exciting new evidence supports Scruffy's brain model

[scruffy]

This is like looking at an elephants toenail and trying to figure out what kind of animal it is. Stap back and take broad perspective your lost in the minutia

I'm interested in underlying physical mechanisms. Sensation and awareness, not behavior. Behavior is data. Sensation is physics.

Why is red "red"?

Why is sensation "in" the finger and not "in" the brain?

My model answers the second question. (For the first time ever in history, with robust math and physics to back it up). It does not yet answer the first, but that's why Kuramoto is in play. I think "red" is a particular resonance between the oscillators. So is A440. I can't prove it yet, but I'm pretty sure an analysis of criticality will show the way.

You look at people, I look at cells and molecules. What I know from 40 years of studying biology is, nature reuses that which works. We don't need 100 billion neurons to create a brain wave, I can create an oscillator with just two neurons, or maybe even one. So how come we have 100 billion? Aplysia gets by with just a few thousand neurons, it eats, reproduces, fights and defends itself, even exhibits curiosity. The answer is, a brain isn't an electric circuit. It's something much more sophisticated. It's 4 billion years of biophysical evolution, which includes things like photosynthesis and its cousins rhodopsin and melanopsin, and more recently gap junctions that cause waves of calcium in astrocytes in response to neural events.

These are basically quantum phenomena, they're physics. The physics we know occurs on time scales of nanoseconds. Light, energy, all the basic stuff is super-fast. The need for real time optimization creates an evolutionary attractor for processing speed. Our brains make compromises in favor of speed, for instance many of the visual illusions are that way.

At first, in evolution, speed means more and faster circuits. But then there comes a point where the speed is adequate (in other words it matches environmental events), and then the evolutionary pressure changes. What matters next is range of response, you want to formulate the best possible response in the allotted time. And that's when neurons start piling on top of each other and growing greatly in numbers.

Here's a really big clue. Check those parts of the brain you call "sensory" structures. You mentioned the hippocampus. The hippocampus is connected across the entire timeline, not just the sensory part. The claustrum, there's another good one - same thing. I mean... intralaminar nucleus of the thalamus, same thing. Dorsomedial nucleus, same thing. All these areas have topographic maps of the entire brain, not just the sensory part. I'm pretty sure that "memory" is something quite different from what we think it is. People think in terms of synaptic plasticity, but that ain't even 1/2 of 1% of the story. Memory is stored as "stick figures", not episodes. Episodes are merely boundaries, what's inside them is something completely different.

My interest in physics would apply in areas like why schizophrenics hallucinate, or why autistics are sometimes savants. These are not "behavior" per se, they more speak to underlying mechanisms.

 

[Hafar1014]

I'm interested in underlying physical mechanisms. Sensation and awareness, not behavior. Behavior is data. Sensation is physics.

Why is red "red"?

Why is sensation "in" the finger and not "in" the brain?

My model answers the second question. (For the first time ever in history, with robust math and physics to back it up). It does not yet answer the first, but that's why Kuramoto is in play. I think "red" is a particular resonance between the oscillators. So is A440. I can't prove it yet, but I'm pretty sure an analysis of criticality will show the way.

You look at people, I look at cells and molecules. What I know from 40 years of studying biology is, nature reuses that which works. We don't need 100 billion neurons to create a brain wave, I can create an oscillator with just two neurons, or maybe even one. So how come we have 100 billion? Aplysia gets by with just a few thousand neurons, it eats, reproduces, fights and defends itself, even exhibits curiosity. The answer is, a brain isn't an electric circuit. It's something much more sophisticated. It's 4 billion years of biophysical evolution, which includes things like photosynthesis and its cousins rhodopsin and melanopsin, and more recently gap junctions that cause waves of calcium in astrocytes in response to neural events.

These are basically quantum phenomena, they're physics. The physics we know occurs on time scales of nanoseconds. Light, energy, all the basic stuff is super-fast. The need for real time optimization creates an evolutionary attractor for processing speed. Our brains make compromises in favor of speed, for instance many of the visual illusions are that way.

