Decisions are mostly intuitive, logical explanations
catch-up milliseconds later ~ Robert Sapolsky [ link ]
Category: neuro
- Labels: bill, economy, neuro, psychology
Hackers are sending messages over the Internet that bypass the usual centers for linguistic processing. They travel along the optic or auditory nerve and go directly into the deep structures of the brain ..those areas responsible for carrying-out parsing operations native to all languages. These messages arrive in their native state ..just out of the reach of the predicates of logic. Like a Trojan horse ..they deliver instructions that basically shred conditioned passageways in the brain, which causes the recipient to start raving incoherently. Like a virus .. anyone hearing the ravings of this lunatic will also be infected ..experience a similar disruption of linguistic pathways and start raving and spreading the virus to others. This isnât new. 12th century practitioners of the Kabbalah realized the hypnotic power of messages that were composed of symbols taken from sacred texts. I have the Book of the Names on my shelf. It frightens me to take it down because when I do ..I lose hours, even days out of my life and I never know where Iâll end up. Click below and see.
An MRI study reveals that emotion, not fact-sharing, promotes social interaction and facilitates interpersonal understanding. What researchers discovered is that emotions âsynchronize mental networksâ between individuals. Synchronized network activity focuses attention on shared experience and produces a common framework for understanding. Sharing other peopleâs emotional state during discourse enables us to perceive, experience and interpret what others say in a like manner ..without separation [ link ].
In 1975, Baruch Fischoff identified a major obstacle to forming new memories ..ourselves. He found that people frequently underestimate how surprised they are when events donât turn out the way they expect. He polled a group of students before and after the Watergate hearings. Respondents who felt Nixon would be exonerated (with say 80% confidence) .. overwhelmingly came back and said they werenât surprised by the verdict (and remember being just over 50% confident). When people learn the outcome of events, they unconsciously go back and adjust the estimate for what they thought would happen. This has the net-effect of revising memory so that it feels as if they â..knew it all alongâ, which diminishes the surprise-value of information [link]. More recently, neuroscientist Moshe Bar says that surprise is what gives ordinary events the informative-value necessary for transfer to long-term memory [link]. What we retain are mostly the novel bits of information we pick up along the way. They go on to form a âpool of scenariosâ, which we use to prepare for future events. So if we go around dismissing the surprise-value of information, we sabotage memory, lower our ability to deal with the unexpected ..and donât learn as much from experience. My friend Audrey likes to say that we can prevent future memory loss by making a conscious effort to do something out of the ordinary everyday ..increase our exposure to whatâs new ..or at least give ordinary events greater value than â..it’s just the same old story.â
- Labels: bill, neuro, psychology
Or there and back again: Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few neuroscientists would wish for: she had a stroke and witnessed the boundaries, set by the left cerebral cortex of the brain ..disappear. She experienced the âenormous and expansive universeâ where we live through the parallel portals of the right cerebral cortex, which was unaffected by the stroke. She returns to tell an astonishing tale.
- Labels: bill, neuro, psychology
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| Robert Sapolsky |
If an alien creature invaded earth by entering the brain of human beings, hijacking their nervous system and driving them to engage in high-risk ventures sure to lower their chances of survival .. youâd think some of us might notice something. Yet something disturbingly like this may be happening without notice. When mice get infected with toxoplasmosis, an alien bacterium, the toxoplasmum goes dormant inside the amygdala of their brain and reduces their fear of cats [link]. Cats eat the reckless mice and ingest the toxoplasmas where they wind up in the intestine mingling with others of their kind. Toxoplasmas reproduce sexually only in the gut of the cat, so suppressing the fear response in rats and mice is a sure way of gaining entrance into the cat intestine. Neuro-practitioners call this âadaptation by behavioral manipulationâ [link]. A parasite learns to manipulate host behaviors that enhance their own chances of survival. In other words, these alien bacteria learn to perform brain surgery in order to get rides to wild parties where they can exchange DNA and procreate!
Apparently these clever little creatures have found their way into people too. Nearly one third of all humans have dormant toxoplasmas sleeping inside their amygdala. Since people are pretty high up in the food chain ..the only real threat comes from themselves (or perhaps an unsuspecting bear or mountain lion). Chances are, infected individuals will start acting recklessly and wind up getting killed in a car accident involving excessive speed. So they only appear in the traffic section of the paper, or the actuarial tables of an insurance company. Otherwise, symptoms appear close enough to schizophrenia that they wind up in a psychiatric population and are never heard from again. I think I would call this a successful alien predation.
