 with a grant from NWO’s Vici programme. Lesya Ganushchak, who was a PhD student on that project, received a grant herself in 2008 from NWO’s Rubicon programme aimed at gaining experience abroad.

Source: NWO
http://www.physorg.com/news145022299.html
 
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

#15045 From: "Robert Karl Stonjek" <stonjek@...>
Date: Wed Nov 5, 2008 3:06 am
Subject: News: Research shows that time invested in practicing pays off for young musicians
r_karl_s
Send Email Send Email
 
Research shows that time invested in practicing pays off for young musicians
http://www.physorg.com/news145024134.html
 
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

A Harvard-based study published October 29 in the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE, led by Drs. Gottfried Schlaug and Ellen Winner has found that children who study a musical instrument for at least three years outperform children with no instrumental training—not only in tests of auditory discrimination and finger dexterity (skills honed by the study of a musical instrument), but also on tests measuring verbal ability and visual pattern completion (skills not normally associated with music).

41 eight- to eleven-year-olds who had studied either piano or a string instrument for a minimum of three years were compared to 18 children who had no instrumental training. Children in both groups spent 30-40 minutes per week in general music classes at school, but those in the instrumental group also received private lessons learning an instrument (averaging 45 minutes per week) and spent additional time practicing at home.

While it is no surprise that the young musicians scored significantly higher than those in the control group on two skills closely related to their music training (auditory discrimination and finger dexterity), the more surprising result was that they also scored higher in two skills that appear unrelated to music—verbal ability (as measured by a vocabulary IQ test) and visual pattern completion (as measured by the Raven's Progressive Matrices). And furthermore, the longer and more intensely the child had studied his or her instrument, the better he or she scored on these tests.

Studying an instrument thus seems to bring benefits in areas beyond those that are specifically targeted by music instruction, but that is not the end of the story. Although this research sheds light on the question of whether connections between music and other, unrelated skills do exist, more studies examining the causal relationships between instrumental music training, practice intensity, and cognitive enhancements are needed.

Citation: Forgeard M, Winner E, Norton A, Schlaug G (2008) Practicing a Musical Instrument in Childhood is Associated with Enhanced Verbal Ability and Nonverbal Reasoning. PLoS ONE 3(10): e3566. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003566
http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0003566

Source: Public Library of Science

#15046 From: "JohnM" <jamikes@...>
Date: Tue Nov 4, 2008 10:48 pm
Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] News: How Signals Flow Between Neurons - New Research Explains Membrane Fusion At Synapse
janosapu
Send Email Send Email
 
RKS,
 
I do not argue with the messenger. You reported about 'savants' who draw conclusions on unknown processes (mind? brain in thinking? etc.) based upon a part of the 'material' science - I mean the part we already know of.
Membranes are tricky, there are materialized layers and even ad hoc forming effect-spheres that come and go, but do influence transition by quite different effects.
I was surprised how our own 'bipolar' membranes behaved, and those were of the first type only.
Polarities are just poorly identified names, they do a lot in biology/physiology.
 
I am always sorry when honest researchers draw universal conclusions upon partial observations on semi-understood phenomena. It may interfere with advancement.
Some more humble conclusions may mean more to me, but that's not important.
Please, keep reporting, I learned a lot from your extracts.
 
John M
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 9:04 AM
Subject: [Mind and Brain] News: How Signals Flow Between Neurons - New Research Explains Membrane Fusion At Synapse

How Signals Flow Between Neurons: New Research Explains Membrane Fusion At Synapse

ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2008) — Imagine a bathtub with two soap bubbles colliding but never fusing. Then you add detergent, and the surface of the water goes flat as the walls of the bubbles collapse and merge.

Dr. Christian Rosenmund, professor of neuroscience and molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, and graduate student Mingshan Xue use that analogy to describe the action of synaptotagmin-1, which acts to catalyze the fusion of the membranes of tiny neurotransmitter-filled bubbles called vesicles with the wall membrane of a neuron. This action allows signals to flow between neurons.

