3 minute read
You can grasp a hand. You can also grasp a concept.
One is literal. One is metaphorical. Our brains know the difference, but would we be able to understand the latter without the former?
Previous studies have suggested that our understanding of metaphors may be rooted in our bodily experience. Some functional MRI, or fMRI, brain imaging studies have indicated, for example, that when you hear a metaphor such as "she had a rough day," regions of the brain associated with tactile experience are activated. If you hear, "he's so sweet," areas associated with taste are activated. And when you hear action verbs used in a metaphorical context, like "grasp a concept," regions involved in motor perception and planning are activated.
A study by University of Arizona researcher Vicky Lai, published in the journal Brain Research, builds on this research by looking at when, exactly, different regions of the brain are activated in metaphor comprehension and what that tells us about the way we understand language.
Humans Love Talking in Metaphors
Humans use metaphors all the time; they're so ingrained in our language we often don't even notice we're doing it.
In fact, researchers have found that on average, people use a metaphor every 20 words, said Lai, an assistant professor of psychology and cognitive science at the UA. As director of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Laboratory in the UA Department of Psychology, Lai is interested in how the brain processes metaphors and other types of language.
Her latest study used EEG, or brainwave studies, to record electrical patterns in the brain when participants were presented with metaphors that contained action content, like "grasp the idea" or "bend the rules."
Study participants were shown three different sentences on a computer screen, each presented one word at a time. One sentence described a concrete action, such as, "The bodyguard bent the rod." Another was a metaphor using the same verb: "The church bent the rules." In the third sentence, the verb was replaced with a more abstract word that conveyed the same meaning as the metaphor: "The church altered the rules."
When participants saw the word "bent" used in both the literal and metaphorical context, a similar response was evoked in the brain, with the sensory-motor region being activated almost immediately – within 200 milliseconds – of the verb being presented on the screen. That response differed when "bent" was replaced with "altered."
Lai's work supports previous findings from fMRI studies, which measure brain activity changes related to blood flow; however, the EEG, which measures electrical activity in the brain, provides a clearer picture of just how important the sensory motor regions of the brain may be for metaphor comprehension.
"In an fMRI, it takes time for oxygenation and deoxygenation of blood to reflect change caused by the language that was just uttered," Lai said. "But language comprehension is fast – at the rate of four words per second."
Therefore, with an fMRI, it's hard to tell whether the sensory motor region is truly necessary for understanding action-based metaphors or if it's something that's activated after comprehension has already taken place. The EEG provides a much more precise sense of timing.
"By using the brainwave measure, we tease apart the time course of what happens first," Lai said.
In the study, the near-immediate activation of the sensory motor region after the verb was displayed suggests that that region of the brain is indeed quite important in comprehension.
Exploring the Power of Language
Lai's current research extends understanding of how humans comprehend language and will help foundationally with some of the other questions her lab is exploring, such as: Can metaphoric language be used to improve people's moods? What role might language play in healthy aging? And, can metaphors aid in the learning of abstract concepts? Lai recently presented ongoing research on the use of metaphors to aid in the teaching, learning and retention of science concepts at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society in San Francisco.
Lai's fascination with metaphors stems from an early love of literature, which evolved into an interest in linguistics. As a linguistics master's student in Taiwan, she collected and studied hundreds of Mandarin Chinese metaphors. That eventually led her to psychology and her work at the UA.
"Understanding how the brain approaches the complexity of language allows us to begin to test how complex language impacts other aspects of cognition," she said.
This article has been republished from materials provided by the University of Arizona. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.
Showing posts with label brain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brain. Show all posts
Friday, September 13, 2019
Saturday, July 16, 2016
Man Missing Most Of His Brain Challenges Everything We Thought We Knew About Consciousness
via IFLScience
Back in 2007, scientists reported that a French man in his mid-40s had walked into a clinic complaining of a pain in his leg. As a child, he’d had this same problem as a result of the ventricles in his brain filling with cerebrospinal fluid, so the doctors decided to scan his brain to see if this was again causing his limb-related lamentations. To their astonishment, they found that his ventricles had become so swollen with fluid that they’d replaced virtually his entire brain, leaving just a thin cortical layer of neurons.