- Labels: aliens, bill, neuro, psychology
Notes from Cuzco, Peru ~ April 1977
On the slopes of the Andes, in a yurt overlooking a sage-green valley, Iâm participating in a peyote ceremony that has taken place here for over 1,000 years. Iâm collecting data for my senior thesis: âThe neurological basis of hallucinationsâ. However, none of my faculty advisers know Iâm here, and if they did ..they would probably deny any involvement. Iâm here because I want to experience, first hand, the psychological effects of a guided peyote session the way itâs practiced by South American Indians ..and not for purposes of recreation the way I used to. I have a theory that human nature follows a cycle; it fluctuates between the need for âorder and stabilityâ ..followed by the need for âexploration and rebellionâ against order and stability. I arrived at this theory from reading books by Aldous Huxley, as well as personal experience. Iâm hardly able to sustain a committed relationship for more than a few months. Anyway, I believe that early Indian cultures had less destructive ways to deal with this cycle that didnât involve excessive alcohol, domestic violence or broken homes. The peyote ceremony is, in a sense, a âguidedâ exploration into altered states of consciousness ..followed by a gentle period of âre-entryâ that allows participants to integrate their extra-ordinary experiences with the ordinary reality of everyday life. It satisfies the need for exploration in a way that is far less disruptive, and way more conducive, to the well being of the individual and the tribe.
Exploration: The session begins ..our Guide is waving a rope of burning incense …intended to awaken our senses. A drum beat softly repeats ..intended to strengthen our bond to the present. Tea is poured and cups ceremoniously passed between participants sitting cross-legged around a low bronze table. The simple act of sharing also helps bring us back to the present. I feel grounded and eagerly await whatever forms my altered perception may take. After experiencing several waves of nausea ..followed by tea .. images of early childhood begin to appear ..rising and falling .. over and over .. leaving me clutching at something for security (later I find my shirt lying bunched-up and wet on the floor beside me). Our Guide gently reminds us to watch these images flow until they vanish. Next, the blows of adolescence appear ..rising and falling ..leaving me feeling bruised and vulnerable until Iâm barely able to hold back my tears. Our Guide gently reminds us to watch these images flow until they vanish. Now I hear someone playing a flute. Sounds soothing. Now I feel alternating sensations of tea and mango splash down my throat. Sweet and refreshing. I pass the plate from one grinning face to another. Now Iâm grinning. Now it looks like Iâm sitting between two huge grinning masks ..suspended in space. One of them starts laughing ..then another ..and another ..until everyone is rocking with waves of laughter. I feel a grip loosening, and worries, stretching back as far as I can remember ..lift like fog. I feel euphoric. But it isnât long before the feeling of euphoria turns into panic. Iâm looking down and thereâs nothing there ..it’s like Iâm hanging over an abyss. Without the customary sense of worry, my psyche collapses like a house of cards. I scream and lose consciousness. When I awake, I recall lying with my head in the lap of one of the female assistants ..while she wipes my face with cool water. Iâm shaking.
Re-entry: Iâm listening to our Guide give instructions for re-entry (we were also given a copy of these to take with us). It went something like this: â..as you return, remember ..a river comes out of the mountains ..flowing and cohesive. Its power comes from yielding .. overcoming whatâs hardest with whatâs softest. As you return, remember ..follow the watercourse way ..choose harmony over quarreling. As you return, remember ..follow the watercourse way .. throw the portals of your tent open and pay homage to whatâs light in the world. As you return, remember ..follow the watercourse way .. the soft quality of your mind will overcome the hardness of the obstacles you face. Remember, follow the watercourse way â¦the watercourse way â¦the watercourse way ..â and I could hardly forget. I could still hear these words echoing in my head for weeks afterward while I finished writing my thesis and submitted it for a round of grueling final arguments. I think it helped. Either that or they just caved.
- Labels: awakening, bill, neuro, psychology, spiritual experience
The kind of focused attention ordinarily required in a classroom is not all that helpful overcoming obstacles outside the classroom. A wider focus of attention, which is usually associated with ADD, is actually more adaptive according to neuroscientists John Kounios and Mark Beeman [link]. And from what Iâve seen, I believe it ..! They found that when students are more receptive and open to distraction, they do better navigating a computer-simulated labyrinth than when they are focused and blocking out distractions (as seen on an fMRI). Students actually see and hear more .. finding their way faster by heuristic than by analytic reasoning. In other words, discovering relationships between vague and loosely connected information was more advantageous than step-by-step analysis.
