Volume 15, Issue 6, pp. 241-288
Letters
Letters Response
Book Review
Opinion
Review

____________________________________________________________________

Letters

Frontal pole function: what is specifically human? p241

Etienne Koechlin

Full Text | PDF (82 kb)

Frontopolar cortex: constraints for theorizing p242

Paul W. Burgess

Full Text | PDF (64 kb)

Letters Response

Appreciating the differences: response to Burgess p243

Satoshi Tsujimoto, Aldo Genovesio

Full Text | PDF (66 kb)

Book Review

From theory of mind to divine minds p244

Justin L. Barrett

Full Text | PDF (76 kb)

Opinion

The Interactive Account of ventral occipitotemporal contributions to reading p246

Cathy J. Price, Joseph T. Devlin

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (468 kb)

The unique role of the visual word form area in reading p254

Stanislas Dehaene, Laurent Cohen

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (1051 kb)

Review

The role of testosterone in social interaction p263

Christoph Eisenegger, Johannes Haushofer, Ernst Fehr

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (563 kb)

Reciprocal relations between cognitive neuroscience and formal cognitive models: opposites attract? p272

Birte U. Forstmann, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Tom Eichele, Scott Brown, John T. Serences

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (390 kb)

Stress and emotional memory: a matter of timing p280

Marian Joëls, Guillen Fernandez, Benno Roozendaal

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (537 kb)

Volume 20, Issue 2, pp.173-488

_________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

REGULAR ARTICLES

REPLY

RESPONSE TO REPLY

SHORT COMMUNICATION

COMMENTARY TO SHORT COMMUNICATION

TARGET ARTICLE

COMMENTARIES

TARGET ARTICLE

COMMENTARY

REPLY

TARGET ARTICLE

COMMENTARY

REPLY

TARGET ARTICLE

COMMENTARY

REPLY

TARGET ARTICLE

COMMENTARY

TARGET ARTICLE

COMMENTARY

TARGET ARTICLE

COMMENTARY

Short Communications

REVIEWS

CORRIGENDUM

Click here for the webcast.

Click here for an edited transcript of the discussion.

Volume 15, Issue 5, pp. 185-240
Letters
Letters Response
Opinion
Review
Feature Review

____________________________________________________________

Letters

Letters Response

Book Review

Opinion

Review

Feature Review

41st Annual Meeting

Nov. 12-16, 2011, in Washington, DC.

Click here for the conference website

____________________________________________________________________________________________

The Society for Neuroscience annual meeting is the premier venue for neuroscientists from around the world to debut cutting-edge research.

Since 1971, the meeting has offered attendees the opportunity to learn about the latest breakthroughs and network with colleagues at top destinations throughout North America. Read about Neuroscience 2010, which took place Nov. 13-17, 2010 in San Diego, Calif.

Brain, Mind and Reality

Stockholm, Sweden, May 3-7, 2011

The nature of consciousness is the most interesting and important question we face. Consciousness is awareness, subjective experience of internal and external worlds, of understanding, feeling, meaning, sense of self and choice. Our views of reality, of the universe, of ourselves depend on consciousness. Consciousness defines our existence.

How the brain produces consciousness is an open question, as is its place in the universe. Most scientists and philosophers assume consciousness emerged during evolution as a by-product of complex computation among brain neurons, that neurons and synapses are fundamentally no different than bit states and switches in computers. However this neurocomputational view pays a price. It requires consciousness to be an after-the-fact illusion, merely along for the ride, a helpless spectator. Free will is deemed impossible.

Neurocomputation also precludes the possibility of non-local conscious phenomena, including oft-reported backward time effects, near-death and spiritual experiences, altered states and feelings of connection to a deeper reality. Accordingly, some believe that neurocomputation is incomplete, that consciousness is in some way intrinsic to the universe, in accord with not only ancient writings, but also modern physics, cosmology, non-locality and quantum brain biology. This view questions consciousness as a biological adaptation of evolution, and suggests consciousness has, in some sense, been here all along. Long considered ‘non-scientific’, such views have been bolstered in recent years by experimental evidence, and deserve to be aired and debated.

Such issues will be approached in this week-long conference. The ‘main course’ is the 5-day Plenary Program, held in the famous Aula Magna Hall, May 3-7, 2011. The Plenary Program, described below with a summary description of each session, will be preceded by two days of pre-conference activities.

Pre-Conference

On Sunday May 1 Pre-conference workshops on Synesthesia (sensory cross-over common among creative individuals), and Neural Correlates of Consciousness (brain activities, network architectures and testable predictions regarding consciousness) will be held. On Monday May 2 a special pre-conference workshop  (9 am to 4 pm in the Aula Magna Hall) by the famed Deepak Chopra will address ‘Consciousness: The Ultimate Reality?’ Following the Chopra workshop, a Public Forum will take place Monday evening.

Public Forum: Science, Consciousness and Spirituality

5:00 pm to 7:00 pm, Aula Magna

Moderator: Mia-Marie Hammarlin, Lund University

Descriptions and teachings of spiritual phenomena have seemed irrational, pushing scientists toward atheism or dualism. However non-locality has entered brain biology, and end-of-life brain activity defies conventional explanations. Can quantum physics bridge science and spirituality?

5:00 pm to 6:00 pm, Short talks

End-of-Life Conscious Experience, Peter Fenwick, Psychiatry, London

God and Quantum Mechanics, Ignacio Silva, Theology, Oxford

Quantum Physics and Eastern Philosophy, Tarja Kallio-Tamminen, Physics, Helsinki,

Consciousness and Ultimate Reality, Deepak Chopra, Physician, NY/California

6:00-6:30 pm, Panel/Commentary

Leonard Mlodinow, Physics, Pasadena; Lluis Oviedo, Franciscan Theologian, Rome; Paola Zizzi, Physics, Padua; Giorgio Innocenti, Neuroscientist, Karolinska; Menas Kafatos, Physics, Chapman University; Stuart Hameroff, Physician, Arizona

6:30-7:00 pm, Audience questions, General discussion

Toward a Science of Consciousness 2011

Conference Program

The conference opens Tuesday morning May 3, 2011. Plenary Sessions will be held in the famous Aula Magna, co-moderated by Swedish TV producer and host Annika Dopping, along with a scientist, e.g. Stuart Hameroff, Peter Fenwick and Lars-Göran Nilsson. Musical interludes by John Kluge.

TUESDAY, MAY 3, 2011

Plenary 1, 8:30 am to 10:40 am

Brain Electromagnetic Fields and Consciousness
David McCormick, Yale

Endogenous Electric Fields Guide Cortical Network Activity
Sue Pockett, Auckland

E-M Field Theory of Consciousness: The Shape of Conscious  Fields
Johnjoe McFadden, Surrey

The Continuous E-M Information (CEMI) Field Theory of Consciousness

Does consciousness derive from complex neuronal computation in the brain, as is generally assumed? Or is consciousness embedded in the brain’s electromagnetic field, the field associated with that computation? In recent years evidence has shown brain-generated E-M fields can feed back upon and regulate other brain activities. Neuroscientist Sue Pockett and biologist JohnJoe McFadden have each, separately, for many years argued for consciousness as identical to the brain’s complex electromagnetic field. Neuroscientist David McCormick has recently shown that the brain’s generated electromagnetic field can indeed feed back upon, and regulate neuronal activities, apparent evidence in support of Pockett and McFadden.

Plenary 2, 11:10am to 12:30 pm

Time and Consciousness I
Harald Atmanspacher, Freiberg

Temporal Nonlocality In Bistable Perception
Sara Gonzalez-Andino, Geneva

Backward Time Referral in the Amygdala of Primates

The famous Libet experiments and many others have long suggested backward time referral of conscious experience in the brain. Does backward referral require quantum physics? Can it salvage free will? Would it be an evolutionary advantage? Physicist Harald Atmanspacher considers temporal nonlocality, states of a system that are smeared out in time, in bistable perceptions such as the famous Necker cube. Neuroscientist/physicist Sara Gonzalez-Andino considers backward time referral in firings of neurons in the amygdala ‘fear center’ in primates.

Plenary 3, 2:00 pm to 4:10 pm

Consciousness and Reality I

Deepak Chopra, The Chopra Foundation

Vedic Approaches to Consciousness and Reality
Leonard Mlodinow, Pasadena

The Grand Design of Our Universe
Paola Zizzi, Padua

Consciousness In The Early Universe

Three views of consciousness in the universe will be put forth. Following ancient Vedic philosophy, author and spiritualist Deepak Chopra maintains consciousness is primary, that consciousness is all there is. Physicist and author Leonard Mlodinow (e.g. Grand Design with Stephen Hawking) sees consciousness as epiphenomenal happenstance of this one particular universe among multitudes, as proposed in M-theory. Physicist Paola Zizzi will suggest consciousness came with the ‘Big Bang’, that consciousness is intrinsic to spacetime geometry, the fabric of reality.

Tuesday May 3 afternoon/evening; Concurrent Sessions 1-8, Opening Party

After the Tuesday Plenary program will be 8 Concurrent talk sessions, each on specific topics, 5 speakers per session, from 4:30 to 6:35 pm. Sessions and topics are (see program for speakers and locations): 1.Representation/Higher order theories; 2. Knowledge/Hard Problem; 3. Free will/Libet; 4. Synesthesia; 5   Neural Correlates of Consciousness I (NCC I); 6 Medicine I; 7. Quantum I; 8. Altered states I

Following Concurrent sessions 1-8, the Opening Welcome Party will take place in the Aula Magna Plaza. See full conference program for details.

Artistic and Technological Exhibits featuring interactive and expressive approaches to conscious experience will run throughout the conference in the Aula magna lobby, with a special Jol Thomson Installation in the Polstjanan room. Curators: Nancy Clark, Maureen Seaberg and Abi Behar Montefiore.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 2011

Plenary 4, 8:30 am to 10:40 am

Transcranial Therapies
Eric Wassermann, NIH

Transcranial Stimulation and Consciousness
Allan Snyder, Sydney

Accessing Beyond Conscious Awareness by Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation
William J Tyler, Virginia Tech Carilion Institute

Mechanical Waves and Consciousness

A new genre of noninvasive, inexpensive transcranial therapies applied at the scalp is safely able to modulate brain activities and regulate mental states. Studies of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) and transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) aimed at learning, mood, brain injury, synaptic plasticity, entertainment and personal lifestyle will be discussed, as will their potential mechanisms of action. Eric Wasserman will discuss applications of TES and TMS, and Allan Snyder will describe his findings that TES can markedly enhance memory capability. William J Tyler will discuss mechanical signaling, i.e. ultrasound vibrations in the brain somehow connected to consciousness.

Plenary 5, 11:10am to 12:30 pm

Neural correlates of consciousness I
Rafi Malach, Weizmann Institue

Local Neuronal Ignitions and the Emergence of Perceptual Awareness
Dietmar Plenz, NIH

Neuronal Avalanches, Coherence Potentials, and Cooperativity

What specific neuronal activities are responsible for consciousness? Rafi Malach and Dietmar Plenz present converging evidence that consciousness is distinguished by highly coherent activities of large number of brain neurons acting in unison. How do these neurons interact and cooperate? How do their activities, and consciousness, relate to the E-M fields they generate? Why is coherence essential to consciousness?

Plenary 6, 2:00 pm to 4:10 pm

Consciousness and Reality II
Menas Kafatos, Chapman

Consciousness and the Universe: Non-local, Entangled, Complementary Reality
Tarja Kallio-Tamminem, Helsinki

Quantum Physics and Eastern philosophy
Paavo Pylkkanen, Skovde, Helsinki

Bohmian view of consciousness and reality

What is reality? Does consciousness occur strictly in the materialist realm of classical physics? Or does consciousness somehow involve the nonlocal weirdness of quantum mechanics? Does the conscious observer collapse the wave function? Or is consciousness the collapse itself? What is entanglement? Menas Kafatos describes what is known about the universe, and how strange it really is. Tarja Kallio-Tamminem finds similarities between quantum physics and Eastern spiritual traditions. Paavo Pylkkanen bridges the gap with the perspective of David Bohm.

Wednesday May 4 afternoon/evening Concurrent Sessions 9-16 and 17-24, Poster Session 1

After the Wednesday Plenary program will be Concurrent talk sessions 9-16, each on specific topics, 5 speakers per session, from 4:30 to 6:35 pm. Sessions and topics are (see program for speakers and locations): 9. Phenomenology/Content of Consciousness; 10. Panpsychism; 11. Time and Consciousness; 12. NCC II; 13. Medicine II; 14. Quantum II; 15. Religion and Consciousness; 16. Experiential I

From 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm, Concurrent sessions on specific themes 17-24 will be held (6 speakers each) on specific themes (see program for speakers and locations): 17. Language/Reporting; 18.  AI/Computationalism; 19. Open; 20. Microtubules I; 21.  Altered States II; 22.  Integrative models I; 23. Experiential II: 24. Eastern Approaches I.

Poster Session 1 will also take place Wednesday 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm in the Aula Magna lobby. Posters will be grouped in the following categories : Philosophy, Neuroscience, Cognitive Science and Psychology, Physical and Biological Sciences, Experiential Approaches, Culture and Humanities.

