In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ideas in the Brain: The Localization of Memory Traces in the Eighteenth CenturyTimo KaitaroPlato suggests in the Theaetetus that we imagine a piece of wax in our soul, a gift from the goddess of Memory. We are able to remember things when our perceptions or thoughts imprint a trace upon this piece of wax, in the same manner as a seal is stamped on wax. Plato (...) uses this metaphor to explain the errors which arise when we mistake something for something else: we connect the perception of an object with the trace belonging to another. The metaphor can also be used in explaining differences in people’s mnestic capacities: rapid learning and forgetting correspond to soft wax, impure wax results in muddled traces, etc.1 If we locate the traces in the brain instead of in the soul, Plato’s metaphor gains consistency and turns into a testable hypothesis. This move was already made by Quintilian.2So, the metaphor of memory as traces in the brain is evidently not a modern invention. This is easy to understand. To frame the hypothesis one needs only to reflect on how we use objects outside our brains for mnemonic purposes. We conserve ideas by tracing or printing letters and words on paper. We are also able to conserve images in drawings, paintings and prints. What could be more natural than to think of memory as the formation of traces in the brain? The development of even better information storage techniques in the form of pictures, symbols, and signs provides the metaphor extra plausibility. Plato’s seal allows us to imagine the imprint of a person’s likeness, but modern techniques of information storage and retrieval make it even easier to imagine memory in general as the formation of material traces.Explaining memory in terms of material traces could, of course, be taken [End Page 301] to mean that the formation of material traces in the brain is merely a necessary condition of memory. But one could also take a more reductionistic stance which identifies memory with the formation of material traces. Furthermore, one could identify specific mental items (sensations, ideas, memories) with specific physiological events or anatomical entities in the brain. This seems especially plausible if we imagine that the traces in the brain are as discrete and separate as ideas or memories are in our minds. Since the traces we form or print on paper consist of discrete letters and words, the thought that the traces in the brain are equally discrete and separate comes easily. Plato, in fact, made separateness a condition for the memory to work properly: it is not easy to read signs printed on one another.3 Of course, no traces are actually visible in the brain. But they are easy to imagine, as it is to imagine explanations of psychological phenomena, such as association, based on these traces.At the end of the seventeenth century, explanations of mental phenomena referring to material traces in the brain were used by writers, from Platonists to materialists, who supported widely different theories about the nature of the human mind.4 In fact, as I will show later in this paper, the question of the possible identity of mental entities, like ideas or sensations, with material entities or traces in the brain is relatively independent of the question of the existence of an immaterial soul. Or rather, if there is a systematic connection between the answers proposed to these two questions in the eighteenth century, it is not the connection one would expect. Nowadays we often tend to think of a prototypical materialist as someone who makes radical reductionistic claims about the identity of mental phenomena with brain states. We also tend to think of the eighteenth-century French materialists as “mechanistic.”5 In view of this reputation, it may come as a surprise to find that some eighteenth-century materialists, notably Denis Diderot, were in fact consistent anti-reductionists and opposed to mechanical or mechanistic explanations of the mental.6 In fact, the epithet “mechanistic” is misleading even when applied to the philosopher who is traditionally presented as the paradigmatic example of a “mechanistic materialist,” Julien Offray... (shrink)

True to his longstanding bias against grand unifying theories, Hacking chooses to pursue these questions by focusing on a specific case of memory-thinking: the history of multiple personality. His excavation of the contemporary terrain leads him, however, to the surprisingly grand conclusion that the various sciences of memory—including neurological studies of localization, experimental studies of recall, and studies in the psychodynamics of memory—all emerged in connection with attempts to “scientize the soul,” as a result of which (...) spiritual battles have been recast as scientific controversies “where we suppose there is such a thing as knowledge to be had”. (shrink)

This paper samples the large body of neuroscientific evidence suggesting that each mental function takes place within specific neural structures. For instance, vision appears to occur in the visual cortex, motor control in the motor cortex, spatial memory in the hippocampus, and cognitive control in the prefrontal cortex. Evidence comes from neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neurochemistry, brain stimulation, neuroimaging, lesion studies, and behavioral genetics. If mental functions take place within neural structures, mental functions cannot survive brain death. Therefore, there is no (...) mental life after brain death. -/- 1. The Neural Localization of Mental Functions - 1.1 Perception and Motor Control - 1.2 Memory - 1.3 Emotion - 1.4 Language - 1.5 Thinking - 1.6 Attention and Consciousness - 1.7 Spirituality -- 2. Objections - 2.1 Linguistic Dualism - 2.2 Mere Correlation - 2.3 Neural Plasticity - 2.4 Intentionality - 2.5 Phenomenal Consciousness - 2.6 Subjectivity - 2.7 Self-Knowledge - 2.8 Free Will - 2.9 Are We Just Indulging in Physicalistic Wishful Thinking? -- 3. Conclusion -- Appendix: Physicalism and the Afterlife. (shrink)

