Text Box: Randomly-Selected Paraphrase Excerpts

Carter; Mapping the Mind

112

"Where" path: V1 -- V2 -- V3 -- V5 -- V6

Carter; Mapping the Mind

112

"What" path: V1 -- V2 -- V4

Carter; Mapping the Mind

115

Vast majority of the cortex is given over to sensory processing -- only the frontal lobes are dedicated to non-sensual tasks.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

115

Thalamus acts as a relay station, shunting incoming data onto appropriate cortical areas for processing.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

117

Recognizing someone is a process, most of which is done unconsciously.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

123

Cortical "who?" recognition pathway ends in the frontal area with the conscious acknowledgment that a person is familiar.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

138

Language areas of the brain are mainly in the left hemisphere. Wernicke's area makes spoken language comprehensible. Broca's area generates speech and may contain a "grammar module." Annular gyrus is concerned with meaning.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

147

Words and music are processed in different parts of the brain.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

148

Brain responds differently to a word according to whether (1) hearing it spoken, (2) seeing it written down, (3) speaking it, (4) considering which other words it relates to.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

149

Switch in brain activity from the language areas to the parietal lobes where spatial tasks are processed.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

150

Reading activates part of the visual cortex.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

150

Listening to speech makes the auditory cortex light up.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

150

Thinking about words makes Broca's area -- the articulation center -- light up.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

150

Thinking about words and speaking generates widespread activity.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

155

Stuttering may be due to competition for dominance between left and right hemispheres. Neither side can decide which is in control, so that both try to produce words.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

158

Human brain holds billions of impressions, called memories. At night, memory fragments are replayed and reassembled. Each run-through etches them deeper into the neural structure until there comes a time when memories and a person who holds them are effectively one and the same.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

166

Hippocampus is activated when people are asked to recall personal or 'episodic' memories.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

166

Finding your way around a familiar place involves the hippocampus, but only on the right side.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

176

Alzheimer's disease first area to go tends to be the hippocampus. People with Alzheimer's dementia often get lost.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

176

In semantic dimentia the temporal lobe is affected first, so people tend to forget general things like the names of objects.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

176

Memories are groups of neurons that fire together in the same pattern each time they are activated. The links between individual neurons, which bind them into a single memory, are formed through a process called long-term potentiation (LTP).

Carter; Mapping the Mind

176

Sematic dementia, which involves loss of factual memory rather than loss of personal memory, destroys the cortical area of the temporal lobe first, where semantic memories are thought to be stored.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

178

In Alzheimer's disease, plaques of an insoluble protein fragment, beta amyloid, accumulate in the cleft between neurons, blocking communication.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

180

Frontal lobes are where ideas are created, plans constructed, thoughts join with their associations to form new memories, fleeting perceptions held in mind until they are dispatched to long-term memory.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

184

Blindsight first came to light on the battlefields of the First World War when blinded soldiers were seen to.duck bullets even though they had no idea they were doing so.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

184

Blindsight is easiest to detect in people with a form of blindness caused by damage to the primary visual cortex (V1).

Carter; Mapping the Mind

189

Skilled tennis and cricket players have hit a speeding ball before its existence can possibly be registered by the cortex, may be due to blindsight.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

192

Thinking requires a degree of attention, a focusing of activity in which irrelevant stimuli are ignored.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

192

Two types of attention: (1) automatic engagement of the senses that occurs when your eye is caught by a flash of movement, (2) deliberate turning of the mind to a subject.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

192

Attention is created by a flood of neurotransmitters that turns important areas ON and unimportant ones OFF.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

195

Many brain regions are involved in directing and controlling attention.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

195

One brain region controlling attention that is especially concerned with holding internally generated stimuli in focus is the anterior cingulate cortex, a region on the inside front edge of the longitudinal fissure, the deep chasm that runs from the front of the brain to the back.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