THURSDAY, MAY 5, 2011

Plenary 7, 8:30 am to 10:40 am

Varieties of Religious Experience
Mario Beauregard, Montreal

Neuroscience of Transcendent Experiences

Alexande

Humans have always struggled with addictions to mind-altering substances. Yet, only in the past few decades have neuroscientists begun to understand precisely how these substances affect the brain — and why they can quickly become a destructive and even deadly habit. 

For a long time, society viewed addiction as a moral failing. The addict was seen as someone who simply lacked self-control. Today, thanks to new advances in brain imaging and other technologies, we know that addiction is a disease characterized by profound disruptions in particular routes — or circuits — in the brain.

Scientists are learning how genetics and environmental factors, such as stress, contribute to these neural disruptions and increase the risk of addiction. This ongoing research is allowing researchers to:

• Understand how addictive substances affect the brain’s reward system.
• Develop more effective therapies for treating drug abuse and addiction.
• Establish better methods of detecting people at risk of developing addictions.

Click here to read the complete article.

Scientists say they have moved a step closer to developing a computer model of the brain after finding a way to map both the connections and functions of nerve cells in the brain together for the first time.

In a study in the journal Nature on Sunday, researchers from Britain’s University College London (UCL) described a technique developed in mice which enabled them to combine information about the function of neurons with details of their connections.

The study is part of an emerging area of neuroscience research known as ‘connectomics‘. A little like genomics, which maps our genetic make-up, connectomics aims to map the brain’s connections, known as synapses.

By untangling and being able to map these connections — and deciphering how information flows through the brain’s circuits — scientists hope to understand how thoughts and perceptions are generated in the brain and how these functions go wrong in diseases such as Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia and stroke.

“We are beginning to untangle the complexity of the brain,” said Tom Mrsic-Flogel, who led the study.

“Once we understand the function and connectivity of nerve cells spanning different layers of the brain, we can begin to develop a computer simulation of how this remarkable organ works.”

But he said would take many years of work among scientists and huge computer processing power before that could be done.

In a report of his research, Mrsic-Flogel explained how mapping the brain’s connections is no small feat: There are an estimated one hundred billion nerve cells, or neurons, in the brain, each connected to thousands of other nerve cells, he said, making an estimated 150 trillion synapses.

“How do we figure out how the brain’s neural circuitry works? We first need to understand the function of each neuron and find out to which other brain cells it connects,” he said.

In this study, Mrsic-Flogel’s team focused on vision and looked into the visual cortex of the mouse brain, which contains thousands of neurons and millions of different connections.

Using high resolution imaging, they were able to detect which of these neurons responded to a particular stimulus.

Taking a slice of the same tissue, the scientists then applied small currents to subsets of neurons to see which other neurons responded and which of them were synaptically connected.

By repeating this technique many times, they were able to trace the function and connectivity of hundreds of nerve cells in visual cortex.

Using this method, the team hopes to begin generating a wiring diagram of a brain area with a particular function, such as the visual cortex. The technique should also help them map the wiring of regions that underpin touch, hearing and movement.

John Williams, head of neuroscience and mental health at the Wellcome Trust medical charity, which helped fund the study, said understanding the brain’s inner workings was one of science’s “ultimate goals.”

“This important study presents neuroscientists with one of the key tools that will help them begin to navigate and survey the landscape of the brain,” he said.

  (Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Sophie Hares)

No other species on the planet uses language or writing — a mystery that remains unsolved even after thousands of years of research. Now neuroscientists are taking advantage of powerful new ways to peer into the brain to provide remarkable insights into this unique human ability.

Do you trip over your words, struggle to listen to a dinner companion in a noisy restaurant, or find it difficult to understand a foreign accent on TV? Help may be on the way. Using powerful new research tools, scientists have begun to unravel the long-standing mystery of how the human brain processes and understands speech.

In some ways, language is one of the oldest topics in human history, fascinating everyone from ancient philosophers to modern computer programmers. This is because language helps make us human. Although other animals communicate with one another, we are the only species to use complex speech and to record our messages through writing. This newly invigorated field, known as the neurobiology of language, helps scientists:

• Gain important insights into the brain regions responsible for language comprehension.
• Learn about underlying brain mechanisms that may cause speech and language disorders.
• Understand the “cocktail party effect,” the ability to focus on specific voices against background noise.

Click here for the complete article.

In the race to build computers that can think like humans, the proving ground is the Turing Test—an annual battle between the world’s most advanced artificial-intelligence programs and ordinary people. The objective? To find out whether a computer can act “more human” than a person. In his own quest to beat the machines, the author discovers that the march of technology isn’t just changing how we live, it’s raising new questions about what it means to be human.

BRIGHTON, ENGLAND, SEPTEMBER 2009. I wake up in a hotel room 5,000 miles from my home in Seattle. After breakfast, I step out into the salty air and walk the coastline of the country that invented my language, though I find I can’t understand a good portion of the signs I pass on my way—LET AGREED, one says, prominently, in large print, and it means nothing to me.

I pause, and stare dumbly at the sea for a moment, parsing and reparsing the sign. Normally these kinds of linguistic curiosities and cultural gaps intrigue me; today, though, they are mostly a cause for concern. In two hours, I will sit down at a computer and have a series of five-minute instant-message chats with several strangers. At the other end of these chats will be a psychologist, a linguist, a computer scientist, and the host of a popular British technology show. Together they form a judging panel, evaluating my ability to do one of the strangest things I’ve ever been asked to do.

I must convince them that I’m human.

Fortunately, I am human; unfortunately, it’s not clear how much that will help.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Click here to read the article.

Click here for videos on optogenetics.

Volume 15, Issue 4, pp. 141-184

Update – Forum: Science & Society

Opinion

Review

_____________________________________________________________________________

2

The mind on stage: why cognitive scientists should study acting Pages 141-142 Thalia R. Goldstein, Paul Bloom Show preview |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

3

Posterior cingulate cortex: adapting behavior to a changing world Review Article Pages 143-151 John M. Pearson, Sarah R. Heilbronner, David L. Barack, Benjamin Y. Hayden, Michael L. Platt Show preview |   Supplementary content |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

4

Implicit social cognition: from measures to mechanisms Review Article Pages 152-159 Brian A. Nosek, Carlee Beth Hawkins, Rebecca S. Frazier Show preview |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

5

Visual crowding: a fundamental limit on conscious perception and object recognition Review Article Pages 160-168 David Whitney, Dennis M. Levi Show preview |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

6

Frontal pole cortex: encoding ends at the end of the endbrain Review Article Pages 169-176 Satoshi Tsujimoto, Aldo Genovesio, Steven P. Wise Show preview |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

7

Thalamic pathways for active vision Review Article Pages 177-184 Robert H. Wurtz, Kerry McAlonan, James Cavanaugh, Rebecca A. Berman Show preview |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

The pain of rejection is more than just a figure of speech: regions of the brain that respond to physical pain overlap with those that react to social rejection, a brain imaging study shows.

The study used brain imaging on people involved in romantic breakups.

“These results give new meaning to the idea that rejection ‘hurts,”‘ wrote psychology professor Ethan Kross of the University of Michigan and his colleagues. Their findings are reported in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Co-author Edward Smith of Columbia University explained that the research shows that psychological or social events can affect regions of the brain that scientists thought were dedicated to physical pain.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Click here for full access to the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Abstract
Many philosophical problems are rooted in everyday thought, and experimental philosophy uses social scientific techniques to study the psychological underpinnings of such problems. In the case of free will, research suggests that people in a diverse range of cultures reject determinism, but people give conflicting responses on whether determinism would undermine moral responsibility. When presented with abstract questions, people tend to maintain that determinism would undermine responsibility, but when presented with concrete cases of wrongdoing, people tend to say that determinism is consistent with moral responsibility. It remains unclear why people reject determinism and what drives people’s conflicted attitudes about responsibility. Experimental philosophy aims to address these issues and thereby illuminate the philosophical problem of free will.

Click here for an article on this study in the New York Times.

This is a TED talk (about 20 mins) you don’t want to miss! Click here to watch the talk.

From the broadcast description:

“Free will – the extent to which we are free to choose our own actions – is one of the most absorbing philosophical problems, debated by almost every great thinker of the last two thousand years. In a universe apparently governed by physical laws, is it possible for individuals to be responsible for their own actions? Or are our lives simply proceeding along preordained paths? Determinism – the doctrine that every event is the inevitable consequence of what goes before – seems to suggest so.

Many intellectuals have concluded that free will is logically impossible. The philosopher Baruch Spinoza regarded it as a delusion. Albert Einstein wrote: “Human beings, in their thinking, feeling and acting are not free agents but are as causally bound as the stars in their motion.” But in the Enlightenment, philosophers including David Hume found ways in which free will and determinism could be reconciled. Recent scientific developments mean that this debate remains as lively today as it was in the ancient world.”

Click here to listen to the broadcast.

The March issue of Consciousness and Cognition is available online.

Volume 20, Issue 1, pp.1-172

Special issue: Brain and Self: Bridging the Gap

_________________________________________

_____________________

_________________________________________________________

Special issue articles

Volume 15, Issue 3, pp. 95-140

Book Review

Opinion

Review

—————-

Book Review

How does the brain make economic decisions? p95

Antonio Rangel

Full Text | PDF (89 kb)

Opinion

What drives the organization of object knowledge in the brain? p97

Bradford Z. Mahon, Alfonso Caramazza

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (417 kb)

Specifying the self for cognitive neuroscience p104

Kalina Christoff, Diego Cosmelli, Dorothée Legrand, Evan Thompson

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (419 kb)

Review

Songs to syntax: the linguistics of birdsong p113

Robert C. Berwick, Kazuo Okanoya, Gabriel J.L. Beckers, Johan J. Bolhuis

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (368 kb)

Representing multiple objects as an ensemble enhances visual cognition p122

George A. Alvarez

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (501 kb)

Cognitive neuroscience of self-regulation failure p132

Todd F. Heatherton, Dylan D. Wagner

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (440 kb)

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————

——-

————————–

17^th Annual Meeting

Quebec City, Canada, June 26-30, 2011

Click here for the conference website.

The Annual Meeting will have an extensive program of local and international speakers, covering a wide range of topics and issues, and specifically address the field of human functional neuroimaging and its movement into the scientific mainstream. The focus will be to gather scientists and medical professionals using modern, functional, brain mapping techniques such as PET, SPECT, fMRI, EEG, MEG, optical imaging and neuroanatomical tools for assessment of the functioning of the human brain. It will include the applications of these techniques to study brain implementation of sensory and motor systems, vision, attention, memory and language in normal and pathological states.

Geoffrey Hinton, a pioneer in artificial intelligence, was awarded the country’s top science prize last week, the prestigious Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal. The prize by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council comes with a guarantee of $1-million in funding over five years. The University of Toronto researcher spoke with Anne McIlroy on his efforts to get computers to learn the way humans do.

Last week, an IBM computer named Watson bested humans on the television program Jeopardy!. Who were you rooting for?

Watson.

Why?

Well, it is an example of artificial intelligence. That’s the field I’m in, so it is nice to see progress.

How is Watson different than the kind of artificial intelligence you are working on?

There are two main ways. The first is, we want to do a lot more by learning and a lot less by less by hand programming. Watson was a mixture.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

A Tribute to Steven A. Hillyard

A Satellite Symposium of the Cognitive Neuroscience Science Meeting
Saturday, April 2, 2011, Ballroom A, Hyatt Regency San Francisco

________________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Schedule of Events

Click here to register for this event.

Move over cryptic crosswords and Sudoku, and make way for the ultimate mental workout. It’s called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, or MBSR for short. Recent neuroscience research shows that novices using the method – developed at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the 1970s – can get results in just eight weeks.

Brain-changing results, that is.

A 2010 study found that non-meditators who had eight weeks of MBSR training were more likely than a control group to access the brain region that provides a bodily sense of the “here and now” as opposed to the region associated with worry.

In other research published in January, brain scans of MBSR participants with no previous meditation experience showed increased grey-matter density in regions involved in learning and memory, emotion regulation, self-awareness and perspective taking.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

We are metal heads. Our brains need iron, copper, manganese and zinc to function, yet there is growing evidence that these metals may play a role in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease multiple sclerosis and other illnesses.

Canadian scientists are developing new imaging techniques to accurately map and measure metals in the brain, a crucial step toward learning more about why they are so essential, as well as understanding the damage they can cause under some circumstances.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

The February issue of Trends in Cognitive Sciences is available online

Volume 15, Issue 2, pp. 47-94

Review

________________________________________________________________________

_______________

Review

Sounds and scents in (social) action p47

Salvatore M. Aglioti, Mariella Pazzaglia

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (1227 kb)

Value, pleasure and choice in the ventral prefrontal cortex p56

Fabian Grabenhorst, Edmund T. Rolls

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (819 kb) | Supplemental Data

Cognitive culture: theoretical and empirical insights into social learning strategies p68

Luke Rendell, Laurel Fogarty, William J.E. Hoppitt, Thomas J.H. Morgan, Mike M. Webster, Kevin N. Laland

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (298 kb)

Visual search in scenes involves selective and nonselective pathways p77

Jeremy M. Wolfe, Melissa L.-H. Võ, Karla K. Evans, Michelle R. Greene

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (522 kb)

Featured ArticleFree

Emotional processing in anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex p85

Amit Etkin, Tobias Egner, Raffael Kalisch

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (608 kb) | Supplemental Data

Concussion stories from Bobby Kuntz’s days with the Toronto Argonauts and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats made for family football folklore until a decade ago when they suddenly seemed bittersweet.

