Sitting at the bed side of a loved one who has slipped into a coma and simply reading a story, talking about the day, or just holding hands most likely feels like a pointless and endless effort for the recovery of the vegetative patient. There can only be the glimmer of hope that maybe they can sense your presence, but there is no definitive way to know for sure if your interactions are falling on a deaf brain.

We all can make personal judgments that we are conscious right here and right now. But, making this sort of judgment for another individual when their interactions with the world are limited or apparently absent is not only challenging, but also ethically dangerous as your decision can mean life or death. But now, a new, low-cost study on the interactions of patients who are considered to be in a "minimally conscious state" (MCS) is showing a very exciting result that basic learning seems to take place in some individuals.

The type of learning is simple--the sort of classic conditioning demonstrated by Pavlov's dog who salivated at the sound of a bell. Here, a tone is sounded followed by a light air puff to the eye. This is certainly an annoyance, so a conscious observer would tend to squeeze their eyelid shut to protect the pupil. After a short time of the repeated events, patients who physically responded to the air puff and who were seemingly unconscious demonstrated the same eyelid reaction after only the sounding of the tone.

The open question is to wonder if this sort of basic learning is so fundamental that true human consciousness is not required. So, Pavlov's dog might be somewhat smart, but still not conscious. Or, if only a minimum level of consciousness is needed for basic learning (as the result of new, functional connections developing in the brain's neural network), then a simple test of a successful Pavlovian response could be an important benchmark for determining the state of a patient who cannot communicate with the world. The hope would be that if simple learning is still possible, then further recovery and improvement in the brain's responses could also be anticipated with additional therapies.

It's certainly not a clear test of consciousness, but the approach is so simple and does not carry the enormous costs of brain imaging technologies. Therefore, essentially any hospital with low-conscious patients can perform this sort of experiment, which can further develop our weak understanding of human consciousness, and to improve the successful predictions required by doctors when dealing with patients on the verge of life or unconscious death.

The notion of Free Will has been debated at least since the days of Aristotle, and the proper identification of what this human sensation really is or how it works remains far from our grasp.

However, a recent fascinating study from Angela Sirigu at CNRS Cognitive Neuroscience Centre in Bron, France was published in Science that discovers a possible bread crumb as to how our brain processes what we sense as Free Will. The research uses direct cortical stimulation in awake patients undergoing surgery to identify areas in the brain that seem to directly link to one's "desire" to move an arm or a tongue and to the actual sensation of movement... even when no actual movement of a limb occurred.

Pulling a direct connection from this work to the observation of Free Will is like pulling a magic rabbit out of a top hat. Free Will as we personally sense it is so much more than a causal relationship between one neural network in the brain telling another neural network to do something else. In fact, it seems that this very description of direct causality is the antithesis of what Free Will might be.

Free Will is more like ... well, it's more like ... Of course, if I could complete this sentence then I would be considered more brilliant than 2300+ years of human thinkers. But, it is certainly a real sensation than human beings have, which is why we've been talking about it for so long. It's a complicated sensation and one that can only emerge from a complicated computational network like our brain.

What do you think?

Sometimes it just comes to us. Sometimes we have to ponder so hard that we break a sweat. But, whatever sort of conscious considering we feel we are performing while trying to solve a problem, it might be the case that all of the real thinking work is happening elsewhere in our brain... just slightly out of reach.

Recent research from Goldsmiths' College in London and the University of Houston is trying to electrically monitor and predict the moment in a human brain when the "light bulb" turns on. And, it turns out that the light bulb might be flickering on moments before we even consciously know about it.

Our sub-conscious neural networks are working non-stop. You're likely breathing steadily while reading and you don't even realize it. (Don't think about it too hard, or you might breath out of sync!) The research suggests that this sub-conscious also works hard while we are in the process of trying to solve a complex problem, and it might be the one to figure it out before we are aware of the solution.

It almost makes it seem like our consciousness is working hard not at trying to solve the problem at hand, but rather at trying to access the solution from the depths of our brain. Or, maybe the conscious brain is indirectly guiding or monitoring the unconscious efforts while it's busy cranking away at the numbers... like a nosy boss who is pushing the office assistant to finish the daily reports before tee-time.