195

Anterior cingulate cortex is sensitive to information from the body and it is fiercely active when a person feels pain, and also becomes active when we are conscious of emotion.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

195

Thinking -- holding ideas in mind and manipulating them -- takes place in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. This is the location of the closely related activity, working memory. Planning takes place in this area.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

203

Roger Penrose of Oxford University believes that nonbiological machines can never cross the chasm between computation and understanding.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

203

Roger Penrose has the strong feeling that the conscious mind cannot work like a computer.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

204

Consciousness -- not a thing but a process -- Francis Crick, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, San Diego.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

205

Episodic memory, enabled by the hippocampal system, is not essential for consciousness.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

205

Attention is caused either by sensory input or by the planning parts of the brain.

Carter; Mapping the Mind

207

Some illusions are programmed so firmly in our brains that the mere knowledge that they are false does not stop us from seeing them.

Damasio; Self Comes to Mind	118					The insular cortex is an important substrate of feelings -- from those that are associated with emotions to those that correspond to any shade of pleasure or pain, induced by a wide ranges stimuli -- hearing music one likes or hates; viewing pictures one loves, including erotic material, or pictures that can cause disgust; drinking wine; having sex; being high on drugs; being low on drugs and experiencing withdrawal; etc.
Damasio; Self Comes to Mind	141				Convergence divergence zones (CDZs) record the coincidence of activity in neurons hailing from different brain sites, neurons that had been made active by, for example, the mapping of a certain object.
Damasio; Self Comes to Mind	144			A convergence-divergence zone (CDZ) is an ensemble of neurons within which many feedforward-feedback loops make contact.
Damasio; Self Comes to Mind	144			A CDZ receives feedforward connections from sensory areas located earlier in the signal-processing chains, which begin at the entry point of the sensory signals in the cerebral cortex.
Damasio; Self Comes to Mind	144			A CDZ sends reciprocal feedback projections to the originating areas.
Damasio; Self Comes to Mind	144			A CDZ also sends feedforward projections to regions located in the next connectional level of the chain and receives return projections from them.
Damasio; Self Comes to Mind	145			CDZs are microscopic and are located within convergence-divergence regions (CDRegions), which are macroscopic.
Damasio; Self Comes to Mind	145			Damasio envisions the number of CDZs to be on the order of many thousands.
Damasio; Self Comes to Mind	145		CDRegions play an important role in producing and organizing critical components of the conscious mind, including those that make up the autobiographical self.
Damasio; Self Comes to Mind	149	Images constructed during perception are reconstructed during the process of imagery. They are approximations rather than replicas, attempts at getting back at past reality and thus not quite as vivid or accurate.

Eichenbaum; Neuroscience of Memory	41			All of us use habituation every day to help us learn not to respond to irrelevant stimuli.
Eichenbaum; Neuroscience of Memory	41			Habituation is a very simple form of learning, but it has the lasting property that indicates it is indeed a form of long-term memory.
Eichenbaum; Neuroscience of Memory	43		Sensitization is the opposite of a habituation -- it involves an increase in reflex magnitude as a result of prior stimulation.
Eichenbaum; Neuroscience of Memory	43		As the result of sensitization, when we encounter a fearful stimulus, such as a loud noise, we've become for sometime more likely to startle, or startle more vigorously.
Eichenbaum; Neuroscience of Memory	46	Classical conditioning involves the acquisition of an association between the first, or conditioned stimulus, and the second, unconditioned stimulus.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Hippocampus, which is phylogenetically old cortex, plays a crucial role in the acquisition and consolidation of memory and thus in the construction of neocortical representations.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Memory representations over 4 weeks old presumably have already been consolidated in the neocortex.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Hippocampus exerts its memory making role over the neocortex probably through the connections that reciprocally link the two structures through the parahippocampal gyrus.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Neocortical connectivity of the hippocampus is limited to areas of association.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