Mr. Kuntz, who suffered as many as 20 concussions playing football in the 1950s and 60s, developed a tremor and started to forget things. His golf game went and he had to give up his position as president and chief executive officer of his family’s metal finishing business.

His symptoms were progressive, yet difficult to diagnose. His wife, Mary, took him down to the Mayo Clinic – he was in his late 60s – and doctors suggested Lewy Body dementia and Parkinson’s.

“The only way you’ll ever find out if its Lewy Body disease is to have an autopsy,” Mrs. Kuntz recalled the Mayo Clinic doctors telling her about a decade ago.

She had always planned on having her husband autopsied as she was concerned about whether her five living children were at risk of inheriting his brain disease. Ms. Kuntz wants to know if there is a link between repeated concussions and his Lewy Body disease, a progressive form of dementia, or Parkinson’s, a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system with similar characteristics.

Click here to read the rest of this article.

Editor’s note: The goal of computational neuroscience is to understand the brain and its mechanisms well enough to artificially simulate their functions. In some areas, like hearing, vision, and prosthetics, there have been great advances in the field. Yet there is still much about the brain that is unknown and therefore cannot be artificially replicated: How does the brain use language, make complex associations, or organize learned experiences? Once the neural pathways responsible for these and many other functions are fully understood and reconstructed, researchers will have the ability to build systems that can match—and maybe even exceed—the brain’s capabilities.

“If I cannot build it, I do not understand it.” So said Nobel laureate Richard Feynman, and by his metric, we understand a bit about physics, less about chemistry, and almost nothing about biology.¹

When we fully understand a phenomenon, we can specify its entire sequence of events, causes, and effects so completely that it is possible to fully simulate it, with all its internal mechanisms intact. Achieving that level of understanding is rare. It is commensurate with constructing a full design for a machine that could serve as a stand-in for the thing being studied.  To understand a phenomenon sufficiently to fully simulate it is to understand it computationally.

“Computation” does not refer to computers per se; rather it refers to the underlying principles and methods that make them work. As Turing Award recipient Edsger Dijkstra said, computational science “is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.”² Computational science is the study of the hidden rules underlying complex phenomena from physics to psychology.

Computational neuroscience, then, has the aim of understanding brains sufficiently well to be able to simulate their functions, thereby subsuming the twin goals of science and engineering: deeply understanding the inner workings of our brains, and being able to construct simulacra of them. As simple robots today substitute for human physical abilities, in settings from factories to hospitals, so brain engineering will construct stand-ins for our mental abilities—and possibly even enable us to fix our brains when they break.

Read the rest of the article.

Abstract
Negative emotional stimuli activate a broad network of brain regions, including the medial prefrontal (mPFC) and anterior cingulate (ACC) cortices. An early influential view dichotomized these regions into dorsal–caudal cognitive and ventral–rostral affective subdivisions. In this review, we examine a wealth of recent research on negative emotions in animals and humans, using the example of fear or anxiety, and conclude that, contrary to the traditional dichotomy, both subdivisions make key contributions to emotional processing. Specifically, dorsal–caudal regions of the ACC and mPFC are involved in appraisal and expression of negative emotion, whereas ventral–rostral portions of the ACC and mPFC have a regulatory role with respect to limbic regions involved in generating emotional responses. Moreover, this new framework is broadly consistent with emerging data on other negative and positive emotions.

Click here for the full article.

Study the literature of the world and you will find one theme that transcends both time and culture: that of love. Whether you are reading Shakespeare or Rumi, the manner in which love is described shows remarkable similarity. Those similarities go far beyond the page: Neuroscientists are now demonstrating that romantic love is also represented by a unique pattern of activation in the brain.

The neuroimaging of love

In the past six years, several groups of researchers have sought to localize romantic love in the brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques. Though some have criticized the attempt as nothing more than modern day phrenology, those who seek the neural correlates of love believe it an essential avenue of study.

“The study of love is important so we might bring some rationality to a complex and emotional phenomenon,” says Stephanie Ortigue, a neuroscientist at Syracuse University. “These studies allow scientists to show that love is not a drug or a pathology but something that has a unique signature in the healthy brain.”

Read the entire article.

March 14-20, 2011 is Brain Awareness Week. Join the global campaign to increase public awareness of the progress and benefits of brain research. Become a partner and plan an event or find an event in your area at Dana.org

Brain Awareness Week (BAW) is the global campaign to increase public awareness about the progress and benefits of brain research. Every March, BAW unites the efforts of universities, hospitals, patient groups, government agencies, schools, service organizations, and professional associations worldwide in a week-long celebration of the brain. Founded and coordinated by the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives and European Dana Alliance for the Brain, BAW’s sixteenth annual celebration will take place from March 14-20, 2011.

During BAW, campaign partners organize creative and innovative activities in their communities to educate and excite people of all ages about the brain and brain research. Events are limited only by the organizers’ imaginations. Examples include open days at neuroscience laboratories; museum exhibitions about the brain; lectures on an array of brain-related topics; displays at malls, libraries, and community centers; classroom workshops; and many other activities and programs.

For more information about Brain Awareness Week

Toward a Science of Consciousness

Stockholm, Sweden, May 3-7, 2011

Toward a Science of Consciousness (TSC) is an annual interdisciplinary conference on all aspects of the fundamental question of how the brain produces conscious experience, a question addressing who we are, the nature of reality and our place in the universe.  TSC rigorously overs neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, philosophy, neurobiology, medicine, quantum physics, cosmology, experiential and spiritual approaches to the understanding of conscious awareness.

Since 1994, TSC has alternated between
Tucson, Arizona and various locations around
the world. This year, the 18th Toward a Science
of Consciousness: Brain, Mind and Reality, will
take place May 3-7, 2011 at Aula Magna Hall,
Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden with
pre- and post-conference workshops May 1,2 and 7.

An estimated 500 scientists, philosophers,
psychologists, experientialists, artists, students
and others from more than 60 countries will
participate in hundreds of presentations included
in 14 Plenary or Keynote Sessions, 40 Concurrent
Talk Sessions, 2 Poster Sessions, Art-Tech Demos,
social events and special evening performances.

Details regarding Social Events will be posted soon.

Abstracts for all presentations will be posted at
www.consciousness.arizona.edu and published in a conference book prepared by the Journal of
Consciousness Studies.

Plenary Program Overview:
Plenary and Keynote Sessions will run Tuesday,
May 3 through Saturday, May 7 in the Aula Magna Hall,
8:30 am to 4:10 pm, with breaks.  Concurrent talks,
Poster Sessions, Art Exhibits and Social Events
will take place late afternoon and evenings.

Featured Plenary and Keynote Speakers include
esteemed mathematical physicist and author
Sir Roger Penrose, Nobel Laureate Luc Montagnier, and
author, physician and V! edic scholar Deepak Chopra.

On May 2, Deepak Chopra will lead a full day
workshop, Consciousness: The Ultimate Reality
with a special session on Neuroscience of Enlightenment
followed by an early evening public forum at
Aula Magna Hall entitled, Are Science and Spirituality
Incompatible? (Speakers TBA).

In addition to major contributions to cosmology, physics
reality and geometry, Sir Roger Penrose brought
consciousness in a meaningful way into physics,
co-developed a controversial quantum theory of
consciousness, and recently proposed a cyclical,
serial universe.  Dr. Luc Montagnier won the 2008
Nobel Prize in Medicine for showing that AIDs is
caused by HIV virus, and has of late reported
controversial evidence for non-local effects in
DNA.  Dr. Deepak Ch! opra has applied ancient Vedic
teachings to modern m! edicine, cosmology, consciousness
and spirituality, and written 60 books including
War of the Worldviews with Leonard Mlodinow (also a
plenary speaker, and co-author of Grand Design with
Stephen Hawking).

A full listing of plenary sessions themes, speakers
and brief descriptions are below. The Plenary, Concurrent
and Poster session presenters and abstracts
will be posted on www.consciousness.arizona.edu
Pre-Conference workshops begin on Sunday, May 1 with
a full-day Synesthesia symposium. Also on May 1
will be 2 half-day workshops on Neural Correlates and
Depersonalization; 3 workshops are scheduled for May 7
after the close of the Plenary program: Altered States,
Quantum Biology and an Experiential Workshop on binaural
beat audio-guidance technology.

A full listing of Plenary, Concurrent Sessions, Poster Session Participants
Art-Tech Exhibitors and Workshops can be found at
http://consciousness.arizona.edu/TSC2011PlenaryKeynotesProgram.htm

http://consciousness.arizona.edu/TSC2011ConcurrentSessions.htm

http://consciousness.arizona.edu/TSC2011Posters.htm

http://consciousness.arizona.edu/TSC2011ArtTechDemos.htm

http://consciousness.arizona.edu/TSC2011WorkshopsALL.htm

http://consciousness.arizona.edu/TSC2011deepakworkshop.htm

For Registration, Lodging and other information, please go to
www.consciousness.arizona.edu

http://consciousness.arizona.edu/TSC2011Hotels.htm

We look forward to seeing you in Stockholm!

Best wishes on behalf of the entire Program Committee.

Vi ser fram emot att träffa dig i Stockholm!
Hälsningar från oss i konferenskommittén

Stuart Hameroff
Christer Perfjell
Abi Be har Montefiore

PLENARY PROGRAM
Aula Magna Hall
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Plenary 1, 8:30 am to 10:40 am
Brain Electromagnetic Fields and Consciousness
McCormick D, Yale, Endogenous electric fields guide cortical network activity
Pockett S, Auckland, Electromagnetic field theory of consciousness: The shape of conscious fields
McFadden J, Surrey, The continuous electromagnetic information (CEMI) field theory of consciousness
Is the brain’s complex electromagnetic field itself the essence of consciousness?

Plenary 2, 11:10 am to 12:30 pm
Time and Consciousness I
Atmanspacher H, Freiberg, Temporal nonlocality in bistable perception
Gonzalez-Andino S, Geneva, Backward time referral in the amygdala of primates
Since the famous Libet experi! ments, backward time effects have been repeatedly detected in the brain.

Plenary 3, 2:00 pm to 4:10 pm
Consciousness and Reality
Keynote, Chopra D, Chopra Foundation, Vedic approaches to consciousness and reality
Mlodinow L, Pasadena, Grand Design
Zizzi P, Padua, Consciousness in the early universe
Is consciousness intrinsic to the universe, or an after-the-fact illusion?
Wednesday, May 4

Plenary 4, 8:30 am to 10:40 am
Transcranial Therapies
Wassermann E, NIH, Transcranial stimulation and consciousness
Snyder A, Sydney, Accessing information normally beyond conscious awareness by non-invasive brain stimulation
Tyler WJ, Arizona State, Transcranial ultrasound therapy for brain injury
New non-invasive transcranial therapies hold great promise for mind/brain disorders

Plenary 5, 11:10 am to 12:30 pm
Ne! ural cor relates of consciousness I
Malach R, Weizmann, Local neuronal ignitions and the emergence of perceptual awareness
Plenz D, NIH, Neuronal avalanches, coherence potentials, and cooperativity: Dynamical aspects that define mammalian cortex
Highly coherent neuronal brain activities correlate with consciousness.

Plenary 6, 2:00 pm to 4:10 pm
Consciousness and Reality II
Kafatos M, Chapman, Consciousness and the non-local universe
Kallio-Tamminem K,Helsinki, Quantum physics and Eastern philosophy
Pylkkanen P, Helsinki, Bohmian view of consciousness and reality
Consciousness, physics and metaphysics

Thursday, May 5

Plenary 7, 8:30 am to 10:40 am
Varieties of Religious Experience
Beauregard M, Montreal, Neuroscience of transcendent experiences
Moreira-Almeida A, Juiz De F! ora, Differential diagnosis between spiritual experiences and mental disorders
Roberto, Padrinho Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Sacred plants of Amazonia
What exactly is a religious experience?

Plenary 8, 11:10 am to 12:30 pm
Time and consciousness II
Bierman D, Amsterdam, Presentiment
Cerf M, NYU, Time effects in human cortical neuronal firings
Does information go backward-in-time in the brain?

Plenary 9, 2:00 pm to 4:10 pm
Quantum Biology I
Keynote, Luc Montagnier, Nobel Laureate, Pasteur Institute, The transfer of biological information through electromagnetic waves and matter
Vitiello G, Salerno, DNA: On the wave of coherence
Bernroider G and Summerhammer J, Salzburg, Quantum properties in ion channel proteins
Do nonlocal quantum effects mediate function in DNA and ion channel! s?

Thursday Evening
Confererence Dinner Cruise

Friday, May 6

Plenary 10, 8:30 am to 10:40 am
Microtubules
Tuszynski JA, Edmonton, Information processing within dendritic cytoskeleton
Bandyopadhyay A, NIMS, Tsukuba, Direct experimental evidence for quantum states in microtubules and topological invariance
Tanzi R, Harvard, Zinc link between aBeta and microtubule instability in Alzheimer’s disease
Possibilities for microtubule computing and quantum computing, and their role in Alzheimer’s Disease

Plenary 11, 11:10 am to 12:30 pm
Keynote, Sir Roger Penrose, Oxford
Consciousness in the universe

Plenary 12, 2:00 pm to 4:10 pm
Neural correlates of consciousness II
Hesslow G, Lund, The inner world as simulated interaction with the environment
Ehrsson H, Karolinska, How we come to experi! ence that we own our body: The cognitive neuroscience of body self-perception
Ullen F, Karolinska, The psychological flow experience: From phenomenology to biological correlates
At home in the brain with an all-Swedish session

Saturday, May 7

Plenary 13, 8:30 am to 10:40 am
Anesthesia and consciousness
Hudetz A, Milwaukee, Anesthetics and gamma synchrony
Franks N, London, Molecular actions of anesthetics
Hameroff S, Tucson, Meyer-Overton meets quantum physics
How do anesthetic gases selectively and reversibly erase consciousness?