Yet miraculously, the man was not only fully conscious, but lived a rich and unhindered life, working as a civil servant and living with his wife and two kids, blissfully unaware of the gaping hole in his brain. His ability to function without so many of the key brain regions previously considered vital for consciousness raises some major questions about existing theories regarding how the brain works and the mechanisms underlying our awareness.
For example, neuroscientists have often asserted that a brain region called the thalamus, which relays sensory signals to the cerebral cortex, is indispensable for consciousness. This is because research has indicated that damage to the thalamus often causes people to fall into a coma, while one team of scientists were even able to manually “switch off” an epileptic patient’s consciousness by electrically stimulating this brain region.
Similarly, researchers have shown that it is possible to cause people to lose consciousness by using electrodes to manipulate the activity of a brain region called the claustrum, which receives input from a wide variety of brain areas and communicates extensively with the thalamus.
Back in 2007, scientists reported that a French man in his mid-40s had walked into a clinic complaining of a pain in his leg. As a child, he’d had this same problem as a result of the ventricles in his brain filling with cerebrospinal fluid, so the doctors decided to scan his brain to see if this was again causing his limb-related lamentations. To their astonishment, they found that his ventricles had become so swollen with fluid that they’d replaced virtually his entire brain, leaving just a thin cortical layer of neurons.
Yet miraculously, the man was not only fully conscious, but lived a rich and unhindered life, working as a civil servant and living with his wife and two kids, blissfully unaware of the gaping hole in his brain. His ability to function without so many of the key brain regions previously considered vital for consciousness raises some major questions about existing theories regarding how the brain works and the mechanisms underlying our awareness.
For example, neuroscientists have often asserted that a brain region called the thalamus, which relays sensory signals to the cerebral cortex, is indispensable for consciousness. This is because research has indicated that damage to the thalamus often causes people to fall into a coma, while one team of scientists were even able to manually “switch off” an epileptic patient’s consciousness by electrically stimulating this brain region.
Similarly, researchers have shown that it is possible to cause people to lose consciousness by using electrodes to manipulate the activity of a brain region called the claustrum, which receives input from a wide variety of brain areas and communicates extensively with the thalamus.
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Scientists claim they can change your belief on immigrants and God – with MAGNETS
via The Express:
ATTITUDES towards God and immigrants can be changed by beaming magnetic waves into the brain, scientists have claimed.
A bizarre experiment claims to be able to make Christians no longer believe in God and make Britons open their arms to migrants in experiments some may find a threat to their values.
Scientists looked at how the brain resolves abstract ideological problems.
Using a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), researchers safely shut down certain groups of neurones in the brains of volunteers.
TMS, which is used to treat depression, involves placing a large electromagnetic coil against the scalp which creates electric currents that stimulate nerve cells in the region of the brain involved in mood control.
Researchers found the technique radically altered religious perceptions and prejudice.
Belief in God was reduced almost by a third, while participants became 28.5 per cent less bothered by immigration numbers.
Dr Keise Izuma, from the University of York, said: "People often turn to ideology when they are confronted by problems.
"We wanted to find out whether a brain region that is linked with solving concrete problems, like deciding how to move one's body to overcome an obstacle, is also involved in solving abstract problems addressed by ideology."
The scientists targeted the posterior medial frontal cortex, a brain region a few inches up from the forehead that is associated with detecting and responding to problems.
Volunteers were asked to rate their belief in God, heaven, the devil, and hell after undergoing pre-screening to ensure that they held religious convictions.
Dr Izuma said: "We decided to remind people of death because previous research has shown that people turn to religion for comfort in the face of death.
"As expected, we found that when we experimentally turned down the posterior medial frontal cortex, people were less inclined to reach for comforting religious ideas despite having been reminded of death."
The American participants were also shown two essays written by newly arrived immigrants - one highly complimentary of the US and the other extremely critical.
Dr Izuma said: "When we disrupted the brain region that usually helps detect and respond to threats, we saw a less negative, less ideologically motivated reaction to the critical author and his opinions."
The research, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, suggests our brains use the same basic mental pathways to solve practical problems such as following directions or ideological issues such as immigration and religion.
