Electricity is seen as the force of life. As electricity experiments are popular it makes sense to make these conclusions. Then as we experiment on animals and see muscles move via electricity it makes sense to conclude that this is the power of the soul. According to Zeki and colleagues [ 74], consciousness comprises nodes of micro-consciousnesses in different brain regions. Interestingly, in contrast to other theories, Zeki argues that consciousness is not unified [ 75]. Therefore, color and motion, for example, are consciously perceived in different parts of the cortex and only then bind together with other nodes to form a macro-consciousness. A micro-consciousness is autonomous [ 76] and does not require further processing. Therefore, the resected visual cortex in Step 3 may become micro-conscious of the green light during the replay. We could not find a direct reason as to why, according to Zeki, scattered brains during replay cannot bind together into a macro-consciousness. In the 19th century, the electrical paradigm became less spark-like, and more like that modern miracle, the telegraph. Brain studies shifted from mechanism to function. Phrenologists measured lumps in the skull, on the theory that specific functions and capabilities arose from specific parts of the brain, so that talents and deficiencies could be explained by having excess or deficient brain matter, which one could discover by measuring lumps and dips in the skull. Thus one could “prove” that someone was a natural criminal, laborer, or intellectual by measuring the skull. For example, the fact that men’s brains are bigger than women’s was taken to prove that men are more intelligent than women. Phrenology was eventually discredited when scientists began looking at the actual brain, rather than the skull. Parts of the brain were indeed sometimes associated with mental abilities, but these were not enlarged nor did they lie beneath lumps. Still, some capabilities such as “intelligence” did not have seem to be localized. A surprisingly acrimonious debate emerged over whether specific mental activities were localized in the brain or whether they arose from the brain as a whole. This is an active debate, even today. Anand KS, Dhikav V. Hippocampus in health and disease: An overview. Ann Indian Acad Neurol. 2012;15(4):239-46. doi:10.4103/0972-2327.104323 Corballis MC. Left brain, right brain: facts and fantasies. PLoS Biol. 2014;12(1):e1001767. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001767

How modern philosophers describe consciousness. The definitions are frankly pointless to read about as it’s just random people with opinions. The split brain studies are interesting, but I know that already. This book is kinda basic. For thousands of years, thinkers and scientists have tried to understand what the brain does. Yet, despite the astonishing discoveries of science, we still have only the vaguest idea of how the brain works. In The Idea of the Brain, scientist and historian Matthew Cobb traces how our conception of the brain has evolved over the centuries. Although it might seem to be a story of ever-increasing knowledge of biology, Cobb shows how our ideas about the brain have been shaped by each era's most significant technologies. Today we might think the brain is like a supercomputer. In the past, it has been compared to a telegraph, a telephone exchange, or some kind of hydraulic system. What will we think the brain is like tomorrow, when new technology arises? The result is an essential read for anyone interested in the complex processes that drive science and the forces that have shaped our marvelous brains. This enthralling book starts at the earliest points of the halting journey to an experimental science of the brain and moves forward to the present era, where we simultaneously have a surfeit of data and a poverty of far-reaching, intellectually satisfying theories of brain function. It seems that we need a Newton, Darwin or Einstein to come into brain and cognition research. We need new ideas and new metaphors. We probably need more advanced technology. In the working hypothesis, we only considered whether action potentials cause consciousness. Performing our experiments for other neuronal processes might be more difficult than for action potentials and, in some cases, even impossible. However, conceptually, it is straightforward to include them in the hypothesis and even include combinations of multiple processes; for example, membrane potential fluctuations, calcium ion concentrations [ 53, 54], the release of neurotransmitters from the presynaptic terminals, or activity in glial cells [ 55, 56]. To consider multiple biological processes, we first need to record these processes and then test the hypothesis against Steps 1 to 3 by asking in each step whether the participant’s conscious perception changed when the respective cellular processes remained exactly the same.Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds. For most of history (up until Roman times), it was believed our thought and emotion are housed in the heart. Then in more recent centuries, scientists experimented and tried to understand the brain by comparing it with the most advanced technologies of the time: hydraulics, telegraphs, computers, etc. But it looks like none provide a great model. The computer, with its separated hardware and software and set logical structures, is too different from the integrated "wetware" of our brain, with deep interconnected networks of extreme non-linear complexity, constant morphing of physical structure, and functional transformations based on the flows of countless chemicals.

