The Idea of the Brain: The Past and Future of Neuroscience

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In experiments routinely performed in neurobiological laboratories, action potentials are recorded and evoked in single neurons and even in small-scale networks [ 15, 16] using current clamp and voltage clamp techniques. Using these techniques, triggering action potentials at the researcher’s bidding (rather than naturally due to the synaptic inputs) is commonplace and even mundane in a modern electrophysiological laboratory. The rapid development of tools and technologies in neuroscience [ 17– 21] brings the goal of capturing every action potential in every neuron of the brain ever closer [ 22, 23]. To date, the highest number of channels recorded by an electrode array belongs to the Argo system, with 65,536 channels [ 24]. These technologies provide unprecedented insights into the fine details of brain function. Thus, it is perhaps just a matter of time until newer, more powerful technologies will eventually allow us to solve the mechanics of how the brain works. As we converge on this goal, will we get closer to understanding brain function and, with it, the biological causes of conscious experience? In the working hypothesis, we only considered whether action potentials cause consciousness. Performing our experiments for other neuronal processes might be more difficult than for action potentials and, in some cases, even impossible. However, conceptually, it is straightforward to include them in the hypothesis and even include combinations of multiple processes; for example, membrane potential fluctuations, calcium ion concentrations [ 53, 54], the release of neurotransmitters from the presynaptic terminals, or activity in glial cells [ 55, 56]. To consider multiple biological processes, we first need to record these processes and then test the hypothesis against Steps 1 to 3 by asking in each step whether the participant’s conscious perception changed when the respective cellular processes remained exactly the same. A powerful examination of what we think we know about the brain and why -- despite technological advances -- the workings of our most essential organ remain a mystery. Shen HH. Inner workings: Discovering the split mind. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2014;111(51):18097. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1422335112

Brain a machine. This philosophy is now boring. It’s not the cool creative philosophy of the past. Rather people are trying to actually explain how the brain works. So it’s largely statements like: the brain is like a computer, the brain calculates things, the brain reacts but can also be made to not react. For each step in the thought experiment, we ask whether activating the brain with an artificial replay of previously recorded action potentials would result in conscious perception and explore the possible outcomes. It is impossible to say whether replaying and recording all the neurons in the entire brain will be feasible in the future. However, resources from funding agencies (e.g., The BRAIN Initiative, the SIMONS foundation, and others), large-scale research projects (such as the Human Brain Project, The Connectome Project, and the Brain Activity Map Project), and the barrage of new studies and new technologies mentioned above [ 22, 23] show the implicit (if not explicit) steps toward this goal. As the community has decided to step in this direction and prioritize the development of “large-scale monitoring” and “precise interventional tools” (BRAIN Initiative recommendations for 2025), we should consider the consequences of this endeavor for solving the fundamental problem of consciousness if/when it is successful. Brain size and intelligence correlation is mentioned. And then brain size, intelligence and race. But the author is clearly not knowledgeable on this area so he just calls this “racist” and lazily moves on. Which is a shame because this research is by far the most interesting part of the chapter for any modern reader. It’s a huge debate point in 2021. Gerade das Kapitel mit Bewusstsein fand ich besonders gut weil er deutlich hervorbringt, dass NIEMAND Ahnung darüber hat, wie es funktioniert und wo es im Gehirn verankert ist. Und überhaupt ob es wichtig ist, dass wir das wissen müssen. Und ob es nicht besser ist diese Debatte wichtigerer Themen gegenüber zu opfern. Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.For thousands of years, thinkers and scientists have tried to understand what the brain does. Yet, despite the astonishing discoveries of science, we still have only the vaguest idea of how the brain works. In The Idea of the Brain, scientist and historian Matthew Cobb traces how our conception of the brain has evolved over the centuries. Although it might seem to be a story of ever-increasing knowledge of biology, Cobb shows how our ideas about the brain have been shaped by each era's most significant technologies. Today we might think the brain is like a supercomputer. In the past, it has been compared to a telegraph, a telephone exchange, or some kind of hydraulic system. What will we think the brain is like tomorrow, when new technology arises? The result is an essential read for anyone interested in the complex processes that drive science and the forces that have shaped our marvelous brains. Animals are not robots piloted by brains, we are all, whether maggots or humans, individuals with agency and a developmental and evolutionary history". What's more, the brain is not in a jar, it is integrated into the organism. To study what the brain does and how it does it, one should work to understand the entire organism. Matthew Cobb covered each era and discovery with as little bias as he could, and clearly attempted to make each section accessible. I'm not usually much of a historian, but the sections on theology and cultural influences were just as interesting as those which directly pertained to neuroscience or psychology. Answering “no” after the resective surgery ( Fig 3A and 3B) challenges the reader to explain why, although the synaptic disconnection at a molecular scale in Step 2 ( Fig 2) does not change the conscious perception, the physical disconnection with a surgical scalpel nevertheless changes the participant’s conscious perception. Answering “yes” after surgically cutting the visual cortex ( Fig 3A) but “no” after its removal ( Fig 3B) implies that the distance of the resected neurons from the rest of the brain is vital for conscious perception. The distinction between surgery with ( Fig 3A) and without the removal ( Fig 3B) of the visual cortex raises interesting questions regarding the effect of the distance between brain regions on consciousness. For example, does the brain’s size (between species and even within the same species) affect consciousness due to the distance between brain regions?

