The Body, Its Emotions, the Self, and Consciousness

This article proposes a means for better understanding the self and consciousness. Data indicate that the basic “emotional brain” continually computes potential survival risk against reward to rank consequent “emotion scores” for all sensory inputs. These scores compete to yield winner-takes-all outcomes that determine the choice of attention or action. This mechanism prevails regardless of whether the competing options gain their emotion scores through a rational or an intuitive pathway. There is no need to postulate any homunculus or inner self in control of such choice; indeed, our belief in a first-person self in overall control is wrong.The self is a passive construct arising from each individual’s social development, where language acquisition vastly heightens communication and awareness not only outwardly, but also inwardly, as if to a controlling “inner I.” However, when society comes to hold the maturing being accountable for his or her actions, the brain must respond, and it does so in the only way it can, by deeming that this passive, inner self-construct act as if it were the active self in charge. Consciousness emerges when the language-based output of the higher brain is referred for ownership to this artificial self-construct

Skyrmion Multi-Walls

Skyrmion walls are topologically-nontrivial solutions of the Skyrme system which are periodic in two spatial directions. We report numerical investigations which show that solutions representing parallel multi-walls exist. The most stable configuration is that of the square $N$-wall, which in the $N\to\infty$ limit becomes the cubically-symmetric Skyrme crystal. There is also a solution resembling parallel hexagonal walls, but this is less stable.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur

BNIP3 and NIX Mediate Mieap-Induced Accumulation of Lysosomal Proteins within Mitochondria

Mieap, a p53-inducible protein, controls mitochondrial quality by repairing unhealthy mitochondria. During repair, Mieap induces the accumulation of intramitochondrial lysosomal proteins (designated MALM for Mieap-induced accumulation of lysosome-like organelles within mitochondria) by interacting with NIX, leading to the elimination of oxidized mitochondrial proteins. Here, we report that an additional mitochondrial outer membrane protein, BNIP3, is also involved in MALM. BNIP3 interacts with Mieap in a reactive oxygen species (ROS)-dependent manner via the BH3 domain of BNIP3 and the coiled-coil domains of Mieap. The knockdown of endogenous BNIP3 expression severely inhibited MALM. Although the overexpression of either BNIP3 or NIX did not cause a remarkable change in the mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), the co-expression of all three exogenous proteins, Mieap, BNIP3 and NIX, caused a dramatic reduction in MMP, implying that the physical interaction of Mieap, BNIP3 and NIX at the mitochondrial outer membrane may regulate the opening of a pore in the mitochondrial double membrane. This effect was not related to cell death. These results suggest that two mitochondrial outer membrane proteins, BNIP3 and NIX, mediate MALM in order to maintain mitochondrial integrity. The physical interaction of Mieap, BNIP3 and NIX at the mitochondrial outer membrane may play a critical role in the translocation of lysosomal proteins from the cytoplasm to the mitochondrial matrix