At first, in evolution, speed means more and faster circuits. But then there comes a point where the speed is adequate (in other words it matches environmental events), and then the evolutionary pressure changes. What matters next is range of response, you want to formulate the best possible response in the allotted time. And that's when neurons start piling on top of each other and growing greatly in numbers.

Here's a really big clue. Check those parts of the brain you call "sensory" structures. You mentioned the hippocampus. The hippocampus is connected across the entire timeline, not just the sensory part. The claustrum, there's another good one - same thing. I mean... intralaminar nucleus of the thalamus, same thing. Dorsomedial nucleus, same thing. All these areas have topographic maps of the entire brain, not just the sensory part. I'm pretty sure that "memory" is something quite different from what we think it is. People think in terms of synaptic plasticity, but that ain't even 1/2 of 1% of the story. Memory is stored as "stick figures", not episodes. Episodes are merely boundaries, what's inside them is something completely different.

My interest in physics would apply in areas like why schizophrenics hallucinate, or why autistics are sometimes savants. These are not "behavior" per se, they more speak to underlying mechanisms.

I gave you the answer. Emotions determine how memory and intelligence is applied. You have lost yourself in the weeds.
How many angles can dance on the head of a pin. Your lost in your own minutia.
Sensation is in nerves in the finger connected to the brain.
The best sign of intelligence is the ability to explain complex process simply.
Schizophrenics have delusions because they have too much dopamine and organic dysfunction. Autism is genetic.
All behavior is based on underlying processes.
You wont find the answer where your looking. Stand back and take broad perspective
Personality is created by social interactions.

 

[scruffy]

By the way, the reaction-diffusion mechanism was first proposed by Alan Turing in 1952.

The geometry created by it, falls broadly into the area called "morphogenesis" - the creation of shape.

A huge advance in biological shape came when Mandelbrot popularized fractals. It was only two years after Mandelbrot's famous paper came out, that biologists figured out how a fern grows, how its leaves acquire that shape. Everything in biology has a shape. The EEG has a shape too. Biological computation is highly geometric.

We need to characterize the "shape" of sensation, so to speak. Psychophysics tells us one or two things, but that's like a blind man trying to measure the box with his thumbs. The "shape" of sensation - most people, most scientists, when I ask them "why is sensation in the finger and not in the brain", their answer is, the brain projects out into the finger. Fine, great. That's a shape. Let's formalize it. Projection mappings are very well known in mathematics. They're used every day in machine learning. Our own poster talanum1 came up with a clever way to calculate "projections" of a determinant. If there's a projection involved (and I happen to agree there is), we should be able to find it.

 

[scruffy]

.Sensation is in nerves in the finger connected to the brain.

No, it isn't. Absolutely not. Provably not. Sensation is exclusively in the brain. Not in the finger.

Proof? Easy. Chop off your finger and it's still there.

 

[Hafar1014]

No, it isn't. Absolutely not. Provably not. Sensation is exclusively in the brain. Not in the finger.

Proof? Easy. Chop off your finger and it's still there.

Thats called phantom pain. Its a memory. Its the opposite of sensation. We treat amputees by stimulating the area with a soft brush and it stops.

 

[scruffy]

This is like looking at an elephants toenail and trying to figure out what kind of animal it is. Stap back and take broad perspective your lost in the minutia

Just give me two minutes to do a quickie DNA test and I'll tell you what kind of animal it is with 99.94+ % accuracy

 

[scruffy]

Thats called phantom pain. Its a memory. Its the opposite of sensation. We treat amputees by stimulating the area with a soft brush and it stops.

Exactly. But it's not the opposite of sensation, it IS a sensation. It's very real. You can ask.

So here's a question. Does it matter if the amputee is watching when you stimulate the area? Or otherwise getting some kind of related sensory input?