I found the same thing to be true once while I was applying for a home loan. After obtaining the 1st mortgage ..I was looking for a bank to help me with the down-payment. After three banks turned me down because they considered this âriskyâ and âsomewhat irresponsibleâ ..I sat on the beach, got over the feeling that I was âriskyâ (and somewhat irresponsible) ..and pulled together the real reasons why. They had nothing to do with my ability to meet my obligations. It was not a personal failing on my part but a circumstance of the recession (i.e. time required to find a buyer for my prior home). When I put this and other reasons down in a letter-of-explanation ..the next bank understood intuitively and, with just a couple of questions ..they approved my application.
- Labels: bill, economy, neuro, psychology
I am always fascinated to see how the observations of early Eastern Philosophers, in this case the teaching of interdependence between sentient beings, prefigured the findings of modern-day Neuroscience.
- Labels: bill, neuro, philosophy
âThe meaning of a sentence is derived from the original words by an active, interpretive process. The original sentence that is perceived is rapidly forgotten and memory is for the information (meaning) contained in the sentence.â [Link]
For years, neuro-linguists have studied what remains after we hear somebody speak. What theyâve come up with is something that resembles a three-dimensional network inside of our head. The network is made up of propositions (coded events), scripts (a sequence of coded events) and associated images and feelings. Although part of the network is constructed from the original sentences ..most of it is supplied from the past experience of the listener. What we come away with is a feeling of resonance and familiarity, based largely on our own beliefs and experience ..and not necessarily the meaning intended by the speaker. These finding are consistent with the construction-integration model for narrative comprehension proposed by psychologist Walter Kintsch [Link]
- Labels: bill, communication, neuro, psychology
Proceedings from the Symposium on Extraterrestrial Psychology
Dr. Latimer: Language is nothing more than a stream of symbols that signify nothing until we recognize something we might have either seen or heard before, and look up it’s meaning in our mental dictionary. In a plurality of worlds, without a common store of experience that comes from shared culture, efforts at communication may be an exercise in incomprehensible gestures. Verbal communication is the manipulation of symbols to which meaning is assigned by culture. An important point to keep in mind my friends is that the events experienced by members of a culture over time are what make up the narrative thread of that culture.
Dr. Zhavern: When we look into space, we donât see things as they are. What we see is a single narrative thread winding itâs way through the cosmos ..a cosmos that may be shared by narratives other than our own. However, to itâs participants ..each narrative looks like the only cosmic game in town. Like language, we skew space to resemble something weâve either seen, or heard before. Itâs the only way we can come to grips with it.
Dr. Orloff: I think human consciousness is a fragmented and unstable process. It creates rapid models of counterfactual worlds inside the brain for things it cannot observe ..but only infer. The brain keeps track of these different versions until only those that contribute to narrative coherence receive sufficient signal strength to survive while those leading nowhere dissolve into noise ..and disappear into non-narrative space .. in an instant.
Dr. Pangloss: I think consciousness is made up of searchlights, projected from different mental versions of the world we create. They eventually converge to form concentric circles in the brain that illuminate the focal points that contribute most to narrative events, and fade rapidly at the periphery with fewer contributing points until things go black somewhere around the edges of non-narrative space.
My feeble brain ( hasnât got a clue ): Are you saying that the narrative threads of extraterrestrials arenât likely to uncoil very closely to ours ..(?)
- Labels: bill, cosmos, neuro, psychology
It was interesting for me to see a recent study in neuroscience that supports my theory of reading comprehension ~~>[Pragmatic inferences in reading]. Bear with me while I try and explain (or you can duck out now and I wonât be offended). What they found is that working memory interacts with the senses in order to produce a stable view of our surroundings and reduce errors of perception. For one thing, it has to identify signals that are the result of actual sensory events and filter out extraneous signals that are produced by fluctuations inside the nervous system itself (like those caused by changes in activity levels, neurotransmitter concentrations, circadian rhythms, etc..). Neuroscientists refer to this as the âsensory orientationâ function. The visual areas in the brain must distinguish changes in actual sensory events from changes in internal activity in order to follow the âgenuineâ action. They claim that the brain makes this estimate based on principles of âBayesian inferenceâ, which are not much different than principles of âPragmatic inferenceâ. It works something like this. Incoming signals that are considered likely to occur based on the contents of working memory are boosted, whereas signals considered less likely are held in abeyance and immediately suppressed if subsequent events donât do anything to rehabilitate them. These findings were published in the August 26th journal PLoS One ~~> [Sensory adaptation for a changing brain]. Hah!
HOMAGE TO THE
TREE SHREW
TREE SHREW
It is interesting for me to learn how much the tree shrew can tell us about human nature. They were one of the first primates on the evolutionary branch leading to humans. Neuro-anatomical studies reveal that they were also the first primate to evolve a highly elaborate and differentiated visual system. Psychological tests show that this development gave rise to the ability to perform two tasks with equal skill: 1) focusing attention on interesting features (while filtering out irrelevant information) and 2) swiftly shifting attention to other interesting (or alarming) features in the environment.