Lead author Dr Colin Holbrook, form the the University of California at Los Angeles, said: "These findings are very striking, and consistent with the idea that brain mechanisms that evolved for relatively basic threat-response functions are re-purposed to also produce ideological reactions."
ATTITUDES towards God and immigrants can be changed by beaming magnetic waves into the brain, scientists have claimed.
A bizarre experiment claims to be able to make Christians no longer believe in God and make Britons open their arms to migrants in experiments some may find a threat to their values.
Scientists looked at how the brain resolves abstract ideological problems.
Using a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), researchers safely shut down certain groups of neurones in the brains of volunteers.
TMS, which is used to treat depression, involves placing a large electromagnetic coil against the scalp which creates electric currents that stimulate nerve cells in the region of the brain involved in mood control.
Researchers found the technique radically altered religious perceptions and prejudice.
Belief in God was reduced almost by a third, while participants became 28.5 per cent less bothered by immigration numbers.
Dr Keise Izuma, from the University of York, said: "People often turn to ideology when they are confronted by problems.
"We wanted to find out whether a brain region that is linked with solving concrete problems, like deciding how to move one's body to overcome an obstacle, is also involved in solving abstract problems addressed by ideology."
The scientists targeted the posterior medial frontal cortex, a brain region a few inches up from the forehead that is associated with detecting and responding to problems.
Volunteers were asked to rate their belief in God, heaven, the devil, and hell after undergoing pre-screening to ensure that they held religious convictions.
Dr Izuma said: "We decided to remind people of death because previous research has shown that people turn to religion for comfort in the face of death.
"As expected, we found that when we experimentally turned down the posterior medial frontal cortex, people were less inclined to reach for comforting religious ideas despite having been reminded of death."
The American participants were also shown two essays written by newly arrived immigrants - one highly complimentary of the US and the other extremely critical.
Dr Izuma said: "When we disrupted the brain region that usually helps detect and respond to threats, we saw a less negative, less ideologically motivated reaction to the critical author and his opinions."
The research, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, suggests our brains use the same basic mental pathways to solve practical problems such as following directions or ideological issues such as immigration and religion.
Lead author Dr Colin Holbrook, form the the University of California at Los Angeles, said: "These findings are very striking, and consistent with the idea that brain mechanisms that evolved for relatively basic threat-response functions are re-purposed to also produce ideological reactions."
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Man born with virtually no brain has advanced math degree
via Boing Boing
The subject of this paper grew up with a normal cognitive and social life, and didn't discover his hydrocephalus -- which had all but obliterated his brain -- until he went to the doctor for an unrelated complaint.
The authors advocate research into “Computational models such as the small-world and scale-free network”— networks whose nodes are clustered into highly-interconnected “cliques”, while the cliques themselves are more sparsely connected one to another. De Oliviera et al suggest that they hold the secret to the resilience of the hydrocephalic brain. Such networks result in “higher dynamical complexity, lower wiring costs, and resilience to tissue insults.” This also seems reminiscent of those isolated hyper-efficient modules of autistic savants, which is unlikely to be a coincidence: networks from social to genetic to neural have all been described as “small-world”. (You might wonder— as I did— why de Oliviera et al. would credit such networks for the normal intelligence of some hydrocephalics when the same configuration is presumably ubiquitous in vegetative and normal brains as well. I can only assume they meant to suggest that small-world networking is especially well-developed among high-functioning hydrocephalics.) (In all honesty, it’s not the best-written paper I’ve ever read. Which seems to be kind of a trend on the ‘crawl lately.)
The point, though, is that under the right conditions, brain damage may paradoxically result in brain enhancement. Small-world, scale-free networking— focused, intensified, overclocked— might turbocharge a fragment of a brain into acting like the whole thing.
Can you imagine what would happen if we applied that trick to a normal brain?
The subject of this paper grew up with a normal cognitive and social life, and didn't discover his hydrocephalus -- which had all but obliterated his brain -- until he went to the doctor for an unrelated complaint.
