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

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.

----- Original Message -----

From: chris lofting

To: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com

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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> -----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

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
>
>
>

> -----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

> -----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

----- Original Message -----

From: tom9401

To: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com

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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----- Original Message -----

From: chris lofting

To: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com

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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> -----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

----- Original Message -----

From: Robert Karl Stonjek

To: Mind and Brain ; Cognitive NeuroScience

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

----- Original Message -----

From: Mark Peaty

To: MindBrain@yahoogroups.com

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

----- Original Message -----

From: Robert Karl Stonjek

To: Psychiatry-Research ; Cognitive NeuroScience ; Mind and Brain

Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 10:03 PM

Subject: [Mind and Brain] News: Brain recognises verbal 'Oh-shit' wave

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
>

--- 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.

----- Original Message -----

From: Robert Karl Stonjek

To: Mind and Brain ; Cognitive NeuroScience

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.

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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