The article aims to concretize the phenomenological account concerning the problem of an auditory image. The author considers auditory imagery as a scientific object and compares different treatments of the problem to fix the potential and advantages of its phenomenological interpretation. In the first stage of the study, the author distinguishes the key characteristics of the image by means the lexical analysis. This is the perceptual (predominantly visual) nature of an image, integrality, and essentiality (image as an idea). In the (...) second stage, the understandings of the mental and auditory imagery in physiology, experimental psychology, music psychology, musicology, and interdisciplinary studies are described. In the third stage, the peculiar phenomenological ways of the comprehension of an auditory image are revealed. The phenomenological interest is to pick out consciousness which perceiving of an image equally from the process of perceiving and from entailing in an image. The specific phenomenological stance is placing an auditory image on the bound of transcendent (the process of perceiving) and immanent (an image that is already perceived). The auditory image is conceived as the unity of Modi of its givenness. Most fecks of this Modi are original, they cannot be transferred into other science scopes: they are the interconnection of all moments of the temporal unfolding, self-organization in the time, self-referentiality, non-semanticity, periodicity/randomness, eventuality, quasi-embodiment (physicality). Solely phenomenological problems are problems of the constitution of an auditory image, its life-horizon, intersubjectivity, and regional matching. The author infers that phenomenology does not conceive auditory image as sustained auditory representation, associated with acoustic memory. Its perceptual nature does not play a key role here. Moreover, the perceptual-semantic duality of the image is not fixed by the phenomenological description. The phenomenological approach is unique because it researches auditory data exhaustively but does not use semantic and referential analysis of them. The main feature of phenomenological description is the focus on the unity of auditory image: All the elements of auditory data are interpreted in their synthesis as the different levels of the unity of hearing image. Thus, the phenomenological approach as a whole is the most promising for comprehending such a dominant quality of the auditory image as integrality. (shrink)

Some theorists who emphasize the complexity of biological and cognitive systems and who advocate the employment of the tools of dynamical systems theory in explaining them construe complexity and reduction as exclusive alternatives. This paper argues that reduction, an approach to explanation that decomposes complex activities and localizes the components within the complex system, is not only compatible with an emphasis on complexity, but provides the foundation for dynamical analysis. Explanation via decomposition and localization is nonetheless extremely challenging, and (...) an analysis of recent cognitive neuroscience research on memory is used to illustrate what is involved. Memory researchers split between advocating memory systems and advocating memory processes, and I argue that it is the latter approach that provides the critical sort of decomposition and localization for explaining memory. The challenges of linking distinguishable functions with brain processes is illustrated by two examples: competing hypotheses about the contribution of the hippocampus and competing attempts to link areas in frontal cortex with memory processing. (shrink)

In this paper I explore how early modern Italian Aristotelians understood Aristotle’s De memoria by focusing on three key-points of Aristotle’s theory of memory and recollection: the localization of memory in the perceptual part of the soul; the characterisation of phantasia and its association with the notions of koinē aisthēsis and prōton aisthētikon; the definition of recollection as “a kind of syllogism” and its account as an activity that implies the faculty of deliberating and is therefore restricted (...) to humans. My aim is to show the interactions as well as the tensions between natural philosophical and medical theories in reading and interpreting Aristotle’s Parva naturalia in the Italian milieu. (shrink)

Rationale: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the hippocampus is proposed for enhancement of memory impaired by injury or disease. Many pre-clinical DBS paradigms can be addressed in epilepsy patients undergoing intracranial monitoring for seizure localization, since they already have electrodes implanted in brain areas of interest. Even though epilepsy is usually not a memory disorder targeted by DBS, the studies can nevertheless model other memory-impacting disorders, such as Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Methods: Human patients undergoing Phase (...) II invasive monitoring for intractable epilepsy were implanted with depth electrodes capable of recording neurophysiological signals. Subjects performed a delayed-match-to-sample (DMS) memory task while hippocampal ensembles from CA1 and CA3 cell layers were recorded to estimate a multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) model of CA3-to-CA1 neural encoding and a memory decoding model (MDM) to decode memory information from CA3 and CA1 neuronal signals. After model estimation, subjects again performed the DMS task while either MIMO-based or MDM-based patterned stimulation was delivered to CA1 electrode sites during the encoding phase of the DMS trials. Each subject was sorted (post hoc) by prior experience of repeated and/or mild-to-moderate brain injury (RMBI), TBI, or no history (control) and scored for percentage successful delayed recognition (DR) recall on stimulated vs. non-stimulated DMS trials. The subject’s medical history was unknown to the experimenters until after individual subject memory retention results were scored. Results: When examined compared to control subjects, both TBI and RMBI subjects showed increased memory retention in response to both MIMO and MDM-based hippocampal stimulation. Furthermore, effects of stimulation were also greater in subjects who were evaluated as having pre-existing mild-to-moderate memory impairment. Conclusion: These results show that hippocampal stimulation for memory facilitation was more beneficial for subjects who had previously suffered a brain injury (other than epilepsy), compared to control (epilepsy) subjects who had not suffered a brain injury. This study demonstrates that the epilepsy/intracranial recording model can be extended to test the ability of DBS to restore memory function in subjects who previously suffered a brain injury other than epilepsy, and support further investigation into the beneficial effect of DBS in TBI patients. (shrink)

