Busy Business

Now since I am in the full swing of school, I guess these posts are going to be shorter and less frequent.

Here is the inspiration for the title...

5:30 AM - Wake up/run
7:00 AM - Set up experiment
7:30 AM - Morning Meeting - Confirmation Bias
9:00 AM - Run subject
11:00 AM - Run subject
1:00 PM - CRISIS - find lost parking passes
2:00 PM - Data Entry
3:00 PM - Meeting
5:30 PM - Dinner
6:00 PM - Study
7:00 PM - Class
9:00 PM - Class over

So I guess I have a little less time than I previously anticipated. However, the thing about it is that I love all of it. I think that it is so great to do doing what I am doing.

A quick word about Confirmation Bias...

A flavor of cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias occurs when a person seeks out data to support their choice or ignores data that doesn't support their choice. It is thought that it reduces the negative feelings associated with making a faulty choice. It is also a part of the egocentric attitude that our personal choices are similar to other peoples choices.

More on the neural correlates later...

Graduate Career Start Number 2

I'm going to take a step back from the commentaries on research to talk about my own life in neuroscience. Tomorrow, I start my graduate career for the second time. What I mean by this is that I start my first classes in the graduate neuroscience program. I have Fundamentals of Neuroscience and Foundations of Human Neuropsychology as well as seminar. These courses provide my introduction into graduate studies. From what I can see from the syllabus for human neuropsych, I'll have a little more reading than I am used to from college.
The only real problem that I foresee in the classes is the matter of actually getting to the classes. I have to go from the West side to the East side back to the West side and every fourth Tuesday, back to the East side. The time between my two classes is 10 minutes. That is not a lot of time when it takes 15 minutes to get from one side of the river to the other by bike and 25 minutes if you catch a bus.
I guess I'll see how it goes. I am really excited to start to take these classes and to compare how difficult they are and what I learn to the classes that I took at St. Olaf.
Time will tell if the excitement keeps strong after 9/30 and the completion of my second test.

Graduate Career Start Number 2

I'm going to take a step back from the commentaries on research to talk about my own life in neuroscience. Tomorrow, I start my graduate career for the second time. What I mean by this is that I start my first classes in the graduate neuroscience program. I have Fundamentals of Neuroscience and Foundations of Human Neuropsychology as well as seminar. These courses provide my introduction into graduate studies. From what I can see from the syllabus for human neuropsych, I'll have a little more reading than I am used to from college

Spatial Attention and Negative Priming

Attention is what allows us to focus on the most salient aspects of our environment. Without attention or habituation, our systems would be overloaded from the constant bombardment of stimuli. With attention we are able to concentrate on the things that we want and are able to ignore others. In spatial attention, we are investigating how we are able to attend to or concentrate on relevant stimuli in our environment while ignoring distractors (sic). In an ERP based study of spatial attention and negative priming, subjects were asked to indicate a targets location while ignoring a distractor that was present in unequal proportions. Negative priming occurs when the processing of a stimulus previously ignored is inhindered in terms of error rate or reaction time.

In priming, it is assumed that previous experiences affect future experiences. Whether the stimulus has higher basal activation levels, is better encoded, has raised the overall activation level of a network or has been stored as a memory trace, all are possibilities used to explain the priming phenomenon. It is assumed that these techniques used to employ positive priming techniques are what hinder the system in a negative priming paradigm. Combining the aspect of attention, if a stimulus is to be actively processed and encoded, it takes your attention to complete, and inversely, attention to suppress the environmental noise or distractors. In negative priming it may be this active supression which explains the decline in behavioral responses.

Two leading theories hypothesize different mechanisms to explain the negative priming effect. Inhibition theory uses this supression of the response while retrieval theory supposes that it is old memory traces which interfer with the behavioral response. In order to parse apart these theories, it is necessary to look into the underlying neural behavior during a negative priming experience. Using ERP, one is able to take advantage of well known neural responses (including some that related to decision making) and good temporal resolution.

Wisdom in Words

I recently began to test subjects in a study of the association between words and wisdom. There is the general assumption that as we age, we become more wise. What is wisdom?
From dictionary.com...

1.	the quality or state of being wise; knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight.

2.	scholarly knowledge or learning: the wisdom of the schools.

3.	wise sayings or teachings; precepts.

4.	a wise act or saying.

Thanks... let's try wise...

1.	having the power of discerning and judging properly as to what is true or right; possessing discernment, judgment, or discretion.

2.	characterized by or showing such power; judicious or prudent: a wise decision.

3.	possessed of or characterized by scholarly knowledge or learning; learned; erudite: wise in the law.

4.	having knowledge or information as to facts, circumstances, etc.: We are wiser for their explanations.

Apparently, wisdom is one of those huge, concepts which tries to defy definition, yet we all seem to inherently know what it means. Wisdom appears in many different domains, specifically, life planning, moral issues, and in reflection. A confound of the age and wisdom relationship, may be that younger people are unable to have the time in which they are able to see how their decisions are choices affect future outcomes. Perhaps I have made some momentously wise decision or choice, however am unable to see the effects of that choice yet. A description of the study from Dr. Jean Gordon follows...

"The current study explores the ambiguity of wisdom by focusing on how it is transmitted and perceived. Language is the medium by which wisdom-related knowledge is usually conveyed, and the sophistication of that language is proposed to significantly affect the spirit in which the knowledge is received. If one’s word choice and/or syntactic structure sound clever or profound, one is more likely to be perceived as wise. While wisdom is expected to increase with age, aspects of language use often decline with age. This may be why an age effect has been difficult to obtain in wisdom studies, and why society holds both negative and positive stereotypes of aging. If productive language use declines with age, despite the accrual of knowledge and life experience, then the ability to pass on acquired wisdom is also likely to decline.

To test this hypothesis, a pilot study is underway to establish the extent to which listeners’ perceptions are influenced by linguistic variables. Artificially manipulated language samples differing in grammatical complexity and word choice were created. The samples were written responses to two advice‐giving scenarios, such as what to say to a young girl who wants to run away from home. The study protocol was modified to have “listeners” read the transcripts of these responses, rather than listen to audio‐recorded versions. This was judged to be a more controlled test of the hypothesis, because it factors out vocal characteristics of the speaker which would likely influence perceptions of age and gender, and possibly other factors as well, such as educational level. (A follow‐up study could test these influences by comparing judgments of written and oral samples.) Young adult subjects were asked to read the responses and judge the speakers’ knowledge, judgment, sensitivity, perceptiveness, and ability to communicate ideas, as well as whether or not subjects agree with the advice provided in the responses. Subjects were also asked to estimate the speakers’ age and education levels. These ratings are designed to tap into dimensions of wisdom derived from the literature on explicit and implicit theories of wisdom (e.g. Sternberg, 1985). Gordon and her research team expect that language variables will affect these judgments, over and above the degree to which subjects agree with the response provided."

In my short time of testing patients, I have had a lot of fun listening to and learning from the responses of the speakers in the task. It is interesting to see how the variety of life experiences, values and understanding combine to interpret the questions in a variety of ways. How will the different word variables play out in wisdom? At first I thought that more complex word variables would mean a higher rating of wisdom, however, then I started to think about it more. Some of the most wise people in history, have been the political and religious figures of our time. The ability of these people to communicate their ideas, ideals, and feelings was not through complicated speech and word structures, but through their ability to communicate effectively and colloqoially to the people. I think that ultimately it will be the message (semantics) rather than the style (syntax) which affects the rating of wisdom. It will be interesting to see how these play out.

Lexical decision in aging: Stimulus variables and response time components

A combination of a few lines of work. Not only does this combine three lines of research topics (word retrieval, aging and diffusion modeling) but it is also a melding of two researcher's experiences. I bring experience in word retrieval and diffusion modeling while Dr. Gordon brings her experience with word retrieval and aging. This collaboration is the result of these combinations. The lexical decision task investigates what is important in a word which makes it easier or harder to recognize. In aging research, it is known that reaction times slow down with age, but what specific variables have the largest impact on reaction times and accuracy. The diffusion model on the other hand parses apart the reaction time into separate cognitive processes which give a better description of what is occurring in this decision making process. The following is an abstract that is being submitted for a conference in aging and speech communication.

It is known that different types of variables affect word retrieval, including lexical (e.g. frequency, length), subject (e.g. age, education) and task factors (e.g. mode of retrieval, composition of the stimulus set). Moreover, recent studies have demonstrated, through diffusion modeling, that reaction time can be decomposed into several processes, those related to the decision (stimulus information accumulation, response bias) and non-decision processes (encoding, response execution), which may be differentially affected. We tested older (>50 yrs.) and younger adults in an auditory lexical decision task to investigate how aging affects these different aspects of word retrieval. For both word and non-word responses, older subjects were both slower (Word: 71ms, p=0.016; Non-word: 159ms, p=0.003) and less accurate (Word: 0.8%, p=0.038; Non-word: 4.4%, p=0.003) than younger subjects. Both older and younger subjects were affected by the length and phonological neighborhood density of the word and non-word targets, and by the frequency of the word targets. Measures of phonotactic probability tended to influence the non-word responses of younger subjects, but the word responses of older subjects. This stronger effect of sub-lexical factors on word recognition is likely due to declines in peripheral processes (hearing acuity, speed of processing). In the diffusion model, older subjects had a significantly lower rate of information accumulation for both word (p=0.005) and non-word (p=0.0003) responses. For non-word responses, older subjects also took longer for non-decision processes (p=0.007). These results help clarify the cognitive and non-cognitive factors that contribute to word recognition, and how these change with age.

