IUBio

deja vu

Gary G. Wilson ggw5 at columbia.edu
Sun Dec 3 14:05:57 EST 2000


Haven't we already had a thread about this before?

;-)

On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Mark
D. Morin wrote:

> Robert M Best wrote:
> 
> >                                                      DEJA VU
> > by Robert M. Best
> 
> ..
> 
> 
> > The brain formation that recognizes new episodes and commits them to memory
> > is the right hippocampus (HC).
> 
> That would be visual/spatial episodes.  Linguisticly based episodes are normally
> processed by the Left Hippocampus (95% of right handers and about 75% of left
> handers).  Since most episodes in life are a combination of linguistic and
> nonlinguistic components, both hippocampi are usually involved.
> 
> snip of a decent summary of the neurology of memory
> 
> 
> > By removing redundancy and compressing the input pattern to essential
> > features, the DG discards information, just as compression of a digital
> > picture in a JPG file discards information.  Without details, sooner or
> > later a new pattern will match a prior pattern based on only the essential
> > features, but not match the details in the uncompressed memory.  Since the
> > details do not match, the prior memory does not become conscious, but the HC
> > has already signaled that the pattern is a familiar one because the
> > essential features do match.  This is the deja vu feeling.  We feel that a
> > new situation has occurred before but cannot recall when or where.
> 
> my initial gut reaction is that this isn't quite what déjà-vu is about.  It's
> not experienced so much as a memory but a reliving.  In any event, you are
> getting at the underlying brain response to this phenomenon.  All brain response
> are electro/chemical.  One can simply explain déjà-vu as an electrical blip that
> shouldn't have happened.  Simplistic yes.
> 
> If you were to do long term telemetry on people experiencing frequent déjà-vu
> you would more likely than not find evidence of seizure activity.  If you think
> about it, it makes sense--most seizures will come from the mesial temporal
> lobe--an area proximal to the hippocampi.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> ===============================================================
> "I'll remind you that men never do evil so completely and
> cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.  Put
> another way, in general, bad people do evil things; good
> people do good things.  But, it takes religion to make a good
> person do something really bad."
>                     --Jill Tarter, member of SETI
> 
> http://members.mint.net/mdmpsyd
> 
> 
> for e-mail replies, remove the obvious
> 
> 

Gary G Wilson






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