Emergence in the central nervous system

The feeling of understanding: an exploration with neural models

There exists a dynamic interaction between the world of information and the world of concepts, which is seen as a quintessential byproduct of the cultural evolution of individuals as well as of human communities. The feeling of understanding (FU) is that subjective experience that encompasses all the emotional and intellectual processes we undergo in the process of gathering evidence to achieve an understanding of an event. This experience is part of every person that has dedicated substantial efforts in scientific areas under constant research progress. The FU may have an initial growth followed by a quasi-stable regime and a possible decay when accumulated data exceeds the capacity of an individual to integrate them into an appropriate conceptual scheme. We propose a neural representation of FU based on the postulate that all cognitive activities are mapped onto dynamic neural vectors. Two models are presented that incorporate the mutual interactions among data and concepts. The first one shows how in the short time scale, FU can rise, reach a temporary steady state and subsequently decline. The second model, operating over longer scales of time, shows how a reorganization and compactification of data into global categories initiated by conceptual syntheses can yield random cycles of growth, decline and recovery of FU.

Exposure to Mozart music reduces cognitive impairment in pilocarpine-induced status epilepticus rats

Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) often display cognitive deficits. However, current epilepsy therapeutic interventions mainly aim at how to reduce the frequency and degree of epileptic seizures. Recovery of cognitive impairment is not attended enough, resulting in the lack of effective approaches in this respect. In the pilocarpine-induced temporal lobe epilepsy rat model, memory impairment has been classically reported. Here we evaluated spatial cognition changes at different epileptogenesis stages in rats of this model and explored the effects of long-term Mozart music exposure on the recovery of cognitive ability. Our results showed that pilocarpine rats suffered persisting cognitive impairment during epileptogenesis. Interestingly, we found that Mozart music exposure can significantly enhance cognitive ability in epileptic rats, and music intervention may be more effective for improving cognitive function during the early stages after Status epilepticus. These findings strongly suggest that Mozart music may help to promote the recovery of cognitive damage due to seizure activities, which provides a novel intervention strategy to diminish cognitive deficits in TLE patients.