Following analyses will investigate how subject variables such as hearing acuity affect the behavioral variables. This investigation will also be broadened to include aphasic patients. This is the second project that I have submitted to a conference. I should find out in early August whether I am able to attend the conferences and more importantly, whether I am awarded money to travel to the respective conferences. More to come...

Cognitive Framing

Last week, in morning meeting, there was a presentation about a study of the framing effect. This effect describes a cognitive bias, where presenting the same options in different formats can alter people's decisions. This effect appears to have a greater effect on people who are inconsistent with their choices and whether the question is framed in loses/gains. This is very prevalent in every day life. Think about being presented with the choice to choose this route or that one, this type of meat or that one, should I try to buy this stock or that one, it goes on and on. It seems as though this effect is one of the best tools in the arsenals of lawyers, advertising companies and politicians. By framing an argument, a brand or a policy in certain ways, perhaps you are able to persuade people to think one way or another.

Here's an example...

A train is driving down a track, at a junction in the track there are two problems. On one track five people are tied down to the track and on the other track there is one person. You are there and next to a lever which you can throw to change or not change the course of the train (originally heading for the five people).

The two propositions are worded in the following ways...
1. You can throw the switch and save five people
2. You can throw the switch and kill one person

Although it is the same in both outcomes, people responded more positively to option 1.

The study that was proposed, would investigate framing in both normal and VMPC lesioned patients. The framing effects were broken into 6 different types of framing effects (e.g. Goal, Moral, Monetary). The researchers hypothesized that the VMPCs would differ from normals in there susceptibility to framing effects. With VMPCs, there is evidence of higher risk taking behavior and dysfunctional decision making behavior. It may be the case that the VMPCs may be more susceptible in certain framing situations and less in others.

They also proposed taking reaction times of the decisions. All though hard to measure, I think that it will be good to take into account both fast and slow reaction times. With fast reaction times, a situation is not being fully considered, while with a slow reaction time, the situation may be being thought out too much.

I can't remember the overall goal of the research, but I know that it is tied to moral reasoning. That's all for now

Blocked Cyclic Naming (Semantic Category Interference)

This effect reflects the finding that for naming, participants are slower when naming pictures out of a sequence of items from the same semantic category than from different categories. The naming of an object or a picture is a multi-step series of mental operations. If naming a dog, you must first recognize it and decide how you want to refer to that object. This part of the process is called conceptual preparation. You must then focus on the particular mental item ("lemma") in you mental lexicon, which is under competition of semantically related items. The operation of lexical selection is next, and you must access the selected item's form information ("phonological code"). You then syllabify the word by composing it syllables from the segments, this is the processs of "phonological encoding." For each of these syllables you access a stored motor instruction ("gestural score"). Finally you execute the gestures with overt speech as output. This is known as the core processing stages of the production of words (Levelt, Roelofs, and Meyer, 1999).

Cumulative interference for word retrieval by prior retrieval of other members of the same semantic category is similar to an inhibition being caused by these related members. An experiement by Howard et al. (2005) indicates that this inhibition effect can only occur if the spoken word production has three properties, competition, priming and semantic activation. Competition can be implemented through eithe lateral inhibition between candidates or a decision criterion. The priming of previously presented items would persist over time, even when other stimuli are inbetween the targets. The stregthening mapping can be from either semantics or lexical units. Shared activation refers to the activation through connected nodes in a semantically related network being activated. In the experiment, the investigators were able to examine the extent to which there are cumulative effects of semantic competitor priming.. The picture naming latency is slowed by an additional 30 ms for each preceding semantial

Maess, et al. (2002) attempted to distinguish the neuronal correlates of lexical access by using the phenomenon of blocked cyclic naming and MEG recording to note where in the brain, this effect took place. Results demonstrated that the left temporal region supports the processes underlying the semantic interference effect. A previous investigation had demonstrated that the time window of between 150-275 msec post picture onset was the core process of lemma selection. The time window of the current study for the activation of the left temporal region fits this same time frame.

So what does this all mean? In the present study that I am investigating, subjects were asked to name 400 pictures. They were also participants in an auditory lexical decision task in which they were to decide whether a word they heard was a real word or not. I coded these words into semantic categories. In the 400 word naming project there were 5 semantic categories, 3 large ones (animals, tools, and food)and 2 well defined but smaller ones (body parts and instruments). The reaction times of the participants were than regressed against the order of the items in the specific semantic categories. In the presence of other word variables the order of the categories only had an effect in the one group of participants. When the order of the semantic categories is looked at by itself, there is a huge effect of order, demonstrated by a 1.5 ms slowing for successive trials.

This is an interesting effect because you would think that the higher activation of the related targets would lead to a faster reaction time. However, this activation appears to be competitive and inhibitory. Perhaps it is the fact that when a word is being searched out, it has to enter the "search mechanism" with no previous activation. So if I name tiger which activates lion and then am asked to name lion, my mental lexicon has to actually go through a process of finding lion, seeing that it is activated, deactivating it and then go through the normal process.

match.edu

This morning in morning meeting, Tim Koscik and Amy Belfi presented work on an investigation into mate selection. The prevailing theory behind the investigation is one of evolutionary background. Based on males and females sexual limitations/resources, to increase or maximize their reproductive sucess, they should look for, emphasize or maximize certain characteristics. To maximize the number of offspring, males and females adopt different strategies. For males, they should maximize the number of women that they sleep with and those women should be young and healthy, as it assumed that they are more fertile and able to have children. For women, as the investment in having a child is much greater, it is necessary to be able to take care of and raise the child(ren) after they are born. In this case, women should focus on the resources that the male partner has, so that they are able to raise the child.

Today, this evolutionarily based theory is investigated in psychology and other disciplines. Males have been found to emphasize attractiveness, high WTH (waist to hip ratio) and low BMI while women have focused on resources (money, education, profession. While these findings vary between studies and also the goal of the relationships that the participants were questioned on, they are fairly general findings.

The goal of the research as I understand it is to investigate whether normal and brain damaged people follow this evolutionarily based urge for mate selection. The researchers are controlling the "attractiveness" and "resources" of the stimuli and asking participants to choose between to maniquines with dating profiles in three different relationship types.

In the study, the paradigm is set up similar to a dating website. The participants fill out questionaires which develop a "dating profile" for them. There are measurements taken of the participants shoulder, chest, waist, hip and ring to index finger ratio. The participants are then asked to choose between two profiles which vary in four variables. They are asked to choose between them based for a 1. sexual relationship 2. long-term relationship 3. having kids.

After choosing between the many different matches of profiles, they are asked to fill-out quetionaires about their dating history and preferences and a hormone survey.

The hypothesis is that the brain damaged patients (VMPC and amygdala) will not follow this evolutionary basis while the Superior temporal sulcus patients (body perception problems) will judge the body attractiveness differently than the other subjects.

It is an interesting study, however, I think that there are a lot of things that are not being controlled for that are going to influence the study. People take mate selection very seriously, even in a laboratory setting. I think that people will make inferences from the infomation that is presented to them and make their decisions based on information which is not presented directly in the experiment. I also wonder how much a person's preference will change between the relationship types. It will be interesting to see.

Moral Behavior

Today in morning meeting, Brad Thomas and Aaron Scherer presented a proposal for a study to investigate the moral behavior between VMPC patients and normals. The impetus for the study came from a social psych experiment in which participants where randomly assigned to three groups. In one group, the control, the members had to think about an average Tuesday. In the anger condition, the participants had to think about a time that they were angry. And in the last condition, the participants had to think about an instance of a moral violation. After the participants thought of their particular scenario, they were invited to participate in a 10 questions trivia test. There were two conditions, one with a reward of 20 cents per correct answer and the other with no reward. Be reminded that this study occurs on-line with participants participating in the safety of their own home. The way that participants were placed between the two conditions was through a flip of a coin, flipped by the participants themselves.

It is assumed that the with the flip of a coin you will land heads at a rate of 50% and tails at an equal rate. Deviation from chance (50%) would indicate some sort of outside influence. In the experiment there were the three conditions. In the control condition, 60% of the people ended up in the favorable condition, while in the anger condition a similar percentage of people were in the favorable condition. However, in the moral violation group over 75% of participants were in the favorable condition. A statistically significant and interesting result.

So what made these people cheat? That was the question and the supposed result of the study. These people are at home, receiving $4 dollars for initially participating in the study and then have the opportunity to make $2 more dollars if they end up in the favorable condition. Did the people in the moral violation group think that, "My cheating isn't as bad as that moral violation that I just thought of."

So the question is, how will the VMPCs perform in a similar situation. It has been shown before that these patients are impaired in decision making. It is the hypothesis of the researchers that there will be an increase in cheating behavior for developmental VMPC as compared to acquired VMPCs and normals.

The paradigm that they proposed was using a weighted die to decide what task patients would do. They proposed that 4 of the 6 side would be the unfavorable condition and 2 of the 6 favorable. However, with the weighted die, the favorable condition should only appear 2-4% of the time. A subject indicating a favorable toss would most likely be lying. However, a problem with studying these patients is the small sample size (n = ~10).

I proposed another way to investigate this question...

You have a task in which they are to complete some large number of difficult math problems, say 100.
It is assumed that these problems are difficult enough, yet small enough that they will get them wrong and also not take much time on them (they may even be multiple choice?).