In a report in the current issue of Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, Rosenmund, Xue and colleagues from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas turn the notion of how synaptotagmin-1 accomplishes this task upside down, making an important step forward in understanding how synaptotagmin-1 accomplishes this task.

In fact, said Xue, bringing the two membranes together involves both the top and bottom of a key domain of the protein. He demonstrated this in a series of elegant experiments that validated the importance of the bottom of the domain.

"We are looking at the molecular mechanism of synaptic transmission or how neurons communicate in the brain," said Xue.

Previously, experts had thought that only the top areas of the so-called C2B domain of synaptotagmin-1 were involved in facilitating fast neurotransmitter release.

When the neuron is in a pre-synapse phase, it explodes in electrical activity that opens a channel allowing positively charged calcium ions to go to the balloon-shaped vesicles inside the presynapse to trigger the release of neurotransmitter. Transferring neurotransmitters from one neuron to another requires the fusion of the vesicle's membrane with its host plasma membrane. This allows the neurotransmitter to diffuse to the postsynaptic part of the synapse.

Neurons send and receive information via two structures that make up the synapse. On the sending site, the electrical activity of the neuron needs to be rapidly converted into a chemical signal via release of a hormone or neurotransmitter.

The trigger for this is the flux of calcium ions into the nerve terminal. The receiving neuron on the other site of the synapse detects the neurotransmitter via receptors and converts it again into electrical activity.

It takes no more than 1/1,000th of a second for this to occur. Neuroscientists are not only fascinated by this astonishing speed, but they also recognize that disturbing the speed of synaptic transmission has deleterious consequences on brain function and can lead to various diseases of the nervous system including schizophrenia, depression, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease.

Rosenmund and colleagues found that synaptotagmin-1 plays an important role in maintaining this speed. Bringing two fusing membranes close enough so that they fuse with each other is a crucial step in the process. The housekeeping machinery that accomplishes this in many biological processes is made up of the so-called SNARE proteins that form protein bundles across vesicle and plasma membranes, hurling the vesicle or balloon-like structure close to the membrane. While this process works very well, it is just too slow for synapses operating in a millisecond.

"That's where synaptotagmin-1 and calcium come into the game," said Rosenmund. "Its C2B domain binds at the top site to calcium ions, allowing the subsequent attachment to of the two membranes."

In their current work, Xue, Rosenmund and colleagues showed that the bottom of the C2B domain is also critical in bringing the membranes of the neuron together with the vesicle's membrane, allowing the release of neurotransmitter.

"Nature invented SNARE first to help the process," said Xue. "But that did not take into account the high demand of the neurons. When the calcium comes, we need a fast neurotransmitter release. Nature then invented synaptotagmin-1 to respond to the calcium. It's a trigger. The molecule is turned on and interacts with both membranes."

Others who took part in this research include Cong Ma, Timothy K. Craig and Josep Rizo of UT Southwestern at Dallas.

Funding for this work came from the Baylor College of Medicine Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Center and the National Institutes of Health.


Adapted from materials provided by Baylor College of Medicine, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Baylor College of Medicine (2008, November 3). How Signals Flow Between Neurons: New Research Explains Membrane Fusion At Synapse. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 5, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081029181617.htm
 
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

#15047 From: "JohnM" <jamikes@...>
Date: Tue Nov 4, 2008 11:18 pm
Subject: Re: Re:[Mind and Brain] News: Are You Evil? Ethics versus shibbolethics Profiling That Which Is Truly Wicked
janosapu
Send Email Send Email
 
Sorry, Mark, I was too concise. Did not want to use too many "words" (I know they just tease you).
Good or bad? for whom? in what respect? Is the cattle bad to eat off the greens from a flowering meadow and thus preventing its proliferation, or good that later on it lays its dung on the same meadow to proliferate its growth? Or do you consider these terms ONLY in our present (societal? personal?) human evaluation? (cf.: Pratchett). Sin????
Were the blue-green algae 'bad' to poison the atmosphere with oxygen and kill all the anaerobics from the surface, or 'good' to prepare for us our habitat?
Morality is make-believe, ethics is a temporary belief, and the religious norms are GOOD for the religions. Politically exploitable forced on the faithful.
What leaves me in the open: what kind of consideration MAY secure our society to live together, to get happy, to feel good and survive?
Maybe we are not at the level where 'decency' keeps the world in balance? Maybe we need the reins of brutal stupidity to keep humanity alive? Laws and punishments?
 