We take these contributions for granted now, but both abilities were not equally present in mammals before the tree shrew. It is an adaptation that had survival value, allowing them to track prey without losing sight of their predators â a trick of nature that makes them equally suited to act as hunters, as well as survive being hunted as prey. We appreciate these contributions when something goes wrong, resulting in one form of attention deficit or another. I think we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to these little beings. They mark the beginning of neocortical evolution in man.
âThe triumph of man was due entirely to the female of our species.â ~ Harold Klawans MD
I wonder when âchild rearingâ was relegated to a lesser role than tax-preparer. Maybe we need a new word for it. Iâm proposing âdirector of developmentâ and I am putting it up there with medical doctor and other workers in the helping professions. I mean, the farther I went in life, the more I realized how essential motherhood is to the vitality and continuity of the human species. The motherâs heartbeat is the first language we learn. Outside the womb, the motherâs voice shapes the formation of language centers in the brain. Neuroscience informs us that the development of the brain takes place mostly outside the womb. The role of child rearing is to nurture this development. Messages conveyed by speech, touch and human interaction actually guide the growth of nerve-pathways to their destination. Without this, the human species would have become extinct a long time ago. We have to shake-off the stereotype that child rearing is somehow an unproductive activity .. little more than a burdensome âmaternity leaveâ in the workplace. Otherwise, we treat our own children like second-class citizens.
A model for the fabric of the mind has been tentatively settled-on. Itâs one that characterizes whatâs inside my head as a 3-dimensional network of delicately connected instances of prior experience and feeling. Under ordinary circumstances, incoming sensory and verbal events produce ripples that spread out over this fabric, like stones on a pond, activating network-connections until a clear mental representation is formed. However, when something goes wrong, and thereâs a disturbance in the fabric, activation may become ampâd, unfettered and diffuse ..compounding insubstantial phenomena until, what may have started out as a gentle hummingbird, for example .. becomes a ferocious beast. Sometimes I think itâs only a matter of degree between clarity and delusion ..especially when I consider how many times I mistook a perfectly innocent remark as hostility.
- Labels: bill, cognition, mental health, neuro, psychology
I wake up with badly congested information-channels ~ I see shifting patterns of different colors entering an open window ~ and watch the walls dissolve into orange dots before they reach the ceiling. I sit up and swing my feet over the edge of a pillowy sensation I comfortably rely on as my bed ~ but now the floor has dropped out of sight. I count the number of times this has happened and figure the odds of landing with both feet on the floor are in my favor. I decide to play it safe ~ take one step at a time ~ stopping frequently to make sure I am where Iâm accustomed to be, and not where I appear to be, because I know my senses are deceiving me. Downstairs, scattered waves of light travel in every direction ~ except through the channels of my visual receptors. I find something likely to be my CD player and punch it in the vicinity of the on/off switch. A punk rock CD, left in there from the night before, starts to blare. The light waves begin bouncing to the rhythm, and, like little drops of colored water ~ they enter into the proper channels and float down streams of sensory-energy ~ until they fall into pools of stored-memory ~ and form the image of what Iâm supposed to see. Like adjusting the focus of a camera lens ~ it all becomes clear. I drop to my knees and pay homage to the deities of music ~ then crank up the volume and go in the kitchen to prepare myself a thermos of coffee. Looks like itâs going to be a good day.
- Labels: bill, music, neuro, psychology
Buddhaâs observations on the nature of the mind come closer to modern-day neuroscience than any other philosophy Iâve read ..and his investigations did not end there ~ they had just begun. He saw how mental activity was mostly noise. A mixture of chatter ..imaginary offenses ..anticipatory dread ..feelings of betrayal and other fabrications. For six years he practiced watching this stream of debris flow by and vanish ..until he realized that there was nothing substantial or permanent about any of it ..and that believing so only created suffering. He continued down this road ..going past the conceptual ..through the neuro-sensory ..and beyond the phenomenal layers of consciousness. The further he went ..the freer he felt ..until he punched a hole through the ceiling and found an ever-expanding universe where all living beings are interconnected ..and he saw, first-hand, how the true nature of existence lay beyond the momentary vicissitudes of thought and feeling. He felt relief .. the fear of separation vanished. He chose to return and help others find the way out. We still hear the echo of his teachings resonating today. I do anyway.