No hippocampal fibers terminate or originate in primary sensory or motor cortex.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Hippocampal connectivity reaches into large sectors of the posterior cortex of association, behind the central sulcus, and also extends to association areas of the frontal lobe, i.e. the prefrontal cortex.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Only the associative areas of the neocortex need the input from the hippocampus for the formation of new representations.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Primary sensory and motor cortices do not need hippocampal inputs for the formation of elementary sensory and motor representations. [Stereotyped motor programs] [FAPs]

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Cortex of association needs hippocampal inputs in order to accommodate the new memories, and also to retrieve them before they are consolidated into long-term memory.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

A significant implication of the hippocampal-prefrontal connections is that the hippocampus, in addition to its role in memory formation, contributes to the formation of the neocortical representation of the most complex actions of the individual. [Stereotyped motor programs] [FAPs]

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Bidirectional connectivity between the hippocampus and the neocortex through the parahippocampal cortex. (diagram)

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Brodmann's area 28 is a major node of connections linking the hippocampus with associative areas of the neocortex.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

In both hippocampus and cortex, glutamate, through in NMDA receptors, may activate second messengers in postsynaptic cells, and thus induced protein changes that sustain LTP as well as other lasting phenomena of network formation.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

NMDA receptors are most common in layers 2 and 3, which are the preferred terminations of corticocortical axons, and thus the potential site for corticocortical network links.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Neural network representations in the neocortex are a continuation of a process that began with cortical evolution in ancestral mammalian species. The phylogenetically oldest representations are those of the simplest physical features of the world and of motor adaptations to it. They are present at birth in the structure of the primary sensory and motor cortex.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

The innate structure of primary sensory and motor cortex can be considered a form of memory that has been stored in evolution and can be retrieved as needed by the organism for adaptation to its surroundings.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Neocortical networks for cognitive representation fan out into more areas and higher areas, gaining width of distribution, where they intersect other networks of different origin.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Cognitive networks are largely self-organized by auto-association. They are formed by inputs arriving simultaneously, in temporal correlation, to cell groups of existing networks of association cortex, where those inputs established new associations.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

The most obvious characteristic of perceptual categories is their hierarchical organization.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Perceptual categories are organized in cognitive hierarchies of progressive integration and generality, with sensory percepts in lower levels and abstract or symbolic percepts in higher ones.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Every percept is a historical event, a categorization of current sensory impressions that is entirely determined by previously established memory.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Perception can be viewed as the interpretation of new experiences based on assumptions from prior experience.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Gestalt psychology developed a number of principles of organization.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Because of their power to explain a great variety of configurations in human cognition, the laws of Gestalt psychology have been generalized to several cognitive functions, including learning and thinking.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Perceptual processing will be one of categorizing incoming information in accord with prior experience, by matching the new to the old and by modifying the old with the new.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Degeneracy implies an approximate or highly probable fit between the structure of the network, in connective terms, and the structure of the external Gestalt in relational terms.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Because of the factors of approximation and probability, and because several cognits shared common features, an incoming gestalt or part thereof can activate several networks before the best match and categorization occur.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

Some of these categorization processes will be guided -- top-down -- by attention and may occur consciously. The vast majority will occur unconsciously in rapid succession.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

113

Bulk of individual memory is formed and stored in neuronal networks of cortex of association.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

118

Short-term memory is characterized by limited storage capacity, estimated to be a maximum of about seven items, and relatively rapid decay.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

118

Long-term memory has unlimited capacity and a little or no decay.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

118

Presented with a list of words, and required to repeat the words regardless of the order (free recall), can usually recall well the first words in the list (primacy effect) and the last words (recency effect), but not so well the words in the middle.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

118

Hippocampus is necessary for the transfer of a short-term memory to its long-term permanent store.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

119

The curve of forgetting is not inflected but monotonically gradual. When plotted on double-log graphs, the data become straight lines. They conform to a power function.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

119

Remembering is reinforced by rehearsal and impeded by distraction.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

