"k p Collins" <kpaulc@[----------]earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:XcPKb.13362$6B.7763 at newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> "yan king yin" <y.k.y at lycos.com> wrote in message
> news:72de81ae.0401060226.67da0596 at posting.google.com...> > Neuropeptides (when they're located at the pre-synapse) are usually
> secreted
> > after intense stimulation such as tetanic trains. Is it possible that
they
> > represent a sort of "over-flow" situation? When the synapse runs out of
> > "space", then it tries to encode information in the time domain by
> releasing
> > peptides? The effects of peptides are usually *long-lasting* changes in
> > synaptic dynamics, such as altering the shape of later action
potentials.
> >
> > I've read a recent article by H Markram which argues that synapses are
> highly
> > *dynamic* and that they may encode information in the time domain with
> > internal parameters determining the degrees of facilitation / depression
> in
> > response to a train of spikes.
> >
> > I guess (I'm not sure about this) many neuropeptides evolved *after* the
> > emergence of the action potential. If this is true then it makes sense
> that
> > neuropeptides may serve an auxiliary function (ie information
"overflow").
> >
> > Any comments? =)
> > YKY
<snip>
> If your hypothesis is valid, then, when does the brain 'catch-up'
> from the overload condition?
It handles it in two ways - AEVASIVE self-regulation and non-AEVASIVE.
(This concept has a relevant and important meaning only if the individual
have been previously conditioned by a genuinely "selective Hibernation
imploring" type of situation - i.e. a life-situations that were originally
*instinctively* as if 'interpreted' as containing an influence that the
individual were on-the-way to
respond to by a self-defeatingly distressful or futile flight/fight-type
behaviour (or focus of actention).
<snip>
> [BTW, in my view, 'information-overload' is handled by
> processing that is organized 'within' the amygdala [and,
> of course, other areas that project to, and receive from,
> the amygdala.<snip>]
(I agree about the amygdala - who wouldn't).
Non-AEVASIVE self-regulation entails that conditioned-in states of "gates",
that are protectively and reflexively shut against an overload of pain, are
opened-up
in the direction of causing an essentially distress motivating access to
developmentally availed
frontal lobe neurons that are capable of *further*
integration of an in the past originally overloading situation to the extent
of
taking into account (as does any neural 'summing amplifier') the current
overall life-situation, and, provided that the current life-situations is
safe, to then send inhibitory feedback that presumably presynaptically
counteracts the distress or fear or flight or fight motivating signaling by
in the amygdala located "neural outposts" of the CURSES-containing sensory
processing
circuits (including hippocampus) that originally received and
processed/represented a once life-situationally current "selective
Hibernation imploring type situation" ["a SHITS", for short].
Neural "gates" against pain overload, has the task to shut off and "shunt
away" neural signals that are directly heading towards becoming a fuel for
futile and self-defeating focuses of actention; I.e., any
from-mind-to-muscle-involving symptoms of overwhelming stress.
[Here the stress is by definition *distress* - *not* its opposite, namely
eustress.]
"Shunt away" - since leakage through previously redundant, and too weak to
be
behaviouraly significant but ready-to-be-reinforced synapsing structures,
and previously safely separate but proximal enough to be sprouted potential
connexions, are also a part of life.
"The blocking of pain in the ASS" (brain and spinal chord) can, surely, be
achieved by more means than just an inhibitory neuromodulator (e.g. opioid)
being
synthesised and released as a result of a 'treshold-reaching' intensity of
firing by in the present and/or past experientially hypersensitized neuron
attuned to adversity (substance P containing and/or part of the flight or
fight 'pushing' amygdala).
BTW, neurons in the amygdala may not be the last holistic neural responders
to adverse aspects of our individual environments/life-situations; Neurons
that populate the subdominant side of the medial frontal lobes might be?
[Just a humble guess of mine.:->]
An important *complementary* (in respect of understanding what I mean with
AEVASIVE) system of defense is via "lateral inhibition" exerted by
learnt pleasurable relatively sophisticated preoccupations (habitual -
usually addictive - activation of acquired actention modules).
Mainly mental to mainly motor-behavioral addictions will be particularly
compelling or compulsive if CURSES and/or an on the whole SHITS-type
(shitty) current situation, is strongly characteric of an individual's total
life-situation.
Some such "AEVASIVE" habits are preoccupations so sophisticated that they
constitute a substantial part of the life-style of many a professor of
fundamental theoretical physics, or a
good deal of what makes for a highly motivated professional musician,
podiatrist or used car salesman.
Slight less sophisticated (but not less addictive)
preoccupations that also provide an only sometimes truly realized
opportunity (ref. to what is EPTly meant by "_opportunity type_ evolutionary
pressures) to gain fame and a fortune are to be found amongst professionals
in e.g. sport, religion, craft, and (the very least sophisticated:)
politics, law and psychiatry. ;-)
Many sophisticated AEVASIVE preoccupations produces a potent cortex-wide
cocktail (some more sizzling or thrilling than others) of *opportunity* and
pleasure-associated neuromodulators, such as serotonin, noradrenaline,
dopamine and endorphine.
[It might be noteworthy that dopamine is an "opportunity taking"
neuromodulator in the sense that with its optimal endogenous 'dosage' and
mixed
with a ditto dosage of serotonin and norepinephrine, it may contribute to
productive creativity;
But when in supra-optimal doses it can cause schizoid or
psychotic ideation, grandios feelings (serotonin), and
hyper-vigilance/"vigilanteism" (noradrenalin).
The opposite of dopamine excess is not only rigid hard to get going
movements, but also corresponding mental rigidity/inertia; serotonin lowered
to less than optimal levels leads to lack of self-esteem, and adrenaline not
in needed supply leads to 'knackeredly dull' mental and physical
"weakneedness".
%-)
However there are of course also readily available CURSES (or "primal
pain") -*rerouting* reflexes; e.g. as simple or primitive as e.g. a (facial
or
elsewhere) tick, a yawn, or a (more or less called for) laughter.
----------
And here is some slippery speculation about other mind-mechanistic means by
which CURSES can be more or less consistently kept away from becoming
Conscious - just to hedge my EPT bet:
Perhaps there also exist neurons specialized to detected life-situations
that demand *selective Hibernation*; and that, when one such neuron detects
such a situation it fires to the effect of closing a "gate".
Such hypothetical "SHITS detecting interneurons" might instigate blockages
even in perceptual paths to self-defeatingly distressful (hence also futile)
focuses of actention; and they might do so by release either or both GABA
and some likewise inhibitory neuromodulator.
---------
My settling for the expression "selective Hibernation" for the function
performed by neurons that detects the at least in our phylogeny adaptive
requirement to inhibit (drastically dampen) the activity in some (or in some
segments of some) specific distress-motivating excitatory circuits ought to
be accepted against to perspective that there certainly exist neurons in the
hypothalamus-pituitary regionwhose specialization makes them collate
sensorial cues with an instinctive goal to initiate one of the more commonly
recognized seasonally and/or climatically determined cases of classical
*general* hibernation (or aestivation for that - *metabolism minimizing* -
matter).