- Labels: bill, buddhism, consciousness, cosmos, neuro, psychology
Thereâs a stream running through my head. I sit and watch it go by ~ one instance after another. When I try to push it ~ or tweak it ~ I disperse it. Now Iâve got several streams running through my head. I see images of my father holding me on his knee ~ Jisho Perry stops by; but canât stay for tea ~ my neighbor Don appears telling me itâs going to be a good day. I see images of Big Sur smoldering after another fire and I start to feel anxious. Now Iâm trying to peek at instances that havenât arrived yet. I hear Jisho’s voice gently reminding me that Iâm leaning forward too far ~ but itâs too late ~ Iâm tumbling head over heels ~ hoping Iâll land someplace soft. Iâm lying on my back when Dr. Jones leans over and says I gottaâ get a grip ~ I’m having an out-of-sequence experience. Now Iâm behind the wheel of a jeep and the warning signs are coming up fast ~ curva peligrosa ~ I swerve to avoid them when I hear sirens begin to wail. But âla policÃaâ are all in my head ~ it’s my wheels that are screeching ..spraying dirt and sand from the desert bed.
- Labels: bill, buddhism, neuro, psychology, zen
Iâve learned through experience that delusions, brought on by capricious mental activity, are best left ignored. Like passing clouds, thereâs not one worth hanging on to. Thereâs a practice I learned called âgroundingâ that I find valuable. It helps me disengage from delusional thinking by anchoring to something in my immediate surroundings. The goal is to bring myself out of the grips of a delusion, or an intrusive memory, by way of the senses. Anytime symptoms come on, whatever form they may take ..itâs a good time to practice this exercise. I start by looking at five things nearby and begin naming them ..being specific and detailed. For example, I see my dog and say: â ..shaggy brown hair and wet nose ..â or â..black computer speakers with silver letteringâ and so on. Next, I name five things I hear, like the humming of a fan or the whoosh of passing cars, and so forth. Then I name five things I feel by sense of touch, like the jeans against my legs; the soles of my feet on the ground, and so on. I concentrate on sensing things the way they actually are ..careful not to replace them with the way I think they should be. I repeat the whole process a couple of times ..earning extra points if I become so wrapped up in my senses that I lose count. The idea is to make delusions disperse and fade into the background like the meaningless noise that they are.
- Labels: bill, delusion, mental health, neuro, psychology, therapy
The same forces that bind the atomic particles of my eyes also hold together the planets and stars in outer space. A slight shift in balance would turn those forces into photo-energy ~ and the universe would dissolve into light. Now, as awesome as that might sound ~ you can bet that any extraterrestrials, who are watching, will be knocking on the door the instant they see us tipping that scale. I look out my backdoor ~ thereâs a creek and a small wooded area ~ and so many waves of energy bombarding me; I canât catch them all ~ only the ones that my senses are programmed to receive ~ and even those get filtered ~ sent to neuro-clusters ~ and filtered some more ~ discarding what I havenât got sense enough to understand ~ and preserving the rest as âconscious experienceâ. Scientists tell me that space is not a vacuum ~ itâs a fabric ~ when I step outside and walk down the street ~ it clings to me and starts to build up ~ like mud on my boots after a rainy day. I explain this to my friends and they get me a pair of goggles. But even those don’t help much when I’m trying to see through the debris that, psychologists say, builds up on the lenses of my mind everyday.
- Labels: bill, cosmos, neuro, psychology
Investigators have uncovered a subconscious âstream of musicâ running through my head. It contains mostly fragments of old songs I heard while I was growing up. Songs like â..doze eat oats and mares eat oats and little lambs eat ivyâ. But it also plays some contemporary pieces like â..help Iâm aliveâ or âgimmie a break, gimmie a break.â Some investigators tell me itâs purpose is to keep my brain entertained so I stay alert. Others tell me it was set in motion to supply my ego with a stream of self-images ..keeping me anchored in the culture and generation where I live. I notice that it pops into hearing range from time to time for no apparent reason. When it does, I can tell that the songs I grew up with are more prevalent ..I donât hear too many Moroccan tunes ..although sometimes Iâd prefer it. There is one thing investigators agree on however: they say if it pops up to often ..or stays on the surface too long ..it could become pathological. I ask them if thatâs because of all the disturbing memories it might bring up. No, they say itâs because of all the disruption it would cause my ordinary stream of consciousness. It would sound like I had Tourettes or something. Either that, they say ..or it would become stagnant and block me from learning any new tunes. I tell them Iâm not sure which is worse.
Image by ~> Luana Silense
Based on notes taken during a lecture by ~> Oliver Sacks
If you get a chance, listen to the audio at the bottom. It will be worth it.
- Labels: bill, consciousness, neuro, normal, science