Well, these are our problems. Nature says in our world: dine or be dined. Happiness exists only in the degenerate human mind and the US Constitution. Religions put it into the 'eternity' of the 'afterlife' in their fables, not explaining that eternity is 'null', -
a-temporal, with no duration at all. Not 30,000+ years.
And the supernatural authority can authorize misdeeds upon fellow humans that no sane person would otherwise do (stake-burning, stoning, killing of abortion-drs, etc.).
So I am not with you in the good/bad and ethical/moral morass.
 
That you can live with, I suppose.
John M
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Peaty
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 10:50 AM
Subject: Re:[Mind and Brain] News: Are You Evil? Ethics versus shibbolethics Profiling That Which Is Truly Wicked

 Hi John,

I would like to clarify how I use words around this potentially tricky area of discourse.
By ethics I mean the true study of right and wrong, i.e. the search for a universally useful basic understanding. I think by definition it has to be a question of choice because if not, how could anyone either accept or ascribe true responsibility. But it is not rocket science; the stumbling block for most people juts out from their belief that religious morality is the same thing as ethics. I believe however that in the modern era asserting a particular brand of religious moral prescription to be "the" true ethical position is pretty much indefensible. To make this point I contrast "ethics" - the study of right and wrong, with "shibbolethics" - the assertion of the dogmas of a particular religion or social tradition.

I owe homage to the English author Terry Pratchett for showing the clear and simple idea that "there is only one sin: and that is to treat another human being as a thing!"  [One of his characters - a witch called Granny Weatherwax - tells this to a fundamentalist disciple of the god "Om" during a fireside chat, in the novel Carpe Juggulem.] A little thought then shows clearly that the essence of evil is to treat a person as a thing. I think also this includes oneself amongst all the persons that one can meet.

The religionists can protest all they like, but I have yet to see clear and unambiguous evidence supporting the idea that uncritical belief in a deity is intrinsically good. And neither have
I seen any respectable demonstration of how reference to some kind of supernatural being adds anything of value to the question of what is good and bad or what is worthy versus unworthy conduct for a civilised human being.

NB: For the curious - the derivation of the word 'shibboleth' in its modern usage can be found:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges%2012:4,5,6;&version=31  [though maybe that website is a bit off colour at the moment]

Regards

Mark Peaty  CDES
mpeaty@...
http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/


JohnM wrote:
>
> RegardsMark, nice hogwash. But I like it, never thought it this way.
> Thanks. My hogwash: Evil is a behavior (Glen???) contrary to the
> appreciative maxims of a given culture. Contrary (in this respect!)
> to ethical/moral, which also are culture-defined. Religions belong to
> (or form) certain cultures and so their definition is different. John


#15048 From: "JohnM" <jamikes@...>
Date: Wed Nov 5, 2008 2:15 pm
Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] News: Brain recognises verbal 'Oh-shit' wave
janosapu
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Brain recognises verbal 'Oh-shit' wave
Ever heard about fast reflexes? who established the speed-units in classical physics to be a norm for the thought (mentality, call it mind, the a-temporal, a-spatial something the brain is working with (for?) - ?
Then again: does the "brain" compare spelling variations as well, to make a difference between 'shit', 'shot', 'shut' - in speech: 'shoot' and 'sheet'? how about the "brains" of Orientals ore Hebrew-Arab where vowels are not marked so well?
Robert, - again - this is not addressing the messenger
 
John M
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 10:03 PM
Subject: [Mind and Brain] News: Brain recognises verbal 'Oh-shit' wave


It seems that our brain can correct speech errors in the same way that it controls other forms of behaviour. Niels Schiller and Lesya Ganushchak, NWO researchers in Leiden, made this discovery while studying how the brain reacts to verbal errors. This research can contribute to improvements in the treatment of people who have problems with speaking or in understanding language.