The subject of our article is the identification of cultural codes of Eastern European shtetl towns in the play by Grigory Gorin "Memorial Prayer", the libretto of which was written by the author based on the works of the famous Yiddish writer Sholom Aleichem. The author of the article describes the history and conditions of localization of Jewish culture in Eastern Europe and the Russian Empire, the peculiarities of its transformation, the tragic history of the Jewish theater in the (...) first third of the twentieth century. After the disappearance of the towns and the disuse of the Yiddish language, the preservation of the history of the characteristic everyday and philosophical way of life of the shtetls became the goal of museum figures, historians, writers, playwrights, and artists. In the work, using the example of Tevye the milkman, his family and environment, characteristic images of the inhabitants of small towns, their habitat, types of thinking and actions are revealed. The article uses the methods of historicism in the retrospective of the culture of Shtetl towns, the method of analysis in the identification of Shtetl archetypes, the method of synthesis in the generalization of a set of characteristic cultural codes. The main conclusions of the study are: 1. Eastern European Jewish shtetl towns are small urban-type settlements with a predominantly Jewish population, whose unique culture was determined by the Jewish faith, everyday and religious traditions, the Yiddish language, as well as the localization of residence in a small area. 2. During the period of large-scale social upheavals of the early twentieth century and the subsequent expansion beyond the boundaries of the towns, their unique culture became a mythologeme, the foundation for writers, artists, musicians, and theater figures who emerged from it. One of the milestones in the preservation of this culture was the Jewish theater GOSET, whose existence was tragically cut short in the middle of the twentieth century. 3. The play "Memorial Prayer", written by Grigory Gorin based on the works of Sholem Aleichem and staged at the Lenkom Theater by Mark Zakharov, became the quintessence of the characteristic images of the shtetl, and at the same time the revival of authentic Jewish culture. The author's special contribution is to highlight in the play the images-the archetypes of the Shtetl, which have become cultural markers, or codes of Jewish Yiddish culture. (shrink)

The emphasis placed by H. Atlan, like G. Bateson, on the reception of messages during communication between subsystems leads to a conception of learning, and more generally of human memory, surprisingly close to that proposed by I. Rosenfield on the basis of the work of G. M. Edelman. The authors stressed the close and reciprocal link between the theory of functional localization and the conception of memory, which they have just seen, radically refuted by Rosenfield. The theory (...) of functional localization therefore considers as established the existence of a whole series of rigid relationships between specific locations in the brain and certain major functions performed by the body. Thus briefly summarized, the theory of neural Darwinism provides positive evidence in favor of the Rosenfield's theory of human memory. All these characteristics make the functioning of human memory an outstanding example of the natural complexity of a self‐organized system in the sense of Atlan. (shrink)

Pathogenesis in tauopathies involves the accumulation of tau in the brain and progressive synapse loss accompanied by cognitive decline. Pathological tau is found at synapses, and it promotes synaptic dysfunction and memory deficits. The specific role of toxic tau in disrupting the molecular networks that regulate synaptic strength has been elusive. A novel mechanistic link between tau toxicity and synaptic plasticity involves the acetylation of two lysines on tau, K274, and K281, which are associated with dementia in Alzheimer's disease (...) (AD). We propose that an increase in tau acetylated on these lysines blocks the expression of long‐term potentiation at hippocampal synapses leading to impaired memory in AD. Acetylated tau could inhibit the activity‐dependent recruitment of postsynaptic AMPA‐type glutamate receptors required for plasticity by interfering with the postsynaptic localization of KIBRA, a memory‐associated protein. Strategies that reduce the acetylation of tau may lead to effective treatments for cognitive decline in AD. (shrink)

Ranging from behavioral to molecular levels of analysis, this informative study presents the results of recent research into the biochemistry and neural mechanisms of imprinting. Horn discusses some of the difficulties that researchers have encountered in analyzing the neural basis of memory and describes ways in which these difficulties have been overcome through the analysis of memories underlying habituation and imprinting. He also considers the biochemical consequences of imprinting and its cerebral localization, and examines the relationships between human (...) and animal memory. (shrink)

Treatment of diseases of the brain by drugs or surgery necessitates an understanding of its structure and functions. The philosophical neurosurgeon soon encounters difficulties when localising the abstract concepts of mind and soul within the tangible 1300-gram organ containing 100 billion neurones. Hippocrates had focused attention on the brain as the seat of the mind. The tabula rasa postulated by Aristotle cannot be localised to a particular part of the brain with the confidence that we can localise spoken speech to (...) Broca's area or the movement of limbs to the contralateral motor cortex. Galen's localisation of imagination, reasoning, judgement and memory in the cerebral ventricles collapsed once it was evident that the functional units-neurones-lay in the parenchyma of the brain. Experiences gained from accidental injuries (Phineas Gage) or temporal lobe resection (William Beecher Scoville); studies on how we see and hear and more recent data from functional magnetic resonance studies have made us aware of the extensive network of neurones in the cerebral hemispheres that subserve the functions of the mind. The soul or atman, credited with the ability to enliven the body, was located by ancient anatomists and philosophers in the lungs or heart, in the pineal gland (Descartes), and generally in the brain. When the deeper parts of the brain came within the reach of neurosurgeons, the brainstem proved exceptionally delicate and vulnerable. The concept of brain death after irreversible damage to it has made all of us aware of 'the cocktail of brain soup and spark' in the brainstem so necessary for life. If there be a soul in each of us, surely, it is enshrined here. (shrink)