The authors advocate research into “Computational models such as the small-world and scale-free network”— networks whose nodes are clustered into highly-interconnected “cliques”, while the cliques themselves are more sparsely connected one to another. De Oliviera et al suggest that they hold the secret to the resilience of the hydrocephalic brain. Such networks result in “higher dynamical complexity, lower wiring costs, and resilience to tissue insults.” This also seems reminiscent of those isolated hyper-efficient modules of autistic savants, which is unlikely to be a coincidence: networks from social to genetic to neural have all been described as “small-world”. (You might wonder— as I did— why de Oliviera et al. would credit such networks for the normal intelligence of some hydrocephalics when the same configuration is presumably ubiquitous in vegetative and normal brains as well. I can only assume they meant to suggest that small-world networking is especially well-developed among high-functioning hydrocephalics.) (In all honesty, it’s not the best-written paper I’ve ever read. Which seems to be kind of a trend on the ‘crawl lately.)
The point, though, is that under the right conditions, brain damage may paradoxically result in brain enhancement. Small-world, scale-free networking— focused, intensified, overclocked— might turbocharge a fragment of a brain into acting like the whole thing.
Can you imagine what would happen if we applied that trick to a normal brain?
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Conscious realism
"To a physicalist, the conscious-realist mind-body problem might appear to be a bait and switch that dodges hard and interesting questions: What is consciousness for ? When and how did it arise in evolution ? How does it now arise from brain activity ? Now, the switch from the ontology of physicalism to the ontology of conscious realism changes the relevant questions. Consciousness is fundamental. So to ask what consciousness is for is to ask why something exists rather than nothing. To ask how consciousness arose in a physicalist evolution is mistaken. Instead we ask how the dynamics of conscious agents, when projected onto appropriate MUIs, yields current evolutionary theory as a special case. To ask how consciousness arises from brain activity is also mistaken. Brains are complex icons representing heterarchies of interacting conscious agents. So instead we ask how neurobiology serves as a user interface to such heterarchies. Conscious realism, it is true, dodges some tough mysteries posed by physicalism, but it replaces them with new, and equally engaging,
scientific problems.
Nobody explains everything. If you want to solve the mind-body problem you can take the physical as given and explain the genesis of conscious experience, or take conscious experience as given and explain the genesis of the physical. Explaining the genesis of conscious experience from the physical has proved, so far, intractable. Explaining the genesis of the physical from conscious experience has proved quite feasible. This is good news: We do not need a mutation that endows a new conceptual apparatus to transform the mind-body problem from a mystery to a routine scientific subject, we just need a change in the direction in which we seek an explanation. We can start with a mathematically precise theory of conscious agents and their interactions. We can, according to the norms of methodological naturalism, devise and test theories of how conscious agents construct physical objects and their properties, even space and time themselves. In the process we need relinquish no method or result of physicalist science, but instead we aim to exhibit each such result as a special case in a more comprehensive, conscious realist, framework."
http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/ConsciousRealism2.pdf
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Eight weeks to a better brain
Participating in an eight-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy, and stress. In a study that will appear in the Jan. 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Harvard-affiliated researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) reported the results of their study, the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain’s gray matter.
“Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,” says study senior author Sara Lazar of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and a Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology. “This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing.”
Previous studies from Lazar’s group and others found structural differences between the brains of experienced meditation practitioners and individuals with no history of meditation, observing thickening of the cerebral cortex in areas associated with attention and emotional integration. But those investigations could not document that those differences were actually produced by meditation.
For the current study, magnetic resonance (MR) images were taken of the brain structure of 16 study participants two weeks before and after they took part in the eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Program at the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness. In addition to weekly meetings that included practice of mindfulness meditation — which focuses on nonjudgmental awareness of sensations, feelings, and state of mind — participants received audio recordings for guided meditation practice and were asked to keep track of how much time they practiced each day. A set of MR brain images was also taken of a control group of nonmeditators over a similar time interval.
Meditation group participants reported spending an average of 27 minutes each day practicing mindfulness exercises, and their responses to a mindfulness questionnaire indicated significant improvements compared with pre-participation responses. The analysis of MR images, which focused on areas where meditation-associated differences were seen in earlier studies, found increased gray-matter density in the hippocampus, known to be important for learning and memory, and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection.