However, experimental evidence that might possibly point to this notion of a top-level system controlling a lower-level "ghost" does bring back those old-age ideas--now considered to be bollocks--of the homunculus of the mind where there is a separate entity or function that is the real brain behind the brain. So, how many personalities do you have, now?

Nicholas Humphrey posted this thought-provoking article nearly a year ago on Seed Magazine, and although it initially sounds a little out-of-whack, and too flippant for real scientific consideration, after a second thought it does pose a potentially useful thesis and alternative viewpoint (which are certainly needed right now!) for how to approach the understanding of our conscious experience.

As human beings we all experience some form of "magical mystery" in our brains. It's absolutely not clear what it is, how it is formed, or why it's there, but there does seem to be something. Neuroscience would love to provide a thorough explanation of the "NCC"--the neural correlate of consciousness--but the notion of consciousness still seems to be buried deep in the confines of philosophical reasoning and a wide variety of non-specific, generalized notions of mental states and "qualia."

But, it does seem interesting to ask the question: maybe the magic coming from our brain isn't really magical at all. Maybe there really isn't a specific physical correlate to what we consider the conscious experience, but it is rather only an illusion, of sorts, that we somehow sense only as a perception from some as-of-yet unexplainable result of the high level of complexity in our brain's system.

Remember, the neuron networks comprising your brain is unbelievably complex. There is a structure to the system, but we really have no idea as to the nature of the structure and how this can affect the functioning of the system. We know so much about stars and galaxies billions of light years away, but there is so much still unknown about the closest physical structure to ourselves.

Understanding the nature of consciousness--and if there is even any nature of sorts to understand!--is critically important for neurotechnological developments in the long term. In particular, how will integrated neuron devices affect our perceptions, conscious reasoning, emotions, and overall network function in our brain? If we plug in a few neurons into the back of our heads, will the front of our heads flip out? We really have no idea at this point, and we barely have the ability to write down the best questions to ask to even begin addressing the issue.

Finally, Mr. Humphrey proposes a final idea that suggests that even if a physical nature of consciousness is only a perceived illusion, it is still an experienced illusion that we all have and this could have developed as an evolutionary advantage for our species. Consider the notion that you actually enjoy living life because you sense consciousness; that you might even feel that life is worth living because you sense consciousness. If consciousness is an illusion of a vastly complex neural network, it might have been the key evolutionary survival skill required to insure that our species actually wanted to keep on keeping on when times got rough.

Even if you think these considerations are entirely incorrect, it is certainly still an important approach to cracking consciousness and must be addressed and entertained. We have a long way to go to empirically understand our conscious selves, and we need to work through all of the questions that might be put on the table...

Avoiding the notion of an "homunculus" in the brain ... or any single, overlord power that controls the function and decisions of the brain has been a deeply embedded faux pas in the neuroscience and neurophilosophy circles for many decades.

After years of trying to be accepted into a peer-reviewed journal, Prof. Asim Roy of Arizona State University will have his day in the sun. Using established ideas from the "connectionist" model of the brain--where information and control processing is considered to be distributed and non-local--he actually claims to proves that a hierarchical system exists in brain function.

One potential realization of this hypothesis (because we cannot call any idea related to brain function a theory, yet!) is that if Prof. Roy's ideas are correct, then the brain may in fact work more like conventional computer artificial intelligence systems of today, which have countless rules pre-programmed in the code to provide the resulting behavior of the AI software or machine. If this is the case, then we may only need a sufficiently large enough processor chip to emulate true human brain behavior and the Singularity Event might come sooner than expected.

Although Neuron News carries a strong bias against the notion that the human brain is locally-controlled (even though it feels like we have a conscious single controller sitting in our heads), these alternative ideas are still important to progress with advances in understanding brain function. Are we at a road-block? We need to somehow break-through our limited ability to grasp the essentially higher-dimensionality of complex networks, and it's going to take one exciting "ah-ha!" moment to get there... so let us know if you have one.