120

Information begins to enter permanent storage as soon as it comes in.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

121

Evidence for the consolidation of memory in one store implicates the entire cerebral cortex and synaptic change in cortical networks as the essence of consolidation.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

121

Concept of time-limited memory as an active and operant state of cortical memory -- not a short-term memory per se but is memory for the short-term.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

121

Working memory, a function of fundamental importance for the temporal organization of cognition, speech, and behavior.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

121

Memory can take many forms, and any memory has a mixture of contents. Heterogeneity is a universal trait of all memories.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

121

Heterogeneity of memory is a direct result of its associative nature.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

121

Autobiographical memory, which is commonly characterized as episodic or declarative, illustrates the heterogeneity of memory.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

124

All dated experience is an extension of previous experience, an expansion of old memory and of old knowledge.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

124

Any perceptual memory is an associative conglomerate of sensory and semantic features at many levels of the cognitive hierarchy of perceptual knowledge.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

124

The network representing a memory must tie together features of the same modality in unimodal association cortex and of different modalities in cross modal association cortex.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

133

It is well known that memories can be more easily retrieved by recognition than by recall.

Fuster; Cortex and Mind

139

Priming can be appropriately understood as a result of the reactivation of the memory network -- at a subliminal level of conscious awareness -- through an associative link within itself or with other networks.

Gluck & Myers; Gateway to Memory

The brain generally represents information using distributed representations, in which each stimulus is encoded by many different neurons and each neuron may respond to conjunctions of features that may be present in many different stimuli.

Gluck & Myers; Gateway to Memory

Distributed representation is efficient because a large number of stimuli can be processed by smaller number of neurons, each of which encodes some features of the stimuli.

Gluck & Myers; Gateway to Memory

Distributed representations have the advantage that if some of the units are lost or degraded, the remaining units may be able to provide enough information to represent the stimuli adequately.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

A signature is the only universally accepted outward sign of an individual.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

Blindsight patients possess some kind of visual ability, but this ability has become totally disassociated from conscious awareness of events in the visual field. Weiskrantz (1974)

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

Memory appears to be in inextricably linked to consciousness.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

Consciousness is a property of many transient groupings of neurons. Our brains are a restless grouping and re-grouping of temporarily relevant neurons with greater and lesser connectivity.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

A property of consciousness is its spatial multiplicity combined with temporal unity.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

Consciousness can be focused on an internalized representation, such as a hope or a memory.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

Idea behind the gestalt school of thought is that perception is global, not local; objects or features are perceived in relation to one another, giving a final holistic view that cannot be inferred from the individual components alone.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

104

Consciousness is an emergent property of nonspecialized and divergent groups of neurons that is continuously variable with respect to, and always entailing, a stimulus epicenter.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

112

Gestalt is defined as a highly variable aggregation of neurons that is temporarily recruited around a triggering epicenter.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

112

Not all neuronal assemblies are gestalts, but all gestalts are neuronal assemblies.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

114

Columns are the basic modules of the functionally complex cortex.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

114

In more highly evolved animals, the critical factor that changes is not the number of layers and not necessarily the number of cells, but the potential complexity of connections among the cells.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

114

Neuronal gestalts are transient groupings of neurons where the connections among them are only temporarily functional.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

120

Wolf Singer has shown that disparate neurons large distances apart in the area of the cortex associated with vision can oscillate in their excitability in a synchronous fashion, if they are processing respective parts of a pattern with a common feature.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

120

Gestalts are ceaselessly at work, shuffling and reorganizing their internal communications.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

120

Oscillations and neuronal groups can vary from one moment to the next, corresponding to changes in the interactions within the network.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

120

The process wherein gestalts are undergoing shifting changes as further associations are triggered and new associations made, might constitute the behavior or phenomena of thinking.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

128

Three published biological descriptions of consciousness, including those by Francis Crick and the physiologist Rudolfo Llinás focus on a particular loop between the cortex and the thalamus.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

131

Llinás focuses on another part of the thalamus, the nucleus reticularis, which seems to be involved with more generalized states of arousal during sleep and waking.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

134

Persistent vegetative state -- patients in this condition regain sleep wake cycles and are able to regulate body temperature and successfully fight infection.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

161

Consciousness is an emergent property of nonspecialized and divergent groups of neurons (gestalts) that is continuously variable with respect to, and always entailing, a stimulus epicenter.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

165

Small, minimal gestalts, produced artificially by Penfield but more normally during dreaming state, could be regarded as scraps of consciousness torn from seemingly cohesive fabric of our awareness.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

170

Daydreaming is an extreme example of consciousness dominated by highly complex cognitive epicenters, when sensory input is minimal.

Greenfield; Centers of Mind

171

A powerful epicenter could be cognitive, such as an all-pervading worry, or it could be external and strong, due to an intrinsic brightness or loudness of an outside object or to a heightened arousal.

Hobson; Consciousness

Dreaming may be our most creative conscious state, one in which the chaotic, spontaneous recombination of cognitive elements produces novel configurations of information -- new ideas.

Hobson; Consciousness

Sleep-dream-wake cycle is triggered and tuned by neuronal circuits in the pons.

Hobson; Consciousness

Key brain structure involved in attention is the thalamus, a large collection of cells located atop the brainstem in the center of the upper brain.

Hobson; Consciousness

Hypothalamus contains the biological clock that times the body's cycles of rest and activity and gates the sleep-wake cycle in the pons.

Hobson; Consciousness

Brain structures of emotion lie below the thalamus and cortex and above the spinal cord and brainstem. Taken together, the amygdala, hippocampus, and hypothalamus have been called the limbic lobe of the brain

Hobson; Consciousness

Intimate relationship between the hippocampus, which is essential to memory, and the structures mediating emotion.

Hobson; Consciousness

Mental faculty of orientation cannot properly be considered apart from memory. Knowing who one is, what day it is, and where one is.

Hobson; Consciousness

Overall brain activation level changes as little as 10 percent (or at most 20 percent), between waking and sleep.

Hobson; Consciousness

Spontaneously high level of activation during sleeping and dreaming; such processing is not only automatic but potentially self-organizing and autocreative.

Hobson; Consciousness

Reticular formation, like a pair of sausages, occupies the central core on each side of the brainstem as it ascends from the medulla upward through the pons and midbrain to the hypothalamus.

Hobson; Consciousness

A particularly cogent example of the function of the reticular formation is the coordination of eye position, which involves visual processing centers of the upper brain and spinal circuits mediating head and body position.

Hobson; Consciousness

Pons and midbrain are the very center of the reticular system because they so clearly coordinate activation of the higher brain structures.

Hobson; Consciousness

When the activation level of the brainstem falls, even a little, the thalamocortical circuits begin to oscillate. This kind of synchrony contributes to the global loss of consciousness that occurs in NREM sleep.

Hobson; Consciousness

Oscillations of the thalamocortical circuits that occur at sleep onset are robust and so highly synchronous that they cause the characteristic EEG pattern of slow wave sleep.

Hobson; Consciousness

A significant amount of information processing occurs even when we are completely unaware of it as we sleep.

Hobson; Consciousness

Spontaneously high level of activation during sleeping and dreaming; such processing is not only automatic but potentially self-organizing and autocreative.

Hobson; Consciousness

Memories are ultimately encoded as proteins in the synapses.

Hobson; Consciousness

Primary consciousness comprises sensation, perception, emotion, learning, geographic orientation, instinct, primary intention; all of these can be operationally defined in lower animals.

Hobson; Consciousness

Neuronal networks are associatively connected and sequentially activated by one another.

Hobson; Consciousness

Associative learning -- building block of memory, of priming, and of word search must be a mechanism shared by neuronal networks at all levels of phylogeny (evolution of species) and ontogeny (individual development).

