IUBio

Brain Use/40 hertz

F. Frank LeFever flefever at ix.netcom.com
Fri Jan 1 11:40:41 EST 1999


Katrina's version of this question is interesting, even though it
pushes us to a Clintonesque semantic dissection (what do you mean by
"is", what does "is"; what do you mean by "moment").  If this traveling
wave of activity goes so quickly, everything is happening "at one time"
unless we are caught in Zeno's paradox...

Even given a very fine grain definition of "a given moment", however, I
wonder if it can be true.  For example, I am recalling slides Pat
Goldman-Rakic shows illustrating activity in single cells in prefrontal
cortex during "working memory" tasks (most recently, early December at
ARNMD meeting in NYC): increases or decreases in activity (depending on
the cell, depending on the phase of the task) are seen against a
background of "continuous" activity--intermittent, of course, with a
fine enough temporal resolution, but as continuous as possible in the
cell's "resting" state.

Generally, isn't it CHANGE in rate of activity rather than activity
(vs. non-activity) that is important?

Katrina: do you recall where you read this account? I'd be interested
in reading it also.  (and is it your friend with the headache, in
another post? what is a "physical" psychologist??  what we in US used
to call a "physiological psychologist"?  but these were/are
experimentalists, researchers and we would not say "practicing" in this
case.  Can you clarify?)

F. Frank LeFever, Ph.D.
News York Neuropsychology Group






In <76ghtt$8v6$5 at news2.xs4all.nl> "DK" <cooper17.spamless at xs4all.nl>
writes: 
>
>
>"RonBlue" wrote in message
>>Jack Sarfatti has calculated that only about 1% of the brain
>>neurons are used to have a single conscious thought...
>>While Jack is saying that only 1% is being used for a single
>>thought, which 1% is important.   What I am trying to say is
>>that the brain uses 100% of its neurons all the time.  What is
>>not necessarily apparent is that non-firing neurons are a
>>source of information which means they are being used.
>
>I hope I know what I'm talking about. What I read is that it isn't any
>*particular* 1% (or 10% or whatever theory you're looking at) which is
>important; it's just that *at any given moment* studies seem to
indicate
>that only this percentage is actually working. The working/not
working-ness,
>if you will,  travels over the brain so that all or nearly all parts
are
>used within a given time frame, probably a few milliseconds.
>--Katrina
>
>
>




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