there was an article in the "Science Times" section of todays' _New York
Times_, "New Way Of Looking At Diseases Of the Brain", reported by S.
Blakeslee, pD1.
the article reports on work being presented at SFN meeting in Florida... work
done by R. Linas, NYU Medical School, with respect to how 'simple'
electrode-implantation within thalamus can 'ameliorate' various 'disease'
conditions.
this's NQU ('not quite it').
all that can be done via such simple electrod implantation (which is not a
necessarily unuseful thing) is to artificially create internal 'noise'.
what 'normally' occurs within thalamus is =not= the sort of 'type I
synchronization' (like soldiers marching; see AoK, Ap5) that's referred to in
the _NYT_ article, but 'type II synchronization' (like gears in a clock; ibid).
because the 'activation' that they impart to the supersystem does not recreate
the details of the 'type II' synchronization that 'normally' occurs, all the
electrode activation amounts to, at the level of cortex', is 'just' more
'stochastic' activation.
if there actually is any 'amelioration' of the symptoms of 'disease'
conditions, it's be-cause this artificially-introduced 'stochastic' activation
provides a cortical TD E/I(up) 'background' so that the TD E/I-minimization
mechanisms can 'whittle' (AoK, Ap5) things down in ways that, because of the
'disease' condition, they could not do.
this approach to understanding is =entirely= different from the approach that's
described in the _NYT_ article.
which is =not= to say that the implantation technique is not useful... anything
that shows promise should be explored.
it's 'just' to say that the analysis reported in the _NYT_ article is flat-out
wrong, and needs to be ammended in the article submitted for publication in the
_Proceedings of the National Academy_.
K. P. Collins
[BTW, Liinas is one of my Heroes, so don't read anything 'untoward' into the
stuff of this msg. it's 'just' that a Scientist must do Science. that's what
i've done, here, in the only way that's open to me. (that, and i'm tired of
being 'hit-on' by Jackasses.) KPC]