The participants are then allowed to grade their answers with a flawed key. This is where the interesting part occurs. You could weight blocks of questions. Say you divide the test of 100 questions into 10 blocks of 10 questions and reward correct answers. However, with each block of 10 questions you increase the reward by a multiplier (perhaps also have a counterbalanced condition). In the first block the multiplier is small with incremental increases in the multiplier to the last block.

This design allows for investigation and interpretation from many facets. You can look at the raw number of instances of cheating, treating each problem as a moral situation (100 per subject!). You could also look at the blocks. Do people cheat at a higher rate in the blocks with higher reward as compared to the lower reward? Do the VMPC patients show consistently high levels of cheating across blocks? Similar to Chris's suggestion of the psychophysical measure, you could look to see if there is a certain break point in the multiplier which shows an increase in cheating. Does the break occur at 7 for normals as compared to 4 for VMPCs?

I don't know if this is actually showing morality or if people are just following the key...

I'm not sure, but it is something interesting to think about.

I think that this is an interesting but very difficult topic to study. Perhaps there will be some interesting follow ups and maybe some results.

Pain

I probably shouldn't be one to complain much about pain, but these last few days I have been especially sore from a combination of running, lifting weights and biking. There are a collection of oft mentioned phrase of mind over matter, no pain no gain and other motivational sayings in the weight room in the apartment that I now reside in. I think that it is funny how it takes little motivational posters to get people pumped up to lift weights. As if the reminder that, "No mortal was made to succeed without hard work" is going to help make me want to lift more weight. The combination of these phrases and my temporary roommates fascination with the MMA, have sparked some interest in the mechanisms of pain and the involvement of the brain. Watching some of those fights, it is unbelievable the pain and the damage that those competitors face in the octagon. Pain is often viewed as a topic that is hard to study, one that philosophers often point to when discussing subjective feelings and also the other minds problem. Does pain feel the same for me as it does for you? What causes my pain to be different than your pain?

We recognize the role of the brain in pain. It is almost undeniable even from the youngest age. Just watch as a small child falls down and scrapes their leg or something of the sort and how it doesn't bother them. Then seconds later an adult comes over to them to console them about their death defying injury and then the next thing you know, there is crying and tears everywhere. The focus of the attention on the injury caused a recognition and awareness of the pain.

There are many other examples of the brain's role in pain and injury, including phantom pain and psychogenic pain. Pain travels along two pathways, one is a sensory pathway which transmits the physical pain and the other is an emotional pathway which travels up the spinal cord to the amygdala and anterior cingulate gyrus (ACC). So the experience to pain actually does have a negative emotional component to it. However, while this negative component can be an often very bad part of pain perception, leading to such problems as phantom pain and psychogenic pain, this mental component can also be harvested, cultivated and used as a weapon against pain.

In combination with fMRI, patients are able to actually view their pain. In a study, patients were asked to consciously increase their pain. When they did, an image of a flame on a screen became larger. Then the patients were asked to decrease their pain which caused the flame to decrease in size. Patients were able to reduce their pain by 30 - 40%. This demonstrates the power of biofeedback, mediation and other contemplative exercises. The ability to reflect and analyze how you think is a powerful tool to investigate your thoughts in all activities. Contemplative reflection is our only inbuilt tool for investigating the mind and one that is severely underused. It is something that begs the attention of scientific inquiry but at the same time something that science refuses to touch because of its inherent subjective qualities.

ASHA Application

Here is the essay that I wrote for the ASHA application, it is a hybrid of my application to graduate school and meeting the requirements of the ASHA application. I want to discuss my future research plans a little bit before I post it though...

I am not sure what I want to study. I know that I want to study language and that I want to use a multidisciplinary approach to studying. My research in college was what I believe to be a unique experience. I did everything in the research from reading the literature to designing the study, to running the experiments, to organizing the data, to running the analyses to finally writing it up and presenting it. I had my hand on every single part of the experiment from beginning to end. Here in graduate school it appears that that is not the case. I think because of that I should be able to attack a very large thesis question. I think because of the design of the beast, I should be able to have a multidisciplanary question which reaches from neuroscience to biology to psychology to speech-pathology. With a broad catch-all of language I think that I can conviably pull all of these departments together. I also want to incorporate imaging, some sort of disease/disorder model and computation modeling. So here is the grand idea...

I am interested in mapping out the mental lexicon including how language is processed, retrieved, stored and produced. By using imaging techniques I can find areas of the brain that are associated with different parts of language. Learning language, recognizing words, processing words, and producing words. Then using the lesion method, I can see how different parts of the brain contribute specifically to the different parts of language use production. These results should help in producing models of language which can be applied to patients who have difficulty with language such as aphasics and people with Parkinson's. Computational modeling will also be useful for describing the cognitive processes of normal language aquisition and production (diffusion model?).

I think that this would be a very exciting and large project which would require vast amounts of collaboration and help. I would start at the most basic level by just testing different language capacities of both normal and disordered patients while hopefully scanning them. With this technique I am receiving vast amounts of data, not just from the scans but the tasks themselves. Combining that with various models will also give another layer of information. Moving from there, I could look towards the lesion patients or those with neurodegenerative diseases. By moving towards the diseases I could begin to look towards the biology of language. Are certain proteins or neurochemicals needed for language? Otherwise I could start to move the other direction and look at what improves language skills, faster retrieval, faster production, better recognition, eaiser learning and begin to formulate plans for helping speech-pathologists.

I'm not sure if it is foolhardy to try this, or if it is even worth looking into. I am not sure if it is too big, too broad, if it has already been done, but it is something that I think is of great interest.
We'll see, now I just need to start doing some research and talking to some people.

Essay

One of the most exciting experiences a researcher can achieve is to make a discovery. At that moment of discovery, you are the only person in the world to have that bit of knowledge. Your discovery is something that you alone know and the rest of the world wants to know. This pursuit of discovery inspires me as I work towards becoming a neuroscience researcher. The mysteries of the brain provide some of the most fascinating unlocked enigmas and to be exploring these areas will challenges my unending curiosity.
The field of neuroscience is entering a very exciting time. Research is continually pushing the limits of knowledge and groundbreaking research is revealing many new mechanisms and ideas that were previously unknown. I believe in this type of environment or climate of research, there will be many new ideas and many problems trying to challenge our advancement. I want to pursue research in neuroscience because the field is continuously on the forefront of technological advancements and on the brink of human knowledge. It will be exciting and challenging to be a part of this, but also interesting to see the benefits that this research provides to fellow researchers and mankind. These reasons are why I wish to pursue a Ph. D. in neuroscience.
Through my introduction to neuroscience in my undergraduate studies at St. Olaf College, I have found research to be very fulfilling, but it has been the last two years of research in cognitive psychology, which has focused my interest in a few topics. In research, I was allowed the opportunity to find areas that interested me and with the help of my advisor, we developed studies and research paradigms in two areas.
The first year-long project investigated how spatial frequencies affected a person’s perception of gender. It was not until I began to work on this project that I knew that I had to become a researcher. These were some of the most frustrating and difficult experiences that I have dealt with in my education. However, they were also the most satisfying and educational. Guiding myself, with the help of my research advisor, I learned how to use many different computer programs, from Photoshop, to Psyscope, to a morphing program, I learned how to read, analyze and write journal articles and most importantly I learned how to design a project, run subjects, collect and analyze results and present these in both a written report and in presentation form for three conferences last spring. I realized that it is not necessarily the answer that is the most important outcome, but perhaps the journey that brought you to an answer, because the journey may have raised ten more question in the process.
In my senior distinction research, I am took this knowledge and applied it to a new topic, investigating the differences between semantic and repetition priming in a lexical decision task and using diffusion modeling to analyze the differences in the timing of the cognitive processes. It was through my experience in the research of my senior year that convinced me that when I begin work on my Ph. D. thesis that I would investigate language. In the neuroscience program, I have the opportunity to pursue three rotations, with the option for a fourth. I know that I will look to find researchers who are associated with language and language processing.
I believe that the conference would be an excellent opportunity for me to see the research that is occurring in the speech-language and hearing field. I would be able to meet fellow researchers and also have the opportunity to ask questions and think about what I want to direct my research towards. I would also be very excited to present the research that I have completed. Although the original goal of the research was to investigate the mental lexicon in non-disordered participants, it would be interesting to hear what speech-pathologists and others alike thought about how the results may be similar or different in disorder participants.
The specific title of the symposium is also of special interest to me. With my background in neuroscience and approach to language from the spectrum of neuroscience, I am interested in the neural regeneration and communication processes. Although I am not sure of the specific direction of my research or what I will eventually research for my thesis, I do have some broad ideas. I am interested in the psychological workings of the mental lexicon, how language is processed and affected by different brain structures in both visual and auditory perception. I hope to investigate how language is affected by different problems (lesions/neurological disorders) in the attempt to map the mental lexicon and language perceptual processes. To associate my broad interests in research, I hope to apply computational models to and functional and structural imaging to this approach. The applicability of the research, I think will extend to neurological diseases and communication disorders, in that we will be able to pinpoint and recognize what areas of damaging are disrupting what part of language production/comprehension.
Currently I am working with Dr. Jean K. Gordon investigating the relationship between word variables and reaction times of older and younger subjects in two separate tasks and also exploring the relationship between language and wisdom. By pairing with Dr. Gordon, I believe that I will be able to develop a research paradigm that is able to help me approach this question. Although I have not yet selected a thesis adviser, the collaborative nature of the University of Iowa, leads me to believe that if I do not select Dr. Gordon, that I know we will be able to collaborate in the future on work pertaining to my research goal. Our shared interest in language and her expertise with language disorders (aphasia) and the use of computational modeling will help greatly in my attempt to investigate language. I think that an important first step in this investigation will be the knowledge and the questions that I gain by attending this conference.