Plenary 14, 11:10 am to 1:20 pm
End of life brain activity
Chawla L, GWU, Surges of electroencephalogram activity at the time of death
Van Lommel P, Amsterdam, Near death experiences: Clinical studies
Fenwick P, London, Death and the loo! sening of consciousness
Does highly c! oherent brain activity measured at the time of death correspond with near-death experiences?

Saturday Evening

End ofConsciousness Party

Contact:
center@u.arizona.edu
info@mindevent.se

conference website:
www.consciousness.arizona.edu

520-621-9317



Volume 34, Issue 2, pp. 51-112

Opinion

Review

Feature Review

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Opinion

Tuning of synaptic responses: an organizing principle for optimization of neural circuits p51

Cian O’Donnell, Matthew F. Nolan

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (587 kb)

Review

Feature Review

Learning to move machines with the mind p61

Andrea M. Green, John F. Kalaska

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (1252 kb)

Featured ArticleFree

Astrocyte–neuron metabolic relationships: for better and for worse p76

Igor Allaman, Mireille Bélanger, Pierre J Magistretti

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (2044 kb)

Repairing the parkinsonian brain with neurotrophic factors p88

Liviu Aron, Rüdiger Klein

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (666 kb)

GABA_A,slow: causes and consequences p101

Marco Capogna, Robert A. Pearce

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (699 kb)

Forget about crystals and candles, and about sitting and breathing in awkward ways. Meditation research explores how the brain works when we refrain from concentration, rumination and intentional thinking. Electrical brain waves suggest that mental activity during meditation is wakeful and relaxed.

“Given the popularity and effectiveness of meditation as a means of alleviating stress and maintaining good health, there is a pressing need for a rigorous investigation of how it affects brain function,” says Professor Jim Lagopoulos of Sydney University, Australia. Lagopoulos is the principal investigator of a joint study between his university and researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) on changes in electrical brain activity during nondirective meditation.

Constant brain waves

Whether we are mentally active, resting or asleep, the brain always has some level of electrical activity. The study monitored the frequency and location of electrical brain waves through the use of EEG (electroencephalography). EEG electrodes were placed in standard locations of the scalp using a custom-made hat

Participants were experienced practitioners of Acem Meditation, a nondirective method developed in Norway. They were asked to rest, eyes closed, for 20 minutes, and to meditate for another 20 minutes, in random order. The abundance and location of slow to fast electrical brain waves (delta, theta, alpha, beta) provide a good indication of brain activity.

Relaxed attention with theta

During meditation, theta waves were most abundant in the frontal and middle parts of the brain.

“These types of waves likely originate from a relaxed attention that monitors our inner experiences. Here lies a significant difference between meditation and relaxing without any specific technique,” emphasizes Lagopoulos.

“Previous studies have shown that theta waves indicate deep relaxation and occur more frequently in highly experienced meditation practitioners. The source is probably frontal parts of the brain, which are associated with monitoring of other mental processes.”

“When we measure mental calm, these regions signal to lower parts of the brain, inducing the physical relaxation response that occurs during meditation.”

Silent experiences with alpha

Alpha waves were more abundant in the posterior parts of the brain during meditation than during simple relaxation. They are characteristic of wakeful rest.

“This wave type has been used as a universal sign of relaxation during meditation and other types of rest,” comments Professor Øyvind Ellingsen from NTNU. “The amount of alpha waves increases when the brain relaxes from intentional, goal-oriented tasks.This is a sign of deep relaxation, — but it does not mean that the mind is void.”

Neuroimaging studies byMalia F. Mason and co-workers atDartmouth College, NH, suggest that the normal resting state of the brain is a silent current of thoughts, images and memories that is not induced by sensory input or intentional reasoning, but emerges spontaneously “from within.”

“Spontaneous wandering of the mind is something you become more aware of and familiar with when you meditate,” continues Ellingsen, who is an experienced practitioner. “This default activity of the brain is often underestimated. It probably represents a kind of mental processing that connects various experiences and emotional residues, puts them into perspective and lays them to rest.”

Read the entire article: Brain Waves and Meditation

Brain activity during times of wakefulness affects sleep and sleep quality. While researchers have been aware of this for some time, a clear understanding of how the mechanisms triggering sleep occur has remained largely unknown.

Now, a recent study has uncovered valuable insight into how the changeover from wakefulness to sleep occurs. This discovery potentially paves the way for a host of breakthroughs that could affect everything from sleeping aids to treatments for stroke and brain injury.

Led by James Krueger, Ph.D, Washington State University, the findings were recently published in the Journal of Applied Physiology and represent the most significant discovery of Krueger’s 36-year career focused on sleep research.

The study centered on a hypothesis that the major energy currency of the cell — ATP (adenosinetriphosphate) — is a key trigger for brain activity leading up to sleep. Specifically, researchers followed the method behind how ATP assists in the release of cytokines, the regulatory proteins for sleep.

“We know that brain activity is linked to sleep, but we’ve never known how,” Krueger said. “This gives us a mechanism to link brain activity to sleep. This has not been done before.”

A link between ATP and cytokines was charted, leading researchers to the method by which the brain keeps track of activity during wakefulness and then makes the switch to a state of sleep.

Krueger added that the conclusions line up with previous research conducted at WSU suggesting that sleep is a “local phenomenon, that bits and pieces of the brain sleep” depending on how they’ve been used.

By gaining knowledge of this mechanism, researchers believe the potential for a more detailed understanding of sleep processes is greatly widened with notable possibilities for new and improved therapies to treat the debilitating and dangerous effects associated with sleep disorders.

Sleep disorders affect between 50 and 70 million Americans and currently account for approximately $150 billion to businesses due to lost productivity and accidents linked back to fatigue.  It is also estimated that vehicle accidents caused by fatigued drivers equate to $48 billion a year.

Krueger offered the below practical implications for the discovery of how brain activity and ATP affect sleep:

• The study provides a new set of targets for potential medications. Drugs designed to interact with the receptors ATP binds to may prove useful as sleeping pills.
• Sleep disorders like insomnia can be viewed as being caused by some parts of the brain being awake while other parts are asleep, giving rise to new therapies.
• ATP-related blood flow observed in brain-imaging studies can be linked to activity and sleep.
• Researchers can develop strategies by which specific brain cell circuits are oriented to specific tasks, slowing fatigue by allowing the used parts of the brain to sleep while one goes about other business. It may also clear the way for stroke victims to put undamaged regions of their brains to better use.
• Brain cells cultured outside the body can be used to study brain cell network oscillations between sleep-like and wake-like states, speeding the progress of brain studies.

Read entire article: How Brain Activity is Linked to Sleep

One day in 2007, Dr. Giulio Tononi lay on a hospital stretcher as an anesthesiologist prepared him for surgery. For Dr. Tononi, it was a moment of intellectual exhilaration. He is a distinguished chair in consciousness science at the University of Wisconsin, and for much of his life he has been developing a theory of consciousness. Lying in the hospital, Dr. Tononi finally had a chance to become his own experiment.

The anesthesiologist was preparing to give Dr. Tononi one drug to render him unconscious, and another one to block muscle movements. Dr. Tononi suggested the anesthesiologist first tie a band around his arm to keep out the muscle-blocking drug. The anesthesiologist could then ask Dr. Tononi to lift his finger from time to time, so they could mark the moment he lost awareness.
The anesthesiologist did not share Dr. Tononi’s excitement. “He could not have been less interested,” Dr. Tononi recalled. “He just said, ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ and put me to sleep. He was thinking, ‘This guy must be out of his mind.’ ”

Dr. Tononi was not offended. Consciousness has long been the province of philosophers, and most doctors steer clear of their abstract speculations. After all, debating the finer points of what it is like to be a brain floating in a vat does not tell you how much anesthetic to give a patient.

But Dr. Tononi’s theory is, potentially, very different. He and his colleagues are translating the poetry of our conscious experiences into the precise language of mathematics.

To do so, they are adapting information theory, a branch of science originally applied to computers and telecommunications. If Dr. Tononi is right, he and his colleagues may be able to build a “consciousness meter” that doctors can use to measure consciousness as easily as they measure blood pressure and body temperature. Perhaps then his anesthesiologist will become interested.

“I love his ideas,” said Christof Koch, an expert on consciousness at Caltech. “It’s the only really promising fundamental theory of consciousness.”

Sizing Up Consciousness by its Bits: Read the entire article

The brain has a remarkable capacity for keeping track of our past experiences. But detailed memories can sometimes seem more a curse than a blessing. This is especially true for those who’ve suffered significant losses or other traumas. Thus, while the holiday season is meant to be a joyous time, for many it merely provides salient reminders of these debilitating experiences.

Fortunately, researchers are discovering that memories may be far less durable than previously thought. Indeed research on “erasing” traumatic memories is quickly moving from the realm of science fiction to scientifically backed reality.

That each of us may be able to exert some control over what gets in and what then stays in long-term memory arises from our growing understanding of how the brain represents and stores information related to our conscious life experiences.

Read the entire article: “Erasing” Traumatic Memories Moving from Science Fiction to Scientific Reality

Volume 34, Issue 1, pp. 1-50

Opinion

Review

________________________________________________________

___________________________

____________________________________

______________

Opinion

Stuck in a rut: rethinking depression and its treatment p1

Paul E. Holtzheimer, Helen S. Mayberg

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (298 kb)

Activation of cortical interneurons during sleep: an anatomical link to homeostatic sleep regulation? p10

Thomas S. Kilduff, Bruno Cauli, Dmitry Gerashchenko

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (612 kb)

Review

Is adult neurogenesis essential for olfaction? p20

Françoise Lazarini, Pierre-Marie Lledo

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (514 kb)

The extra-hypothalamic actions of ghrelin on neuronal function p31

Zane B. Andrews

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (520 kb)

Development, specification, and diversity of callosal projection neurons p41

Ryann M. Fame, Jessica L. MacDonald, Jeffrey D. Macklis

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (544 kb) | Supplemental Data

From: Ted.com

Neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran outlines the fascinating functions of mirror neurons. Only recently discovered, these neurons allow us to learn complex social behaviors, some of which formed the foundations of human civilization as we know it.

Comments:

Hans Bauer

Watch the video, and read more

From: Ted.com

Interesting comments:

• Jeff Weir

  Dec 4 2010: I think beyond the “predictive” nature of the human brain, there lies the simple physics of the harmonic series. Once Bobby McFerrin sings the starting pitch, all of the other pitches of the pentatonic are contained in its harmonic series. I believe that is the main reason why all humans “get” the pentatonic scale… it is “spelled out” inside the harmonic series of any starting pitch.

• Mitchell Plamondon

  Nov 26 2010: That’s cool. I guess it’s an evolutionary result though. People have learned the ability of prediction. We can familiarize ourselves with sounds, whether this be scales, timbres, chords etc. They are all recognizable. He laid out one of the most simple scales, a 5 note pentatonic scale which by chance just so happens to be the most commonly used scale in popular music of the past nearly 100 years. And just like a driver is able to predict the actions of another driver, or just as we are able to walk down a busy sidewalk without colliding into others (not always true :P) we are able to create sonar expectations. Good video – much better than a lot of the pop-music videos that seem to be polluting the TED music related spectacles. (I’d expect to hear more intellectual music here. Perhaps Penderecki, Lutoslawski, Hétu… anything beyond lyric driven 3-4 chord garage-band tunes please :) )

Watch the video, and read more: Bobby McFerrin Hacks Your Brain with Music

Volume 19, Issue 4, December 2010

Table of Contents:

2	Current concerns in involuntary and voluntary autobiographical memories Original Research Article Pages 847-860 Kim Berg Johannessen, Dorthe Berntsen Show preview |   Purchase PDF (235 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

3	Awareness of the saccade goal in oculomotor selection: Your eyes go before you know Original Research Article Pages 861-871 Wieske van Zoest, Mieke Donk Show preview |   Purchase PDF (491 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

4	Attentional processes and meditation Original Research Article Pages 872-878 Holley S. Hodgins, Kathryn C. Adair Show preview |   Purchase PDF (165 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

5

The level of frontal-temporal beta-2 band EEG synchronization distinguishes anterior cingulate cortex from other frontal regions Original Research Article Pages 879-886 M. Kukleta, P. Bob, M. Brázdil, R. Roman, I. Rektor Show preview |   Purchase PDF (785 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

6	How the intentions of the draftsman shape perception of a drawing Original Research Article Pages 887-898 Alessandro Pignocchi Show preview |   Purchase PDF (200 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

7

Cerebral blood flow differences between long-term meditators and non-meditators Original Research Article Pages 899-905 Andrew B. Newberg, Nancy Wintering, Mark R. Waldman, Daniel Amen, Dharma S. Khalsa, Abass Alavi Show preview |   Purchase PDF (378 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