Hobson; Consciousness

If an invertebrate ganglionic neuron is to keep a record of its experience, the neurotransmitter serotonin must be released during its training-induced activation. No serotonin, no learning.

Hobson; Consciousness

Conscious state of waking, serotonin is released, we perceive and can remember. In the conscious state of sleep (REM), serotonin is not released, we can perceive but not remember. No serotonin, no memory.

Hobson; Consciousness

Vision is a symbolic process; no real pictures in the head, only neuronal patterns.

Hobson; Consciousness

Developmental psychologists postulate that consciousness emerges gradually during the second year of human life and culminates at about age 2 with the gaining of awareness of the self as an entity.

Hobson; Consciousness

Infant at age 7-8 mo learns to control movement voluntarily. Called "will" by developmental psychologists.

Hobson; Consciousness

Self arises when sensations associated with movement come to be taken as causes of the movement.

Hobson; Consciousness

100

Recognition memory is evident at 8 months of age.

Hobson; Consciousness

100

Retrieval memory and inference allow a 14 month old to detect logical connection between past and present.

Hobson; Consciousness

101

Neural origin of primary consciousness, thalamocortical system of the forebrain.

Hobson; Consciousness

115

Working memory neurons of the premotor cortex, receive dopamine and serotonin; Every cortical neuron involved in the representation of working memory is influenced by a variety of chemical modulators.

Hobson; Consciousness

135

Normal waking conscious state; aware of where we are, the date and approximate time, who is present in our surroundings, goal or direction of our behavior.

Hobson; Consciousness

135

Orientational instability during dream consciousness is at the root of dream bizarreness.

Hobson; Consciousness

135

Waking consciousness; we know, but we also know that we know.

Hobson; Consciousness

136

In dreams we are cognitively adrift; no mooring to time, place, or person, no self-awareness, no critical thought.

Hobson; Consciousness

137

Among the neuromodulators crucial to memory: (1) norepinephrine (2) serotonin; both are conspicuously diminished during dream consciousness.

Hobson; Consciousness

141

Thalamocortical system - In its activated state, information is rapidly and efficiently processed. Information can be either online data from the real world or data about the real world that are stored in the brain.

Hobson; Consciousness

141

Consciousness at any instant is simply the integrated product of the information represented in the activated thalamocortical networks at that instant. That includes sense of self; awareness of body; and awareness of the world, be it real or fictive. [Edelman's dynamic core]

Hobson; Consciousness

141

Can define consciousness at any instant as the information that is then represented in the working memory circuitry of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). [Edelman's dynamic core] [Fuster's perception-action cycle]

Houk; Info Process in Basal Ganglia and Cortex	4						The input stage of the basal ganglia is the striatum, and the principal neurons of the striatum are called spiny neurons because of the great density of synaptic spines on their long dendrites.
Houk; Info Process in Basal Ganglia and Cortex	4					Each spiny neuron receives input from about 10,000 different afferent fibers, a remarkable degree of convergence that is second only to that for the Purkinje cells in the cerebellar cortex.
Houk; Info Process in Basal Ganglia and Cortex	5					Dopamine fibers provide a reinforcement input to the striatal spiny neurons that trains them to recognize patterns in their cerebral cortical input.
Houk; Info Process in Basal Ganglia and Cortex	5				Spiny neurons have abrupt thresholds between "up" and "down" states, owing to the highly nonlinear ionic properties of their membranes.
Houk; Info Process in Basal Ganglia and Cortex	5			These three features -- convergence of diverse inputs, specialized training signals, and dual-state behavior -- suggests that spiny neurons may be particularly well suited for pattern recognition tasks.
Houk; Info Process in Basal Ganglia and Cortex	5		The more diffuse dopamine input is assumed to function as a training signal that reinforces the synaptic weights of cortical and frontal neuron inputs to guide the pattern recognition process.
Houk; Info Process in Basal Ganglia and Cortex	6	Burst discharges of spiny neurons relate to a variety of contextual situations that the animal confronts in performing behavioral tasks.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

