Holonomic brain theory in imaging and object perception

Toward a holographic brain paradigm: a lipid-centric model of brain functioning

Due to the stimulation of neuronal membrane dipoles by action potentials, under suitable conditions coherent dipole oscillations can be formed. We argue that these dipole oscillations satisfy the weak Bose-Einstein condensate criteria of the Froehlich model of biological coherence. They can subsequently generate electromagnetic fields (EMFs) propagating in the inter-neuronal space. When neighboring neurons fire synchronously, EMFs can create interference patterns and hence form holographic images containing analog information about the sensory inputs that trigger neuronal activity. The mirror pattern projected by EMFs inside the neuron can encode information in the neuronal cytoskeleton. We outline an experimental verification of our hypothesis and its consequences for anesthesia, neurodegenerative diseases, and psychiatric states.

The First Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, 1971: Reflections Approaching the 50th Anniversary of the Society's Formation

The formation of the Society for Neuroscience in 1969 was a scientific landmark, remarkable for the conceptual transformation it represented by uniting all fields touching on the nervous system. The scientific program of the first annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, held in Washington, DC in 1971, is summarized here. By reviewing the scientific program from the vantage point of the 50th anniversary of the Society for Neuroscience, the trajectory of research now and into the future can be tracked to its origins, and the impact that the founding of the Society has had on basic and biomedical science is evident. The broad foundation of the Society was firmly cast at this first meeting, which embraced the full spectrum of science related to the nervous system, emphasized the importance of public education, and attracted the most renowned scientists of the day who were drawn together by a common purpose and eagerness to share research and ideas. Some intriguing areas of investigation discussed at this first meeting blossomed into new branches of research that flourish today, but others dwindled and have been largely forgotten. Technological developments and advances in understanding of brain function have been profound since 1971, but the success of the first meeting demonstrates how uniting scientists across diversity fueled prosperity of the Society and propelled the vigorous advancement of science.

Quantum and Multidimensional Explanations in a Neurobiological Context of Mind

This article examines the possible relevance of physical-mathematical multidimensional or quantum concepts aiming at understanding the (human) mind in a neurobiological context. Some typical features of the quantum and multidimensional concepts are briefly introduced, including entanglement, superposition, holonomic, and quantum field theories. Next, we consider neurobiological principles, such as the brain and its emerging (physical) mind, evolutionary and ontological origins, entropy, syntropy/neg-entropy, causation, and brain energy metabolism. In many biological processes, including biochemical conversions, protein folding, and sensory perception, the ubiquitous involvement of quantum mechanisms is well recognized. Quantum and multidimensional approaches might be expected to help describe and model both brain and mental processes, but an understanding of their direct involvement in mental activity, that is, without mediation by molecular processes, remains elusive. More work has to be done to bridge the gap between current neurobiological and physical-mathematical concepts with their associated quantum-mind theories.

Networks of conscious experience: computational neuroscience in understanding life, death, and consciousness

We demonstrate brain locations appearing to correlate with consciousness, but not being directly responsible for it. Technology reveals that brain activity is associated with consciousness but is not equivalent to it. We examine how consciousness occurs at critical levels of complexity. Conventional explanations portray consciousness as an emergent property of classical computer-like activities in the brain's neural networks. Prevailing views in this camp are that patterns of neural network activities correlate with mental states, that synchronous network oscillations in the thalamus and cerebral cortex temporally bind information, and that consciousness emerges as a novel property of computational complexity among neurons. A hard-wired theory is enigmatic for explaining consciousness because the nature of subjective experience, or 'qualia'- 'inner life' - is a "hard problem" to understand; binding spatially distributed brain activity into unitary objects, and a coherent sense of self, or 'oneness' is difficult to explain as is the transition from pre- to conscious states. Consciousness is non-computable and involves factors that are neither random nor algorithmic - consciousness cannot be simulated; explanations are also needed for free will and for subjective time flow. Convention argues that neurons and their chemical synapses are the fundamental units of information in the brain, and that conscious experience emerges when a critical level of complexity is reached in the brain's neural networks. The basic idea is that the mind is a computer functioning in the brain. In fitting the brain to a computational view, such explanations omit incompatible neurophysiological details, including widespread apparent randomness at all levels of neural processes (is it really noise, or underlying levels of complexity?); glial cells (which account for some 80% of the brain); dendritic-dendritic processing; electrotonic gap junctions; cytoplasmic/cytoskeletal activities; living state (the brain is alive!); and absence of testable hypotheses in emergence theory. There is no threshold or rationale specified; rather, consciousness 'just happens'. Consciousness then involves an awareness of what we are sensing or experiencing and some ability to control or coordinate voluntary actions. These issues of life, death, and consciousness are discussed in the context of Mike, the headless chicken, who survived for 18 months, and in the context of consciousness with high degrees of intellectual and cognitive function in a congenitally anencephalic brain; additionally, in the reanimation work of Soviet scientists in the 1920-30s, and in auditory sentence processing in patients in comatose, vegetative, and minimally conscious states.

Consciousness and synchronicity

The brain is described as a system whose states are subject to quantum uncertainty. Conscious observation brings individual states into being from the multiple states possible at a given instant. This gives rise to information, which is the content of consciousness. Synchronicity is the principle by which a single state is generated by conscious observation throughout the brain at a given instant. It is the equivalent of the non-local interaction in quantum theory. Both psychodynamic and cognitive applications of the proposed model are described.

An analysis of neural spike-train distributions: determinants of the response of visual cortex neurons to changes in orientation and spatial frequency

A previously unexploited method of examining neural spike-trains was applied to data obtained from cells in the visual cortex. Distributions of interspike intervals recorded extracellularly from cat visual cortex under four conditions were analyzed. Stimuli were gratings differing in orientation and spatial frequency. The probability density function of first passage time for a random walk with drift process, which is defined by its barrier height and drift coefficient, was used to characterize the generating process of axonal discharge under resting and stimulus conditions. Drift coefficient and barrier height were derived from the sample mean and standard deviation of the measured inter-spike intervals. For cells with simple receptive fields, variations in the drift coefficient were produced by changes in orientation and spatial frequency. Variations in barrier height were produced only by changes in orientation of the stimulus.