In 1810, Gall and Spurzheim proposed the following diagnosis: the scant of knowledge of the cerebral substratum responsible for mental faculties must be attributed to the excessive subservience of anatomy to metaphysics. In this article, we examine this historic judgement with reference to Niels Steensen’s Discourse on the Anatomy of the Brain. By presenting the cerebral localisation “systems” of which Steensen is critical (those proposed by the “ancients”, by Thomas Willis and Descartes), we will firstly provide an overview of the (...) different conceptions of the “seat of the soul” in the seventeenth century. We will then show how, in these three cases, the correlation between a lacunar brain mapping and a spatial representation of mental faculties leads to the postulation that a particular part of the brain is the seat of memory, imagination or common sense. Finally, we will show that it was in the name of anatomical science, limited to what can be evidenced by eyewitnesses, that Steensen rejected the very principle of cerebral localisation. (shrink)

This chapter makes an introduction that focuses on the spirit of Henri Bergson's philosophy organized around his ambition to affect a transformation of life. His first major work, Time and Free Will (1888) examines the effect of a spatialized view of time come to dominate human life, infecting philosophy with a false dilemma regarding the freedom of the human will and social life with conformity. His second work, Matter and Memory (1896), examines the effects of the human condition and (...) scientism on our understanding of the relation between mind and body and the source of consciousness, memory, and dreams in neural correlates or stored in the brain, as Bergson put it when discussing what he called the problem of localization. Creative evolution (1907) rejects the closed systems of all kinds – naturalism, evolutionism, finalism, materialism, idealism – that deny the essential creativity and novelty of life. (shrink)

Visual working memory is a construct hypothesized to store a small amount of accurate perceptual information that can be brought to bear on a task. Much research concerns the construct's capacity and the precision of the information stored. Two prominent theories of VWM representation have emerged: slot-based and continuous-resource mechanisms. Prior modeling work suggests that a continuous resource that varies over trials with variable capacity and a potential to make localization errors best accounts for the empirical data. Questions (...) remain regarding the variability in VWM capacity and precision. Using a novel eye-tracking paradigm, we demonstrate that VWM facilitates search and exhibits effects of fixation frequency and recency, particularly for prior targets. Whereas slot-based memory models cannot account for the human data, a novel continuous-resource model does capture the behavioral and eye tracking data, and identifies the relevant resource as item activation. (shrink)

The article proposes systematisation and development of the discourse of the East European methodological traditions regarding application of the systematic approach as a way of subject localisation in psychological research. In particular, the author’s version of systematic localisation of psychological research subjects by means of structural and ontological visualisations has been developed. The procedure proposed for systematic localisation of the researched subject includes four subsequent stages: 1) fixation of the borders and structure of the ontological field which is being studied; (...) 2) segment analysis of the obtained structure; 3) study of specifics and contents of structural and functional ties; 4) visual mapping of genesis of the core processes. The article describes specifics of application of systematic localisation of the subject of research at the example of such researched object as personal socialisation. (shrink)