I'll look for some single-cell stimulation studies in humans. My thinking is, if you stimulate an area where there's no neurons, there should be no sensation. Any sensation is either coming from elsewhere, or coming from memory as you say. Although we don't generally re-experience sensations when we replay memory. Unless we're instructed to.

 

[scruffy]

Here's a good one. Itching and scratching. (In humans, not in dogs).

Look up something called "referred itch". (It was so named in 1733).

There's another one called "transferred itch", it's between two different people. One looks at the other scratching, and starts to itch.

 

[Hafar1014]

Exactly. But it's not the opposite of sensation, it IS a sensation. It's very real. You can ask.

So here's a question. Does it matter if the amputee is watching when you stimulate the area? Or otherwise getting some kind of related sensory input?

I'll look for some single-cell stimulation studies in humans. My thinking is, if you stimulate an area where there's no neurons, there should be no sensation. Any sensation is either coming from elsewhere, or coming from memory as you say. Although we don't generally re-experience sensations when we replay memory. Unless we're instructed to.

No its memory not a sensation. The amputee stimulates himself which sends the correct message to the brain which then changes the wiring in the limbic system. Its called memory reconsolidation by experiential intervention.
“Due to the entirely nonverbal nature of the limbic brain, experiential rather then cognitive methods are required for successfully engaging and changing its schemas.” (Ecker, B., 2011). “A dynamic neural process now known as reconsolidation can actually unlock the synapses maintaining implicit emotional learnings” (Nader, K., et al. 2000). (Pansskepp, J., 1998). The amygdala compares current perceptions to these attachment related implicit memories triggering a self-protective response. When the child is at his/her worst behavior an opportunity for healing is created only if caregivers understand what is happening as a process. One can see how difficult this can be because the normal response by caregivers is counterintuitive. So then what is the solution?

“Further research has established that in order for synapses to unlock, the brain requires not just the experience of reactivation of the memory—it's also necessary for a second, critical experience to promptly take place while the memory reactivation experience is still occurring. That second experience consists of perceptions that sharply contradict and disconfirm the implicit expectations of the reactivated memory.

(1) Fully reactivate the target implicit memory so that the emotional experience is occurring.

(2) While the target memory is fully reactivated and the emotional experience is occurring, promptly create an additional, concurrent experience that sharply mismatches (contradicts and disconfirms) the expectations and predictions arising from the implicit memory.”(Ecker, B.2010, Psychotherapy Networker)

 

[scruffy]

No its memory not a sensation. The amputee stimulates himself which sends the correct message to the brain which then changes the wiring in the limbic system. Its called memory reconsolidation by experiential intervention.

Neuroscientists call it correlation. The brain forms the correct statistical conclusion and updates itself to accommodate it.

“Due to the entirely nonverbal nature of the limbic brain, experiential rather then cognitive methods are required for successfully engaging and changing its schemas.” (Ecker, B., 2011). “A dynamic neural process now known as reconsolidation can actually unlock the synapses maintaining implicit emotional learnings” (Nader, K., et al. 2000). (Pansskepp, J., 1998). The amygdala compares current perceptions to these attachment related implicit memories triggering a self-protective response. When the child is at his/her worst behavior an opportunity for healing is created only if caregivers understand what is happening as a process. One can see how difficult this can be because the normal response by caregivers is counterintuitive. So then what is the solution?

“Further research has established that in order for synapses to unlock, the brain requires not just the experience of reactivation of the memory—it's also necessary for a second, critical experience to promptly take place while the memory reactivation experience is still occurring. That second experience consists of perceptions that sharply contradict and disconfirm the implicit expectations of the reactivated memory.

(1) Fully reactivate the target implicit memory so that the emotional experience is occurring.

(2) While the target memory is fully reactivated and the emotional experience is occurring, promptly create an additional, concurrent experience that sharply mismatches (contradicts and disconfirms) the expectations and predictions arising from the implicit memory.”(Ecker, B.2010, Psychotherapy Networker)

Psychopaths (4% of the population) experience trauma but they have real trouble with extinction. In the brain, extinction and negative reinforcement use many of the same pathways.

