Week 2: the brain

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consciousness

Psychology

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59 Terms

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identity theorists
mind and brain are identical (consciousness\=brain activity)
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eliminative materialists
quali don't exist, understanding of the mind is wrong. mind\=brain (since qualia of the mind don't exist)
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extended minfers/embodies cognition
neural activity alone can't provide answers. need to take body and environment into account
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mysterians
can never understand consciousness (not possible for humans)
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peripheral nervous system
sensory and motor neurons that run through spinal cord and brainstem
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central nervous system
spinal cord and brain
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medulla, pons, mid-brain
brainstem (controls: cardiac, respiratory and sexual functions)
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cerebellum
motor control
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thalamus
relay areas for sensory inputs

* thalamocortical loop
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reticular formation
involved in pain desensitisation and forms reticular activating system (sleep-wake transitions)
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necessary but not sufficient
reticular formation role for consciousness
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hypothalamus
regualtes autonomic nervous system
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cingulate gyrus
plays role in emotion, pain and motivational responses
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neocortex
expanded more than any other brain structure during human evolution

* no ultimate top
* interlinked system
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excitatory pyramidal cells and inhibitory interneurons
two main types of neurons running through neocortex
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parietal lobe
sensory association areas, somatosensory cortex and dorsal stream
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temporal
auditory, memory, ventral stream
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single cell recordings
animal studies. microelectrode inserted into neuron and records activity
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neural correlates of consciousness
measure an aspect of neural functioning and correlate it with conscious experience reports
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contrastive method
conscious perception is compared to unconscious perception
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Classic Method
rivalry in vision

* binocular rivalry
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binocular rivalry
different images are presented to each eye resulting in perception flipping between both eyes

* both images compete for consciousness
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unconscious homunculus
(Francis Crick) front of the brain is observing sensory areas with many zombie modes of processing all over brain

* contain transient groups of neurons corresponding to thoughts, images and perceptions
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bridge locus
locatable part of brain, crossing point for matter and consciousness (1980s)

* neural activity here is sufficient for visual consciousness (elsewhere isn't)
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V1 neurons
don't contribute to phenomenal experience

* all unconscious info is necessary precursor for conscious experience (not responsible for it tho)
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global neuronal workspace theory
NCCs of visual consciousness comprise of many diff areas associated with vision working together
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mereological fallacy
giving attributes to parts of a person/thing than can only be given to person/thing as a whole
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central areas
where were conscious visual experiences correlated with instead of V1 or early parts of sensory pathways?
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reciprocal inhibition
dominant image inhibits the other (suppressed image)

* weakened as neurons become habituated to dominant image (suppressed image becomes dominant)
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anesthesia
blocking at thalamus level (disconnect similar to PVS)
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consciousness switch
thalamus
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ketamine
antagonist of NMDA receptor, blocks normal excitatory effect of glutamate

* anesthetic
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integrated information theory of consciousness
conscousness increases and decreases with integration of info in brain
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source amnesia
inability to remember source of knowledge.

* related to unconscious plagiarism
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unconscious plagiarism
false belief of having invented an idea when it was actually learned from someone else
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dual-process theory
thoughts can arise from two diff processes: conscious or unconscious

* contrasts automatic processing vs controlled
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level-of-processing hypothesis
transition from unconscious to conscious is influenced by level of processing required by task
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cartesian theatre
physical and metaphorical place where conscious experience takes place

* ideas, images, feelings we are consciously aware of are presented
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cartesian materialism
discarding Descartes' dualism, but fail to discard imagery of central (but material) theatre
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parallel processing
mutual interactions between several areas (no 'top' can be located/ no where can we say consciousness happens 'here')
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pictoralists
incorrectly associate observing similarities between imagery and vision with saying pictures in the brain are painted on a mental canvas
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propositionalists
mental imagery is language-like
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enactivistic
when we imagine, sensory exploration is performed without any interaction with environment
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sensorimotor theories
potential for sensory exploration is enough for imagination

* imagining/seeing depends on bodily engagement with environment
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neuronal global workspace model
no info has to become conscious and a collection of specialised unconscious processors competes for access to GW
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conscious mental field
cut off piece of cortical tissuel, if activated communication would take place in form of field that doesn't depend on nerve pathways
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binding problem
how features from diff circuits can be combined for perception
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attention
what makes binding possible
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help coalition in competition for consciousness
what is the primary role of synchrony?
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temporal binding
neurons representing 1 object fire in synchrony with each other, but out of synchrony with neurons representing other objects simultaneously
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integration information theory
consciousness is the capacity of a system to integrate info
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synesthesia
integrated cross-modal perception
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interpreter
produces plausible explanations for RH's actions
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executive and supervisory levels
what two brain functions were studied on SB patients (MacKay)
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executive levels
unconsciously control goal-directed activities and evaluate them in terms of priorities
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self-supervisory levels
determine and update priorities evaluated by executive levels
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amnesiac syndrom
dissociation between performance and consciousness

* conscious but stuck in present, disconnected from past
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anterograde amnesia
inability to form new LT memories
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retrograde amnesia
inability to have LT memories of past events