2009 Research Mentoring-Pair Travel Award

I'm applying for the AHSA (American Speech-Language and Hearing Association) travel award to attend a conference in November in New Orleans. I am required to write a narrative biological sketch and a 1,000 word essay detailing my research goals and how attending the conference will enhance them. Attached here is the biographical sketch, soon to follow (later tonight) will be the essay.

Jake Kurczek is a 2009 graduate of St. Olaf College (Northfield, MN) with a B.A. in psychology (Cum Laude with Distinction). In the summer of 2009, he began his work toward a Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA). In the summer of 2009, he is completing his first rotation of the Neuroscience program and his mentor is Dr. Jean K. Gordon. Jake is assisting Dr. Gordon with two on-going research projects. The first investigates what variables of words contribute to the ease or difficulty of word production and word recognition. This is accomplished with a auditory lexical decision task and an visual naming task. In each of the tasks the response time and the accuracy was recorded. These variables are analyzed (multiple regression and linear mixed effect models) against the independent variables of the words themselves to see what contributes to the response time and accuracy of the tasks.
His previous research work includes five studies in behavioral/cognitive neuroscience. In his junior year in college (2007/2008), he spent his time investigating the effects of spatial frequencies on people’s perception of gender. Two projects were developed from this overall investigation including, “Perceptual Adaptation Aftereffects in Cross-race Gender Identification” and “Evidence for Lower Level Processing of Human Gender.” In his senior year, he would begin work on three different research projects. The first was an analysis of the St. Olaf psychology department’s Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) through the use of questionnaires that he developed along with the psychology department with responses collected from the previous six years of psychology graduates. The second was a behavioral neuroscience research study which investigated ethanol’s anxiolytic effect on rats in the elevated plus maze as well as a lesion study which attempted to reproduce this axiolytic effect. The third study was his senior distinction project. This study was entitled, “Lexical decision and the diffusion model: An investigation into the mental lexicon.” First the effects of frequency and neighborhood density were investigated and modeled with the diffusion model as a pilot study. Two future studies were developed in which semantic and repetition priming were investigated in the lexical decision task and analyzed with the diffusion model. The purpose of the research was to find a possible/plausible explanation for the cognitive differences between the two different types of priming.

Summer Research - Drafted May 31st

Tomorrow I start my summer rotation in the Neuroscience program at the University of Iowa. I am working with Dr. Jean Gordon on two projects, one entitled "Phonological neighborhoods in aphasia" and the other entitled, "The Relationship between Language Use and the Perception of Wisdom." I am very excited to begin working on these research projects. A few thoughts before I begin this work. I can't believe that I have come this far. It is something special to accomplish a goal that you have worked a majority of your life for. However, I am not satisfied just making it here. I need to continue to learn and accomplish and set higher goals. This is a chance to challenge myself and to go for bigger and better things ahead. I feel as though I have entered the field at one of the most exciting times. I think that we are on the brink of some major discoveries and about to open the door to hundreds of new questions. The advances in technology and our increasing abilities to attack the questions of the mind are placing us at an interesting time.

One problem with the speed of our discoveries and our advancements is our ability to recognize the impact and the consequences of our actions. There are many ethical questions to deal with when we confront these new discoveries. How are we supposed to understand and handle these things which are so new to us and deal with the most personal aspects of ourselves? In understanding the mind and how it works, we are understanding ourselves. Do we truly want to know everything about ourselves? Or maybe more appropriately, do we want others to know everything about us? Issues with genetics, how we think and why we think will make our personal lives very public.

This is where the topics of one of the research projects applies. We need to look to the wisdom of those who have come before us in applying and using our new discoveries. Although the frontiers that we are entering are unlike any that we have approached before, we must tread carefully in these times. I too will look to the mistakes of those who have come before me and seek counsel from those who have experienced all that I am about to. I look to the experience with excitement and nerves but know that while it may be hard at times, that it is one of the most exciting experiences I will have.

Memory

Tomorrow I start the real journey. I will arrive in Iowa in the afternoon, unpack and begin to figure my way around a new city and a new life. I am excited for the opportunity to follow my dreams. However, because of this excitement and moving, I will be lazy and post a sweet paper on memory that I wrote earlier this year.