8	Implicit and explicit components of dual adaptation to visuomotor rotations Original Research Article Pages 906-917 Mathias Hegele, Herbert Heuer Show preview |   Purchase PDF (263 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

9	The experience of altered states of consciousness in shamanic ritual: The role of pre-existing beliefs and affective factors Original Research Article Pages 918-925 Vince Polito, Robyn Langdon, Jac Brown Show preview |   Purchase PDF (180 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

10	Memory and consciousness: Trace distinctiveness in memory retrievals Original Research Article Pages 926-937 Lionel Brunel, Ali Oker, Benoit Riou, Rémy Versace Show preview |   Purchase PDF (417 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

11	Beyond the internalism/externalism debate: The constitution of the space of perception Original Research Article Pages 938-952 Charles Lenay, Pierre Steiner Show preview |   Purchase PDF (483 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

12	A high-loaded hemisphere successfully ignores distractors Original Research Article Pages 953-961 Ritsuko Nishimura, Kazuhito Yoshizaki Show preview |   Purchase PDF (288 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

13	Self-specific priming effect Original Research Article Pages 962-968 Alessia Pannese, Joy Hirsch Show preview |   Purchase PDF (389 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

14	Alzheimer’s disease and impairment of the Self Original Research Article Pages 969-976 M.N. Fargeau, N. Jaafari, S. Ragot, J.L. Houeto, C. Pluchon, R. Gil Show preview |   Purchase PDF (176 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

15

NonREM sleep mentation in chronically-treated persons with schizophrenia Original Research Article Pages 977-985 Félix-Antoine Lusignan, Roger Godbout, Marie-Josée Dubuc, Anne-Marie Daoust, Jean-Pierre Mottard, Antonio Zadra Show preview |   Purchase PDF (182 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

16	Self-denial and the role of intentions in the attribution of agency Original Research Article Pages 986-998 Catherine Preston, Roger Newport Show preview |   Purchase PDF (534 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

17	Unconscious task application Original Research Article Pages 999-1006 Filip Van Opstal, Wim Gevers, Magda Osman, Tom Verguts Show preview |   Purchase PDF (310 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

18	Mind control? Creating illusory intentions through a phony brain–computer interface Original Research Article Pages 1007-1012 Margaret T. Lynn, Christopher C. Berger, Travis A. Riddle, Ezequiel Morsella Show preview |   Purchase PDF (236 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

19

Subjective reports of stimulus, response, and decision times in speeded tasks: How accurate are decision time reports? Original Research Article Pages 1013-1036 Jeff Miller, Paula Vieweg, Nicolas Kruize, Belinda McLea Show preview |   Purchase PDF (432 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

20

A LORETA study of mental time travel: Similar and distinct electrophysiological correlates of re-experiencing past events and pre-experiencing future events Original Research Article Pages 1037-1044 Christina F. Lavallee, Michael A. Persinger Show preview |   Purchase PDF (658 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

21

Subjective discriminability of invisibility: A framework for distinguishing perceptual and attentional failures of awareness Original Research Article Pages 1045-1057 Ryota Kanai, Vincent Walsh, Chia-huei Tseng Show preview |   Purchase PDF (1103 K) |   Related articles |  Related reference work articles

And much more: Consciousness and Cognition, Dec 2010

Article in Cognitive Processing: International Quarterly of Cognitive Science

Abstract: Many recent behavioral and neuroscientific studies have revealed the importance of investigating meditation states and traits to achieve an increased understanding of cognitive and affective neuroplasticity, attention and self-awareness, as well as for their increasingly recognized clinical relevance. The investigation of states and traits related to meditation has especially pronounced implications for the neuroscience of attention, consciousness, self-awareness, empathy and theory of mind. In this article we present the main features of meditation-based mental training and characterize the current scientific approach to meditation states and traits with special reference to attention and consciousness, in light of the articles contributed to this issue.

Click here for the full article

New research holds promise for a noninvasive brain-computer interface that allows mental control over computers and prosthetics.

Our bodies are wired to move, and damaged wiring is often impossible to repair. Strokes and spinal cord injuries can quickly disconnect parts of the brain that initiate movement with the nerves and muscles that execute it, and neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) draw the process out to the same effect. Scientists have been looking for a way to bypass damaged nerves by directly connecting the brain to an assistive device—like a robotic limb—through brain-computer interface (BCI) technology. Now, researchers have demonstrated the ability to nonintrusively record neural signals outside the skull and decode them into information that could be used to move a prosthetic.

Past efforts at a BCI to animate an artificial limb involved electrodes inserted directly into the brain. The surgery required to implant the probes and the possibility that implants might not stay in place made this approach risky.

Read the entire article

Indeed it is. And recurrent abdominal pain in children is common, frustrating and often hard to explain.

Consider a girl who came to the clinic for her 10-year physical exam. She gets these bellyaches, she told me. Had a bad one that week, but her stomach wasn’t hurting right at the moment.

She’d been treated for constipation; she’d been tested for celiac disease and other problems. Every blood and stool test over the two years since the pain began was completely normal. One night the bellyache was so bad she went to the emergency room — and her abdominal X-rays were normal as well.

The diagnostic term for this common and perplexing condition is “functional abdominal pain”: recurrent stomachaches, as the American Academy of Pediatrics put it in 2005, with no “anatomic, metabolic, infectious, inflammatory or neoplastic disorder” to explain them.

When I was a resident, we often smirked when we spoke of functional abdominal pain, treating it as a code for a troublesome patient, dubious symptoms or an anxious family. But recent research suggests we were too biomedically narrow in our thinking.

Scientists are coming to understand that abdominal pain is transmitted by a specialized nervous system that may be hypersensitive or hyperactive in some children. Studies in which researchers inflated balloons in children’s intestines suggested that those with functional abdominal pain might be unusually sensitive to any distension on the inside.

Click here for the entire article

Check out the puzzles in this article. They look easy, and mostly they are. Click here to see the puzzles.
Given three words: trip, house, and goal, for example, find a fourth that will complete a compound word with each. A minute or so of mental trolling (housekeeper, goalkeeper, trip?) is all it usually takes.

The payoff of tackling a mental exercise: leaps of understanding that seem to come out of the blue, without the incremental drudgery of analysis.

But who wants to troll?

Let lightning strike. Let the clues suddenly coalesce in the brain as they do so often for young children solving a riddle. As they must have done, for that matter, in the minds of those early humans who outfoxed nature well before the advent of deduction, abstraction or SAT prep courses. Puzzle-solving is such an ancient, universal practice, scholars say, precisely because it depends on creative insight, on the primitive spark that ignited the first campfires.

And now, modern neuroscientists are beginning to tap its source.

In a just completed study, researchers at Northwestern University found that people were more likely to solve word puzzles with sudden insight when they were amused, having just seen a short comedy routine.

What we think is happening, said Mark Beeman, a neuroscientist who conducted the study with Karuna Subramaniam, a graduate student, is that the humor, this positive mood, is lowering the brain’s threshold for detecting weaker or more remote connections to solve puzzles.

This and other recent research suggest that the appeal of puzzles goes far deeper than the dopamine-reward rush of finding a solution. The very idea of doing a crossword or a Sudoku puzzle typically shifts the brain into an open, playful state that is itself a pleasing escape, captivating to people as different as Bill Clinton, a puzzle addict, and the famous amnesiac Henry Molaison, or H.M., whose damaged brain craved crosswords.

And that escape is all the more tantalizing for being incomplete. Unlike the cryptic social and professional mazes of real life, puzzles are reassuringly soluble; but like any serious problem, they require more than mere intellect to crack.

Click here for the entire article

I crept upstairs and tried to open the door soundlessly. Inside, two dozen people were perched on pillows. They were the same kind of people you find at a bookstore — a lot of spectacles, lumpy sweaters, laptop bags. A few were still whispering, but I sensed the room was about to fall into a trance of majestic silence. So I hurried to join them.

Sitting cross-legged, my hands cupped upward, I began to struggle with the basics of Vipassana meditation, trying to pay attention to my breath as it tickled my nostrils. “Vipassana” comes from the Pali word for “insight,” but here in Cambridge, Mass., the term connotes something else — a certain East Coast, over-educated style of sitting on a pillow.

On the dais, the teacher lounged on his meditation bench in a weathered Patagonia hoodie, his gray hair tied in a knot. “For the next eight hours, you will not say a word,” he told us brightly. “Did everyone remember to bring a bag lunch?”

At that point in my life I had never attempted a full day of meditation.

Click here for entire article.

Researchers followed about 200 high-risk patients for an average of five years. Among the 100 who meditated, there were 20 heart attacks, strokes and deaths; in the comparison group, there were 32. The meditators tended to remain disease-free longer and also reduced their systolic blood pressure.

”We found reduced blood pressure that was significant — that was probably one important mediator,” said Dr. Robert Schneider, director of the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention, a research institute based at the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, who presented the findings.

Click here for entire article

He looked up from the chart. “I’m not working tomorrow, so I’m just fine.”

I had just reviewed the next day’s operating room schedule and knew he had a full day of cases. I began to contradict him, but he held his hand up to stop me.

“Time in the O.R.,” he said with a broad grin, “is not work; it’s play.”

For several years my peers and I relished anecdotes like this one because we believed we knew exactly what our mentor had meant. All of us had had the experience of “disappearing” into the meditative world of a procedure and re-emerging not exhausted, but refreshed. The ritual ablutions by the scrub sink washed away the bacteria clinging to our skin and the endless paperwork threatening to choke our enthusiasm. A single rhythmic cardiac monitor replaced the relentless calls of our beepers; and nothing would matter during the long operations except the patient under our knife.

We had entered “the zone.” We were focused on nothing else but our patients and that moment.

Click here for entire article

But many people try to do just that, even the leaders of the world’s twenty richest and most powerful nations. The November 2010 meeting of the G20 in Seoul gave indisputable proof of it. Not only did the meeting fail to achieve its main objectives (among them rebalancing international trade and reaching an accommodation between the U.S. and South Korea), the objectives themselves proved to be out-of-date. They centered on re-stabilizing the same moribund economic and financial system that made the world unsustainable in the first place.

But why is the G20’s failure due to wrong consciousness? Because consciousness in the social, political, and cultural context is sum total of our view of the world, with its values, aspirations, and background assumptions. It’s the “paradigm” that underlies the way we think and the way we set our priorities. The consciousness of the G20 gives rise to an obsolete view of the world, with faulty values and outdated aspirations. The leaders view the world as the arena for a Darwinian struggle for survival, seen as a competition for growth in the economies of nations. Since assured growth cannot be achieved even by the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world by itself, the leaders recognize the need for some level and form of cooperation—as a means to an end. The end is for the rich nations to make sure that they remain rich.

Click here for the complete article.

Signals from the electrodes seem to show that consciousness arises from the coordinated activity of the entire brain. The signals also take us closer to finding an objective “consciousness signature” that could be used to probe the process in animals and people with brain damage without inserting electrodes.

Previously it wasn’t clear whether a dedicated brain area, or “seat of consciousness”, was responsible for guiding our subjective view of the world, or whether consciousness was the result of concerted activity across the whole brain.

Probing the process has been a challenge, as non-invasive techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging and EEG give either spatial or temporal information but not both. The best way to get both simultaneously is to implant electrodes deep inside the skull, but it is difficult to justify this in healthy people for ethical reasons.

Brainy opportunity

Now neuroscientist Raphaël Gaillard of INSERM in Gif sur Yvette, France, and colleagues have taken advantage of a unique opportunity. They have probed consciousness in 10 people who had intercranial electrodes implanted for treating drug-resistant epilepsy.

Click here for the entire article.

The Convention brings together psychology scientists, practitioners, educators and students from all corners of Canada as well as from abroad; it is our trading center for discoveries, innovations and ideas. Use the Convention as a vehicle for ensuring that your science gets translated into, and is informed by, education and practice and that your practice and education remain on a solid foundation of science. Please join us in beautiful Toronto, so we can reconnect and together bask in the city’s warmth and hospitality.

For more information, click here for the conference website.

Convention activities will begin on the afternoon of Saturday, April 2nd. In addition to the regular symposia, slide, and poster sessions, the annual George A. Miller Lecture will be Sunday evening, with a reception afterwards. We will also be awarding two new Young Investigator Awards followed by talks given by the winners. The 4-day program will continue with a host of symposia, poster sessions, invited addressees, publisher exhibits, and special events.

For more information, please click here for the conference website.

Abstract
The capacity to stabilize the content of attention over time varies among individuals, and its impairment is a hallmark of several mental illnesses. Impairments in sustained attention in patients with attention disorders have been associated with increased trial-to-trial variability in reaction time and event-related potential deficits during attention tasks. At present, it is unclear whether the ability to sustain attention and its underlying brain circuitry are transformable through training. Here, we show, with dichotic listening task performance and electroencephalography, that training attention, as cultivated by meditation, can improve the ability to sustain attention. Three months of intensive meditation training reduced variability in attentional processing of target tones, as indicated by both enhanced theta-band phase consistency of oscillatory neural responses over anterior brain areas and reduced reaction time variability. Furthermore, those individuals who showed the greatest increase in neural response consistency showed the largest decrease in behavioral response variability. Notably, we also observed reduced variability in neural processing, in particular in low-frequency bands, regardless of whether the deviant tone was attended or unattended. Focused attention meditation may thus affect both distracter and target processing, perhaps by enhancing entrainment of neuronal oscillations to sensory input rhythms, a mechanism important for controlling the content of attention. These novel findings highlight the mechanisms underlying focused attention meditation and support the notion that mental training can significantly affect attention and brain function.

