Rudy Garns's Library tagged neurons →  View Popular, Search in Google

"The idea that these particular cells might underlie a fundamental human impulse reflects the emergence of a new scientific myth. Like a traditional myth, it captures intuitions about the human condition through vivid metaphors. This isn't the first time that popular science has merged with the popular imagination. In the 1960s, for example, pioneering work on "split-brain" patients revealed real functional differences between the two cerebral hemispheres—an idea that quickly became a metaphor for ancient intuitions about reason and passion."

mirror-neurons neurons

"When a monkey watches a researcher bring an object—an ice cream cone, for example— to his mouth, the same brain neurons fire as when the monkey brings a peanut to its own mouth. In the early 1990's, Italian researchers discovered this phenomenon and named the cells "mirror neurons.""

mirror-neurons neurons

mirror-neurons neurons

"Thus, premotor mirror neuron areas—areas active during the execution and the observation of an action—previously thought to be involved only in action recognition are actually also involved in understanding the intentions of others. To ascribe an intention is to infer a forthcoming new goal, and this is an operation that the motor system does automatically."

mirror-neurons neurons

"An idea that would be "dangerous if true" is what Francis Crick referred to as "the astonishing hypothesis"; the notion that our conscious experience and sense of self is based entirely on the activity of a hundred billion bits of jelly — the neurons that constitute the brain. We take this for granted in these enlightened times but even so it never ceases to amaze me.
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mirror-neurons neurons ramachandran brain

"Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist at the University of California at Los Angeles​, is best known for his work on mirror neurons, a small circuit of cells in the premotor cortex and inferior parietal cortex. What makes these cells so interesting is that they are activated both when we perform a certain action—such as smiling or reaching for a cup—and when we observe someone else performing that same action. In other words, they collapse the distinction between seeing and doing. In recent years, Iacoboni has shown that mirror neurons may be an important element of social cognition and that defects in the mirror neuron system may underlie a variety of mental disorders, such as autism."

mirror-neurons neurons

"The cells are a special type of "mirror neurons," which are thought to aid understanding of the actions and intentions of others. Mirror neurons fire both when you do something, like grab a bottle of wine, and when you watch another person do the same thing. Instead of carrying out a step-by-step reasoning process to figure out why a friend is grabbing a bottle of wine, we instantly understand what’s going on inside his head because it’s going on in our heads too. "

mirror-neurons neurons

mirror-neurons neurons Brain

"Mirror neurons fire both when we perform an action and when we see someone else doing it. The theory is that by simulating action even when watching an act, the neurons allow us to recognise and understand other people's actions and intentions.

However, Alfonso Caramazza at Harvard University and colleagues say their research suggests this theory is flawed."

mirror-neurons neurons Brain

"The Other Brain makes an excellent case that neuroscience can't remain neuron-science if it hopes to answer the big questions. It's certainly opened my eyes to the importance of glia and given me ideas for my own research. As such it's one of those rare popular science books that will prove interesting to professionals and others too."

brain glia neurons

"This mystery mechanism of human transformation is neuronal recycling, coined by neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene, wherein the brain’s innate capabilities are harnessed for altogether novel functions."

brain evolution neurons

" This applet demonstrates a McCullogh-Pitts neuron. "

neurons mcculloch-pitts MBN

"The original MCP Neurons had limitations. Additional features were added which allowed them to "learn." The next major development in neural networks was the concept of a perceptron which was introduced by Frank Rosenblatt in 1958. Essentially the perceptron is an MCP neuron where the inputs are first passed through some "preprocessors," which are called association units. These association units detect the presence of certain specific features in the inputs. In fact, as the name suggests, a perceptron was intended to be a pattern recognition device, and the association units correspond to feature or pattern detectors. "

neurons mcculloch-pitts MBN

neurons MBN

Randy Gallistel and Adam King in their book Memory and the Computational Brain: Why Cognitive Science Will Transform Neuroscience, claim that addressable memory architecture is necessary to explain complex animal behaviour such as food caching by Scrub Jays or even the human capacity to recollect and reconsider prior beliefs.

Their view is contrasted with non-addressable architecture in contemporary neuroscience. Traditional neural networks suppose that computations in neural tissue are implemented by relaying action potentials between neurons. Gallistel and King argue that the implementation must be sought elsewhere. They offer two neurobiological suggestions of where to look, 1) subcellular, e.g. dendritic spines and 2) molecular, something like re-writable DNA & RNA. Philosophy of Memory

philosophy memory neurons grue cogsci

During the development of the brain, young neurones need to form connections with other cells. But equally important, they need to avoid making connections with themselves.

neuroskeptic neurons cogsci brains neuroscience

Modern neuroscience rests on the assumption that our thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and behaviors emerge from electrical and chemical communication between brain cells: that whenever we recognize a face, read the newspaper, throw a ball, engage in a conversation, or recall a moment in childhood, a pattern of activity in our neurons makes such feats possible. It's a tenet of modern biology that sparks fascination--and disbelief. How can a tangle of cells produce the complexity and subtlety of a mind? | Harvard Magazine May-June 2009

neuroscience brain neurons cogsci

"In the study, Prof. Fried observed the neural activity in the brains of 13 epilepsy patients, as the patients watched clips from TV shows like Seinfeld and The Simpsons. A short while after, the test subjects were asked to describe what they remembered from the video clips. During recall, the exact same neurons that had fired while viewing a clip fired once again while the subject was recalling it. Soon, the researchers were able to predict what clip the subjects would recall just by looking at the neurons that lit up seconds before the recall experience was vocalized."

neurons brains memory

"Cdk5 therefore appears to be crucial only for later stages of the maturation of newborn neurons. The authors suggest that the improper connections formed by these cells could interfere with information processing in the hippocampus. However, they did not carry out any behavioural tests to explore the consequences of blocking cdk5 activity. This would be an interesting thing to do next, given the recent discovery that new neurons are needed for new memories. Nevertheless, the new findings could have important implications for the use of stem cells in cell replacement therapies for neurological diseases, as they suggest that cells would have to be transplanted accurately into specific locations in order to be effective. " (Neurophilosophy)

neurophilosophy neurogenesis brains neurons

If I were a sociologist of science, I would jump on mirror neurons - they are the perfect object if you want to study a scientific controversy today.

neurons mirror-neurons brains