Does Long Term Potentiation (LTP) Equal Learning/Memory?
Learning is considered the acquisition and development of memories and modification or acquisition of behaviors (Sweatt, 2003). It is the product of experience and ranges from simple forms of learning such as habituation to more complex forms such as play. Learning does not stand alone as having its own mechanism, but instead works within the context of both memory and recall. Memory is the process through which learned information is stored while recall is the conscious or unconscious retrieval process through which this altered behavior is manifest (Sweatt, 2003). Current understanding of neurons and the central nervous system implies that the processes of learning and memory correspond to changes in the relationship between certain neurons in the brain (Martin, Grimwood, & Morris, 2000). This can be defined as synaptic plasticity. As certain neurons are used while learning a behavior, the experience and repetitive use of the neurons will lead to the strengthening or weakening of the connections between them and finally the establishment of the learned behavior. However, does the change in neuronal strength or structure actually equal memory? Could there be other mechanisms that are used in the acquisition of altered behavioral responses?
Long-term potentiation (LTP) is the most studied form of synaptic plasticity in the central nervous system (McEachern and Shaw, 1996). LTP has received extensive attention because it shares a number of characteristics with memory, in that they both have a rapid onset and long duration and are strengthened by repetition. In addition, the duration of LTP being correlated with the time course of forgetting (Diamond, Dunwiddie, & Rose, 1988). However, in the thirty years since the discovery of LTP, the mechanisms have not been resolved. Instead, only many intricacies have been uncovered. Although many mechanisms of LTP have been shown to be involved in different learning and memory paradigms, does LTP equal memory and learning? Investigating these questions requires an explanation of learning, LTP, models of learning outside of LTP and finally a discussion of techniques in future research that should be used to investigated whether LTP is the mechanism for learning.
Learning
Learning, the altered behavioral response due to an environmental stimulus is thought to be stored in the cortex for both explicit (declarative) and implicit (procedural) learning (Sweatt, 2003). There are many forms of learning, from more simple forms of learning including habituation to more complex forms of learning, including associative conditioning. These two forms of learning are some of the most studied and best understood. Habituation is the cessation of a response to a stimulus after repeated presentations of the stimulus (Sweatt, 2003). One example of habituation that is well studied is in the Aplysia. The gill of the Aplysia must be thin and have a large surface area because it is where oxygen exchange occurs and this makes it susceptible to damage, so the animal presents many reflexes in order to protect it (Byrne & Kandel, 1996). Typically a touch applied to the siphon every 3 minutes over a period over 4 hours will result in a gradual cessation of the withdrawal response; a phenomenon called habituation (Byrne & Kandel, 1996). Experimenters showed that depression of the synapse between the sensory and motor neurons was the main underlying cause of habituation. Additional experiments showed that this synaptic depression is caused by a reduction in the amount of neurotransmitter released from the presynaptic sensory neurons (Cohen, Kaplan, Kandel, & Hawkins, 1997). There is inactivation of post-synaptic calcium channels and there is a reduction in the number of presynaptic vesicles that are available to release neurotransmitter. The reduction of the calcium channels is regulated by secondary messenger cascades which causes the down-regulation in the expression of the calcium channels. Two other forms of learning associated with habituation were demonstrated in the Aplysia, including dishabituation and sensitization (Cohen et al., 1997). Dishabituation is the full recovery of the original strength of a habituated response after the presentation of a strong, novel stimulus (Sweatt, 2003). Sensitization is the increase in strength of any reflex to a level above its original strength that is caused by one or more strong stimuli other than the stimulus that usually evokes the stimulus. After an Aplysia has been habituated, if the animal receives a strong touch to the tail, the next touch on the siphon will cause the gill to withdraw. Aplysia can be sensitized to a strong touch to the tail. A tap to the siphon, lighter than that used to habituate the animal, will cause the gill to be strongly withdrawn (Cohen et al., 1997).
In associative conditioning, an animal forms an association between two different stimuli (Dayan et al., 2000). One stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), normally evokes a reflex. The other stimulus, the conditioned stimulus (CS) usually evokes no response (Dayan et al., 2000). When the conditioned stimulus is presented shortly before the unconditioned stimulus in a series of trials, the animal eventually responds to the conditioned stimulus alone. After conditioning, the animal forms an association between the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus. There are two competing theories about how this form of learning works. In stimulus-response theory, the organism learns to form an association between the CS and the UCS. In the opposing theory, called the stimulus-stimulus theory, it is suggested that a cognitive component is required to understand classical conditioning (Rescorla and Wagner, 1972). In relation to the Aplysia, the presentation of the CS, such as the shock would elicit the siphon withdrawal reaction, whereas in the stimulus-stimulus theory the Aplysia would withdraw its gill because the UCS is associated with the concept of the shock. It is through an understanding of the different types of memory, that one is able to understand the biological underpinnings of these mechanisms. Form is often related to function, by knowing what the form looks or acts like (the behavior of memory) we can investigate its functions (the biological processes) which build the form.
Long-Term Potentiation
Several areas of the brain play a part in the consolidation of memories, but the hippocampus has been recognized as playing a vital role. Many of the following experiments involved an exploration of how synaptic plasticity functions in the hippocampus. One of the least understood, but most interesting problems in neuroscience is the attempt to identify the mechanisms which underlie memory. In 1949, Hebb proposed a well-defined rule of synaptic plasticity. He proposed that coincident activity in two connected neurons leads to strengthening of their connection (Chen & Tonegawa, 1997). This specifically increases the probability that they will fire together in the future. Through experimentation, it has been found that activity-dependent synaptic plasticity plays a vital role in sculpting synaptic connections during development (Lynch, 2000). LTP was first identified by Lomo, who reported that a single, short test shock , following an initial period of conditioning test shocks to the perforant path, elicited a potentiated response in the dentate gyrus (Lynch, 2000). After a train of stimuli, an elevated response of EPSPs (as measured by the membrane potential) in the postsynaptic cell (dentate gyrus) were noted. Later, Bliss and Lomo reported in 1973 that trains of high-frequency stimulation to the rabbit perforant path caused a sustained increase in efficiency of synaptic transmission in the granule cells of the dentate gyrus (Lynch, 2000). Chemical synapses are not static. Postsynaptic potentials (PSPs) wax and wane, depending on the recent and long-term history of presynaptic activity. In some synapses PSPs increase during repetitive stimulation to many times the size of an isolated PSP. A gradual rise of PSP amplitude during stimulation is called potentiation (Zucker, 1989). It is these changes in the frequency of firing and the amount of firing that synapses receive or do not receive that causes the changes in synaptic arboration. Subsequentl, it is the changes in the arboration and the interconnections of the synapses which are hypothesized to represent memory. These discoveries have lead to the formation of the synaptic plasticity model (SPM) of learning and memory (Martin, Grimwood, & Morris, 2000). The formal hypothesis of the SPM states that “activity dependent synaptic plasticity is induced at appropriate synapses during memory formation, and is both necessary and sufficient for information storage underlying the type of memory mediated by the brain area in which that plasticity is observed” (Martin, Grimwood, & Morris, 2000, 650). A thorough evaluation of the SPM hypothesis requires experimentation that addresses both the necessity and sufficiency. However, the current shortfall in the model, lies in the lack of experimentation in establishing the sufficiency of synaptic plasticity to induce memory (Martin, Grimwood, & Morris, 2000).
As demonstrated by the experiments in relating LTP in the hippocampus, a majority of the work on the cellular basis for memory has focused almost exclusively on hippocampal LTP/LTD and the belief that these forms of synaptic plasticity are a substrate for memory (Stevens, 1998). However, LTP has been observed in other brain areas, for example, the amygdala. Fear conditioning has been demonstrated to elicit LTP in the amygdala. Most of the evidence on the issue boils down to the observation that blocking LTP/LTD also interferes with the learning of spatial tasks (Stevens, 1998). Before settling upon an answer to whether LTP is the mechanism of memory in the hippocampus or other brain areas, the understanding of LTP itself, needs to be addressed. As LTP is further investigated, more intricacies are discovered, so to be able to conclude the role of LTP in memory, the meaning/definition of LTP needs to be lain out. However, we may be able to conclude that LTP, as currently defined and understood, is a mechanism that is concurrent with memory and memory associated areas.
Other Experimental Models of Learning in Synaptic Changes
Although LTP has established itself as the leading model learning and memory, there are other models that may explain these phenomena, including kindling (McEachern and Shaw, 1996). In kindling, daily trains of sub-convulsive electrical stimuli delivered to brain cortical or limbic sites eventually culminate in behavioral and electrographic seizure expression. A short burst of action potentials (afterdischarge; AD) follows each stimulus, and with additional stimulations, there is a progression of both electrical and behavioral measures of seizure activity. As AD duration increases, the AD localization spreads from the original focus of activation to downstream synaptic connections (McEachern and Shaw, 1996). The kindling phenomenon is associated with long-lasting facilitation of synaptic transmission. With the spread of activation and the facilitation of transmission, the kindling effect leads to increased proliferation (neurogenesis) of neurons. This model of synaptic plasticity is now best known as the model for epilepsy, but it was also one of the first neuroplasticity phenomenon suggested in learning. While it may appear odd that the abnormal firing behavior of seizures could be similar to learning, it may be that they share similar mechanisms or cascades, just with different outcomes (McEachern & Shaw, 1996).
While kindling may not be a close representative of normal neural firing and activity, other models are more subtle in their attempt to explain plastic changes in the brain, including primed burst potentiation (PBP) and spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP). Two prominent physiological features of the hippocampus, complex spike discharge and theta rhythm are effective in potentiating synapses (Diamond, Dunwiddie, & Rose, 1988). PBP and LTP have common mechanisms in that both are not additive when both paradigms are used to stimulate a synapse and both are blocked with NMDA antagonists (Diamond, Dunwiddie, & Rose, 1988). PBP consists of a pattern of stimulation, a single priming pulse followed by a high frequency burst of pulses (Diamond, Dunwiddie, & Rose, 1988). Since the mechanisms of PBP are endogenous to the hippocampus during learning, it may activate the mechanisms of memory formation. One aspect of PBP which is very important is the dependence on the temporal components of stimulation, and this effect may be relevant to hippocampal-dependent learning, as a model of associative memory. PBP and its temporal nature are similar in aspect to STDP.
STDP exemplifies the importance of the temporal order of pre/post spiking for synaptic modification in the nervous system (Mu, & Poo, 2006). The synaptic strength can thus be bidirectionally modified by correlated pre/post spiking within a narrow time window, with pre-post spiking leading to LTP like modifications and post-pre spiking leading to LTD like modifications (Mu, & Poo, 2006). However, these temporal windows can change in both the time frame that the spiking has to occur within, and also which modifications occur according to the inputs. With the LTP and LTD consequences associated with the STDP, it may be assumed that STDP is simply these two phenomena on the level of individual neurons, however, STDP may serve to be a more parsimonious explanation as the mechanism for memory. The temporal nature of STDP allows for associations to be established. By pairing the modulation of STDP by inhibitory inputs and complex spike trains, STDP appears to use more complex mechanisms to store the differences in cell communication and thus more accurately represent the messages of the cells.
Examples that Challenge the Definition of Learning
While research often has a very anthropomorphic centered idealism, especially concerning research in the brain, it is ironic that much of what is known about the nervous system and the mechanisms of the brain comes from research with invertebrates. As discussed earlier, much of the initial work with LTP was demonstrated in the Aplysia, however, experiments with LTP use many different animal models today. Higher cognitive processes such as more complex forms of learning are thought to be demonstrated in “higher” species. This bias flows throughout the biological kingdom in varying degrees, and is applied to different organisms. Many have thought that it takes a nervous system to be able to learn. However, if the strictest definitions of learning are used, learning has been demonstrated in two species that many would have denied the ability to learn, the paramecium and the venus flytrap.
Learning in the Paramecium
While certain forms of learning are thought to be processes that requires large neuronal development and higher areas of brain functioning, it can also be seen in the single-celled organism, the paramecium. The paramecium does not have any neurons, so the question becomes, how can it learn? The question of whether paramecia exhibit learning has been the object of many experiments which yielded few answers to it. In a recent experiment by Armus et al. (2006), discrimination learning was demonstrated in the paramecium. Prior investigations into the possibility of classical conditioning in paramecium have shown different results. French (1940) reported that the time it took a paramecium to escape a tube decreased with the number of trials and this result was later confirmed by Huber et al. (1974) cited in Armus et al., 2006. Another approach attempted to condition paramecium to stimuli such as brightness or vibration to electric shock or heat. This included experiments, included in a review by Armus (2006) by Bramstedt (1935) and Soest (1937) who reported successful conditioning, while experiments by Best (1954) and Mirsky and Katz (1958) did not.
In the experiment by Armus et al., 288 paramecia (P. caudatum) were trained in a 22 mm long transparent glass trough which was half light and half dark. There was a stainless steel wire electrode that projected 2mm into the water at each end and the shock was provided by a 6.5 V DC with a duration of 60 ms. The subjects were observed through a microscope under 10X magnification. The paramecium were then collected individually from the colony and subjected to 7 periods of training and 3 periods of test. Three groups of 96 subjects differed in their training procedures, including, the experimental group which received a train of shocks when the paramecium was in the cathode half of the trough, the no shock control, and the paired shock control which received a train of shocks whether it was in the anode or cathode half of the trough (Armus et al., 2006). The paramecium are attracted to electrical shocks so learning would be demonstrated by the paramecium’s ability to discriminate between the side on which it received the shocks and the side in which it did not. The paramecium were supposed to associate the level of brightness of the trough with the shock. The results of the experiment showed that the experimental group spent significantly more time in the portion of the trough which was giving the shocks than the control group. However, there may have been confounding factors in this experiment. The shocks may have changed the liquid itself and made that more attractive to the paramecium. The authors addressed this with a second experiment. The brightness level from the training session was switched for the test session so as to eliminate any possibility that some substance that was hypothetically being produced by the shocks wasn’t the thing attracting the paramecium. The experimental group again spent more time in the shock part of the trough than the control group, demonstrating associative learning by the paramecium (Armus et al., 2006).
The results of this and other associated experiments bring into question our current description and understanding of learning. Is learning at its most basic level the change in behavior in response to time? However, where does the paramecium store its past behaviors, how does it associate the past to the present, is it a simple interaction of the molecules in the paramecium to the environment of the trough or is this organism, learning? This raises important points to consider. Can learning or memory be stored in many different ways? Memory may simply be the correlate of an increase in certain biological substances which in certain concentrations cause different reactions to occur. The paramecium may represent the learning or memory storage of one of our brain cells. A stimulus causes a change in the cells biological chemistry which then causes it to “remember” a situation, which could be viewed as either a positive or negative experience. In the view of a human, with many neurons and neural networks, memory and learning may represent the final outcome of a series of checks and balances representing all of the intricacies of an individual situation or experience through positive and negative gateways. It is interesting to consider the ability of organisms to “remember” and learn when none of the usually proposed manners of memory or learning are present.
Learning in the Venus Flytrap
Using the definition of learning as change in an animal’s behavioral response as a result of a unique environmental stimulus allows various nonassociative forms of learning such as sensitization to be included as learning (Sweatt, 2003). This may raise the question of whether sensitization in the venus flytrap plant is learning. The triggering mechanism for closure of the trap was two lobes with their surfaces facing inward each with three trigger hairs (Sweatt, 2003). To eliminate “false alarms,” the plant has evolved a mechanism whereby stimulation of a single trigger hair is insufficient to cause the trap to close (Sweatt, 2003). Two hairs must be stimulated in succession (or simultaneously) to trigger a trapping response. In one circumstance, stimulating a particular trigger will give no response, whereas stimulating the same trigger in another will, showing an altered response due to particular environmental stimuli (Sweatt, 2003). In a study by Volkov et al. (2008), the kinetics and mechanism of the trap closing were studied. Transmission of a single electric charge (mean 13.63 mC) caused the plant to close. A summation of stimuli is demonstrated through the application of smaller charges, if two or more consecutive charges were applied within a period of less than 50s the trap closed when the total of 14 mC was reached (Volkov, 2008). This cumulative character of the electrical stimuli indicates the existence of electrical memory in the plant. This form of learning may be comparable to PBP or STDP. The small background firing of the cell is interrupted by the sudden firing of one of the trigger hairs and this combination of firing patterns enough times strengthens the connections between the cells. Although the changes may not represent a long lasting change, enough stimulations may lead to a chemical change in the synapse which may make the “memories” longer lasting. This type of memory system may be analogous to planarians memory systems, which appear to be based in chemical changes of the entire organism.
The Future
While much of the work so far has been integral to bringing us to where we are today in our knowledge of memory and learning, there is a lot of work left to do. One of the major obstacles in the future remains identifying and establishing all of the phases of LTP, including the biological functions. However, while it will be interesting to discover all of the components and functions of LTP, is this the mechanism of memory and learning? While it may be integral to memory in the amygdala and the hippocampus, memories, appear to eventually be stored in the cortex. Are memories in the cortex stored by LTP, are they reactivated and reconsolidated through LTP or some other mechanism? While research may be years away from understanding LTP, memory and learning, there are many functions and mechanisms that can be further investigated. Future research should continue the use of genetic manipulation and investigation. By manipulating the expression of genes and other proteins, one by one or in conjunction with a series of other genes or proteins, we can piece together the changing and varying effects have a better understanding of the changes from a biological view-point. The use of a combination of methods will also be very interesting and helpful. Combining, PET, fMRI, genetic manipulation and behavioral paradigms will give researchers information and data from so many different views that they will be able to associate how changes in genes, lead to increases in one part of the brain which cause certain behavioral changes. Researchers should also remember to investigate both cases where there is severely impaired memory, but also where there is superior memory. Cases such as S or other mnemonists should be investigated, looking at genes, their biological makeup and their brain activity during learning and recall. Since memory and learning are so complex, we may never have a full grasp on how it works in all situations, but as technology improves and knowledge increases, memory will be better understood.
Conclusions
While much of the research in memory and learning points to the importance and necessity of LTP for memory and learning, other evidence points to the possibility of other mechanisms. Much of the current research points to the hippocampus as the site of memory consolidation, however, it has also been demonstrated that long-term memories are not stored in the hippocampus. If LTP/LTP were the only mechanism for the storage of memory, then memory and LTP should follow a linear relationship that when plotted against each other, shows memory increasing as LTP increases. However, as Sweatt (2003) demonstrates, there are many studies that show that this is not the case. While LTP may appear to be a very functionally sound mechanism for storing memories and also one that appears to fit with many people’s preconceptions of memory, in some cases it may not serve the best function. If LTP were to be the only mechanism for memory and the locations of memories were pinpointed, they could be easily erased with depotentiation of the synapse. However, while these discussions may last for a long time, it may come down to a person’s definition of the related components of the argument. To decide whether LTP is memory or learning or if LTP is just one of many mechanisms, it will take a better understanding of LTP itself, reconsolidation properties and the mechanisms which store memory in the cortex.

