On Jul 22, 2015, at 10:18 PM, Bernard Baars wrote: OK, here's where it gets interesting, Jan. I like what your animation shows - it's crucial to convey some of the basic ideas to a wider group of scientists.  I think you (not me) might be able to build on the Izhikevich-Edelman animation of oscillatory signaling in cortex. It seems that this is where the cortex actually does things. It has real biological and psychological functions.  Edelman's closest co-worker, Joe Gally, used to say that in cortex, "every point A links with point B, AND every point B links with point A." That's the bidirectional wiring that starts as soon as any sensory system gets to the thalamus and cortex.  Obviously, two-way excitatory looping would quickly run out of control, so the wiring can't really be A>B AND B>A, but a modified version of that. In actual fact, Joe's line should have been "in cortex and thalamus, every point A goes to point B , and every point B goes to point A ". Layers I-IV accept input from many different sources, while layers V-VI express axons going to many destinations.  In a more complete description we should say that it's cortical columns A and B (each six layers) in different parts of cortex that are reentrantly signaling each other, presumably regulated by many small inhibitory interneurons. We can record that directly in the cortex of epileptic patients studied by Crone, Canolty, I Fried, Moran Cerf, etc.  We are also talking about spatiotopical column arrays, not single points. V1 is about 1000x1000, echoing the visual thalamus, and before that, the foveal high-density receptor array of the retina. The spatiotopical arrays have labeled-line linking, so that neuron (100,200) in the retinal array corresponds to (100,200) in the visual thalamus (called LGN), and the same thing in V1.  Visual cortex has 40+ visuotopical feature maps, starting with dense, high resolution arrays, like pixels, and going to more abstract but lower-density arrays to represent objects, events and scenes. Corresponding cells in all these topographical arrays can signal each other to create resonance.  Each neuron can be treated as an oscillator loosely linked to other oscillators. (Eugene Izhikevich). All excitatory neurons are surrounded by small inhibitory interneurons, which help to keep the system from going out of control. Together, excitatory and inhibitory cells generate population oscillations, measured by local field potentials.  Now comes the good part. If you would read starting on page six, top of the page, of the Baars, Franklin & Ramsoy (2013) paper, you'll get a good sense of mesoscopic and macroscopic emergent events that have been observed. These larger-scale events emerge from the micro-level reentrant circuits described above.  Izhikevich & Edelman (2008) have a neat animation showing these emergents, including "surf-like" turbulence, standing and traveling waves, spiral vortices, "tornadoes" and "hurricanes" (Freeman's words), centrifugal propagation, phase coupling and decoupling, nonlinear microstates with hemisphere-wide phase transitions, etc.  In some cases we know the functions of these  phenomena. In most cases we don't. We know that spatiotopical arrays in different parts of cortex can oscillate together, or more generally, they can phase-link and de-link. Different frequency bands seem to have different functions. Theta, alpha, and delta bands seem to be carrier frequencies for faster beta and gamma activity. Theta is strongly associated with hippocampal "broadcasting" of new experiential traces to the neocortex, with motor control, and with immediate memory. All those frequency bands add together into complex waveforms. Fourier analysis brings out the frequency distributions for each patch of cortex. Hilbert analysis gives us the spatial organization over large parts of Layer I, if we believe Walter Freeman.  There are two ways to illustrate that kind of complexity. One of them is to show an animation like the Izhikevich-Edelman example. It's excellent, but the result is somewhat impressionistic. All the micro-level neuronal activity comes from factual studies in various species. All the meso and macro-level phenomena are emergent - they were not programmed in. The I-E model doesn't do anything functional, except go into epileptic seizures when you get positive feedback loops. But it's still very useful for teaching, etc.  Since cortex is essentially a flat sheet, the IE animation could be shown on an unfolded cortex. That way you might be able to see various wave phenomena more clearly. An animation could also be used to take a tour of oscillatory phenomena, with closeups and more distant overviews, illustrating various points, in much the way NOVA or Life on Earth would show oceans from a long distance and then do a close-up of marine life in the shallows. This could be the reverse of the I-E strategy, which starts with micro-level activity and shows meso- and macro as emergents. We could start with these mysterious macro things, and show how it might emerge from neurons.  I think that audiences would learn a lot by seeing how the different levels are believed to lead to each other, much like the old "orders of ten" movie.  AND we could show a few ways in which global signal propagation might happen.  b -- Bernard J Baars, PhD CEO Society for Mind-Brain Sciences A nonprofit corporation.  www.MBScience.org bernard.baars@mbscience.org Google Voice phone:  925-283-2601 Scientific affiliations:  The Neurosciences Institute San Diego, Calif. 92121 The Krasnow Institute George Mason University Cognitive Computing Research Group University of Memphis  http://www.nsi.edu/users/baars     See Wikipedia and my publications archive      Textbooks:  Baars & Gage (2012) FUNDAMENTALS OF COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE: A Beginner's Guide. Elsevier/AP.  Baars & Gage (2010) COGNITION, BRAIN AND CONSCIOUSNESS: An Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience. 2010. Elsevier/AP.  (2nd Edition).                www.baars-gage.com