Our brain is fairly good at preventing mistakes in speech. Unfortunately it does make the odd mistake. George W. Bush, famous for his verbal errors, made the mistake of referring to weapons of 'mass production' instead of 'mass destruction'. Former UK deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, had the same problem when he spoke of solving industrial disputes through 'meditation' instead of 'mediation'.

To see how the brain reacts to these kinds of mistakes, Schiller and Ganushchak asked volunteers to indicate whether or not certain sounds were in the words matching different pictures. So, for example, when shown a picture of a spoon, the volunteer was required to indicate whether or not a 'p' was in the word. This does not usually give any problems, but under pressure, when given less time, the volunteers make more mistakes. They then indicate for example that there is an 'f' in the word 'spoon' or that there is no 'p' in 'spoon'.

The researchers showed that the brain responds to such faulty utterances with a specific electrophysiological signal. It was already known that this wave occurs when making behavioural errors, such as pressing a wrong button by accident. This wave, called Error-Related Negativity, is informally known as the 'Oh-shit' wave. The brain registers at once that something is amiss.

The most important conclusion of the study is that the way in which the brain uses language is not fundamentally different from how other actions such as grabbing or walking are carried out. The 'Oh-shit' wave registers errors so rapidly that they can sometimes be corrected in time. In this way you can stop yourself from falling down the stairs or saying the wrong thing.

The results of this research provide a better understanding of the brain and how it processes languages. Such new insights into the mechanisms that affect speech can help to improve therapy methods for people with language impairments.

This study is part of a broader research project that attempts to analyse the working of the brain when using language. Niels Schiller set up the project in 2003 with a grant from NWO’s Vici programme. Lesya Ganushchak, who was a PhD student on that project, received a grant herself in 2008 from NWO’s Rubicon programme aimed at gaining experience abroad.

Source: NWO
http://www.physorg.com/news145022299.html
 
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

#15049 From: "mkaitlyn30" <mkaitlyn30@...>
Date: Wed Nov 5, 2008 3:38 pm
Subject: Re: News: Research shows that time invested in practicing pays off for young mus
mkaitlyn30
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verbal ability (as measured by a vocabulary IQ test) and visual pattern
completion

K:  there is rhythm and pitch in language, as well as syntax.  If you haven't
read Bernstein's Six Talks at Harvard, you might find them interesting.

Reading music requires recognition and reproduction of visual patterns.  Visual
patterns are hooked into motor patterns and sound patterns.  Composition and
development of motifs (a combination of a brief rhythm pattern with a pitch
shape) works intensely with this.  Species counterpoint works with shape, and
Siegmeister has a chapter in his theory book on the most common melodic thinking
( all voices-lines have their own kind of melody) shapes composers use. 
Principles of counterpoint underlie all music, not just Bach.  You might want to
check out Salzer and Schacter "Counterpoint in Composition".

I really hope that somebody who knows music quite well works with a scientist to
do this important research.