The self is the totality of what an organism is physically, biologically, psychologically, socially, and culturally.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

Every human brain has billions of neurons that together make trillions of synaptic connections among one another. During wakefulness and during sleep, during thoughtfulness and during boredom -- at any one moment, billions of synapses are active.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

Projection neurons have relatively long axons that extend out of the area in which their cell bodies are located.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

Interneurons link their short axons to nearby neurons, often projection neurons, and are involved in information processing.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

Brain circuits can be thought of as hierarchically arranged circuits linked together by synaptic connections.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

Projection neurons tend to be idle in the absence of inputs. Inhibitory interneurons are often active all the time.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

Glutamate is a ubiquitous excitatory transmitter in the brain

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

GABA (an amino acid) is a neurotransmitter of inhibitory neurons.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

A neuron receives many excitatory and inhibitory inputs form many other cells; the likelihood of firing at any one moment depends on the net balance between excitation and inhibition across all of the inputs at that particular time.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

Glutamate and GABA are fast-acting; they cause an electrical change in the postsynaptic cell within milliseconds of being released from the presynaptic terminal, and their effect is over in a matter of milliseconds.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

Peptides represent a large class of slow-acting modulatory substances found throughout the brain. Made up of many amino acids, and are larger molecules than simple amino acids like glutamate and GABA.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

Monoamines are a class of modulators that include substances such as serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

Cells that produce monoamines are found in only a few areas, mostly in the brain stem.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

Monoamines achieve their effects by facilitating or inhibiting the actions of glutamate or GABA.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

Many drugs used in the treatment of psychiatric disorders work by altering monoamines.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

Prozac prevents the removal of serotonin from the synaptic space.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

Amines are targets of recreational drugs -- cocaine and amphetamine affect norepinephrine and dopamine levels, while LSD acts on serotonin receptors.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

Prozac may reduce exaggerated fear and anxiety in psychiatric disorders by enhancing the ability of serotonin to facilitate GABA inhibition.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

104

Reciprocal connections between hippocampus and neocortex, long-term storage of memories.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

104

Rhinal areas, convergence zones, integrate information across sensory modalities, mental representations go beyond perceptions to become conceptions.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

105

Hippocampus receives inputs from several convergence zones in the rhinal region; it can be thought of as a superconvergence zone.

LeDoux; Synaptic Self

105

Rhinal cortical areas and hippocampus are convergence zones, regions that receive and integrate inputs from diverse regions. - (diagram)

Douglas; Neocortex	466									Thalamus projects to all cortical areas and provides input to most layers of the cortex. The densest projections are to the middle layers, where they form about 5-10% of the synapses in those layers.
Douglas; Neocortex	459								In all mammals the neocortex consists of a sheet of cells, about 2 mm thick. Conventionally, it is divided into 6 layers, but in many regions more than 6 laminae are in evidence. Each cubic millimeter contains approximately 50,000 neurons.
Douglas; Neocortex	477							Cortico-cortical connections arise mainly from the superficial cortical layers, and the subcortical projections arise from the deep layers.
Douglas; Neocortex	477							Within the deep layers, there is an output to regions that have a motor-related function, e.g., the superior colliculus, basal ganglia, brainstem nuclei, and spinal cord.
Douglas; Neocortex	477						Cortico-thalamic projection generally arises from the layer 6 pyramidal cells.
Douglas; Neocortex	484					Long term potentiation -- brief tetanic stimulation of a set of input fibers potentiates synapses in hippocampal excitatory synapses for many hours.
Douglas; Neocortex	469				Major input from any cortical area is from other cortical areas.
Douglas; Neocortex	469				Only 1:100 or even 1:1000 in white matter is involved in subcortical projection.
Douglas; Neocortex	469				Most of the fibers in white matter are involved in intrahemispheric connections and interhemispheric connections.
Douglas; Neocortex	475				Axons of cortical neurons do not extend more than a few millimeters laterally in an area.
Douglas; Neocortex	475				Neurons with similar functional properties are organized in 'columns' that extend from the cortical surface to the white matter.
Douglas; Neocortex	477				Output neurons from the cortex are generally pyramidal cells.
Douglas; Neocortex	477				Cortico-cortical connections arise mainly from the superficial cortical layers, and the subcortical projections arise from the deep layers.
Douglas; Neocortex	477				Within the deep layers, there is an output to regions that have a motor-related function, e.g., the superior colliculus, basal ganglia, brainstem nuclei, and spinal cord.
Sherman and Koch; Thalamus	295			Major input to thalamus originates among layer 6 pyramidal cells of the cortex. There seems to be at least an order of magnitude more corticothalamic axons than thalamocortical ones.
Sherman and Koch; Thalamus	295		Each cortical axon innervates many thalamic neurons.
Sherman and Koch; Thalamus	295	Strong reciprocity exists in thalamocortical connections.