Participant-reported reductions in stress also were correlated with decreased gray-matter density in the amygdala, which is known to play an important role in anxiety and stress. Although no change was seen in a self-awareness-associated structure called the insula, which had been identified in earlier studies, the authors suggest that longer-term meditation practice might be needed to produce changes in that area. None of these changes were seen in the control group, indicating that they had not resulted merely from the passage of time.
“It is fascinating to see the brain’s plasticity and that, by practicing meditation, we can play an active role in changing the brain and can increase our well-being and quality of life,” says Britta Hölzel, first author of the paper and a research fellow at MGH and Giessen University in Germany. “Other studies in different patient populations have shown that meditation can make significant improvements in a variety of symptoms, and we are now investigating the underlying mechanisms in the brain that facilitate this change.”
Amishi Jha, a University of Miami neuroscientist who investigates mindfulness-training’s effects on individuals in high-stress situations, says, “These results shed light on the mechanisms of action of mindfulness-based training. They demonstrate that the first-person experience of stress can not only be reduced with an eight-week mindfulness training program but that this experiential change corresponds with structural changes in the amygdala, a finding that opens doors to many possibilities for further research on MBSR’s potential to protect against stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.” Jha was not one of the study investigators.
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-brain/
“Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,” says study senior author Sara Lazar of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and a Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology. “This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing.”
Previous studies from Lazar’s group and others found structural differences between the brains of experienced meditation practitioners and individuals with no history of meditation, observing thickening of the cerebral cortex in areas associated with attention and emotional integration. But those investigations could not document that those differences were actually produced by meditation.
For the current study, magnetic resonance (MR) images were taken of the brain structure of 16 study participants two weeks before and after they took part in the eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Program at the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness. In addition to weekly meetings that included practice of mindfulness meditation — which focuses on nonjudgmental awareness of sensations, feelings, and state of mind — participants received audio recordings for guided meditation practice and were asked to keep track of how much time they practiced each day. A set of MR brain images was also taken of a control group of nonmeditators over a similar time interval.
Meditation group participants reported spending an average of 27 minutes each day practicing mindfulness exercises, and their responses to a mindfulness questionnaire indicated significant improvements compared with pre-participation responses. The analysis of MR images, which focused on areas where meditation-associated differences were seen in earlier studies, found increased gray-matter density in the hippocampus, known to be important for learning and memory, and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection.
Participant-reported reductions in stress also were correlated with decreased gray-matter density in the amygdala, which is known to play an important role in anxiety and stress. Although no change was seen in a self-awareness-associated structure called the insula, which had been identified in earlier studies, the authors suggest that longer-term meditation practice might be needed to produce changes in that area. None of these changes were seen in the control group, indicating that they had not resulted merely from the passage of time.
“It is fascinating to see the brain’s plasticity and that, by practicing meditation, we can play an active role in changing the brain and can increase our well-being and quality of life,” says Britta Hölzel, first author of the paper and a research fellow at MGH and Giessen University in Germany. “Other studies in different patient populations have shown that meditation can make significant improvements in a variety of symptoms, and we are now investigating the underlying mechanisms in the brain that facilitate this change.”
Amishi Jha, a University of Miami neuroscientist who investigates mindfulness-training’s effects on individuals in high-stress situations, says, “These results shed light on the mechanisms of action of mindfulness-based training. They demonstrate that the first-person experience of stress can not only be reduced with an eight-week mindfulness training program but that this experiential change corresponds with structural changes in the amygdala, a finding that opens doors to many possibilities for further research on MBSR’s potential to protect against stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.” Jha was not one of the study investigators.
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/01/eight-weeks-to-a-better-brain/
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Lucid dreamers help scientists locate the seat of meta-consciousness in the brain
From ScienceDaily:
Studies of lucid dreamers show which centers of the brain become active when we become aware of ourselves in dreams.
Which areas of the brain help us to perceive our world in a self-reflective manner is difficult to measure. During wakefulness, we are always conscious of ourselves. In sleep, however, we are not. But there are people, known as lucid dreamers, who can become aware of dreaming during sleep. Studies employing magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) have now been able to demonstrate that a specific cortical network consisting of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the frontopolar regions and the precuneus is activated when this lucid consciousness is attained. All of these regions are associated with self-reflective functions. This research into lucid dreaming gives the authors of the latest study insight into the neural basis of human consciousness.