The rise of quantum consciousness could be the biggest step our species has taken since it came down from the trees. It would bring us to a new stage of species maturity � and could also enable us to surmount the problems that threaten our life and our future.

But just what is quantum consciousness � QC? I have spoken about QC in my previous posts, but the question merits a further, deeper look.

First of all, what is consciousness? The commonsense assumption is that consciousness is a stream of experience produced by the brain. As long as the brain functions, there is consciousness; when the brain shuts down, consciousness vanishes. This, however, is not necessarily the case. It could be that our brain no more produces consciousness than the radio produces the symphony that comes through its speakers. The symphony, too, disappears when the radio is shut down, yet we know that it�s not produced by the radio. Both the radio and the brain pick up signals, transform them, and display the result in our stream of conscious experience.

Read the entire article

Feb 2009

Nobel laureate Gerald Edelman says your brain is one-of-a-kind in the history of the universe.

Some of the most profound questions in science are also the least tangible. What does it mean to be sentient? What is the self? When issues become imponderable, many researchers demur, but neuro­scientist Gerald Edelman dives right in.

A physician and cell biologist who won a 1972 Nobel Prize for his work describing the structure of antibodies, Edelman is now obsessed with the enigma of human consciousness—except that he does not see it as an enigma. In Edelman’s grand theory of the mind, consciousness is a biological phenomenon and the brain develops through a process similar to natural selection. Neurons proliferate and form connections in infancy; then experience weeds out the useless from the useful, molding the adult brain in sync with its environment.

Edelman first put this model on paper in the Zurich airport in 1977 as he was killing time waiting for a flight. Since then he has written eight books on the subject, the most recent being Second Nature: Brain Science and Human Knowledge. He is chairman of neurobiology at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego and the founder and director of the Neurosciences Institute, a research center in La Jolla, California, dedicated to unconventional “high risk, high payoff” science.

DVD Documentary starring Charlie Rose, Noah Wyle, and Joseph Chilton Pearce.

What Babies Want is an award winning documentary film that explores the profoundly important and sacred opportunity we have in bringing children into the world. Filled with captivating stories and infused with Noah Wyle’s warmth as narrator, the film demonstrates how life patterns are established at birth and  before. The documentary includes groundbreaking information on early development as well as appearances by the real experts: babies and families.

Research is now showing us that our society is a product of how we welcome and raise our children. When babies are welcomed with love and warmth and given the immediate opportunity to bond with parents,  they develop minds that are coherent and flexible, ready in turn to make compassionate and meaningful connections with others as they grow.

As we learn how early relationships shape the structure and function of the brain, we are also gaining a new appreciation of the wisdom of ancient cultures that understood the importance of welcoming children before, during and after the moment of birth.

Editor’s note: Traumatic memories haunt the lives of people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and other illnesses. Fortunately, recent research into the changeability of long-term memories may someday develop into treatments for such individuals. But before this can happen, writes Cristina Alberini, Ph.D., of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, researchers must determine just how effectively the fear associated with older memories—especially those involved in PTSD—can be reduced and for how long. Researchers must also address the ethical issues that go hand in hand with modifying memory.

For more than a century, clinicians, psychologists, and biologists have worked to understand the mechanisms underlying the formation and storage of long-term memories. Recently, scientists found that when a stored memory is recalled, it becomes sensitive to disruption for a limited time.^1,2 This finding indicates that it might be possible to weaken or even erase memories of traumatic experiences that become uncontrollably intrusive in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This possibility has drawn great interest from scientific and clinical communities, as well as from nonscientists, who became interested in its potential clinical applications; furthermore, it raised ethical concerns.

Many ethical questions and debates about treatments designed to weaken memories may reflect the still poor understanding of how memory recall or reactivation results in memory fragility and the many unknowns surrounding its temporal boundaries. Whereas the study of animal models and healthy humans has provided some knowledge about post-recall memory disruption, data on the use of such disruption to treat PTSD symptoms are still conflicting. The strengthening of memory with the passage of time, the resilience of strong memories to disruption, and the specific aspects of memory that become sensitive to disruption raise questions about the limitations of this approach and warrant more research. Here, we will look at how we form memories of an emotional event and how these memories become fragile after recall. That will help us consider the potential, limitations, and ethics of disrupting memories of emotion.

Read the entire article

From: Psychology Today

Why meditate? Outside of religious contexts, the most common reason is stress management. But as these latest research findings demonstrate, meditation is much more than just a relaxation technique. Here are a half-dozen more good reasons to take up meditation.

To enhance concentration
Meditation has an undeserved reputation for being esoteric and difficult to learn. In truth, it’s really nothing more than the practice of focusing the mind intently on a particular thing or activity. It seems logical that regular meditation would hone a person’s powers of concentration, and a recent study in the Journal of Neuroscience found just that. In the study, three months of intensive meditation training led to improvements in attentional stability – the ability to sustain attention without frequent lapses.

Read the entire article

From: The Blog of Dr. Bernard J. Baars inPsychology Today

To the best of our knowledge, consciousness depends upon brains, and brains are biological organs. In a boxing match, a blow to the jaw often leads to a loss of consciousness, but the same impact to the torso does not. More specifically, scientists have long thought that human consciousness depends upon two large brain structures, the cortex and the thalamus. The daily cycle of waking, dreaming and sleep depends on distinctive global rhythm generators in the thalamus and cortex. (www.baars-gage.com, Chapter 8)

While deep brain nuclei control the daily sleep-waking cycle, the specific contents of conscious vision, like the sight of a coffee cup, are directly supported by known regions of the cortex and corresponding nuclei in the thalamus. Cortex and its satellites underlie speech and hearing, vision, hearing and touch, the ability to make decisions and to control our voluntary muscles.

In contrast, medical students have long learned that the two large lobes of the cerebellum, hanging from the rear of the cortex, can be damaged in humans without impairing consciousness significantly. Since the cerebellum has nearly the same numbers of neurons as cortex, the question therefore becomes: How it is that cortex supports conscious contents? Why not the cerebellum? (Figure 1).

Read the entire article

For more information, please check the Charlie Rose Brain Series website.

Editor’s note: Why do abused children attach and remain attached to abusive parents? In this article, Dr. Regina Sullivan explains how her research with rat pups has led to greater understanding of the infant brain, and how negative early experiences can cause long-term genetic, brain, behavioral, and hormonal changes that can affect not only the abuse victim but also the victim’s descendants.

Many parents have absolute faith that, with the right kind of stimulation, they can give their child an educational advantage. Conscientious mothers play Mozart to the baby in the womb, take their toddlers to Mommy and Me dance classes, and work their way through preschool applications as daunting as those for medical school. Yet even with the wide range of advantages available for infants today, many people are still surprised when I tell them that the way they treat their children will actually change the structure and circuitry of the child’s brain.

Click here to read the entire article

Toward a Science of Consciousness is an interdisciplinary conference emphasizing broad and rigorous approaches to the study of conscious awareness. Topical areas include neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, biology, quantum physics, meditation and altered states, machine consciousness, culture and experiential phenomenology. Held annually since 1994, the conference is organized by the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, and alternates yearly between Tucson, Arizona and various locations around the world. Toward a Science of Consciousness 2011 will be held at Stockholm University, Aula Magna Hall, Stockholm, Sweden, May 2-8, 2011.

From: The New York Times

PITTSBURGH — On a cold, wet afternoon not long ago, Aron Reznick sat in the lounge of a home for the elderly here, his silver hair neatly combed, his memory a fog. He could not remember Thanksgiving dinner with his family, though when he was given a hint — “turkey” — it came back to him, vaguely, like a shadow in the moonlight.

Two years ago, Mr. Reznick, who has early-stage Alzheimer’s disease and is now 82, signed up for an experiment intended to help people with Alzheimer’s and other memory disorders. The concept was simple: using digital pictures and audio to archive an experience like a weekend visit from the grandchildren, creating a summary of the resulting content by picking crucial images, and reviewing them periodically to awaken and strengthen the memory of the event.

Click here for the complete article.

Neuroscience 2010, the 40th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, is scheduled for Nov. 13-17 in San Diego, CA at the San Diego Convention Center.

Through lectures, symposia, workshops, and events, attendees experience innovative neuroscience research. The meeting features thousands of abstracts and provides networking and professional development opportunities.

For more information, please check the conference website.

N. Shea, T. Bayne

Abstract

Consciousness in experimental subjects is typically inferred from reports and other forms of voluntary behaviour. A wealth of everyday experience confirms that healthy subjects do not ordinarily behave in these ways unless they are conscious. Investigation of consciousness in vegetative state patients has been based on the search for neural evidence that such broad functional capacities are preserved in some vegetative state patients. We call this the standard approach. To date, the results of the standard approach have suggested that some vegetative state patients might indeed be conscious, although they fall short of being demonstrative. The fact that some vegetative state patients show evidence of consciousness according to the standard approach is remarkable, for the standard approach to consciousness is rather conservative, and leaves open the pressing question of how to ascertain whether patients who fail such tests are conscious or not. We argue for a cluster-based ‘natural kind’ methodology that is adequate to that task, both as a replacement for the approach that currently informs research into the presence or absence of consciousness in vegetative state patients and as a methodology for the science of consciousness more generally.

Many people are wary of hypnosis because they are not educated on the topic. Hypnosis is a natural state and many people reach this state of consciousness every day without even realizing it. When you drive a car, you are in a light state of hypnosis. You are in control, you have an increased ability to concentrate, and you are operating on autopilot without really realizing it. A great deal of research has been conducted on the hypnotic state and various states of consciousness.

Your brain has four different brain wave states: beta, alpha, theta, and delta. While you are reading this article, you are in the state of beta. You are alert and able to concentrate on this article. The beta state is normal wakening state. Alpha state is a relaxed state. You are able to access creativity and visualization. Theta state is a deeper state of relaxation; this is a common state of hypnosis and meditation. Theta allows you to access memories. You experience theta as you fall asleep and wake up every day. Lastly is delta, which occurs while sleeping. Delta allows your body to heal. You are able to access your subconscious mind during alpha, theta, and delta states and can also reach various depths of hypnosis (Tools for Wellness).

Read the entire article

Studies about the brain usually focus on neural activity during the completion of a specific task—remembering a series of words, for example. But over the last 20 years, researchers have been interested in what the brain does during periods of supposed inactivity. They discovered that when someone appears to be doing nothing at all, a network of brain regions—named the default network—is hard at work, allowing for the rich inner lives inside our heads. Applying what is known about the default network to diseases like Alzheimer’s allows for new possibilities for diagnosis and evaluation of treatments.

You’re lying in a brain scanner in the dark, looking up at a small white crosshair, left alone with your thoughts for the next six minutes. What goes through your mind? Perhaps you think about why you volunteered for this, or what you’ll do with the money you earn from this experiment. Perhaps you plan out the rest of your day, or start replaying a conversation from yesterday. New techniques in neuroimaging are helping scientists understand how your brain represents such internally directed and spontaneous thoughts.

Read the entire article

There is not just one type of epilepsy. While some forms of the disease are characterized by convulsive seizures, others involve seizures that are barely noticeable. Seizures can occur for many reasons: they can be caused by genetic mutations, injury, or infection early in life. In addition, events in daily life, such as stress, or normal variations in hormones, such as estrogen and testosterone, can influence brain activity and therefore influence seizures. By considering the powerful interactions between the brain and the endocrine system, this influence of hormones on seizures can be understood and new treatment options can be considered.

A common misconception is that a seizure involves sudden, uncontrolled movements or convulsions. However, convulsions do not always accompany seizures. One type of epilepsy—absence epilepsy—is characterized by seizures that involve little movement at all, only a blank, expressionless gaze. For a brief period, the person experiencing the seizure is unresponsive, or “absent.” These seizures are not easy to recognize and may therefore go undetected. Even the person having the seizure may not notice it, because consciousness is temporarily interrupted during an absence seizure.

The diversity in the types of seizures has led to difficulty in classifying them. It is often hard to bring seizures under control because there are many causes, some of which are not well understood. Fortunately, in the past few decades clinical and laboratory research has led to a better understanding of the diversity of seizures and the causes of epilepsy.

Click here to read the entire article

Abstract
This research examines the methodologies employed by cognitive psychologists to study “false memory“, and assesses if these methodologies are likely to facilitate scientific progress or perhaps constrain the conclusions reached. A PsycINFO search of the empirical publications in cognitive psychology was conducted through January, 2004, using the subject heading, “false memory.” The search produced 198 articles. Although there is an apparent false memory research bandwagon in cognitive psychology, with increasing numbers of studies published on this topic over the past decade, few researchers (only 13.1% of the articles) have studied false memory as the term was originally intended—to specifically refer to planting memory for an entirely new event that was never experienced in an individual’s lifetime. Cognitive psychologists interested in conducting research relevant to assessing the authenticity of memories for child sexual abuse should consider the generalizability of their research to the planting of entirely new events in memory.

A new drug seems to be able to reverse normal age-related memory decline in old mice–like a face-lift for neurons, bringing them back to their younger days. The results of the experimental treatment, which works by blocking certain stress hormones, were published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

“What’s most surprising is that even short-term inhibition was able to reverse memory loss in old mice,” says Jonathan Seckl, a professor of molecular medicine who was involved in the research. “I don’t think people had realized this was so reversible. It takes [the animals] back to being relatively young.” [Technology Review].