Love, fear, hope, calculus, and game shows-how do all these spring from a few delicate pounds of meat? Neurophysiologist Ian Glynn lays the foundation for answering this question in his expansive An Anatomy of Thought, but stops short of committing to one particular theory. The book is a pleasant challenge, presenting the reader with the latest research and thinking about neuroscience and how it relates to various models of consciousness. Combining the aim of a textbook with the style of a (...) popularization, it provides all the lay reader needs to know to participate in the philosophical debate that is redefining our attitudes about our minds. Drawing on the rich history of neurological case studies, Glynn picks through the building blocks of our nervous system, examines our visual and linguistic systems, and probes deeply into our higher thought processes. The stories of great scientists, like Ramon y Cajal, and famous patients, like Sperry's split-brained epileptics, illuminate the scientific issues Glynn selects as essential for understanding consciousness. Some might argue that his lengthy explorations of natural selection overemphasize evolutionary explanations of psychological phenomena, but they must also agree that evolutionary psychology has distanced itself mightily from social Darwinism in recent years and merits a reappraisal. The great consciousness debate may form the core of the 21st-century Zeitgeist; get ready for it with An Anatomy of Thought. -Rob Lightner From Publishers Weekly How do we know? What do we think? How could a philosophical problem-'the mind-body problem,' say-induce a headache? What can evolutionary theory, molecular biology, the history of medicine and experimental psychology tell us about the features of human consciousness, and (once again) how do we know? Glynn, a physician and Cambridge University professor, meticulously attempts to answer these questions and more, setting forth the results of all sorts of research relevant to our brains-from 19th-century dissections to Oliver Sacks-like case studies, work with monkeys and supercomputers, and the enduring puzzles of philosophy, which he rightly saves for near the end. After explaining evolution by natural selection and 'clearing away much dross,' Glynn lays out the experiments and theories that have shown 'how nerve cells can carry information about the body, how they can interact' and how sense organs work; demonstrates the 'mixture of parallel and hierarchical organization' in our brains and 'the striking localization of function within it'; considers where neuroscience is likely to go; and admits that, among the many fields of exciting research just ahead, 'we can be least confident of progress toward a complete, scientific explanation of our sensations and thoughts and feelings.' Other recent explaining-the-brain books have sometimes advanced simplistic, or implausibly grand, claims about the nature and features of consciousness in general. Instead, Glynn offers a patient, informative, well-laid-out researcher's-eye view of what we have learned, how we figured it out and what we still don't know about neurons, senses, feelings, brains and minds. (Apr.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal The nature of consciousness, which perennially troubles the minds of scientists and philosophers, is the subject of an ever-growing body of literature. Two of the latest entries approach the topic from different perspectives. Glynn, a professor of physiology and head of the Physiological Laboratory at Cambridge, offers a comprehensive summary of what we know about the brain-both its evolution and its mechanisms. Among the topics he covers are natural selection, molecular evolution, nerves and the nervous system, sensory perception, and the specific structures responsible for our intellect. Using the mechanisms involved in vision and speech as models, Glynn skillfully describes various neurological deficiencies that can lead to 'disordered seeing' and problems with the use of language. He carefully distinguishes what we know through experimental evidence from what we know through the observation of patients with neurological damage. He also describes some of the major theories that attempt to explain why these structures arose. While his book concentrates on the structures that make up the mind, Glynn is well aware that some physical events appear explicable only in terms of conscious mental events-a situation that conflicts with the laws of modern physics. Only briefly, however, does he consider the various approaches that have been taken to deal with the issues of mind/body and free will. In contrast, this is the primary focus of The Physics of Consciousness. After reviewing the fundamentals of classic physics, Walker (who has a Ph.D. in physics) summarizes elements of the new physics in which our knowledge of space, time, matter, and energy are all dependent on the moment of observation. Walker explores the meaning of consciousness as a characteristic of the observer. In this context both the observer and the act of measurement are critical. In essence, Walker leads his reader on a journey through his concept of a 'quantum mind,' which can both affect matter (including other minds) and can be affected by other distant matter/minds. To break up what would otherwise be an extremely dense text, Walker also relates the very touching story of the loss of his high-school sweetheart to leukemia. Indeed, it is his memory of their relationship that drives Walker to seek an understanding of ultimate reality. At times, he has a tendency to be dogmatic-as when he concludes, 'our consciousness, our mind, and the will of God are the same mind.' While An Anatomy of Thought is appropriate for most academic libraries, the Physics of Consciousness will be most accessible to readers with some knowledge of advanced physics. -Laurie Bartolini, Illinois State Lib., Springfield Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist The codiscoverers of natural selection-Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace-disagreed over the possibility of finding an evolutionary explanation for the human mind. Glynn here argues Darwin's side of the debate, tracing an eons-long path of development starting from simple amino acids floating in primal seas and extending through the erect hominids in which the powers of a massive brain first manifest themselves. Patiently adducing evidence of an evolutionary origin for the underlying molecular machinery, Glynn dissects the nerve centers that make possible speech and hearing, sight, and reading. Pressing deeper, he lays bare the cortical foundations of personality. But those who deal with the mind must attend also to the arguments advanced by philosophers. And it is when he turns from dendrites to syllogisms (especially the vexing mind-body paradox) that Glynn's empirical reasoning fails him. In the end, he concedes his perplexity in trying to conceive of an evolutionary origin for human consciousness. This concession may set the shade of Alfred Wallace to chortling, but it will draw readers into an honest confrontation with a profound enigma. Bryce Christensen. (shrink)

1. The sequence of the organisation levels is regarded as originating from a sequence of symmetry breakings. Each breaking generates a more improbable structure. In addition to the Euclidian symmetries, homogeneity, isotropy, translation, rotation, helix displacement, neutrality and even indiscernibility can be broken. Here are considered the initial and the subatomic breaking molecular morphogenesis and other higher breakings.2.1 HOMOGENEITY BREAKING OF THE VACUUM SPACE. We studied this as a new model of wave-corpuscle relation. Every noticeable point breaks the space homogeneity. (...) Directed by a momentum this breaking operates as a fissure.2. Postulate of the corpuscle. The quantum mechanical corpuscle is the end of a fissure, the momentum of which characterises direction and velocity.2.2. Postulate of the wave. The associate wave comes from the end of the fissure and works to split the medium.2.3. Corollary to the trajectory. The fissure prefers continuity and a straight line. Nevertheless the fissure can stop at a point and then start from an other point. This discontinuity and any momentum possible discontinuity are limited only by uncertainty relationships; frequency of discontinuity is limited by the first one. Vacuum has no memory of the fissures. 2.4.Corollary to the localisation. The fissure diminishes the medium constraints and allows the medium to vibrate in a domain surrounding the end of the fissure.2.5. Physical analogies. – - Photo-elastic studies of the fissuration of solids show a little sphere and a wavelike perturbation at the end of the fissure. – - A fragile and resonating object can be broken by a sound wave. This crack emits a sound wave. Here we consider one associated wave, emitted and absorbed. – - Broken panes picture an emission of rays. li]2.6. Consequences of the fissure model. (shrink)

A neurologist presents evidence for locating the unconscious--Freud's concept--within the actual physiology of the brain, in a study that explains current knowledge about perception, memory, sleep, dreams, and Freud's theory of the unconscious.