Neuron News has been on a bit of break since mid-September, and we will be trying to roll out more activity in the near future as best as possible. This break was initially due to a brief return to the theater with a role in a local production of Glenngary Glenn Ross by David Mamet at the Hoogland Center for the Arts in Springfield, Illinois.

Now, our family is getting very close to welcoming in our latest addition, Andrew, who will be due anytime from now until early December. So, we are quite busy taking care of the "nest" and making sure Mommy is taken care of as best as possible.

One rather interesting experience I enjoyed with our first child, Elizabeth, was watching her brain develop from the first cry in the hospital room to my first observation of an inkling of a consciousness. This observation was certainly un-scientific, but there was just something... something noticeable in the way her eyes became a little more focused; there was something behind those eyes that didn't seem to be there yesterday.

I hope to document these observations with Andrew--which I'm sure will be quite subjective--with his development from little living blob of cells to something more; something with a brain that has developed beyond simply pumping blood and expanding and contracting lungs. I do believe that a baby is born without a sophisticated "consciousness," whatever that might really mean as we still have no scientific understanding of our notion of sentient beings. But, there is a transition. A transition from non-thinking to thinking; from basic biological mechanics to ... something more.

I is a profound and amazing process, and I can't wait to witness this transition once again.

No one understands how our brains work.

But, there are certainly a lot of people trying to figure it out, and this author at Neuron News is certainly swimming in this ocean of many fish.

Here we reference a new list of published books that take another stab a cracking the code of the miraculous human mind. Brief reviews are written for each book, and Neuron News is neither subscribing to nor endorsing any particular approach... however, nearly any viewpoint on the brain is worth a look-see when one has no honest clue about what is really going on (and no one can honestly say that they have a fundamental grasp of brain function... we are just not there, yet.)

In the near future, Neuron News will likely plan on picking up a copy of A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination by Gerald M. Edelman and Giulio Tononi, so we will certainly let you know what we think. But, in the mean time please feel free to browse the collection and reviews, and let Neuron News know what you think by posting comments here in the journal.

So, the science we are looking at here is a little "iffy" -- to be polite about it -- but, since we don't know everything about the brain quite yet, we really do have to keep our minds open to new ways of approaching ridiculously complicated problems. (To impart a bit of experienced wisdom, if I may: even if a method of thinking is crazy and entirely incorrect, it can certainly still lead to new and original brainstorms into potentially correct paths of inquiry!)

Slate Magazine covered a brain science "year in review" in 2007, and one interesting feature looked at neurotheology. (Yes, this is a little bit of old news now, but we're still catching up!) No matter what you believe, human beings of all faiths and background really do have some sort of "spiritual" experience that is real in the sense that we can personally feel it happening if and when it does happen. This "feeling" certainly doesn't prove that a Caucasian older gentleman with a long white beard sits up in a puffy white cloud watching over our every thought and motion, but it also doesn't mean there isn't something, evening if it's not supernatural. It might be an illusion, but it is still something to understand.

So why not directly measure brain activity of those of us homo sapiens who have excessive spiritual feelings and see if there is anything different from those of us who don't have similar experiences--or, those of us who inadvertently repress. It's all in our heads... the complex neural network in our brain is everything, and maybe it's also god... or maybe it's the most amazing connection to the "real" god that is still beyond our comprehension. Even if the science is a little loosy-goosy at this point, religion is certainly an experience of human beings, which means it is a direct experience of our brains, which means our neurons have a whole lot to do with religion.

"God Is in the Dendrites" :: Slate April 26, 2007
[ Read the Article ]

So, if these brain-chips are tinkering around with our neurons, it might be important to understand how that will affect our brain function on the whole, in particular our consciousness.

Christof Koch, at CalTech, and Nobel Laureate Francis Crick, at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and whose name is famously tagged with the double helix structure of DNA, have been working on the problem of how brain cells make us conscious for many years. This article briefly outlines their current set of ideas on the issue of the "neural correlate of consciousness" and suggests that we have cut-throat politicking going on up in our heads.