Memory

Yesterday's post was permeated with the topic of today, memory. The cases of H.M. and Clive Wearing have contributed much to the study and understanding of memory. Although we are still unsure as to how the memory system exactly works. Through the use of the lesion method and other experiemental methods involving animals and scanning techniques, we have been able to uncover a lot about the memory system. Last year I wrote a case report about Zatsesky (sic), a Russian soldier injured in combat who was the protagonist of the book, The Man with a Shattered World: The History of a Brain Wound., by A.R. Luria. In the book, Zatsesky describes relearning how to do everything and how painstaking it is to recognize that he has lost the ability to remember certain things.

How does memory work? How can we enhance memory? How can we forget unwanted memories?

I will attach a paper on learning and memory and tomorrow...
(dial-up internet and blogs don't work to well together)
I will finish more of this too...

Memory

Yesterday's post was permeated with the topic of today, memory. The cases of H.M. and Clive Wearing have contributed much to the study and understanding of memory. Although we are still unsure as to how the memory system exactly works. Through the use of the lesion method and other experiemental methods involving animals and scanning techniques, we have been able to uncover a lot about the memory system. Last year I wrote a case report about Zats

Lesions

One of the ways that we lose our mental abilities is through the development of brain lesions. Whether from various diseases, traumas, other other sources, they all appear to end the same way, with some sort of disruption of mental facilities. While the lesion can be devastating and disruptive to an individual, it provides the opportunity for researchers to look at the mind that ethics and modern science would otherwise not allow. In experiments, good scientists look to control for every factor that they can. Experimenting with the human mind or brain, there have been temporary ways to knock out part of the brain as in the Wada test or through the use of TMS. However, to permanently remove some part of the brain would be unethical. With lesions of the brain, nature has made these temporary knock-outs permanent and has also made them (generally) very focally. Through the use of brain imaging techniques and behavioral assays, the location of the lesion can generally be identified. When a lesion is identified, testing to see how the loss of a certain part of the brain can begin.

Although some are not exact definitions of the lesion technique, the following names have offered much to the study of the brain through their loss of. Phineas Gage is probably one of the best known examples of the lesion. While working on a railroad in the 19th century, a tamping rod exploded and shot through the skull of Gage. He survived the accident, but his friends would later describe him as, "Gage was no longer Gage." It appears that the part of the brain that was lost in the accident was part of the system for regulating emotions and drive. Another example would include the man H.M. As a boy he suffered intractable seizures from epilepsy. His doctor (Scoville) decided to remove the areas from where the seizures were originating, which happened to be approximately 2/3 of the hippocampus, and surrounding area as well as the amygdala bilaterally. After the surgery it appeared that he had no memory for the present and was unable to form new memories. Years of testing (the rest of his life) has offered great insights into the function of the hippocamus and its role in memory. The last example is similar to H.M. Clive Wearing a former world class musician suffered encephalitis caused by the herpes virus which bilaterally wiped his hippocampus. He currently displays profound amnesia and has been dubbed "memento" (later a movie by the same name).

These are just three examples of thousands which demonstrate the accuracy and the power of the lesion method. Lesions in all parts of the brain are able to demonstrate the power and the function of these certain areas. While it is interesting to think about how the lesion method can teach us, piece by piece how the brain functions, it is also interesting to look at lesions in children. It appears that children are often able to recover and cope with the loss of certain brain areas fairly well. It is amazing to think about the plasticity and the adaptability of the brain at a young age.

The University of Iowa has the largest database of lesion patients. With the collaboration of the University Hospital and the patients themselves, the college is able to watch, learn and research with these interesting cases of the brain. It will be interesting to see what the lesion method can teach me.

Lesions

One of the ways that we lose our mental abilities is through the development of brain lesions. Whether from

AI

Today's post will be short, but I will pick up the topic sometime soon. I don't have much time since it takes about six hours to celebrate four years of work. I'm graduating!

I have heard a lot of speculation about the new Terminator Salvation movie and have started thinking more about AI. This spring I took Intro to Computer Science as well as Philosophy of the Mind. Almost the perfect combination for talking about AI. In terminator, there is a computer, Skynet which becomes self-aware and decides to terminate the human race with an army of terminators. While this movie may have been made just to entertain us with action and adventure, it does raise some valid questions about the future of humans and our relationship with technology.

According to Moore's law, the rate of computing power growth is exponential and describes the long-term trend of many different computing functions. Mankind has never seen something with this growth pattern that has lasted this long. There is increasing belief that this growth pattern is heading toward "the singularity", the point at which this accelerating change creates superintelligence. It has been theorized that after the singularity, intelligent technology will begin to produce more intelligent technology at a pace more rapid than humans. While this post is not meant to sound prophetic, it is only a look to the future. I find the mind so interesting, that to be able to explore artificial minds would be a wonder.

There will be more to come soon about AI, but for now I have to go graduate.

Humor - You Make Me Smile

With most of the posts so far, I have either read a couple books or articles or been able to follow some sort of outline of experience with the topic. Here however, that will all change. What makes us smile? Why do we laugh? For what reason did we evolve humor? Why does laughing make me feel so good? Are funny people more attractive because of the way they make others feel? Why are some things funny to some people and not to others?