The human capacity of self-perception, self-reflection and consciousness development are among the unsolved mysteries of neuroscience. Despite modern imaging techniques, it is still impossible to fully visualize what goes on in the brain when people move to consciousness from an unconscious state. The problem lies in the fact that it is difficult to watch our brain during this transitional change. Although this process is the same, every time a person awakens from sleep, the basic activity of our brain is usually greatly reduced during deep sleep. This makes it impossible to clearly delineate the specific brain activity underlying the regained self-perception and consciousness during the transition to wakefulness from the global changes in brain activity that takes place at the same time.
Scientists from the Max Planck Institutes of Psychiatry in Munich and for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and from Charité in Berlin have now studied people who are aware that they are dreaming while being in a dream state, and are also able to deliberately control their dreams. Those so-called lucid dreamers have access to their memories during lucid dreaming, can perform actions and are aware of themselves – although remaining unmistakably in a dream state and not waking up. As author Martin Dresler explains, “In a normal dream, we have a very basal consciousness, we experience perceptions and emotions but we are not aware that we are only dreaming. It’s only in a lucid dream that the dreamer gets a meta-insight into his or her state.”
By comparing the activity of the brain during one of these lucid periods with the activity measured immediately before in a normal dream, the scientists were able to identify the characteristic brain activities of lucid awareness.
“The general basic activity of the brain is similar in a normal dream and in a lucid dream,” says Michael Czisch, head of a research group at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry. “In a lucid state, however, the activity in certain areas of the cerebral cortex increases markedly within seconds. The involved areas of the cerebral cortex are the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, to which commonly the function of self-assessment is attributed, and the frontopolar regions, which are responsible for evaluating our own thoughts and feelings. The precuneus is also especially active, a part of the brain that has long been linked with self-perception.” The findings confirm earlier studies and have made the neural networks of a conscious mental state visible for the first time.
Studies of lucid dreamers show which centers of the brain become active when we become aware of ourselves in dreams.
Which areas of the brain help us to perceive our world in a self-reflective manner is difficult to measure. During wakefulness, we are always conscious of ourselves. In sleep, however, we are not. But there are people, known as lucid dreamers, who can become aware of dreaming during sleep. Studies employing magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) have now been able to demonstrate that a specific cortical network consisting of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the frontopolar regions and the precuneus is activated when this lucid consciousness is attained. All of these regions are associated with self-reflective functions. This research into lucid dreaming gives the authors of the latest study insight into the neural basis of human consciousness.
The human capacity of self-perception, self-reflection and consciousness development are among the unsolved mysteries of neuroscience. Despite modern imaging techniques, it is still impossible to fully visualize what goes on in the brain when people move to consciousness from an unconscious state. The problem lies in the fact that it is difficult to watch our brain during this transitional change. Although this process is the same, every time a person awakens from sleep, the basic activity of our brain is usually greatly reduced during deep sleep. This makes it impossible to clearly delineate the specific brain activity underlying the regained self-perception and consciousness during the transition to wakefulness from the global changes in brain activity that takes place at the same time.
Scientists from the Max Planck Institutes of Psychiatry in Munich and for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and from Charité in Berlin have now studied people who are aware that they are dreaming while being in a dream state, and are also able to deliberately control their dreams. Those so-called lucid dreamers have access to their memories during lucid dreaming, can perform actions and are aware of themselves – although remaining unmistakably in a dream state and not waking up. As author Martin Dresler explains, “In a normal dream, we have a very basal consciousness, we experience perceptions and emotions but we are not aware that we are only dreaming. It’s only in a lucid dream that the dreamer gets a meta-insight into his or her state.”
By comparing the activity of the brain during one of these lucid periods with the activity measured immediately before in a normal dream, the scientists were able to identify the characteristic brain activities of lucid awareness.