Psychopaths don't learn from negative reinforcement. Most people after a brief exposure to a psychopath, want to beat the shit out of him or her. But it wouldn't matter, they don't learn that way.

There's a huge pathway that malfunctions in psychopaths, from the amygdala to the ventromedial portion of the prefrontal cortex, near the eye field and a little in front. This specific kind of learning and ONLY this kind of learning, uses this pathway. They're perfectly fine with every other kind of learning, just not with extinction related to negative reinforcement.

 

[Hafar1014]

Neuroscientists call it correlation. The brain forms the correct statistical conclusion and updates itself to accommodate it.



Psychopaths (4% of the population) experience trauma but they have real trouble with extinction. In the brain, extinction and negative reinforcement use many of the same pathways.

Psychopaths don't learn from negative reinforcement. Most people after a brief exposure to a psychopath, want to beat the shit out of him or her. But it wouldn't matter, they don't learn that way.

There's a huge pathway that malfunctions in psychopaths, from the amygdala to the ventromedial portion of the prefrontal cortex, near the eye field and a little in front. This specific kind of learning and ONLY this kind of learning, uses this pathway. They're perfectly fine with every other kind of learning, just not with extinction related to negative reinforcement.

Ani social personality is not a trauma disorder. We dont know the cause its genetic and affects mostly low SES cultures. I have treated many and your understanding is poor. They are master manipulators and get people to support and help them. They may also have more than on personality disorder such as Eric Harris the Columbine shooter.

The brain does not always form a correct interpretation. Thats coherence not correlation. People often dont understand the memory messages they get.
Every normal human brain works the same way as a process. Think of a gas car. They all work the same way but every driver is different

 

[scruffy]

Ani social personality is not a trauma disorder. We dont know the cause its genetic and affects mostly low SES cultures. I have treated many and your understanding is poor. They are master manipulators and get people to support and help them. They may also have more than on personality disorder such as Eric Harris the Columbine shooter.

The brain does not always form a correct interpretation. Thats coherence not correlation. People often dont understand the memory messages they get.
Every normal human brain works the same way as a process. Think of a gas car. They all work the same way but every driver is different

You're horribly abusing the English language. The terms "coherence" and "correlation" are mathematical, they have specific meanings. If I were you I wouldn't toss those words around till to you know what they mean. Don't ever talk to an engineer that way, he'll shoot you. Or just laugh till you leave the room.

No wonder psychology is considered a soft science. Seriously, you won't be able to communicate with any other scientists using vocabulary like that. These terms have been agreed on for two hundred years, you don't get to be a leftard and suddenly change their meanings

 

[Hafar1014]

You're horribly abusing the English language. The terms "coherence" and "correlation" are mathematical, they have specific meanings. If I were you I wouldn't toss those words around till to you know what they mean. Don't ever talk to an engineer that way, he'll shoot you. Or just laugh till you leave the room.

No wonder psychology is considered a soft science. Seriously, you won't be able to communicate with any other scientists using vocabulary like that. These terms have been agreed on for two hundred years, you don't get to be a leftard and suddenly change their meanings

Coherence Therapy (CT) is an experiential, depth-oriented psychotherapy that resolves emotional symptoms by uncovering and transforming the unconscious, "coherent" beliefs that produce them. Developed by Bruce Ecker and Laurel Hulley, it focuses on memory reconsolidation—using targeted, experiential, and non-counteractive techniques to bring implicit, protective emotional learnings into conscious awareness to permanently erase them.
Key aspects of Coherence Therapy include:

• Symptom Coherence: The core principle that all symptoms, however dysfunctional they may seem, are meaningful and protective, serving as a "coherent" response to deeply held, often unconscious, emotional truths.
• Memory Reconsolidation
  :
  The therapy is designed to trigger the brain’s built-in mechanism for updating or erasing deep emotional memories, known as memory reconsolidation
  .
• • Discovery and Integration: The process involves helping the client discover the specific unconscious schema (the "known" or "emotional truth") and bringing it into conscious awareness, or integration.
  • Juxtaposition: A crucial step where the client experiences the contradiction between their old, limiting belief (the "model") and new, directly experienced reality.
  • Non-Pathologizing: The approach does not fight against symptoms, but rather uncovers their purpose to understand why they are necessary to the client.
  • Targeting the Root: By accessing and updating the unconscious, emotional, and subcortical brain, Coherence Therapy aims for lasting change, often in a relatively small number of sessions.