I love to laugh. I also love people that make me smile. It is amazing to find someone that you just can't stop smiling because of. I think humor and laughter are one of the closest things that we can share with someone. To be able to appreciate or have a similar sense of humor as someone means that you are probably very similar to that person in some sense. I often find that people look for friends that have a similar sense of humor as them. It's odd how we can bond over something that people may call frivolous or silly. Is the purpose of laughter to help us to relax, to make us happy, to put us at ease? The smile seems to be a cross-cultural sign of happiness and openness. So it seems that laughter is born into us.

However, how does laughter and humor actually work in the brain? To be honest, I have no idea (not to say that I have a real grasp on the other topics). If I was to guess, I would say that there would be some higher order cortical reasoning, perhaps in the frontal lobes combined with limbic system activation. But, sometimes when I study or think about something like this, I wonder if I do really want to know. Does learning about how something exactly works give a more full appreciation of something? I often say that I don't want to learn about something because it takes away from the fun and the mysterious aspects. Santa Claus is a lot more fun and intriguing when he is a jolly old man who flies reindeer and lives in the North Pole than when he is your parents. I guess this raises some of the ethical questions regarding neuroscience. Do we want to pinpoint areas in the brain that tell us someone is lying, a racist, ect.? There is a huge power in uncovering the inner workings of the mind. It has been protected by the other minds problem for years. How do we truly know that other people have minds and that they work like my own? By uncovering the mysteries of the mind, we are not only saying that other people have minds, but we are showing exactly how they work and what they are doing.

While these questions are raised, I am too curious to be detered by losing the mystery of the mind. While losing the mystery, it will be far to interesting to see what we can't now. It may also only open up a new realm of questions and mystery. How can we know when the search is over? It is so interesting to at least think that there is an infinite number of possibilities to study and research in the mind. So while I love to laugh and be humerous, today I can just live with that, however, tomorrow perhaps, I will look into how it works.

Smile - Robert Randolph and the Family Band

Scent

What really makes a memory vivid in your mind? Most of the memories that I have, I can remember what I see, sometimes I can remember some things that I heard. But the memories that are the most lifelike are the ones in which I can remember the smells. The sense of smell, olfaction is closely related to taste and also has a very strong influence on emotions. However, beyond these functions smell is also essential for finding food, avoiding dangerous things and finding a mate. I think that smell is often the most overlooked sense that we possess. If you have ever asked someone what sense they would give up, it is often between taste and smell for the sense that is given up. Often people don't recognize the importance or the experience of smell until they are sick and have a stuffed nose. I want to take the time now and talk about how important this sense is to me.

I first started to understand the importance of smell a few years ago when I read the book, The Emperor of Scent. The story describes a scientist (who is also a connoisseur of the nose) proposing a theory about how we smell and the process that he goes through to publish and also propose his theory to the scent makers. It was here that I began to recognize all that I take my sense of smell for granted for.

Olfaction actually occurs through the binding of molecules to the olfactory epithelium. This ligands stimulate olfactory receptors on the dendrites of olfactory receptor neurons. This occurs either through diffusion or through binding to specific proteins. This action triggers a cascade of second messengers mediated through g-proteins. The specific pattern of conformational changes of the proteins paired with the specific pattern of chemical changes maps onto a cognitive map of axonal activation which describes a broad range of aromas. The activation of certain projections will produce the sense of different smells depending on which projections are stimulated or depressed. The sense of smell is interesting because to some extent it is the only sense which uses direct stimulation of the nerves. The projections of the olfactory neurons combine to form the olfactory nerve. The synapsing of the projections in the olfactory bulb begin the process of divergence for the projections of the olfactory system. Some projections continue on to the olfactory cortex, while others converge into glomeruli which are composed of Mitral cells. These cells synapse onto five other area of the cerebrum, including most importantly the amygdala and the entorhinal cortex. The entorhinal cortex projects to the amygdala which is involved in the emotion of the sense of smell and it also projects to the hippocampus which is involved in the memory of smell. The close ties of the olfactory system with the limbic and memory systems place the importance of smell in emotional and place memory.

Before going into deeper detail here, I want to mention some of the other functions of smell. Combining the sense of smell with the sense of taste produces flavor. It is amazing to think that there are essentially five different tastes but hundreds of smells, thus to produce a certain flavor, a different combination of smells is used with a base layer of tastes. This technique of alteration is how we are able to produce countless numbers of candies and soft drinks.

Another important function of olfaction is the detection of pheromones. Pheromones are a chemical signature which causes a reaction in other members of a species. Related to humans, I speak of sexual pheromones. During ovulation a women's sense of smell is the strongest. This relates to the results that olfaction is used to detect the MHC genes which are useful in the immune system. Partners look for a partner to have a different MHC gene combination so as to strengthen the immune system of their offspring.

Back to the emotional and memory connections of smell. Its odd how a quick whiff of a smell can almost literally transport you back in time to a specific memory. The use of smells in certain situations seems to take advantage of the emotional connections of smell and memory. From the use of perfume or cologne for special occasions or the cooking of special meals for occasions help to strengthen memories by using this olfactory pathway which connects the amygdala and the other memory systems. Smell seems to be the only other sense which can elicit such strong memories in my mind besides hearing, specifically music. There are a few songs which seem to be able to take me back to a memory, but it is the smell of certain odors which seem to bring me back and almost relive a memory. While the perception of smell is not understood completely, it will be very interesting to uncover the mysteries of the sense. It is interesting however, to take advantage of the effects of smell on memory, one that can be useful creating great memories for life.

That Smell - Lynyrd Skynyrd

Beliefs and Finding Truth

How do we believe in our knowledge or the facts which we hold true? What leads me to believe in something? Are there certain inherent truths which make some things more believable than others? Belief is often treated as a simple from of mental representation and is part of the earliest parts of conscious thought. In an earlier post I mentioned the possibility of the existence of thoughts which do not necessarily have the physical control of neurons and which are instead controlled by thoughts themselves. This has a large impact on neuroscience, because if the concept of belief is incoherent or indefensible then any attempt to find the underlying neural processes which support it will fail. To find an area of the brain that is responsible for belief would be very political and potentially problematic in nature. If one is able to manipulate someone's beliefs or one is able to provide evidence for certain beliefs being only in our head, ramifications would spread far beyond just the discovery of something very interesting.

I actually started thinking about this topic because I stumbled across a documentary about the occult and magic. I wonder what it is about illusions or what people say that makes us believe in them. This then reminded me have a paper I read recently entitled, "Scientists See God on the Brain." Essentially parts of the brain are more active while thinking about religious beliefs. I also found a related article here in which SPECT was used to determine regions of the brain which responded to altered states of consciousness during prayer and deep meditation.

So, is belief something that is simply caused by the activity of certain brain regions. Is a belief in something a sort of self deception sometimes or a way for the brain to try to make sense of what is occurring in the world? What makes beliefs so hard to let go? Is it that we have put our faith and trust into something that we cannot allow ourselves to think that we are wrong? Is is because our brains have wired the beliefs into our selves?

So my basic question about beliefs are whether they are formed by processes in the brain or whether they are created in the mind. If they are created in the brain, does that take away from beliefs? Is a thought which is just a pattern of neural activity somehow less personal? We would like to think that our believes are something that is earnest and something that we are truly connected to. This leads us to want to believe that our beliefs are created in the mind and part of something that is more than just biological. For many people, belief in something creates a foundation from which they can live out the rest of their lives. While I have my beliefs and thoughts on things, to me they are my opinions and if they can be shown otherwise, I will try to change my thoughts.

I wonder what can make us believe certain things? Are there things that you don't know why you believe in them? Are there things that you wish to be true but you doubt? I am not worried if beliefs are a combination of neural processes, I believe that they are there for a reason.

Belief - John Mayer

Thinking Thoughts

In the last paper that I wrote for my undergraduate education, I wrote on the mind-body problem. How are the mind and the body connected? How do they interact with each other? However, while that might be the heart of the problem, for me, it raised other questions. In the paper I conclude that the mind arises from the physical processes of the brain and that there are emergent properties which are created in the mind which would not necessarily be predicted in the simple physical processes. So from this conclusion, I wonder how some thoughts and feelings are created.

Are there thoughts or ideas that can then be created by the emergent properties of the mind and not be directly traced back to physical causes?
How do you understand thoughts that are not directly caused by physical means?
What are some examples of these thoughts?
Could one example be how do we miss someone?

As humans, we naturally believe ourselves to be better than other creatures and thus like to believe that we are the only animals to have some of the cognitive abilities that we have. It is these abilities that we would naturally like to apply to the emergent properties of the mind. I wonder whether this is actually true or not. It is interesting to wonder what thoughts we have that might be created by other thoughts.

I want to explore missing someone. We have thoughts about a person, different feelings, experiences, memories, opinions, ect. But it is not these that actually make us miss them. There are thoughts about these are thoughts. What is it to miss someone, a wish for someone to be with or near you? How long does it take for a person to be gone to miss them? Can you miss someone who is with you? When you miss a person, you have a wish or a desire for that person which is not fulfilled. We may assume that there could be a biological basis behind having thoughts about wanting something and feeling bad for not having that thing. However with a person, I think that there is so much more. There is reflection and thinking about that person which brings to mind the reasons why you may miss them. When thinking about these reasons, and realizing that the impetus of those memories or thoughts isn't there creates a feeling of loss. So while I concluded that the mind arises from the brain, it appears that there are emergent properties of the mind that can inturn interact with the brain. It is interesting how these good thoughts and memories when combined with a person not being there can make someone feel not as good, to make them feel that the miss someone.