--- In MindBrain@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Karl Stonjek" <stonjek@...> wrote:
>
> Research shows that time invested in practicing pays off for young musicians
>
> A Harvard-based study published October 29 in the online, open-access journal
PLoS
ONE, led by Drs. Gottfried Schlaug and Ellen Winner has found that children who
study a
musical instrument for at least three years outperform children with no
instrumental
training-not only in tests of auditory discrimination and finger dexterity
(skills honed by
the study of a musical instrument), but also on tests measuring verbal ability
and visual
pattern completion (skills not normally associated with music).
>
<Snip>
Reasoning. PLoS ONE 3(10): e3566. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003566
> http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0003566
>
> Source: Public Library of Science
> http://www.physorg.com/news145024134.html
>
> Posted by
> Robert Karl Stonjek
>

#15050 From: "tom9401" <otmar.pokorny@...>
Date: Wed Nov 5, 2008 4:18 pm
Subject: Re: A New "Hard Problem" & the Three Dimensions of Consciousness
tom9401
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--- In MindBrain@yahoogroups.com, "Michael Cecil" <mececil@...> wrote:> Current
efforts regarding the development of a science of consciousness
> appear to be sharply restricted to a study of only the consciousness of
> the 'thinker', the origin of which can be traced to Descartes'
> Meditations on First Philosophy. And this consciousness of the 'thinker'
> or the "self", or the 'mind" is approximately equivalent to what Freud
> would later call the "ego consciousness".

Ego is a part of the action of being and consciousness. It is an offshoot of the
conscious mind, it is a psychological structure. But, the ego and the conscious
mind are not the same thing.  In certain terms, the ego is the eye through which
the conscious mind perceives. It looks outward from the physical body. It is our
idea of our physical image in relation to the physical world. Our self-image is
not unconscious. Thus, we use ego consciousness to manipulate the everyday
world.

To some extent the development of consciousness follows the development of the
god's through the ages. When, in historic terms, the human race was in the
process of adopting an artificial separation of itself from the rest of nature,
it took upon itself individual focus (ego consciousness). Rising ego
consciousness had its religious reasons for domination and control. The pope
became God the father personified. Christ, historically speaking, altered the
local Jew-god  (Yahweh/ Jehovah) and ended up destroying the Roman Empire.

>
> In other words, the fundamental assumption of Western philosophy, the
> scientific method, Western theology, and those who are attempting to
> develop, specifically, a science of consciousness is that there is, in
> fact, only one dimension of consciousness worthy of consideration; and
> that that consciousness can, itself, be described necessarily and
> completely from within its own frame of reference, which is thought (for
> example, cognitive philosophy, bio-chemistry, neurology, theology, etc).

Yes, current science is based on ego consciousness, as I described above. This
is not a criticism however, but it is a fulcrum on which we can turn our
attention to issues that Michael is now concerned with.

>
>
> Thus, any *complete* description of human consciousness must include and
> address not only the consciousness of the 'thinker'-- which is the
> proper concern of, specifically, a science of consciousness (within and
> upon which the vast majority of the scientists of consciousness are
> currently focusing)--but, also, descriptions of both the 'unconscious'
> and the "observing consciousness" from the frame of reference not of
> thought or the consciousness of the 'thinker', but the "observing
> consciousness" itself.

I take what Michael calls 'observing consciousness' to be what others call our
soul.
Observing consciousness observes the experience of our physical selves through
the auspices of our conscious mind via ego consciousness.

>

>...but descriptions of and by the "observing
> consciousness" consisting of "picture" (of which it can be said that a
> person either "sees" or does "not see" inasmuch as this occurs at the
> level of observation) words as conveyed by poetry, songs, parables,
> archetypal symbols in art and movies, in novels, in the Eastern esoteric
> descriptions of the mechanisms of consciousness, and in the Revelations
> (but not the theologies, which originate in thought) of the monotheistic
> religions.

Feeling is the language of the soul. Thought and feelings are not the same,
although they can occur at the same time. In communicating with observing
consciousness, we (as our ego consciousness) are aware of images and pictures.
For this reason, thoughts are more effective communicators than mere words.
Feelings, images and pictures, songs express the observations of observing
consciousness. The reason poetry, songs, parables etc. are often so pleasurable,
so joy inspiring, is because they are tuned to our souls, and tuned to truth.
The truths of art give us our highest thoughts, our grandest feelings, and our
clearest words.  One can, for example, be carried away by the songs of John
Denver. Anything less than that kind of feeling does not come from observing
consciousness but from some other source within ego consciousness.