Coherence Therapy, formerly known as Depth Oriented Brief Therapy, was developed in the 1990s and is based on principles of psychological constructivism. It is used to address a wide range of emotional, behavioral, and cognitive symptoms by enabling profound shifts at the root.

 

[scruffy]

Yeah, I get it, it's a trade name. A buzz word. A cultural appropriation.

You've heard the expression, "correlation does not equal causality"? Well, that's what the word means, a statistical relationship between two events. You can have "autocorrelation" too, where you compare something with itself at different times.

Coherence is a similar relationship in the frequency domain, and it can be used to infer causality. You know what "frequency domain" is, yes? Fourier transform and all that? (Did you know you can solve high order polynomials with Fourier transforms?) Coherence is cross spectral density over auto spectral densities, where a spectral density is a Fourier transform of the original signal. The important maths are Parseval's theorem and the Wiener-Khinchin theorem.

Where this matters is when you're looking at unknown signals. Like, brain waves. Or the microwave background radiation in space. For example, in the brain we discover that the phase of an alpha wave modulates the amplitude of gamma waves. If we didn't know that, and we just measured the gamma signals, then what we could do is autocorrelate the gamma signal with itself, and lo and behold then the alpha signal drops out of it and we can visualize it. They use this same technique to remove watermarks from images and stuff like that.

In my case, coherence is a phase relationship between oscillators. To detect it I have to run an autocorrelation on both oscillators and a cross correlation between them, take the Fourier transforms and apply Parseval's theorem, and then I get a quantitative measure of something directly related to a subjective phenomenon. It's better than psychophysics because I don't have to ask the subject any silly questions.

 

[scruffy]

Newton correctly recognized that "red" has nothing to do with the wavelength of the light

Hermann Helmholz took it a step further, he said perception is unconscious inference.

That word "inference" is a big word. "Infer" means to form a hypothesis from data. It has a formal meaning in machine learning, where one must qualify the word with a method, like "Bayesian" inference which is an entirely subjective form of inference based on "belief".

"Belief" means you have a model of the world. The model is described in terms of its parameters, much like a cooking recipe, 4 of those and 2 teaspoons of that and so on. The parameters 4 and 2 are your beliefs. You believe the world is described by 4 and 2. If you get a new piece of data that says 3 and 2, you have to update your beliefs - and the only way to do that logically and consistently is with probabilities.

Hence all internal models should be probabilistic in nature - including perceptions. And we are discovering that is indeed the case. The machine learning people who used to focus on geometry, are now discovering they can do the exact same thing with correlation and coherence, faster, cheaper, and more efficiently. The orientation and ocular dominance columns in the visual cortex we once thought required chemical markers to form, don't. They form all by themselves using the statistics of natural visual input.

This is what I meant when I said "nature reuses what works". Think about it. Correlation means two things happen at the same time. What else happens at the same time? How about... chemical reactions, which constitute 100% of our biochemistry and our wetware? How about Hebbian learning, which is what alters the synapses you're talking about and it's also why you need a second temporally correlated experience.

 

[Hafar1014]

Yeah, I get it, it's a trade name. A buzz word. A cultural appropriation.

You've heard the expression, "correlation does not equal causality"? Well, that's what the word means, a statistical relationship between two events. You can have "autocorrelation" too, where you compare something with itself at different times.