I'll end this post by attaching my paper...

Bridging the Mind/Body Gap?

The mind-body problem may be one of the oldest problems in the philosophy of the mind. In its most general form, the problem arises from the description of the relationship between the mind and the body (brain). Generally philosophers have gone one of two ways, by claiming either a physical or nonphysical connection in this relationship. Theses answers to the question of how the brain and mind interact are broadly addressed by dualism (nonphysical), monism (physical) and phenomenology (focuses on experience). At stake to answering the question of the mind-body problem are consequences to how we frame and answer questions related to what is a person/what is an identity, do we have free will, and what is the self. In the hundreds of years, since Descartes formally posed this question, many theories have proposed solution to the problem. Dualism (as an umbrella term for related theories), favored by Descartes, monism (including the physical theories) and phenomenological theories have been proposed as solutions to the problem. However, none of these alone provide a satisfactory answer to the question nor resolve the problem. It is proposed here, however, that an explanation of the mind-body problem does exist. By first recognizing a linguistics problem in the way that the problem is posed and then adopting an emergent biological naturalistic approach to the problem, we find a theory, “eliminative materialism,” which is both satisfactory and that resolves the problem.
When a theory is described as “satisfactory” and “resolving” one must be careful to describe the connotations and implications of what that means. Here satisfactory is taken to mean that the theory is not perfect in all respects, however, as a whole, or along the right lines the theory is correct. Resolving is thus taken to mean that a straightforward solution is provided by the theory at hand. The previous theories proposed as solutions have their respective supporters and doubters, but they all have flaws and problems that do not make them the best candidate for solving the mind-body problem. Although the theory here may have its doubters, it provides a concrete and realistic explanation of how the mind and body relate.
The main issue or contention with the mind-body problem is not definitively how the mind and body relate, but in whatever way that they do meet, how does this affect other parts of life and person. There are many different subjects that are discussed in the philosophy of the mind, including but not limited to, death, perception, personhood, emotion, free will and the self. When adopting a certain frame of the mind-body problem, certain restraints are placed upon you in how you view and perceive these related topics. It is difficult to adopt a position and be able to defend all parts of what we often hold special as humans with just that position. The variety of theories of the mind-body problem appear to have various tradeoffs based on their strengths and weaknesses in describing the relationship at interest. The problem of the mind-body problem appears to be that as humans, we want our cake and to eat it to. This anthropocentric view of human kind as being special beings means that we want everything to work as we wish it. Man wants to consider himself special, as he is the only one to be born or possess this special characteristic of consciousness, unwilling to assign it to creatures or objects, not like himself. Most people believe that they want to be responsible for the choices that they make, that they know that other people are themselves conscious and that it is not through a serious of miracles that we live our everyday lives.
Specifically related to free will, it is generally contested that monists (who view the mind and body as arising from the same substance) follow a path which leads to determinism, which states that decisions are determined by natural laws, which would indicate that people are not free (in their decision making). Dualists on the other hand, view the mind and body as separate thus allowing for the mind to act independent of the body and thus act upon it. However, if the mind is separate from the body, and the mind only interacts with one specific body, how do we know that other people are conscious creatures like ourselves? Phenomenology on the other hand, brackets the questions that are largely at stake in the mind-body problem and instead attempts to offer an objective description of experiences. So until this point it appears when choosing a theory of the mind-body problem, one has to be mindful of the tradeoffs made in choosing a certain theory. The following theory proposes satisfactorily a resolution to the mind-body problem.
Since each attempt to answer the mind-body problem encounters substantial problems, it is of contention that perhaps there is a misunderstanding of the conceptual framework of the problem. It is perhaps not a “problem” it may be that the mind and body are the same thing, not necessarily in the ways described in monism, but in that the human experience can be described in metal and physical terms. It becomes a problem when the descriptions are used interchangeably or in the field opposite of where they should describe. This view is similar to the mind-brain identity theory in that the mind and brain are viewed as two sides of the same token. The example of sense (mental) and reference (physical) is used to describe this theory.
At this point in the theory we understand that the mental and physical are two sides to the same concept. However, it is the contention of this theory that it is the physical from which the mental emerges. Here one might confuse this point as Hasker’s middle way, “emergent dualism”, however, it is actually the inverse, “emergent materialism.” One can view the conscious from the top down or the bottom up. In the first of many analogies, a fire can be viewed from above and be seen as smoke, which is analogous to the mental states, or one can view a fire from the ground and see it as a fire, the physical. Many have heard the phase, “there is no smoke without a fire,” and in this analogy, it means that there can be no mental states without the physical. While this does not directly go back the other way, the physical does depend on the mental states which are them selves physical. By not placing the mental outside of the realm of the physical, it can be stated that the mental and physical interact. Another analogy for emergentism is that of water. When hydrogen and oxygen gases combine to form liquid water, new properties emerge that would not have been predicted from the materials that it emerged from. Thus the physical properties of the brain give rise to the mental states.
In Hasker’s middle way he decides to reject materialism, stating that materialism cannot account for a unity of consciousness if consciousness is simply neurons firing synchronously. However, in this present theory, biological materialism is fully supported. It is the view of this theory that mental phenomena are caused by neurobiological processes in the brain and that the brain is able to produce intentionality. Although the process about how this occurs is not exactly known, it should not be assumed that we will never know. McGinn states that we cannot resolve the mystery of the mind-brain problem. Although he too supports a naturalistic approach to how consciousness arises, he claims that cognitive closure does not allow us to ever fully grasp the mind-body connection (more on this later). Two propositions for how consciousness arises are proposed in the present theory. In one view, there is a specific coalition of neurons which act and fire in a specific way for stimuli both in the environment and internally. In the other view, neurons in the brain fire in synchrony and assemble to arise as a cohesive units from moment to moment while incorporating feedback from the body.
It is the argument of this essay that “emergent materialism” is a theory that is sufficient and resolves the mind-body problem. To summarize the argument of the theory, one should be reminded of the three parts that compose the theory. First, “emergent materialism” states that there is a linguistic problem with how the mind-body problem is stated and that from this linguistic problem arises a misunderstanding in how questions and answers are framed. Second, a materialist position is taken in this theory, meaning that it is believed that the mind arises from the physical brain. This point leads to the last point of the theory. The actions that produce the mind, produce an emergent property of the mind which is different from the properties which are actually creating the mind. The mind and its emergent properties then feedback and affect the properties and materials that give rise to it.
Any time that a new theory is proposed in any realm, it is often met with skepticism, and it will be the point of the rest of the essay to explain how this theory is better than the other theories of mind and also how it satisfactorily resolves the mind-body problem. When considering the other theories of mind, the author first rejects the notion of any theory that has dualist notions. Dualism fails to resolve the problem because its answer is fielded in an area which can neither be confirmed nor rejected. By placing the possibilities of an answer outside of the physical realm, where measurements and observations cannot be made, we can neither confirm nor deny the correctness of this theory. This makes the theory unsatisfactory as an explanation when its validity cannot be tested. While “eliminative materialism” takes a materialist approach to addressing the mind-body problem, it does not necessarily agree with the other materialist theories. They were insufficient in their attempts to explain the problem and also generally were met with criticism for not addressing free will. Lastly, the author will not address the phenomenological approach to the mind-body problem. This approach “brackets out” the questions at hand and instead concerns itself with the description of our experience. When the theory does not concern itself with the question at hand, the relationship of the mind and body, the author does not find as a sufficient explanation of the problem.
With the rejection of these theories, similar criticisms may be stated against “eliminative materialism,” however, the theory stands up to the criticism. Since the theory is rooted in materialism, the same criticisms of materialism should be addressed for this theory. The most common criticism of materialism is the failure to acknowledge and account for free will. The present theory addresses these through the terminology of emergentism. Since the mind emerges from the brain, and through this process of emergentism gains properties which are not of the physical properties that create the mind. It is through this creation process that the mind gains the possibility to have free will. This is now a physical explanation that is not deterministic which accounts for free will and does not use dualist notions of the physical and non-physical interacting. One other objection to the theory is that we do not know the exact methods by which the brain creates the mind. This issue is addressed by McGinn who states that we will cannot grasp how the mind and body are connected. He states that cognitive closure prevents us from ever knowing how the mind works. However, to state that we will never no something is an interesting way to address the problem. By stating that the problem exists in the physical world, we are aware that we have the tools and the knowledge to measure the necessary variables included in consciousness. While the exact way that the mind and body are connected is not yet known, it is the impression of the author that this problem will be addressed soon.
In conclusion, it is proposed that “emergent materialism” is the theory that satisfactorily resolves the mind-body problem. Where other theories are faced with various criticisms for not satisfactorily answering the question at hand nor taking into account some of the consequences of how the mind-body problem is answered, “emergent materialism” faces the criticisms and is able to account for the consequences of how it frames the answer. By placing the mind and body as two sides to the same concept, the theory is able to argue for the justification of a materialist position of how the mind arises from the brain. The debate of how free will is then dealt with is acknowledged through the use of emergentism of the mind from the brain in which new properties are created when the physical properties of the brain combine to form the mind. This theory appears to fill in the holes present in past attempts to solve the mind-body problem. While the exact properties of how the mind arises from the physical brain are not yet know, research is on the doorstep to understanding how these relate.