“The general basic activity of the brain is similar in a normal dream and in a lucid dream,” says Michael Czisch, head of a research group at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry. “In a lucid state, however, the activity in certain areas of the cerebral cortex increases markedly within seconds. The involved areas of the cerebral cortex are the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, to which commonly the function of self-assessment is attributed, and the frontopolar regions, which are responsible for evaluating our own thoughts and feelings. The precuneus is also especially active, a part of the brain that has long been linked with self-perception.” The findings confirm earlier studies and have made the neural networks of a conscious mental state visible for the first time.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
DARPA's 'Cortical Modem' will plug straight into your BRAIN
From The Register:
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing a brain interface it hopes could inject images directly into the visual cortex.
news of the "Cortical Modem" project has emerged in transhumanist magazine Humanity Plus, which reports the agency is working on a direct neural interface (DNI) chip that could be used for human enhancement and motor-function repair.
Project head Dr Phillip Alvelda, Biological Technologies chief with the agency, told the Biology Is Technology conference in Silicon Valley last week the project had a short term goal of building a US$10 device the size of two stacked nickels that could deliver images without the need for glasses or similar technology.
The project was built on research by Dr Karl Deisseroth whose work in the field of neuroscience describes how brain circuits create behaviour patterns.
Specifically the work dealt in Deisseroth's field of Optogenetics, where proteins from algae could be inserted into neurons to be subsequently controlled with pulses of light.
"The short term goal of the project is the development of a device about the size of two stacked nickels with a cost of goods on the order of $10 which would enable a simple visual display via a direct interface to the visual cortex with the visual fidelity of something like an early LED digital clock," the publication reported.
"The implications of this project are astounding."
The seemingly dreamy research was limited to animal studies, specifically the real time imaging of a zebra fish brain with some 85,000 neurons, due to the need to mess with neuron DNA and the 'crude device' would be a long way off high fidelity augmented reality, the site reported.
DARPA's Biological Technologies Office was formed last April to cook up crazy ideas born at the intersection of biology and physical science. Its mind-bending research fields are geared to improve soldiers' performance, craft biological systems to bolster national security, and future the stability and well-being of humanity.
The project follows DARPA's upgrading of the heavy-set Atlas robot which was granted a battery allowing it to move about free of its electrical umbilical cord.
The agency also revealed biometric tracking that could identify users based on how they moved a mouse in what was dubbed a 'cognitive fingerprint' and slated as a possible replacement for password authentication.
Read the article in H+ magazine: http://hplusmagazine.com/2015/02/15/biology-technology-darpa-back-game-big-vision-h/
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing a brain interface it hopes could inject images directly into the visual cortex.
news of the "Cortical Modem" project has emerged in transhumanist magazine Humanity Plus, which reports the agency is working on a direct neural interface (DNI) chip that could be used for human enhancement and motor-function repair.
Project head Dr Phillip Alvelda, Biological Technologies chief with the agency, told the Biology Is Technology conference in Silicon Valley last week the project had a short term goal of building a US$10 device the size of two stacked nickels that could deliver images without the need for glasses or similar technology.
The project was built on research by Dr Karl Deisseroth whose work in the field of neuroscience describes how brain circuits create behaviour patterns.
Specifically the work dealt in Deisseroth's field of Optogenetics, where proteins from algae could be inserted into neurons to be subsequently controlled with pulses of light.
"The short term goal of the project is the development of a device about the size of two stacked nickels with a cost of goods on the order of $10 which would enable a simple visual display via a direct interface to the visual cortex with the visual fidelity of something like an early LED digital clock," the publication reported.
"The implications of this project are astounding."
The seemingly dreamy research was limited to animal studies, specifically the real time imaging of a zebra fish brain with some 85,000 neurons, due to the need to mess with neuron DNA and the 'crude device' would be a long way off high fidelity augmented reality, the site reported.
DARPA's Biological Technologies Office was formed last April to cook up crazy ideas born at the intersection of biology and physical science. Its mind-bending research fields are geared to improve soldiers' performance, craft biological systems to bolster national security, and future the stability and well-being of humanity.
The project follows DARPA's upgrading of the heavy-set Atlas robot which was granted a battery allowing it to move about free of its electrical umbilical cord.
The agency also revealed biometric tracking that could identify users based on how they moved a mouse in what was dubbed a 'cognitive fingerprint' and slated as a possible replacement for password authentication.