[ Read the article from Billings Gazette ]

[ Visit the Koch Lab ]

Very few humans are comfortable with the notion of dying, even those who strongly believe in the here-after (although they might not admit it). Science is still learning a great deal about how the body dies, but there are few forays into what happens after the body eternally falls asleep.

Pim van Lommel and colleagues from the Netherlands published an article in The Lancet, a British medical journal, where they describe a study on near-death experiences. They interviewed 344 revived cardiac arrest patients regarding their recent brush with death, and 18% reported some memory of an experience. Their research approach attempts to obtain more accurate accounts without relying on long-term memories.

Of course, any scientific claim regarding after-death experiences are susceptible to many potential problems and critiques, like the occurrence of false memories or the unconscious brain misinterpreting activity from its environment. The Washington Post article below does a nice job of putting the research in perspective, so you should definitely read it carefully.

Wouldn't it be nice, though, to know what will really happen to us after we close our eyes for the final time? What do you think?

[Read commentary from a reasonable skeptic in The Lancet]

If you really want to read about this to form your own opinions, read the published article: Pim van Lommel, et al., "Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands" The Lancet 358, 9298 (2001)

NOTE: I have not read this article completely, but will report back when I do for more commentary and perspective right here on Neuron News.

(NOTE: This research has not yet been published in a refereed, scientific journal. We will keep our eye out for it, and report back here when it does appear. However, BBC News and Discover Magazine have recently reported on their work.)

The motivation for this approach comes from savants, who are individuals with some developmental disorder, like autism, but also portray extraordinary artistic or mathematical skills. Somehow the brains of these special people are over-compensating for other developmental problems, allowing three-year-old autistic children to sketch stunningly realistic scenes.

Professor Snyder has apparently demonstrated that their magnetic device can improve a person's drawing skills within minutes. This is a very tantalizing and interesting idea. We should wait for the journal article to appear...

In the meantime, if you want to tap into your unconscious and creative self, why not try developing your lucid dreaming skills? This technique is still a little less scientific than we prefer to be here at DPRI, but lucidity can at least be a great experience!

[Read the article from Discover Magazine]

This article from the Washington Post summarizes a few of the current opinions in consciousness studies.

Most philosophers and scientists today firmly believe that a little controller sitting somewhere in your head directing conscious activities does not exist, as René Descartes purported in the 17th century. Consciousness somehow arises from, as is quoted here, "highly organized brain chemistry". This is somewhat understated, however, because your consciousness certainly is the result of a "highly organized" system, but there's more than just chemistry.

A few major players in consciousness thinking are quoted. Their ideas for the origins of consciousness cover the gamut from "mundane" mechanisms or it's a fundamental property of the Universe, like gravity, to the idea that consciousness is only an illusion.

Consider each carefully. You must keep in mind that your brain is a very complex system and no one yet knows the power of billions of interconnected neurons.

However, there's more to this picture: you also are understanding these words, which allows you to form your own impressions, biases, and conclusions. You will make a decision based on your personal interests and history whether or not to click on the links below. And, you will consider if you will ever return to this web site.

This example just touches the surface of the extended functions and capabilities of your brain above and beyond the more rudimentary tasks of maintaining your heart beat and breathing cycles. We often attribute these "extra" amazing properties, including your personal awareness of yourself ("I think therefore I am!"), to your consciousness.

But, what is your consciousness? Where is it located in your brain, if anywhere? How does is come to be? Does a separate consciousness even exist outside the context of your brain's neuron networks?

These very difficult questions have been debated since, well, since man become conscious!

Although it's not a first for today's scientists, Johnjoe McFadden is presenting another hypothesis for a physical correlate of consciousness. His idea centers on how electromagnetic fields resulting from synchronous electrical activity between neurons somehow feeds back to the neurons to enhance or alter their communication.

I am currently reviewing McFadden's paper and will report back once I've finished. After my initial skim I did not see any equations, graphs, or illustrative examples of computational or experimental work. This greatly concerns me as to how far McFadden's "theory" (as he claims) has moved beyond more than just a thought he came up with while singing in the shower.