This article assesses to what extent the future of democratic liberty depends upon its citizens employing a proper approach to the past, by analyzing Tocqueville’s views of three kinds of historical consciousness—aristocratic, revolutionary, and democratic. It is argued that democracies require certain aristocratic assumptions about historical dynamics to cultivate a historical consciousness that fosters liberty. Key to this is the belief in the human capacity to influence the trajectory of history. Tocqueville’s historical approach, which blends aristocratic and democratic elements, is (...) identified as the most effective method for tempering the fatalistic tendencies of the democratic point of view. Thus, for democracies to maintain liberty, citizens should recognize the dual role of general causes and human agency in directing the course of historical events. Tocqueville’s insights on the effects of historical consciousness on the future of democratic liberty remain particularly relevant today when Western democracies confront internal polarization and external anti-democratic challenges, whether neoliberal, illiberal, populist, or fascist. (shrink)

In the Arthur Stanley Eddington Memorial Lecture for 1965 Eccles uses his considerable knowledge to argue that neurophysiology can give clues to the physical requirements of the unity of conscious experience, but it cannot fully account for it. The way is thus left open to postulate or believe in the special creation of the soul as the principle of self-identity. Specifically, Eccles argues that self-identity is not reducible to gene identity. He does not, however, go into the problems surrounding the (...) origin of the employment of the notion of self-identity; and in this respect his analysis is uncritical from a philosophical point of view. Interestingly enough, some of the positive bits of neurophysiological theory that Eccles puts forth in this short lecture, in particular, the theory of hemispheric localization of the higher functions, have been shaken considerably in the past few months by the results of the Coe hemispherectomy.—E. A. R. (shrink)

It has been argued that complex subjective sense of self is linked to the brain default-mode network (DMN). Recent discovery of heterogeneity between distinct subnets (or operational modules - OMs) of the DMN leads to a reconceptualization of its role for the experiential sense of self. Considering the recent proposition that the frontal DMN OM is responsible for the first-person perspective and the sense of agency, while the posterior DMN OMs are linked to the continuity of ‘I’ experience (including autobiographical (...) memories) through embodiment and localization within bodily space, we have tested in this study the hypothesis that heterogeneity in the operational synchrony strength within the frontal DMN OM among patients who are in a vegetative state (VS) could inform about a stable self-consciousness recovery later in the course of disease (up to six years post-injury). Using EEG operational synchrony analysis we have demonstrated that among the three OMs of the DMN only the frontal OM showed important heterogeneity in VS patients as a function of later stable clinical outcome. We also found that the frontal DMN OM was characterized by the process of active uncoupling (stronger in persistent VS) of operations performed by the involved neuronal assemblies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:This essay considers hagiography as a spatial-theological genre emerging, so to speak, from the crypts of Christian martyrs where liturgical celebrations commemorate their paradoxical witness to the Paschal mystery, whereby the faithful gain eternal life through temporal death. Later the virtues and miracles of holy men and women, such as ascetics, bishops, mystics and founders of religious communities, are recounted in vitae intended for liturgical offices and contemplative reflection. (...) The relics of these saints are a site for the construction of religious identity and a locus of pilgrimage, as the faithful gather in the churches where the bodily remains are located. Often miracle accounts, collected soon after the death of the saint, are accompanied by miracles at the tomb thereby initiating or furthering the process of veneration and canonization, whence the relics are subsequently transferred to a prominent place within the church, such as the area near the altar. Miracle stories are a constant in liturgical legends, and the vitae of Saint Francis are no exception.In the case of Francis of Assisi, canonization and construction are contemporaneous, since Thomas of Celano's official legend, the Life of Saint Francis, is presented during the initial building phase of the sepulcher basilica. The Paschal paradox of the miraculous, evident in the spatial localization of transcendent power, informs Celano's hagiographical account of miracles in his first text, as well as in the later Legend for Use in the Choir, the Remembrance of the Desire of the Soul, and the Treatise on Miracles. Bonaventure's subsequent conceptualization of Francis's dream body in the Journey of the Soul into God and literary reorganization of the miracle stories in the Major Life, and the absence of Francis's reliquary remains in the Minor Life, dislodges the miraculous from sepulchral stone and regional locales into textual space, which is located in a narrative history but freed from the spatial constraints of ecclesial edifices and geographical locations. As a result, the thaumaturgical founder of Celano's narratives, whose wonders in life and death find a spatial locus in Italy and, particularly, at the basilica tomb, is replaced by the stigmatized Francis. He is the central miracle of Bonaventure's narratives, and readily present anywhere – albeit mediated by the General Minister's own memory – in prayer. This essay posits that this "transitus" of Francis from miracle worker to abiding miracle, especially noticeable in Celano's Legend for Use in the Choir and Bonaventure's Minor Life, is best understood when the performative nature of liturgical legends in sacred space is recognized.1. Choir Legends, Sacred Space and Performative IdentityChoir legends are primarily conceived, composed, and received as spatial texts, ritually performed in a designated sacred space and season. Their ritual context is the Liturgy of the Hours, where believers enter into a dialogical exchange with the divine, grounded in the paradox of the Paschal mystery. Choir legends are unique witnesses to a particular communal image of a saint, whose life of virtue and miraculous deeds is recounted within the dynamics of liturgical prayer and the dominant cultic-cultural identity. Given their essential status within worship, these biographical texts assume a level of iconicity not shared by non-liturgical documents. Specifically intended for communal contemplation and not the promulgation of the saint's cult throughout the universal church, choir legends are similar to opaque windows opening inward on a secluded courtyard of those gathered to recount their family story. While the narrative is accessible to all those who gaze through the aperture and listen attentively, the locus of intent is within the religious community. When the community members – or at least influential leaders – no longer espouse this "prayed" likeness of their father or mother figure, a new image may be constructed, and the previous choir legend is supplanted or even suppressed by another legend that reflects the revised cultural-theological identity. Evidence of this process is found among second.. (shrink)