Research has shown that stress hormones called glucocorticoids play a role in memory loss, by damaging the brain over time. But targeting the glucocorticoids themselves is dangerous, because reducing their levels would leave the body without a stress response. The researchers therefore targeted an enzyme instead, which activates the hormone in neurons.

Click here for the complete article.

Toward a Science of Consciousness, April 12-17, 2010
Tucson Convention Center, Tucson, Arizona

Abstract Submission Deadline December 31, 2009

Conference website:www.consciousness.arizona.edu

Notification by January 10, 2010

Sponsored by The Center for Consciousness Studies, The University of Arizona

The ninth biennial Tucson conference Toward a Science of Consciousness
will take place April 12-17, 2010 at the Tucson Convention Center and Hotel
Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. Known for rigorous, inter-disciplinary
and broad-ranging approaches to conscious experience, the Tucson
conference will again include Pre-Conference Workshops, Plenary and Keynote
Sessions, Concurrent Talk Sessions, Poster Presentations, Technical Demos, Art
Exhibit, Experiential Workshops, Side Trips, Social Events, Book and Exhibitor
Booths, and for the first time, late night Club Consciousness.

Keynote Speakers

Antonio Damasio – The Conscious Self
Karl Deisseroth – Circuits of the Mind
Marcus Raichle – Brain Dark Matter – Default Networks
Robert J. Sawyer – Consciousness in Science Fiction
Robert G. Shulman – Brain Energy Supports the State of Consciousness

Plenary Sessions

William James Centennial
Default Networks
Machine Consciousness and the Singularity
Mind Wandering/Stimulus-Independent Thought
Body Consciousness
Multimodal Experience
Consciousness Transformation
Theories of Consciousness

Plenary speakers will include

Bernard J. Baars
David Chalmers
Frederique DeVignemont
Patricia Lynn Duffy
Henrik Ehrsson
Ben Goertzel
Sid Kouider
Malia Mason
Dharmendra Modha
Casey O’Callaghan
Jonathan Schooler
Barry Stein
Eugene Taylor
Cassi Vieten

Pre-Conference Workshops – April 12 and 13, 2010
Tucson Convention Center and Hotel Arizona

Monday April 12
9 am to 1 pm

Lucid Dreaming – Theory and Practice
Stephen Laberge

Selective attention
Christof Koch

Western Introspectionism
Eric Schwitzgebel, Russell Hurlburt

Transforming Consciousness: Personal Mythology, Neuroscience,
and Organizational Culture (Part 1 – Part 2 Monday afternoon)
Frank Echenhoffer, Stanley Krippner, Sunil Ahuja, Stacey Sterling

Research on Psychedelics Moves into the Mainstream. How to Use Psychedelics
Wisely and Well (Part 1 – Part 2 Monday afternoon)
James Fadiman, Thomas B. Roberts

Biofeedback, Mindfulness and Consciousness: An Interactive Approach
Keya Maitra, Connie Schrader

Monday April 12, 2 pm to 6 pm

Voices, Visions, Dreams, and the Limits of Consciousness: Explaining Anomalous
Neurological Phenomena Through the Work of Julian Jaynes
Brian McVeigh, Marcel Kuijsten

Imaging and fMRI analysis of Transcendental Meditation
David Hubbard, Alarik Arenander

Neural Basis of Suppression, Repression and Dissociation
Heather Berlin, Michael C. Anderson

A Victorian’s Guide To Consciousness: James, Myers, and The Fin De Siecle
Gang – Then and Now (Part 1) Stanley Krippner, Arthur Hastings, Allan
Combs, Pim Van Lommel, Adrian Parker, Jonathan Bricklin, Gary E. Schwartz

Update on Microtubules and Quantum Biology (Part 1)
Jack Tuszynski, Stuart Hameroff, Travis Craddock, Anirban Bandyopadyay, Gustav Bernroider, Nancy Woolf

Psychedelics in Mainstream Part 2

Transforming Consciousness Part 2

Yoga Asanas as Tools for Transforming Consciousness
Siegfried Bleher

Tuesday Morning April 13, 9 am to 1 pm

Experimenting with endogenous experience
Abraham Zangen, Talma Hendler

New Evidence for Conscious Global Broadcasting in the Brain
Bernard J Baars, Katie McGovern

Why Synesthesia Matters: Art, Science and Spirituality
Sean Day, Patricia Lynne Duffy, Carol Steen, Maureen Seaberg (Moderator)

Philosophical Theories of Consciousness
Josh Weisberg, Uriah Kriegel

Update on Microtubules and Quantum Biology (Part 2)

Victorian’s Guide Part 2

Imperience: Effecting Self-Transformation through Pranahuti Aided Meditation
K. Madhava, K. Mannur, S. Bhamidipati, B.S. Murty, N.V. Raghava Rao, W. Zeng

Social Events

Tuesday April 13, 2010, 7 pm – 10 pm
Welcome Party, Hotel Arizona

Tuesday April 13, 2010, 10:00 pm – 11:30 pm
Club Consciousness I, Leo Rich Theater
Jeff Warren – The Wheel of Consciousness

Wednesday April 14, 2010, 10 pm – 11:30 pm
Club Consciousness II, Club Congress (Hotel Congress)
Stand-up Consciousness Comedy/Music

Thursday April 15, 2010, 6 pm – 10 pm
Conference Banquet
Westin La Paloma Hotel and Resort

Friday April 16, 2010, 10 pm – 11:30 pm
Club Consciousness III, Leo Rich Theater
Poetry Slam, Zombie Blues, Talent Show

Saturday April 17, 2010
End-of-Consciousness Party – Saturday April 17, 2010, 8 pm till..??
Maynards at the Depot

Hospitality Suite
Hotel Arizona, Location and times TBA

Side Trips

Thursday afternoon, April 15, 2010
For details and exact times see www.consciousness.arizona.edu

Sabino Canyon Nature Walk and Tram Tour

Desert Jeep Adventure

San Xavier Mission and Historic Tucson Tour

Mt. Lemmon, The Santa Catalina Mountains and Nature Walk

Contact: Abi Behar-Montefiore, Manager, Center for Consciousness Studies,
University of Arizona
center@u.arizona.edu

Conference Program Committee
Stuart Hameroff – Co-chair
David Chalmers – Co-chair
Bernard Baars
Anthony Freeman
Al Kaszniak
Christof Koch
Uriah Kriegel
Hakwan Lau
Marilyn Schlitz

TSC 2010 Conference Abstract Submission System is OPEN
www.consciousness.arizona.edu

Schedule of Deadlines — Tentative

December 31 Abstracts Due
January 10 Decisions
February 15 Early Registration Due
March 1 Final Edits/Abstracts Due

Toward a Science of Consciousness 2010
April 12-17, 2010
Plenary program opens Tuesday April 13 at 1:45 pm

Click here for the complete article.

ANNOUNCEMENT / REMINDER

CONSCIOUSNESS: THE WEBCOURSE
&
ADVANCED SEMINAR:AN INTRODUCTION TO MIND AND BRAIN

With Dr. Bernard J. Baars

Center for Consciousness Studies
The University of Arizona

See website for course outline and registration forms:

www.consciousness.arizona.edu

Brief Summary:

Both courses will run November 14, 2009 through February 7, 2010 with a Winter Break from December 20 to January 4.

You will receive weekly podcasts, pdf lectures, and Experiential Labs. We will meet in live Discussion Groups each weekend.

Consciousness: The WebCourse will have Discussion Groups each Saturday and Sunday morning from 10am -12 noon, Pacific Time. Course Members are invited to participate live for one or two hours.

If you cannot join us at those times, we will have an Asynchronous Discussion Group for you as well.

The Advanced Seminar will meet via the web on Sunday afternoons from 2-4 pm.

Dr. Baars will send you audio lectures (podcasts) each week of the 10-week term, along with written lectures. We will have Experiential Labs each week, to allow you to explore your own experiences in various interesting ways.

We want to know what you think!

Filling out this very brief survey (link) would help us a great deal.

If you take the Survey you can get free downloads with WebCourse materials — and it is for a good cause…

Please follow this link:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=0s3v0Be3COqoJnGVEJ656g_3d_3d

Thank you kindly!
Bernard J Baars, PhD

http://www.nsi.edu
http://bernardbaars.pbwiki.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Baars

Interestingly, Guderian and colleagues found that amplitudes of theta oscillations that shortly preceded the presentation of the words were higher for those words that were later recalled during the free-recall test, compared to those words that were later forgotten.

Although past studies have shown that specific patterns of brain activity are associated with the encoding of items, this study by Guderian and colleagues is one of a handful of more recent studies that demonstrate pre-stimulus brain activity that is associated with later memory performance (another example is a study by Otten and colleagues).

Moreover, although semantic study tasks typically lead to better memory performance compared to phonemic tasks, the results of the study by Guederian and colleagues suggest that this study task benefit is not only statistically independent from the theta-related recall benefit, but that these benefits are additive.

Click here for the full paper.

Click here for the complete article.

Different cognitive functions have been associated with these different frequency ranges. Specifically, alpha oscillations have been associated with the inhibition of brain regions that are not required to perform a given task. However, in a past paper, Palva and Palva summarized an accumulating body of evidence that suggested that alpha oscillations play a much larger role in cognition by contributing to mechanisms of attention and consciousness. Click here for full access to the paper.

Whereas some researchers argue that 1/f scaling is a byproduct of processes that are irrelevant to theories of cognition, others argue that 1/f fluctuations reflect a general and essential principle of emergent pattern formation in complex systems, including cognitive systems.

In a past study Kello, Beltz, Holden and Van Orden examined the relevance of 1/f scaling to cognitive function in four experiments using simple and choice response tasks. (For full access to the paper, click here.) The results of this study supported the emergent coordination argument and the researchers concluded that “the generality of 1/f scaling in cognitive performance is evidence that cognitive functions are universally formed as emergent patterns of physiological and behavioral activity”.

Abstract
Study Objectives: The goal of the study was to seek physiological correlates of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is a dissociated state with aspects of waking and dreaming combined in a way so as to suggest a specific alteration in brain physiology for which we now present preliminary but intriguing evidence. We show that the unusual combination of hallucinatory dream activity and wake-like reflective awareness and agentive control experienced in lucid dreams is paralleled by significant changes in electrophysiology.

Design: 19-channel EEG was recorded on up to 5 nights for each participant. Lucid episodes occurred as a result of pre-sleep autosuggestion.

Setting: Sleep laboratory of the Neurological Clinic, Frankfurt University.

Participants: Six student volunteers who had been trained to become lucid and to signal lucidity through a pattern of horizontal eye movements.

Measurements and Results: Results show lucid dreaming to have REM-like power in frequency bands delta and theta, and higher-than-REM activity in the gamma band, the between-states-difference peaking around 40 Hz. Power in the 40 Hz band is strongest in the frontal and frontolateral region. Overall coherence levels are similar in waking and lucid dreaming and significantly higher than in REM sleep, throughout the entire frequency spectrum analyzed. Regarding specific frequency bands, waking is characterized by high coherence in alpha, and lucid dreaming by increased delta and theta band coherence. In lucid dreaming, coherence is largest in frontolateral and frontal areas.

Conclusions: Our data show that lucid dreaming constitutes a hybrid state of consciousness with definable and measurable differences from waking and from REM sleep, particularly in frontal areas.

Abstract
What neural mechanisms support our conscious perception of briefly presented stimuli? Some theories of conscious access postulate a key role of topdown amplification loops involving prefrontal cortex (PFC). To test this issue, we measured the visual backward masking threshold in patients with focal prefrontal lesions, using both objective and subjective measures while controlling for putative attention deficits. In all conditions of temporal or spatial attention cueing, the threshold for access to consciousness was systematically shifted in patients, particular after a lesion of the left anterior PFC. The deficit affected subjective reports more than objective performance, and objective performance conditioned on subjective visibility was essentially normal. We conclude that PFC makes a causal contribution to conscious visual perception of masked stimuli, and outline a dual-route signal detection theory of objective and subjective decision making.

Center for Consciousness Studies

announces

FALL 2009

Registration OPEN

November 14, 2009 to FEBRUARY 7, 2010

CONSCIOUSNESS: THE WEBCOURSE

and

ADVANCED SEMINAR: AN INTRODUCTION TO MIND AND BRAIN

Both taught by Dr. Bernard J. Baars

Both courses will run

November 14, 2009 – FEBRUARY 7, 2010

With a Winter Break from December 20 to January 4

Click here for Syllabus and Registration Forms

Tel: 520-621-9317

Email: center@u.arizona.edu

TOWARD A SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 2010
April 12-17, 2010
Tucson Convention Center, Tucson, Arizona

Sponsored by:

The Center for Consciousness Studies, The University of Arizona

Click here for conference website.

The ninth biennial Tucson conference Toward a Science of Consciousness will take place April 12-17, 2010 at the Tucson Convention Center in Tucson, Arizona. The Tucson conferences are known for rigorous, inter-disciplinary approaches to�understanding all aspects of the problem of conscious experience. As in previous conferences, the program will include Plenary and Keynote talks, Concurrent talks, Poster presentations, Art/Science demos and exhibits, Pre-Conference workshops, Side trips and Social events.