Read the article in H+ magazine: http://hplusmagazine.com/2015/02/15/biology-technology-darpa-back-game-big-vision-h/
Sunday, February 15, 2015
The God Helmet - lectures by Todd Murphy
God and the Brain - The Persinger 'God Helmet', The Brain, and visions of God.
Reincarnation in Human Evolution - The New Science of Darwinian Reincarnation.
Enlightenment, Self, and the Brain. How the brain changes with final liberation
Psychic Skills & Miracles - technology used for telepathy and remote viewing
The Sacred Body. Kundalini, Subtle bodies, Chi, Yoga, and the brain.
Practical neurotheology - using Neuroscience for prayer and meditation
Michael Persinger's site: http://shaktitechnology.com/
Reincarnation in Human Evolution - The New Science of Darwinian Reincarnation.
Enlightenment, Self, and the Brain. How the brain changes with final liberation
Psychic Skills & Miracles - technology used for telepathy and remote viewing
The Sacred Body. Kundalini, Subtle bodies, Chi, Yoga, and the brain.
Practical neurotheology - using Neuroscience for prayer and meditation
Michael Persinger's site: http://shaktitechnology.com/
The Mind, The Brain, and God
With all the research on mind/brain connections these days – Your brain in lust or love! While gambling or feeling envious! While meditating, praying, or having an out-of-body experience! – it’s natural to wonder about Big Questions about the relationships among the mind, the brain, and God. For instance, some people have taken the findings that some spiritual experiences have neural correlates to mean that the hand of God is at work in the brain. Others have interpreted the same research to mean that spiritual experiences are “just” neural, and thus evidence against the existence of God or other supernatural forces. These debates are updated versions of longstanding philosophical and religious wrestlings with how God and nature might or might not intertwine.What’s your own gut view, right now, as a kind of snapshot: Do you think that God is involved in some way in your thoughts and feelings? In your most intimate sense of being?
In this essay, we’ll explore what mind, brain, and God could be, how they might interact, and what studies on the neuropsychology of spiritual experiences can – and cannot – tell us...
http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/on-practice/the-mind-the-brain-and-god-part-i
http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/on-practice/the-mind-the-brain-and-god-part-ii
http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/on-practice/the-mind-the-brain-and-god-part-iii
In this essay, we’ll explore what mind, brain, and God could be, how they might interact, and what studies on the neuropsychology of spiritual experiences can – and cannot – tell us...
http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/on-practice/the-mind-the-brain-and-god-part-i
http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/on-practice/the-mind-the-brain-and-god-part-ii
http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/on-practice/the-mind-the-brain-and-god-part-iii
The World's Happiest Man is a Tibetan Monk
Matthieu Ricard, a 66-year old Tibetan monk and geneticist, produces brain gamma waves—linked to consciousness, attention, learning and memory—never before reported in neuroscience, leading researchers to conclude that Ricard is the world’s happiest man. The secret to his success in achieving bliss? Meditation, he claims.
Meditating is like lifting weights or exercising for the mind, Ricard told the Daily News. Anyone can be happy by simply training their brain, he says.
To quantify just how happy Ricard is, neuroscientists at the University of Wisconsin attached 256 sensors to the monk’s skull. When he meditated on compassion, the researchers were shocked to see that Ricard’s brian produces a level of gamma waves off the charts. He also demonstrated excessive activity in his brain’s left prefrontal cortex compared to its right counterpart, meaning he has an abnormally large capacity for happiness and a reduced propensity towards negativity, the researchers say.
During the same study, the neuroscientists also peeked into the minds of other monks. They found that long-term practitioners—those who have engaged in more than 50,000 rounds of meditation—showed significant changes in their brain function, although that those with only three weeks of 20-minute meditation per day also demonstrated some change.
To spread the word on achieving happiness and enlightenment, Ricard authored Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill. Proceeds from the book go towards over 100 humanitarian projects.
“Try sincerely to check, to investigate,” he explained to the Daily News. “That’s what Buddhism has been trying to unravel — the mechanism of happiness and suffering. It is a science of the mind.”
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-worlds-happiest-man-is-a-tibetan-monk-105980614/?no-ist
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