Category: Uncategorized
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Default State: EEG
I came of age in neurology before clinicians had the means to show activity in specific parts of the brain as can be done now with PET and fMRI. In the late 20th century neurologists discussed restful eyes-closed waking. We used the EEG to follow alterations in mental states. Being any movement at all would…
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States
The first mental state is the Default Mode Network. This symmetric anatomic brain area found on brain metabolic studies such as fMRI and PET outlined by Marcus Raichle et al 2001. Their human subjects were scanned, eyes closed, generally thinking of nothing. When I first came upon this description I thought, that is exactly the…
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Limits of Cognition (Computation, Understanding)
Halting Problem: The idea of General Intelligence applicable to all problems has given rise to AGI, Artificial General Intelligence, computer simulation of human thought. Computers have bested humans in limited areas such as factory work, and games like chess,GO and Jeopardy. It isn’t clear that a AI will replace total or General Human Intelligence. AGI…
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Escape from AI is the Same as Screentime
Interview Joanna Stern and Mira Murato and Sam Altman. Seems that AI mostly might be edging toward personal assistant model. But Altman and Murato are not deluding themselves about replacing humans and omnipresent question talking about AI in fact making it a point that humans will always need to interact with fellow biologicals. I noticed…
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Hebbian Heart
Hebbian Cardiac Remodeling in Cardiac Arrhythmia paneuro@usa.net / September 25, 2021 Muscle Learning in the heart and muscle. In 1949 Donald Hebb famously proposed in the book, The Organization of Behavior a revolutionary idea: Activation of pre-synaptic neurons leads to strengthening connections between neurons. This idea immediately gave birth to a physiologic model for learning.…
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Nature’s Prescription: Why we need to reconnect with the natural world
Nature’s Prescription: Why we need to reconnect with the Natural World Well, well, well! Look at you, finishing up a basic biology text and gaining all sorts of new knowledge. That’s impressive, especially considering you last tackled this subject over 50 years ago! But hold on tight, because it turns out you’re not as up-to-date…
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What’s the Same about REM and Locked-In Syndrome
REM and Locked-In Syndrome: REM (rapid eye movement-dream) sleep is similar to locked-in syndrome. How? Locked-in syndrome is rare fortunately, usually caused by a stroke, destroys part of the pons in the brainstem, and a person can’t move but they breathe and vertical eye movements are preserved. They are awake, thinking and imagining. More than…
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Bee Swarms
I was relieved reading in the NYT of an increase in bee swarms in the United Kingdom. I lived through the age of bee colony collapse disorder. At the time people worried pollinators would be no more. It disturbs me that no single cause was ever found so as to avoid it in the future.…
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Covid Postmortem
Now that the Covid 19 pandemic has turned endemic it is time for reappraisal. A few general statistics tell the story. In the U.S. Covid infected around 110M, deaths close to 1.1M. Worldwide these numbers were around 700 M and 7M which adds up to a death rate around 1%. 70% of people succumbing…
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AI Does not Hallucinate, It Confabulates.
Ben Zimmer the WSJ’s lexicographer writes: “I asked Bard about “argumentative diphthongization,” a phrase that I just made up. Not only did it produce five paragraphs elucidating this spurious phenomenon, the chatbot told me the term was “first coined by the linguist Hans Jakobsen in 1922.” Needless to say, there has never been a prominent…