Coherence is a similar relationship in the frequency domain, and it can be used to infer causality. You know what "frequency domain" is, yes? Fourier transform and all that? (Did you know you can solve high order polynomials with Fourier transforms?) Coherence is cross spectral density over auto spectral densities, where a spectral density is a Fourier transform of the original signal. The important maths are Parseval's theorem and the Wiener-Khinchin theorem.

Where this matters is when you're looking at unknown signals. Like, brain waves. Or the microwave background radiation in space. For example, in the brain we discover that the phase of an alpha wave modulates the amplitude of gamma waves. If we didn't know that, and we just measured the gamma signals, then what we could do is autocorrelate the gamma signal with itself, and lo and behold then the alpha signal drops out of it and we can visualize it. They use this same technique to remove watermarks from images and stuff like that.

In my case, coherence is a phase relationship between oscillators. To detect it I have to run an autocorrelation on both oscillators and a cross correlation between them, take the Fourier transforms and apply Parseval's theorem, and then I get a quantitative measure of something directly related to a subjective phenomenon. It's better than psychophysics because I don't have to ask the subject any silly questions.

Youre using a screwdriver to hammer a nail. The human brain does not equate to a computer or any physical model. It has spiritual aspect to it that exists apart from the brain. You also cant measure emotions in your context.

There is a medical condition called terminal lucidity. Thats when a person has brain damage by, stroke, dementia traumatic injury, cancer or any condition that damages the physical brain. They lose all memory personality and identity. When they are near death 1 or 2 days away everything comes back. Thats impossible because the brain structures are damaged, gone and cant come back. But memories emotions and personality does. Then they die.

 

[scruffy]

Excellent video.



Plus, I offer this evolutionary perspective which rings true and agrees with everything i'm saying.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article/377/1844/20200531/108758/The-evolution-of-brain-architectures-for

The thing about biological models is they have to be accurate. They have to account for ALL the behavior, not just part of it.

For example - NASA did a whole bunch of experiments on the astronauts in the 60's. In one such experiment, they made them wear glasses with inverting prisms for an entire month. It took about 10 days for the visual perception to invert, and at the end of it they were unable to move around without their glasses, they had to be retrained not to wear them.

Contrast this with an episodic memory that lasts forever.

Synaptic plasticity is very, very complicated. It's almost as complicated as DNA. Hebbian learning doesn't cut it, because it only addresses one kind of memory. It's great for principal component analysis but it's lousy for episodes.

The memory storage requirements for episodes MANDATE that storage must occur during critical states. Otherwise the dynamics are too slow, the number of bits that needs to be stored greatly exceeds the time to store them.

As of this moment, there is ZERO relationship between critical states and Hebbian learning. Predictive coding is the only model that provides one, and it requires a special architecture which is what my model describes.

Information ahead of T=0 is prediction, that's exactly what it is. From the standpoint of ERP's you can stage an intended motor behavior along the timeline but there's no guarantee it'll actually execute. It might be inhibited before it gets to T=0, or transmission might simply fail, or any number of other reasons might interrupt it or disengage it.

The purpose of the brain is to optimize the behavior of the organism in real time. Right now machines take 10,000 presentations to learn to recognize a face. But you can do it with one previous glance. Which is highly non-Hebbian and therefore that model FAILS to account for the behavior.

But loop topology combined with criticality is a way of making "correlation" work a little differently. You can take an example from the human visual system. We don't operate like machines, we don't sweep convolutional filters across an image. What we do instead is break down the image into a bunch of parallel pathways, extracting all possible information at every point in space - and then we re-combine that to get perception. What is being stored are the bits, not the perceptions. The perceptions are re-created when the bits are recalled. Proof of this can be found in the neural circuits around the hippocampus.

Once we understand that the topology is vital for describing this, it takes us into things like "the fundamental group of the loop space", which is a mathematical way of describing exactly, all the ways you can and can not rotate the circle, and change its shape by embedding it into some other geometry.

Unfortunately there is some bleeding edge math involved in all of this, but once you realize it's the probabilities that matter you're halfway home.