The discovery of the engram, the physical substrate of memory, is a central challenge for the sciences of memory. Following the application of optogenetics to the neurobiological study of memory, scientists and philosophers claim that the engram has been found. In this paper, I evaluate the implications of applying optogenetic tools to the localization of the engram. I argue that conceptions of engram localization need to be revised to be made consistent with optogenetic studies of (...) the engram. I distinguish between challenges to vehicle and content localization. First, I consider the silent engram hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, optogenetic studies indicate that synaptic efficacy, the traditional engram-bearing vehicle, is important merely for retrieval. I argue that this interpretation rests upon a misunderstanding of accessibility. Second, I argue that optogenetic-based strategies and findings conflict with preservationist and constructivist views on memory storage. There is an enduring trace, but stored content may change over time and experience, resulting in doubt about what constitutes a single engram. (shrink)

This paper deals with the notion of virtual memory in Bergson?s philosophy, with special regard to the question of the independence of memory and the complex intertwining of spiritual recollections with perception. Attention is devoted to the Bergsonian analysis of the actualization of virtual contents. The author also confronts the Bergsonian notion of unconscious with that of Freud?s. It seems that the notion of virtual memory is relevant not only from a psychological or an epistemological perspective, but (...) it has also some consequences with regard to practical philosophy. An excursus is devoted to the Deleuzien interpretation of virtuality. At the end of the paper the author discusses the immanent tensions within the Bergsonian concept of virtual memory from the aspect of temporal verticality, the impossible localization of virtuality and freedom. Clanak se bavi pojmom virtuelne memorije u Bergsonovoj filozofiji, sa posebnim osvrtom na pitanje o samostalnosti secanja i na slozeno ukrstanje duhovnih uspomena sa konkretnom percepcijom. Posebna paznja usmerena je na Bergsonovu analizu o aktuelizaciji virtuelnih sadrzaja. Autor takodje sprovodi konfrontaciju Bergsonovog pojma nesvesnog sa Frojdovim shvatanjem istog. Pokazuje se da pojam virtuelne memorije nije relevantan samo iz psiholoske ili epistemoloske perspektive, vec da on ima izvesne konsekvence i u pogledu prakticke filozofije. Delezovoj interpretaciji virtuelnog je posvecen poseban ekskurs. Na kraju se ukazuje na unutrasnje napetosti Bergsonovog shvatanja virtuelne memorije iz aspekta vremenske vertikalnosti i nemoguce lokalizacije virtuelnog, odnosno, slobode. (shrink)

The endocannabinoid system is the target of the main psychoactive component of the plant Cannabis sativa, the Δ9‐tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). This system is composed by the cannabinoid receptors, the endogenous ligands, and the enzymes involved in their metabolic processes, which works both centrally and peripherally to regulate a plethora of physiological functions. This review aims at explaining how the site‐specific actions of the endocannabinoid system impact on memory and feeding behavior through the cannabinoid receptors 1 (CB1R). Centrally, CB1R is widely (...) distributed in many brain regions, different cell types (e.g. neuronal or glial cells) and intracellular compartments (e.g. mitochondria). Interestingly, cellular and molecular effects are differentially mediated by CB1R according to their cell‐type localization (e.g. glutamatergic or GABAergic neurons). Thus, understanding the cellular and subcellular function of CB1R will provide new insights and aid the design of new compounds in cannabinoid‐based medicine.Also watch the Video Abstract. (shrink)

Memories often come with a feeling of pastness. The events we remember strike us as having occurred in our past. What accounts for this feeling of pastness? In his recent book, Memory: A self-referential account, Jordi Fernández argues that the feeling of pastness cannot be grounded in an explicit representation of the pastness of the remembered event. Instead, he argues that the feeling of pastness is grounded in the self-referential causal content of memory. In this paper, I argue (...) that this account falls short. The representation of causal origin does not by itself ground a feeling of pastness. Instead, I argue that we can salvage the temporal localization account of the feeling of pastness by describing a form of egocentric temporal representation that avoids Fernández’s criticisms. (shrink)