Session themes will include

Brain default networks
Stimulus-independent thought
Mind wandering
Non-conscious processing
Machine consciousness
Body consciousness
Self and Transformation
William James Centennial

Plenary and Keynote speakers will include

John Bargh
David Chalmers
Henrik Ehrsson
Ben Goertzel
Malia Mason
Marcus Raichle
Jonathan Schooler
Robert Shulmer
Jeff Warren

A major focus for the conference will be the inter-related topics of
Stimulus-independent thought, Brain default networks, Mind wandering, and
Unconscious processing.

Historically, brain correlates of consciousness have been approached along
hierarchical sensory processing, arousal and response. However recent work on
conscious brain activity in the absence of sensory inputs reveals brain default
networks, or the brains dark energy. �How does this activity relate to
consciousness? �To internally generated states like meditation, fantasy or mind
wandering? �To global workspace theory? �Is hierarchical thalamo-cortical
activity necessary for consciousness? �Or can the processes underlying
consciousness self-organize through synchrony?

We are pleased to have the two major pioneers in brain default networks as
keynote speakers. Marcus Raichle and Robert Shulmer (separately) have opened
doors on default networks, but have different views on their relation to
consciousness.

Jonathan Schooler and Malia Mason have imaged brain activity moving through
default networks, and correlating with mind wandering. �John Bargh has explored
non-conscious processes governing behavior, free will and the boundary between
conscious and nonconscious processes.
Other plenary session themes will include Body consciousness, with Henrik
Ehrsson on conscious awareness of body, and prosthetic devices, and Machine
consciousness, with AI leader Ben Goertzel discussing ‘bubbles of
awareness’ in computational systems. �Jeff Warren, author of �’Head Trip’
will give a first person experiential presentation. Other Plenary sessions being
planned include a William James Centennial, and Self and Transformation.

In addition to Keynote and Plenary talks, Pre-conference Workshops, Concurrent
Talks, Posters, Art/Tech Demos, Social Events, and Side Trips will occur in the
Tucson conference tradition.

For Information see:���� http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/Tucson2010.htm

On behalf of the Program Committee – Toward a Science of Consciousness 2010
Stuart Hameroff �- Co-chair
David Chalmers �- Co-chair
Bernard Baars
Anthony Freeman
Al Kaszniak
Christof Koch
Uriah Kriegel
Hakwan Lau
Marilyn Schlitz

Abi Behar-Montefiore, Manager, Center for Consciousness Studies, University of
Arizona – center@u.arizona.edu

TSC 2010 Conference Abstract Submission System will be available via the CCS
website after September 20, 2009
Schedule of Deadlines – Tentative
November 15 � � �Abstracts Due
January 5 � � � � � Decisions
February 15 � � � Early Registration Due
March 1 � � � � � � �Final Abstract Edits Due

Call for Pre-Conference Workshop proposals
Toward a Science of Consciousness 2010
April 12-17, 2010
www.consciousness.arizona.edu

The ninth biennial Tucson conference Toward a Science of Consciousness will
occur April 12-17, 2010 at the Tucson Convention center, Tucson, Arizona
See www.consciousness.arizona.edu

As in previous years, the opening Plenary session on Tuesday afternoon April 13
will be preceded by pre-conference workshops held in three 4 hour sessions
1) Monday April 12, 9 am to 1 pm
2) Monday April 12, 2 pm to 6 pm
3) Tuesday April 13, 9 am to 1 pm

The conference Plenary program opens Tuesday April 13 at 1:45 pm.

Proposals for pre-conference workshops are invited in all areas related to
understanding conscious experience. Workshops provide in depth, detailed
treatments of various methodologies, perspectives, reviews and approaches.
Workshops may be solo presentations, or include two or more presenters.
Attendance fees are $75 for 4 hour workshops and $125 for full day workshops,
split evenly between presenter(s) and the conference which provides the room,
A-V, promotion/advertisement and refreshments. A minimum number of registrants
will be required.

Workshop presenters (up to 2 per workshop) also receive free registration for
the conference. Please submit a 500 word (or less) abstract/summary and
presenter information by email (or attachment) directly to
center@email.arizona.edu
Deadline for Workshop proposals is October 20, 2009. Submitters will be
notified by November 15.

We would like to invite you to take part to this survey. Your answers will help to gather information about the perceptions and thoughts about the use of brain science methods in non-medical settings.

CONFIDENTIALITY

Any information that you provide will be confidential. All participants will be anonymous such that no personal information concerning you or your company will be made public either during, or after the completion and release of this study. The questionnaire should take about 10 minutes of your time. If you wish to receive a summary of the results (that you can pass on to your home company) please indicate at the end of this questionnaire and include your e-mail address. We will not use this e-mail for other purposes than for sending you the summary.

WHO IS BEHIND THIS STUDY

My name is Matteo Bellisario, and I am completing my final report for my Master Degree in Strategic Market Creation at the Copenhagen Business School, in Copenhagen, Denmark.

My academic supervisor for this research is Dr. Thomas Z. Rams�y, head of the Decision Neuroscience Research Group at the Copenhagen Business School and Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance at Copenhagen University Hospital.

The results will be part of my Master Thesis, and may, if suitable, be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.

PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO START THE SURVEY

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=UrWT2vR9gSIXNSKooLsNuQ_3d_3d

Click here for the audio archive.

Click here for the webcast archive.

Click here for the event transcript.

Everyday Practice of Science: Where Intuition and Passion Meet Objectivity and Logic

BY FREDERICK GRINNELL
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
248 PAGES

Reviewed by Alice Kim

From grade school onwards, I was taught that science follows a linear process.  The practice of science was equated to the scientific method.  During my undergraduate career I had the opportunity to get involved in research through independent research course projects, as well as summer student research programs.  Throughout these experiences I started to sense that there may be more to the practice of science than the scientific method that I was taught in school.  Now as a graduate student, I’m more aware of the ambiguity and passion that complements the objectivity and logic ingrained in the practice of science.  In his book Everyday Practice of Science: Where Intuition and Passion Meet Objectivity and Logic, Dr. Frederick Grinnell describes the practice of science, embracing the role of intuition and passion, as well as logic and objectivity, in the path to discovery.  Importantly, throughout his book Grinnell highlights the fact that scientists begin their work with particular interests and commitments.  He recognizes that the hegemonic views of society are not filtered out from the practice of science.  Instead, he emphasizes that the everyday practice of science seeks truth (small “t”) as we currently understand things, not Truth (capital “T”) that further experience cannot change.

Although the majority of the examples that Grinnell discusses come from the biomedical sciences and the biomedical research community, his examples provide thought-provoking insight into value judgments that are broadly applicable to different disciplines of research.  For example, Grinnell discusses issues of trust that are involved in peer review processes of grant applications and research manuscripts submitted for publication, which is relevant to all disciplines of scientific research.  Other topics covered in his book include conflict of interest and informed consent.

Grinnell’s discussion on peer review does an excellent job of guiding the reader to think about relevant ethical issues.  For example, Grinnell aptly states that although the contents of grant applications and submitted manuscripts are privileged and confidential information, reviewers cannot avoid being affected by what they have learned.  The following question that may then arise in the readers mind: How can a reviewer separate themselves and their research from the content of a paper or grant application that is under review?  This is an important issue because scientists submit the reports of their studies for review before receiving credit for it, and according to the Society for Neuroscience guidelines for reviewers of manuscripts, the resources that are necessary for research are most often awarded to those with the best ideas and highest productivity.  For this reason, it is very important that reviewers do not abuse their advanced access to new ideas, methods, or data.  Moreover, since the stakes are so high it is important to consider the ethics of reviewing seriously and carefully.  Although Grinnell does not specifically address the question posed above, I recommend Grinnell’s book because it stimulates the reader to think about these sorts of questions. 

Moreover, the peer review process is put into perspective through Grinnell’s description and discussion on this topic.  For example, writing specifically about grant applications to the National Institute of Health, Grinnell points out that organizing a review panel is a challenging task because the peer reviewers of these applications must be recognized authorities in their fields and must also be funded investigators on projects that are comparable to those under review.  This is because peer reviewers should be knowledgeable on the topic of the proposal so that they can assess the applications fairly.  A concern that arises then is this: the more closely a reviewer’s expertise overlaps with an applicant’s, the more likely it is that the two could be allies or direct competitors, which then leads to the topic of conflict of interest.  This type of guided discussion makes this book a valuable resource for anyone in the early stages of a scientific career, particularly graduate students, and of interest to anyone concerned about science policy and science education.

I thoroughly appreciate the fact that Grinnell does not dodge the topics of scientific misconduct and conflicts of interest, which have raised concerns from the public about the integrity of scientists.  In his writing on scientific misconduct, Grinnell highlights the fact that several instances of fabrication and plagiarism were committed by scientists during the late 1970′s, which led to the development of a definition of scientific misconduct in the United States that could accommodate the ambiguity of the practice of science.  Although there was much controversy over how misconduct should be defined, Grinnell explains that this was eventually resolved with the government-wide definition that was set forth by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).  According to the OSTP, scientific misconduct is defined as “fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results”.  This definition also established that “a finding of research misconduct requires that there be a significant departure from accepted practices of the relevant research community” (p118). 

Grinnell’s discussion on the development of a Unites States government wide definition of scientific misconduct is interesting, because it highlights the ineffectiveness of guidelines for the conduct of science when vague language, such as the phrase “other practices that seriously deviate”, are utilized.  As a graduate student, I’ve started to notice that guidelines for scientific conduct, such as the reviewing of manuscripts and deciding who should be an author on the paper, seem to only provide a general structure of how one should act, since much of the language used in these documents are left to the interpretation of the scientist or scientist in training.  Although there may be a set definition of misconduct, often it seems that it is left to the discretion of the individual to assess which acts constitute misconduct in a given situation.  Here, it seems that differences in interpretation and opinion lead to conflict, which is undeniably a part of science. 

Grinnell’s organization of The Everyday Practice of Science is clear and logical, making the book easy to follow.  The book is divided into two general sections.  In the first section, Grinnell describes the practice of science with the insight of an insider (one who has been involved in biomedical research for more than 35 years).  He takes the time to thoroughly discuss discovery and credibility, which Grinnell considers to be the two activities that are central to the practice of science.  Interestingly, he notes that discovery and credibility circle the researcher and that the biography and personality of the researcher influences each step of these processes.  In the second section of the book, Grinnell analyzes issues of science and society that have received significant national attention in recent years.  He covers the topic of scientific integrity, from the individual level of responsible conduct to the societal level of science policy.  He also focuses on issues relevant to informed consent, as well as risks that are present at the interface of human research and genetics.  Grinnell then moves on to analyze the relation between science and religion, suggesting that the two represent different attitudes toward human experience that are based on different types of faith.

I highly recommend The Everyday Practice of Science to anyone who is pursuing or even considering a scientific career.  Having gone through a North American education system from grade school through to an undergraduate degree in science, I was taught that successful results, organized presentation, and adherence to the structure and rules of the scientific method leads to discovery and reward in science.  However, regardless of what one may expect or even wish the practice of science to be, if they stick with it long enough they will discover that it consists of more than the linear scientific method.  Grinnell’s book guides the reader through different spheres of the practice of science that are not often, if ever, covered in the classroom or textbooks.  Although all graduate students likely already have a basic sense of the everyday practice of science, Grinnell’s discussions illuminate and provoke deeper thought on aspects of practice that one may otherwise not ponder unless/until they are forced to deal with them in their own career.  As a last note on the value of taking an interest in the practice of everyday science, I end this review with the Grinnell’s own words from Everyday Practice of Science (p. 20): 

Why has everyday practice not become a more central focus for science education?  Whatever the reasons, ignoring practice impedes the goals of science education.  When he was executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, Bill Aldridge wrote that the framework for science education should be built around three fundamental questions: What do we mean? How do we know? Why do we believe? (31). Those who do not understand the practice of science cannot, in the end, answer these questions.

Authored by Max Velmans

Understanding Consciousness, 2nd Edition provides a unique survey and evaluation of consciousness studies, along with an original analysis of consciousness that combines scientific findings, philosophy and common sense. Building on the widely praised first edition, this new edition adds fresh research, and deepens the original analysis in a way that reflects some of the fundamental changes in the understanding of consciousness that have taken place over the last 10 years.

The book is divided into three parts; Part one surveys current theories of consciousness, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. Part two reconstructs an understanding of consciousness from first principles, starting with its phenomenology, and leading to a closer examination of how conscious experience relates to the world described by physics and information processing in the brain. Finally, Part three deals with some of the fundamental issues such as what consciousness is and does, and how it fits into to the evolving universe. As the structure of the book moves from a basic overview of the field to a successively deeper analysis, it can be used both for those new to the subject and for more established researchers.

Understanding Consciousness tells a story with a beginning, middle and end in a way that integrates the philosophy of consciousness with the science. Overall, the book provides a unique perspective on how to address the problems of consciousness and as such, will be of great interest to psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists and other professionals concerned with mind/body relationships, and all who are interested in this subject.

2009, 408 pp, paperback and hardback
ISBN: 978-0-415-42516-2

Table of Contents

Part 1. Mind-body theories and their problems

1.  What is consciousness?
2.  Conscious souls, brains and quantum mechanics
3.  Are mind and matter the same thing?
4.  Are mind and consciousness just activities?
5.  Could robots be conscious?

Part 2. A new analysis: How to marry science with experience

6.   Conscious phenomenology and common sense
7.   The nature and location