Baxter MG, Croxson PL. Facing the role of the amygdala in emotional information processing. Proc Nat Acad Sci. 2012;109(52):21180-21181. doi:10.1073/pnas.1219167110

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The experiment we described here is useful as a benchmark for theories of consciousness, revealing hidden incoherences and ambiguities [ 58]. Specifically, for a given theory of consciousness, we ask in which step (i.e., Steps 1 to 3) and why we would reject the working hypothesis and claim that the participant loses consciousness. We tend to assume that our models of the brain are correct. For example, we “instinctively” think of the brain as separate from the body, the seat of consciousness, as a computer, and as a collection of neurons; we “instinctively” think that what the brain does is think (Cobb’s argument), or remember, or create consciousness. Cobb documents that each of these ways of understanding the brain are relatively modern and incomplete—not instinctive or obvious at all. There was also a section which made me laugh out loud detailing an fMRI experiment performed on a salmon. I will leave the joy of discovering it to anyone who reads the book.

I’m not sure I fully followed his ideas. It’s a lot of historical figures with various theories. Largely they said the heart was the cognition. But in the 1500th century the brain is the cognition idea started to become the main one. It’s not clear when what happened. But the heart theory is fascinating as you can clearly see people are thinking with their brain when someone gets a brain injury. All very weird. He doesn’t explain with clear logic why the brain was not considered the main thinking part from the start. He gets into it, but it’s not really convincing. Brain size and intelligence correlation is mentioned. And then brain size, intelligence and race. But the author is clearly not knowledgeable on this area so he just calls this “racist” and lazily moves on. Which is a shame because this research is by far the most interesting part of the chapter for any modern reader. It’s a huge debate point in 2021. Gainotti G. Why are the right and left hemisphere conceptual representations different? Behav Neurol. 2014;2014:603134. doi: 10.1155/2014/603134 looking ahead to what the future might hold. The possibilities include the creation of conscious machines, or even having toMedical News Today has strict sourcing guidelines and draws only from peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical journals and associations. We avoid using tertiary references. We link primary sources — including studies, scientific references, and statistics — within each article and also list them in the resources section at the bottom of our articles. You can learn more about how we ensure our content is accurate and current by reading our editorial policy. Goldie J. The implications of brain lateralisation for modern general practice. Br J Gen Pract. 2016;66(642):44-5. doi: 10.3399/bjgp16X683341 Evolutionarily theory provided an organizing principal, and essentially transformed biology into a hard science. The ancients believed the heart was the anatomical seat of thought and consciousness and considered the brain to be of relative little import. Macdonald K, Germine L, Anderson A, Christodoulou J, Mcgrath LM. Dispelling the Myth: Training in Education or Neuroscience Decreases but Does Not Eliminate Beliefs in Neuromyths. Front Psychol. 2017;8:1314. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01314

Ostensibly, this book is about how the metaphors we’ve used to understand the brain over time have been informed by the technologies of the time, and in turn, these metaphors actually constrain our understanding. That concept makes a couple of cameos in the book, but is by no means an organizing principle. All of that is from the “Past” section of the book. In the “Present” section Cobb describes our current understanding of how memory works, how circuits have limited explanatory power, and how brains are similar to but different from digital computers. He describes the chemical basis for neural and mental phenomena. He describes the current view, that mental functions are both local and global; though some regions must be present for specific functions, those function may still require the whole brain. I was surprised to learn that fMRI ���brain scans” are misleading, and that results from fMRI data are often over-hyped. Cobb explores the fact that we are almost certainly at the edge of the use value of the computer metaphor. It’s not the glorious old super theories explaining everythin Regarding the thought experiment presented here, however, placing an electrode at the cell body to generate the cellular output effectively bypasses the critical nexus point in the apical dendrite. We, therefore, predict that the replay of activity at the cell bodies of pyramidal cells would, in this case, completely entail the former influence of the apical dendrite. Furthermore, DIT is agnostic about the intrinsic necessity of apical causality, per se, versus the resultant firing activity at the cell body. In this respect, DIT does not inform us whether the brain is conscious under replay or whether scattered brains are conscious.Memory. Very basic stuff. A bit of a letdown, it's this basic. He goes over some of the big new experiments, but we don’t learn much about what memory is or how it works. What's more, the brain is not in a jar, it is integrated into the organism. To study what the brain does and how it does it, one should work to understand the entire organism.