Hurley RA, Flashman LA, Chow TW, Taber KH. The brainstem: anatomy, assessment, and clinical syndromes. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2010;22(1):iv-7. doi:10.1176/jnp.2010.22.1.iv What will be the next grand metaphor about the brain? Impossible to say, because we need to wait for the next world-changing technology. But in the mean time, Cobb suggests, the computer metaphor might be doing more harm than good. After all, he notes rightly: “Metaphors shape our ideas in ways that are not always helpful.” This enthralling book starts at the earliest points of the halting journey to an experimental science of the brain and moves forward to the present era, where we simultaneously have a surfeit of data and a poverty of far-reaching, intellectually satisfying theories of brain function.

For most of history (up until Roman times), it was believed our thought and emotion are housed in the heart. Then in more recent centuries, scientists experimented and tried to understand the brain by comparing it with the most advanced technologies of the time: hydraulics, telegraphs, computers, etc. But it looks like none provide a great model. The computer, with its separated hardware and software and set logical structures, is too different from the integrated "wetware" of our brain, with deep interconnected networks of extreme non-linear complexity, constant morphing of physical structure, and functional transformations based on the flows of countless chemicals. Cobb’s greater lesson is straightforward, but difficult: we should spend more time trying to understand the brain as it is, and as it functions in a comparative context, rather than through the lens of whatever metaphor or analogy happens to be handy or fashionable. His last paragraph is instructive, for it offers a series of scenarios based on connectomes, semiotics, semantics, cybernetics, control theory and so on. Each sentence begins with the word “Or”, although the last one is just followed by a dash, creating a blank screen like the final episode of The Sopranos, on to which we can write anything we please, or hope, or fear, or understand. As of now, we understand so little of the entity that allows us to understand. A great overview of the field of neuroscience, focused on its historic development and our present state of understanding. The experiment we described here is useful as a benchmark for theories of consciousness, revealing hidden incoherences and ambiguities [ 58]. Specifically, for a given theory of consciousness, we ask in which step (i.e., Steps 1 to 3) and why we would reject the working hypothesis and claim that the participant loses consciousness.

A century later, electricity was the fashionable thing, so natural philosophers began to theorise that perhaps the animal spirits sloshing around in the brain were in fact a kind of “electric fluid”. Perhaps, suggested one, the brain was very like a “galvanic battery”. By the mid-19th century, nerves were inevitably compared to telegraph wires and the brain to a completely electrical system. Gazzaniga MS. The split-brain: rooting consciousness in biology. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2014;111(51):18093-4. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1417892111In the ancient western world the seat of emotion, perception, consciousness, and thought was the heart, not the brain. If you think of it, with whatever organ you choose, this makes sense. The brain just sits there. But the heart is always moving. You can’t ignore the heart. But you can’t feel the brain at all. Fama R, Sullivan EV. Thalamic structures and associated cognitive functions: Relations with age and aging. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2015;54:29-37. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.03.008 It’s weird how the most interesting thing about the book is ancient research yet that’s just 1 single chapter! The remaining 14 chapters is largely research max 300 years old. I would have really enjoyed a book about ancient history and this feels like it should have been it. The writing style is just dry and humourless enough to not really engage you unless you really like the topic. It’s also waaaaay too many name drops. Sha, Z., et al. (2021). Handedness and its genetic influences are associated with structural asymmetries of the cerebral cortex in 31,864 individuals.

The ancients believed the heart was the anatomical seat of thought and consciousness and considered the brain to be of relative little import. Galloping through centuries of wild speculation and ingenious, sometimes macabre anatomical investigations, scientist and historian Matthew Cobb reveals how we came to our present state of knowledge. Our latest theories allow us to create artificial memories in the brain of a mouse, and to build AI programmes capable of extraordinary cognitive feats. A complete understanding seems within our grasp. We tend to assume that our models of the brain are correct. For example, we “instinctively” think of the brain as separate from the body, the seat of consciousness, as a computer, and as a collection of neurons; we “instinctively” think that what the brain does is think (Cobb’s argument), or remember, or create consciousness. Cobb documents that each of these ways of understanding the brain are relatively modern and incomplete—not instinctive or obvious at all.This is better. He spends a few paragraphs pointing out men and women have different brains and explains that brain regions are not completely independent. Still not great deep info, but it's fine. The brain is a complex organ that controls all bodily processes, including thought, sensory perception, and physical action. Despite weighing only 3 pounds, the human brain contains as many as 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion connections. All of that is from the “Past” section of the book. In the “Present” section Cobb describes our current understanding of how memory works, how circuits have limited explanatory power, and how brains are similar to but different from digital computers. He describes the chemical basis for neural and mental phenomena. He describes the current view, that mental functions are both local and global; though some regions must be present for specific functions, those function may still require the whole brain. I was surprised to learn that fMRI “brain scans” are misleading, and that results from fMRI data are often over-hyped.