Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes » IAI TV.
The hard problem of consciousness is the most pressing unsolved mystery in both philosophy and science. To solve such a problem, we are going to need revolutionary ways of thinking. Philosopher of mind, Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes, argues higher spatial dimensions might hold the key to the hard problem.
The brain is inarguably the single most important organ in the human body. It controls how we move, react, think and feel, and enables us to have complex emotions and memories. The brain is composed of approximately 86 billion neurons that form a complex network. These neurons receive, process, and transfer information using chemical and electrical signals.
Learning how neurons respond to different signals can further the understanding of cognition and development and improve the management of disorders of the brain. But experimentally studying neuronal networks is a complex and occasionally invasive procedure. Mathematical models provide a non-invasive means to accomplish the task of understanding neuronal networks, but most current models are either too computationally intensive, or they cannot adequately simulate the different types of complex neuronal responses. In a recent study, published in Nonlinear Theory and Its Applications, IEICE, a research team led by Prof. Tohru Ikeguchi of Tokyo University of Science, has analyzed some of the complex responses of neurons in a computationally simple neuron model, the Izhikevich neuron model.
“My laboratory is engaged in research on neuroscience and this study analyzes the basic mathematical properties of a neuron model. While we analyzed a single neuron model in this study, this model is often used in computational neuroscience, and not all of its properties have been clarified. Our study fills that gap,” explains Prof. Ikeguchi. The research team also comprised Mr. Yota Tsukamoto and Ph.D. student Ms. Honami Tsushima, also from Tokyo University of Science.
Summary: Information about new experiences is retained by being tied to pre-existing activity patterns in the brain. Memory is acquired when the patterns are connected to each other across brain regions via transient bursts of activity.
Source: Osaka Metropolitan University.
In the brain, neuronal ensembles that bear the memory of an experience existed beforehand, suggesting a paradox that we already know what we are about to know.
Summary: The Izhikevich neuron model allows the simulation of both periodic and quasi-periodic responses in neurons at lower computational cost.
Source: Tokyo University of Science.
The brain is inarguably the single most important organ in the human body. It controls how we move, react, think and feel, and enables us to have complex emotions and memories. The brain is composed of approximately 86 billion neurons that form a complex network. These neurons receive, process, and transfer information using chemical and electrical signals.
New research in rats suggests that vitamin K intake can improve cognitive abilities in the aging brain.
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Comparing brain volume before and after individuals were exposed to SARS-CoV-2, this study documents significant cortical gray matter loss, equivalent to nearly 10 years of aging.
In our own not-so-distant future we’ll witness the emergence of synthetic superintelligence as a new kingdom of life. Whether that will happen in 5 or 50 years doesn’t really matter, we are firmly on the path of facilitating its emergence — synthetic intelligence is an extension of us, natural intelligence, the future version of ourselves. On a long billions-of-years evolutionary journey from the first primordial prokaryote to a Solaris-like planetary mind, we’re merely years away from this cardinal metamorphosis.
#CyberneticTheoryofMind #consciousness #evolution #mind
“Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else. ―Erwin Schrödinger.
Summary: Tau-tangles trigger the inflammatory activation of microglia via the NF-κB pathway. Inhibiting the microglia NF-κB signaling pulled the immune cells out of their inflammatory state and reversed learning and memory problems in tau-based Alzheimer’s mouse models.
Source: Weill Cornell Medicine.
Inhibiting an important signaling pathway in brain-resident immune cells may calm brain inflammation and thereby slow the disease process in Alzheimer’s and some other neurodegenerative diseases, suggests a study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.