>

> And, in this regard, the *new* 'hard problem' of consciousness is not in
> any way related to the 'hard problem' posed by David Chalmers--which,
> from the perspective of the "observing consciousness", is nothing more
> than a re-wording of the metaphysical duality itself (which is the
> origin of its power to hypnotize 'thinkers'); but, rather, the
> *determined* unwillingness of the consciousness of the 'thinker' to
> acknowledge the existence of not only one, but two additional dimensions
> of consciousness; and, thus, the severe limitations and restricted frame
> of reference of a "science of consciousness" originating in
> self-reflection and thought in the first place.

Yes, I agree, to make progress in understanding who we are and what
consciousness is and does, we need to acknowledge what Michael points to. I do
not believe I am only my ego consciousness.

#15051 From: Massimo Bondì <masbond@...>
Date: Wed Nov 5, 2008 7:06 pm
Subject: Re: [Mind and Brain] News: How Signals Flow Between Neurons - New Research Explains Membrane Fusion At Synapse
masbond@...
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Dear Robert, I send you a paper of mine regarding "Signals flow between neurons"
The unified Synaptic channel (USC)is an histological structure present between the neurons that explains the formation and identification of the consciousness..The paper appeare firstly in 1998.After  I published many others papers.  With best regards and compliments. Massimo Bondì
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 3:04 PM
Subject: [Mind and Brain] News: How Signals Flow Between Neurons - New Research Explains Membrane Fusion At Synapse

How Signals Flow Between Neurons: New Research Explains Membrane Fusion At Synapse

ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2008) — Imagine a bathtub with two soap bubbles colliding but never fusing. Then you add detergent, and the surface of the water goes flat as the walls of the bubbles collapse and merge.

Dr. Christian Rosenmund, professor of neuroscience and molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, and graduate student Mingshan Xue use that analogy to describe the action of synaptotagmin-1, which acts to catalyze the fusion of the membranes of tiny neurotransmitter-filled bubbles called vesicles with the wall membrane of a neuron. This action allows signals to flow between neurons.

In a report in the current issue of Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, Rosenmund, Xue and colleagues from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School at Dallas turn the notion of how synaptotagmin-1 accomplishes this task upside down, making an important step forward in understanding how synaptotagmin-1 accomplishes this task.

In fact, said Xue, bringing the two membranes together involves both the top and bottom of a key domain of the protein. He demonstrated this in a series of elegant experiments that validated the importance of the bottom of the domain.

"We are looking at the molecular mechanism of synaptic transmission or how neurons communicate in the brain," said Xue.

Previously, experts had thought that only the top areas of the so-called C2B domain of synaptotagmin-1 were involved in facilitating fast neurotransmitter release.

When the neuron is in a pre-synapse phase, it explodes in electrical activity that opens a channel allowing positively charged calcium ions to go to the balloon-shaped vesicles inside the presynapse to trigger the release of neurotransmitter. Transferring neurotransmitters from one neuron to another requires the fusion of the vesicle's membrane with its host plasma membrane. This allows the neurotransmitter to diffuse to the postsynaptic part of the synapse.

Neurons send and receive information via two structures that make up the synapse. On the sending site, the electrical activity of the neuron needs to be rapidly converted into a chemical signal via release of a hormone or neurotransmitter.

The trigger for this is the flux of calcium ions into the nerve terminal. The receiving neuron on the other site of the synapse detects the neurotransmitter via receptors and converts it again into electrical activity.

It takes no more than 1/1,000th of a second for this to occur. Neuroscientists are not only fascinated by this astonishing speed, but they also recognize that disturbing the speed of synaptic transmission has deleterious consequences on brain function and can lead to various diseases of the nervous system including schizophrenia, depression, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease.