Zeman; Consciousness

Widespread damage to the thalamus can underlie the condition of 'wakefulness without awareness', which is known as the 'permanent vegetative state'.

Zeman; Consciousness

Cortical parts of the limbic system have a relatively primitive microscopic structure, hinting at their ancient evolutionary origins; this kind of cortex dominates the brain of 'lower' vertebrates.

Zeman; Consciousness

Link between memory and emotion; remember what excites us, whether with pleasure or pain; what bores us is safely forgotten.

Zeman; Consciousness

Large overlap between limbic system and the cortical areas concerned with smell; scent can sometimes evoke long-buried memories.

Zeman; Consciousness

A sensory neuron in the spinal cord may signal to as many as 1000 target neurons by way of axonal arborization.

Zeman; Consciousness

Approximately 10 'small molecule' neurotransmitters. Most are amino acids, or are derived from amino acids: acetylcholine, dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin, histamine; glutamate, glycine, GABA.

Zeman; Consciousness

Small protein neurotransmitters: endorphins act to modulate the perception of pain; opium and its derivatives mimic the action of the endorphins.

Zeman; Consciousness

Substances that mimic, oppose, boost or otherwise modify the action of neurotransmitters are among the most widely used drugs in medicine; epilepsy, schizophrenia, depression, Parkinson's disease.

Zeman; Consciousness

A single neuron releases the same chemicals at all its synapses.

Zeman; Consciousness

Receptor variety creates a third source of complexity at the synapse.

Zeman; Consciousness

Great variety of receptor types at the synapses.

Zeman; Consciousness

Second messengers, cascade of chemical reactions in a cell.

Zeman; Consciousness

At birth, brain possesses more or less the final complement of neurons, but synapse adjustments continue briskly.

Zeman; Consciousness

Long Term Potentiation (LTP), occurs in the hippocampus, formation of new conscious memories.

Zeman; Consciousness

Nervous system, network of nerve cells that communicate at synapses; transforms patterns of sensory input into patterns of motor output; adapt behavior to experience, present and past.

Zeman; Consciousness

Much of the complexity of the human brain depends on the endless elaboration of simple elements.

Zeman; Consciousness

130

Tendency for anaesthetics to provide analgesia - relief from pain - at doses that are not high enough to suppress awareness altogether.

Zeman; Consciousness

131

It is possible to be conscious during anaesthesia but free of pain.

Zeman; Consciousness

175

In gestalt psychology, the brain tends to group items that are close, similar to one another, that create a closed space, or achieve a smooth continuity of line. [Gestalt laws]

Zeman; Consciousness

289

Crick and Koch anticipate that at any given moment the NCC will be comprised of a sparse but widespread network of neurons, whose activity will stand out above background neuron firing for at least 100-200 milliseconds. [Edelman's dynamic core]