In the mid-1980s, Dario Donatelli participated in a laboratory study of the effects of around 800 h of practice on digit-span and increased his digit-span from 8 to 104 digits. This study assessed changes in the structure of his memory skill after around 30 years of essentially no practice on the digit-span task. On the first day of testing, his estimated span was only 10 digits, but over the following 3 days of testing it increased to 19 digits. Further (...) analyses of his recall performance and verbal reports identified which mechanisms of the original memory skill he could retrieve or reacquire over the 3 days of practice. We discuss theoretical implications for the retention of skilled memory performance, the effects of age-related changes in memory on it, and for the future study of the effects of disuse on exceptional performance and complex skill. (shrink)

Everyday memory tasks often require that researchers focus on output-bound measures of memory. As a result, nonmemorial processes (e.g., report option and grain size) may influence recall accuracy. These nonmemorial processes, usually eliminated by laboratory researchers, have the potential to explain some anomalous results and may even be useful to enhance everyday recollection.

IntroductionThe present study investigates the association of lifetime interpersonal violence exposure, related posttraumatic stress disorder, and appraisal of the degree of threat posed by facial avatars.MethodsWe recorded self-rated responses and high-density electroencephalography among women, 16 of whom with lifetime IPV-PTSD and 14 with no PTSD, during a face-evaluation task that displayed male face avatars varying in their degree of threat as rated along dimensions of dominance and trustworthiness.ResultsThe study found a significant association between lifetime IPV exposure, under-estimation of dominance, and (...) over-estimation of trustworthiness. Characterization of EEG microstates supported that lifetime IPV-PTSD modulates emotional appraisal, specifically in encoding and decoding processing associated with N170 and LPP evoked potentials. EEG source localization demonstrated an overactivation of the limbic system, in particular the parahippocampal gyrus, in response to non-threatening avatars. Additionally, dysfunctional involvement of attention-related processing anterior prefrontal cortex was found in response to relatively trustworthy avatars in IPV-PTSD individuals compared with non-PTSD controls.DiscussionThis study showed that IPV exposure and related PTSD modulate individuals’ evaluation of facial characteristics suggesting threat. Atypical processing of these avatar characteristics was marked by group differences in brain regions linked to facial processing, emotion regulation, and memory. (shrink)

The paper examines the personalization of information technology from the p.c. onwards to the 3-D printing and mobile technologies in order to show that the current process of technological evolution puts the human personality in the centre of its functionality. This new centre opens the discussion about authenticity and in-authenticity of human Dasein, since the common element of these new technologies is that they employ faciality and personalization in a new condition of ready-to-hand and present-at-hand mode. By applying the Heideggerian (...) modes of being on the process of personalization new forms of digital ethics appear. I suggest that the above take place in the navigation memory of the net, in the creativity of the self through the 3-D printer, and in the localization of the “psyche” in the hard drive disk. The paper defends the possibilities of an ethical, authentic and sheltering personalization, where human beings and information technology responsibly engage. (shrink)

An extensive literature has demonstrated that encoding information in a self-referential manner enhances subsequent memory performance. This ‘self-reference effect’ is generally elicited in paradigms that require participants to evaluate the self-descriptiveness of personality characteristics. Extending work of this kind, the current research explored the possibility that explicit evaluative processing is not a necessary precondition for the emergence of this effect. Rather, responses to self cues may enhance item encoding even in the absence of explicit evaluative instructions. We explored this (...) hypothesis by testing memory for items encoded in either an evaluative or relational context. The relational context was achieved by requesting participants to report the spatial relationship between target stimuli, and visual or verbal referent cues. The results revealed a self-referent memory advantage, regardless of the encoding context or triggering cue. The theoretical implications of these findings are considered. (shrink)

For Gifford, the profoundest explorer of the human consciousness, time, and memory is James Joyce and in its range of reference, wit, and humanity the spirit of ...

Objective: Atypical patterns of language lateralization due to early reorganizational processes constitute a challenge in the pre-surgical evaluation of patients with pharmaco-resistant epilepsy. There is no consensus on an optimal analysis method used for the identification of language dominance in MEG. This study examines the concordance between MEG source localization of beta power desynchronization and fMRI with regard to lateralization and localization of expressive and receptive language areas using a visual verb generation task.Methods: Twenty-five patients with pharmaco-resistant epilepsy, (...) including six patients with atypical language lateralization, and ten right-handed controls obtained MEG and fMRI language assessment. Fourteen patients additionally underwent the Wada test. We analyzed MEG beta power desynchronization in sensor (controls) and source space (patients and controls). Beta power decrease between 13 and 35 Hz was localized applying Dynamic Imaging of Coherent Sources Beamformer technique. Statistical inferences were grounded on cluster-based permutation testing for single subjects.Results: Event-related desynchronization of beta power in MEG was seen within the language-dominant frontal and temporal lobe and within the premotor cortex. Our analysis pipeline consistently yielded left language dominance with high laterality indices in controls. Language lateralization in MEG and Wada test agreed in all 14 patients for inferior frontal, temporal and pari... (shrink)