Rosenmund and colleagues found that synaptotagmin-1 plays an important role in maintaining this speed. Bringing two fusing membranes close enough so that they fuse with each other is a crucial step in the process. The housekeeping machinery that accomplishes this in many biological processes is made up of the so-called SNARE proteins that form protein bundles across vesicle and plasma membranes, hurling the vesicle or balloon-like structure close to the membrane. While this process works very well, it is just too slow for synapses operating in a millisecond.

"That's where synaptotagmin-1 and calcium come into the game," said Rosenmund. "Its C2B domain binds at the top site to calcium ions, allowing the subsequent attachment to of the two membranes."

In their current work, Xue, Rosenmund and colleagues showed that the bottom of the C2B domain is also critical in bringing the membranes of the neuron together with the vesicle's membrane, allowing the release of neurotransmitter.

"Nature invented SNARE first to help the process," said Xue. "But that did not take into account the high demand of the neurons. When the calcium comes, we need a fast neurotransmitter release. Nature then invented synaptotagmin-1 to respond to the calcium. It's a trigger. The molecule is turned on and interacts with both membranes."

Others who took part in this research include Cong Ma, Timothy K. Craig and Josep Rizo of UT Southwestern at Dallas.

Funding for this work came from the Baylor College of Medicine Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Center and the National Institutes of Health.


Adapted from materials provided by Baylor College of Medicine, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Baylor College of Medicine (2008, November 3). How Signals Flow Between Neurons: New Research Explains Membrane Fusion At Synapse. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 5, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081029181617.htm
 
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek


#15052 From: "Robert Karl Stonjek" <stonjek@...>
Date: Wed Nov 5, 2008 10:47 pm
Subject: News: Entrained rhythmic activities of neuronal ensembles as perceptual memory of time interval
r_karl_s
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Nature 456, 102-106 (6 November 2008) | doi:10.1038/nature07351; Received 14 April 2008; Accepted 20 August 2008; Published online 15 October 2008

Entrained rhythmic activities of neuronal ensembles as perceptual memory of time interval

Germán Sumbre1,3, Akira Muto2, Herwig Baier2 & Mu-ming Poo1

  1. Division of Neurobiology, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
  2. Department of Physiology, University of California, San Francisco, California 94158, USA
  3. Present address: Laboratoire de Neurobiologie, UMR 8544, École Normale Supérieure, 46 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France.

Correspondence to: Mu-ming Poo1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to M.-m.P. (Email: mpoo@...).

The ability to process temporal information is fundamental to sensory perception, cognitive processing and motor behaviour of all living organisms, from amoebae to humans. Neural circuit mechanisms based on neuronal and synaptic properties have been shown to process temporal information over the range of tens of microseconds to hundreds of milliseconds. How neural circuits process temporal information in the range of seconds to minutes is much less understood. Studies of working memory in monkeys and rats have shown that neurons in the prefrontal cortex, the parietal cortex and the thalamus exhibit ramping activities that linearly correlate with the lapse of time until the end of a specific time interval of several seconds that the animal is trained to memorize. Many organisms can also memorize the time interval of rhythmic sensory stimuli in the timescale of seconds and can coordinate motor behaviour accordingly, for example, by keeping the rhythm after exposure to the beat of music. Here we report a form of rhythmic activity among specific neuronal ensembles in the zebrafish optic tectum, which retains the memory of the time interval (in the order of seconds) of repetitive sensory stimuli for a duration of up to approx20 s. After repetitive visual conditioning stimulation (CS) of zebrafish larvae, we observed rhythmic post-CS activities among specific tectal neuronal ensembles, with a regular interval that closely matched the CS. Visuomotor behaviour of the zebrafish larvae also showed regular post-CS repetitions at the entrained time interval that correlated with rhythmic neuronal ensemble activities in the tectum. Thus, rhythmic activities among specific neuronal ensembles may act as an adjustable 'metronome' for time intervals in the order of seconds, and serve as a mechanism for the short-term perceptual memory of rhythmic sensory experience.

Source: Nature
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v456/n7218/abs/nature07351.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek


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