And, you have to keep looking at the constraints while you're doing this. It's too easy to fall down a rabbit hole if you don't. We're looking for something specific, we don't want to be distracted by temporary successes in other areas.

The easiest constraint to meet, is the computational constraint. And if that doesn't work, nothing else will work either. We have machines to test the computations with, we don't need to be sticking electrodes in patients' brains. For example we can entirely predict and quantify the motor deficits associated with antidepressants and antipsychotics. And because we can do that, we now have clinical diagnostic tools that can calculate the required dose adjustments and etc. Which is bleeding edge stuff, the vast majority of practitioners aren't even aware these quantitative diagnostic tools exist.

 

[scruffy]

Thats impossible because the brain structures are damaged, gone and cant come back. But memories emotions and personality does.

Only the computational structures are damaged, not the memories. Lack of computation makes recall impossible, even if the memories are still there.

Two points - one, we have established beyond any shadow of a doubt that long term memory equates with stable molecular configurations. These configurations persist after death, they can only be changed by active processes tied to experience. RNA is required, and the transfer of RNA between neurons and between neurons and glia is required.

Two, computational inaccessibility has been extensively studied. Especially in primitive organisms. A neuron will shut down if it's not given input, eventually it'll atrophy and die (it's just like a muscle, it needs to be used). But the brain grows new neurons. In the hippocampus you mentioned, in the area that feeds it called the entorhinal cortex, neurons are replaced every 15 days or so. What does that tell us? It tells us the memory is not in the neurons, it's somewhere else. Neurons are built for computation, they don't do memory. GLIA do memory. If you lose all your neurons your memories will still be intact, because they're in the glia. You just won't be able to get to them, because you don't have any computational power because you have no neurons.

 

[scruffy]

Google "neurogenesis hippocampus".

AI says:

Adult hippocampal neurogenesis is the lifelong process of generating new, functional neurons, specifically dentate granule cells, from neural stem cells in the subgranular zone of the hippocampal dentate gyrus. This process contributes significantly to cognitive functions like memory formation, spatial memory, and mood regulation, with new neurons integrating into existing circuits to aid in pattern separation and learning

Key Aspects of Hippocampal Neurogenesis

• Location and Mechanism: New neurons are produced in the subgranular zone (SGZ) of the dentate gyrus in the hippocampus. The process involves the proliferation of stem cells, their differentiation, migration, and eventual integration into the hippocampus as granule cells.
• Functional Significance: These new neurons are crucial for:
  • Memory Consolidation: They assist in forming new episodic and spatial memories.
  • Pattern Separation: They help distinguish between similar memories or contexts.
  • Emotional Regulation: They play a role in reducing anxiety and depression.
• Regulation Factors:
  • Increases: Aerobic exercise, learning, and environmental enrichment are known to boost neurogenesis.
  • Decreases: Aging, chronic stress, and neurodegenerative diseases (like Alzheimer's) impair this process.

Role in Health and Disease
Adult hippocampal neurogenesis is essential for maintaining hippocampal memory capacity and flexibility. Its impairment is linked to cognitive decline in aging and neurodegenerative conditions, as well as stress-related disorders.

 

[scruffy]

And ask yourself, why do neurons need to replaced?

What's wrong with the old ones?

My answer is: the old ones fill up, they can't store anything anymore. Because of what I said earlier about the bits. Episodic memory has huge storage requirements. This is why we need long term consolidation, to disseminate all that information across the brain so it doesn't have to be kept in just one place anymore.

Any way you slice it, storage takes time. The hippocampus is a buffer (EE term), it's like a cache memory. Things have to be held in cache till they can be written to disk.

And that, is a multi-step process, because the information is compressed and reconfigured before it's written to the hard disk. But meanwhile, business continuity requires that current experience still be stored, while the write-out is occurring. And it's a LOT of information that's being written out. Which is why we need to keep doing it during our sleep, to pick up the slack.