On the zombie within

To what extent are we conscious of everything going on in our brains? Nietzsche and Freud popularized the notion of the unconscious as a realm of the mind that controls human behaviour but is not itself accessible to conscious introspection or knowledge. By 'unconscious' we mean any neuronal activity that does not give rise to conscious sensation, thought or memory. Although many of Freud's ideas, involving penis envy, the Oedipus complex, the Id and other fanciful creations, are mere myths that lack objective standing, science has provided credible evidence for the existence of sensorimotor systems in the primate brain that function in the absence of consciousness

The Neuronal Basis of Visual Consciousness

Introduction: We outline in this chapter some of our present ideas about consciousness in general and visual consciousness in particular. For now, we believe that the most productive research strategy is to focus on the neuronal correlates of consciousness (NCC). The next step is to establish the exact nature of the causal relationship between neuronal events and subjective feelings and, finally, to understand the thorny philosophical problem of qualia or subjective feelings and how they can arise out of certain physical systems. We assume that higher mammals, such as rodents or primates, share certain forms of sensory consciousness with humans, even though these animals lack language skills. To characterize the NCC, we have to contrast neural activity that directly gives rise to conscious sensations, thoughts or action with neural activity that is associated with unconscious, stereotyped and on-line visuo-motor behavior. Where is the difference between these forms? How do these differences in activity relate to the ventral and dorsal streams? We emphasize the importance of explicit representations, the idea of essential nodes in a network and whether such nodes correspond to the columnar properties of a patch of cortex. We also discuss whether the correlated firing of a set of neurons is needed for consciousness and the role of cortical area V1 and prefrontal areas in consciousness. We end by briefly describing some of the relevant experiments. For earlier versions of these ideas, see (Crick and Koch, 1998 and Koch and Crick, 2000)

Towards a neurobiological theory of consciousness

Visual awareness is a favorable form of consciousness to study neurobiologically. We propose that it takes two forms: a very fast form, linked to iconic memory, that may be difficult to study; and a somewhat slower one involving visual attention and short-term memory. In the slower form an attentional mechanism transiently binds together all those neurons whose activity relates to the relevant features of a single visual object. We suggest this is done by generating coherent semi-synchronous oscillations, probably in the 40-70 Hz range. These oscillations then activate a transient short-term (working) memory. We outfit several lines of experimental work that might advance the understanding of the neural mechanisms involved. The neural basis of very short-term memory especially needs more experimental study

Understanding awareness at the neuronal level

Velmans recounts many interesting results, though we should note that some of the more challenging ones (e.g., those of Lackner & Garrett 1973) seem not to have been studied further, whereas others, such as those concerning hypnosis, are controversial. Rather than discuss these in detail we prefer to comment briefly on the 10 points in his summary and then to describe our own approach to these difficult problems

Why neuroscience may be able to explain consciousness

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L'estructura molecular dels àcids nucleics

L'article on es descriu per primer cop l'estructura de l'DNA i la seva capacitat de copiar el material genèti

Some Reflections on Visual Awareness

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Merleau-Ponty and neuroaesthetics: Two approaches to performance and technology

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Digital Creativity, 23(3-4), 225 - 238, 2012. Copyright @ 2012 Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14626268.2012.709941.Assisted by the rapid growth of digital technology, which has enhanced its ambitions, performance is an increasingly popular area of artistic practice. This article seeks to contextualise this within two methodologically divergent yet complimentary intellectual tendencies. The first is the work of the philosopher Merleau-Ponty, who recognised that our experience of the world has an inescapably ‘embodied’ quality, not reducible to mental accounts, which can be vicariously extended through specific instrumentation. The second is the developing field of neuroaesthetics; that is, neurological research directed towards the analysis, in brain-functional terms, of our experiences of objects and events which are culturally deemed to be of artistic significance. I will argue that both these contexts offer promising approaches to interpreting developments in contemporary performance, which has achieved critical recognition without much antecedent theoretical support

Human Antibodies that Slow Erythrocyte Invasion Potentiate Malaria-Neutralizing Antibodies.

The Plasmodium falciparum reticulocyte-binding protein homolog 5 (PfRH5) is the leading target for next-generation vaccines against the disease-causing blood-stage of malaria. However, little is known about how human antibodies confer functional immunity against this antigen. We isolated a panel of human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against PfRH5 from peripheral blood B cells from vaccinees in the first clinical trial of a PfRH5-based vaccine. We identified a subset of mAbs with neutralizing activity that bind to three distinct sites and another subset of mAbs that are non-functional, or even antagonistic to neutralizing antibodies. We also identify the epitope of a novel group of non-neutralizing antibodies that significantly reduce the speed of red blood cell invasion by the merozoite, thereby potentiating the effect of all neutralizing PfRH5 antibodies as well as synergizing with antibodies targeting other malaria invasion proteins. Our results provide a roadmap for structure-guided vaccine development to maximize antibody efficacy against blood-stage malaria. Copyright © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved