The Feeling Brain

09/06/2021

👉🎙NEW EPISODE of our Podcast On Consciousness with Bernard J Baars -- EPISODE 16 "GLOBAL WORKSPACE THEORY: Origins & Evidence - Part I" 👉🎙

Student Interviewers Alea Skwara and Ilian Daskalov join our host, Bernard J Baars, in our podcast series to unpack the origins of Global Workspace Theory as well as some of its features, namely widespread integration and broadcasting.

This is Part I in a series of fun and interesting episodes where we dive deeper into the scientific evidence each time.

"Ilian, this might kind of pull us into - "What are the features of GWT?" - and that next phase, because I think one of the major features is this Limited Capacity. But, what is it about this ability to be consciously aware of a limited percentage of what's happening in our mind, or what's happening in our sensory environment, that's so advantageous that it makes it worth missing what we're not consciously aware of?"

"Exactly right. And so, the hypothesis, the GW hypothesis was, there has to be a compensatory event in the brain happening, and the most plausible one, for various reasons, including other people's work, of course, was that there's some kind of very wide recruitment of brain resources that happens as a function of becoming conscious of something. So we're only conscious of, let's say a single star on a dark night, but that fact - that we are only conscious of that conscious of, let's say a single star on a dark night, but that fact - that we are only conscious of that -has immense consequences in the brain.

And today we can actually see that happening. I called that the broadcast hypothesis. And now, of course, we know that it's a resonant broadcast because the brain system that is involved, huge brain system that's involved - the cortex and the thalamus - that only has bidirectional wiring, basically. So if you send out a broadcast, you can get feedback right away from that, and what that means, given the fact that they're both excitatory neurons, that means that you can get an explosion of activity. And the only trouble with that is, why doesn't your brain blow up? Right!"

🧠

Listen on your favorite streaming network -- here are the links to Spotify and Apple:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1qF9y3IvdMcOJ9QH8ih4gS...
https://podcasts.apple.com/.../ep-16.../id1498805983...

#consciousness #neuroscience #brain #podcasts #globalworkspacetheory #GWT #OnConsciousness #limitedcapacity #mindscience #cognition #broadcasting #Integration #neurobiology #neurons

07/13/2021

👉 NEW PODCAST EPISODE 👉 A fun and very interesting discussion with neuropsychiatrist Dr. Heather Berlin for the podcast "#OnConsciousness with Bernard Baars" -- featuring a personal interview by UC Irvine student, @Ilian Daskalov. Check it out! Heather is fascinating 🧠☯︎ She says,

"I got interested in Impulse Control mostly because I got interested in what makes us human. And I became sort of obsessed with understanding the functions of the prefrontal cortex, which I felt was part of our brain that made us distinctly human. And a large part of the function of that part of the brain has to do with impulse control, emotional regulation... and I think the very simple fact that we have this capacity for impulse control and emotion regulation has allowed us to build civilizations, and technology, and buildings, and societies.

So, I think that impulse control is a key component in what it means for us to be human and what differentiates us from other primates." 🧠☯︎

~Dr. Heather Berlin, neuroscientist and licensed clinical psychologist

#thefeelingbrain #insidethefeelingbrain #brainwellness #mentalhealth #scienceeducation #freewill #podcast #podcastshow #neuroscience #psychology

07/13/2021

Ep 15: "Communicating Science Effectively and The Notion of Free Will" with Dr. Heather Berlin

"The idea is to help people understand how this science is relevant to their daily lives. Our brain likes novelty. It gets this sort of dopamine hit when you give it new information. Capturing attention and getting people excited about the information is really important, especially when dealing with things like public health issues, for example.”

– Dr. Heather Berlin, Neuropsychologist and Assistant Clinical Professor at Mount Sinai

For Episode #15, our returning guest is neuropsychologist Dr. Heather Berlin, an Assistant Clinical Professor in Psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine...

07/13/2021

The Feeling Brain updated their website address.

The Feeling Brain updated their website address.

07/13/2021

The Feeling Brain updated their information in their About section.

The Feeling Brain updated their information in their About section.

03/13/2021

Psychedelic Study Links Brain Activity and Behavior

"Mounting research suggests that controlled treatment with psychedelics like psilocybin mushrooms, L*D, and M**A - better known as ecstasy - may be effective options for people suffering from PTSD, anxiety disorders, and depression. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration recently granted "breakthrough therapy" status to study the medical benefits of psychedelics. And two years ago this month, the FDA approved a psychedelic drug - esketamine - to treat depression.

An increasing number of states and municipalities are also grappling with calls to decriminalize psychedelic drugs, a move that UNLV neuroscientist Dustin Hines says could further the recent renaissance in psychedelic science.

"The resurgence in interest in psychedelic medicine is likely related to multiple factors, including decreasing societal stigma regarding drugs like hallucinogens and cannabis, increasing awareness of the potential therapeutic compounds found naturally occurring in plants and fungi, and the growing mental health crisis our nation faces," says Hines. "Because of the intersection between the great need for innovation and wider social acceptance, researchers have started to explore psychedelics as novel treatments for depressive disorders, including work with compounds that have been used for millennia."

In the Hines lab at UNLV, husband and wife researchers Dustin and Rochelle Hines are uncovering how psychedelics affect brain activity. Their work, published recently in Nature: Scientific Reports, shows a strong connection in rodent models between brain activity and behaviors resulting from psychedelic treatment, a step forward in the quest to better understand their potential therapeutic effects."

Reference:

Contreras, A., Khumnark, M., Hines, R. M., & Hines, D. J. (2021). Behavioral arrest and a characteristic slow waveform are hallmark responses to selective 5-HT 2A receptor activation. Scientific Reports, 11(1), 1925. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-81552-6

New research shows a strong connection in rodent models between brain activity and behaviors resulting from psychedelic treatment, a step forward in the quest to better understand their potential therapeutic effects.

02/01/2021

Dr. Heather Berlin on the effectiveness of Deep Brain Stimulation | The Podcast On Consciousness with Bernard Baars

It is amazing how low level electrical stimulation by microscopic electrodes can profoundly change human mood disorders, like severe depression. The brain areas stimulated include the nucleus accumbens and ventral striatum of the basal ganglia, and local areas in the prefrontal cortex.

“Medical science is often an art as well as a science, but Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) really can have significant effect and impact on people with difficult-to-treat conditions, like OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), but also people with intractable or untreatable depression,” says Dr. Heather Berlin.

DBS can be surprisingly effective. As Dr. Berlin points out, “DBS is a huge success story. 40 to 50% of patients with severe untreatable depression, and about 60 to 70% of patients with severe OCD all have significant improvement in people who’ve tried every first line treatment and nothing has worked. In many cases you can see an immediate effect, as in chronic depression -- suddenly you turn on the electrodes -- you don't tell them when it's on or off, right? And their whole face lights up. And you ask "What do you feel like?" And they say "Oh, it feels wonderful. It feels like I won the lottery! It's so great!" And as they're talking, you turn off the electrodes and you just see their whole affect drop right back down.

#BrainStimulation #Cortex #science #onconsciousness #breakthroughs #mentalhealth #consciousness #mentalhealth #OCD #ocdtreatment #depression #treatments #mind #podcast

01/27/2021

What kind of brain activity could carry out a global workspace (GW) function?

Thanks to a global collaboration between the Center for Brain and Cognition, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain, the Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK and the Center for Music in the Brain, University of Aarhus, Professors Deco, Vidaurre and Kringelbach chose to look at the strength of connectivity between neurons in the cortex, and then focus on the most heavily traveled parts of the cortex, called the “functional rich club” of cells and links. #connectivity #globalworkspace #neurons #brain #GWT

Important new article by Deco, Vidaurre & Kringelbach advances debate about consciousness as a ‘theater’ or ‘global workspace.’

01/23/2021

Revisiting the Global Workspace orchestrating the hierarchical organisation of the human brain

What kind of #brain activity could carry out a #globalworkspace (GW) function? An important new article by Deco, Vidaurre & Kringelbach has advanced that debate. Now, easily we may think that the thalamus, that rests in the center of each hemisphere like an egg in a bird’s nest, would be the center of everything. But #evolution decided otherwise.
Deco, Vidaurre & Kringelbach chose to look at the strength of #connectivity between #neurons in the #cortex, and then focus on the most heavily traveled parts of the cortex, called the “rich club” of cells and links.

The celebrations in the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven would not be the same without Herbert von Karajan's brilliant performances conducting Beethoven's memorable symphonies. The ex*****on of any musical symphony is a hugely difficult task, demanding very significant skills o...

01/22/2021

Heather Berlin - Altered States: Psychedelic Medicine and the Brain

How does the use of #psilocybin change the brain? Can #psychedelics help with treatments for depression and suicidality? Here is a little preview of my upcoming conversation with Dr. Heather Berlin on the topic of #hallucinogens.

BrainMind Summit - Consciousness Day hosted at StanfordHeather Berlin, PhD, MPHAssistant Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine a...

01/22/2021

Ep 3 - Part 2 - What is the Biology of Subjectivity? Podcast On Consciousness with Bernard Baars

#Consciousness is a core question of life. Making progress in understanding it therefore has an endless number of benefits – philosophical, scientific, medical, and practical. #neuroscience #subjectivity #TBT

Episode 3: NATURALIZING CONSCIOUSNESS: Conversations on the Biology of Subjectivity with Neuroscientists Bernard J. Baars, David Edelman, Jay Giedd, and Jeff...

12/31/2020

Bernard J Baars

“If not in the womb, at what point in life do we first have the sensation of being us? In terms of knowing that we’re an individual person… And where that line is crossed, including octopus or other animals, at what point in terms of our brain development are the brains capable of this sensation of being self aware?”

— Dr. Jay Giedd, Director of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at Rady Children’s Hospital & Professor of Psychiatry at UCSD School of Medicine

Have you ever wondered at what point in life do we first have the sensation of being ourselves? I had the pleasure of discussing such matters with Dr. Jay Giedd, professor at UC San Diego, during the first season of 'On Consciousness' #neuroscience #brain #TBT

12/18/2020

Bernard J Baars

💡 Our Chief Science Officer, neuroscientist David Edelman, and #GWT originator Bernard J Baars were interviewed by Dr. Ginger Campbell for her acclaimed #Brain #science #Podcast! 🧠

The discussion covered a variety of #neuroscience topics but focused primarily on the origins of Global Workspace Theory (GWT) and #consciousness. #podcastlife

#TBT In case you missed it, our conversation with Dr. Ginger Campbell and David Edelman has been uploaded to Medium. The discussion covered a variety of #neuroscience topics but focused primarily on the origins of Global Workspace Theory (GWT) and #consciousness.

11/18/2020

Bernard J Baars

Bernard J Baars

New #blog post! For reasons that drive scientists close to despair, #media writers get science stories wrong. However, for the first time in history anybody can read the primary sources of #science! There’s only one barrier, and it’s in your own #mind.

10/25/2020

Bernard J Baars

Many scientific studies use experimental comparisons between similar cs and uncs events. This “contrastive analysis” approach has been very fruitful. Dozens of techniques now permit conscious — unconscious comparisons. Any method that permits such comparisons can enlarge our understanding. The resulting empirical harvest has been very large.
Ambiguities

“Consciousness” has several meanings.

It is used in biomedical science to refer to the state of waking consciousness, as assessed by responsiveness to questions, commands, and mild pain, by the classical scalp EEG of waking, and by the ability to describe oneself and current events. We will use terms like “conscious state” or “waking state” for this specific meaning. However, in scientific work “consciousness” is also used to refer to the “dimension of conscious vs. unconscious brain events” — that is, as an experimental variable that allows us to study brain differences attributable to consciousness.

This usage is profoundly different from the first, since it involves a measurable dimension of variation.

Yet “consciousness as an empirical variable” is still commonly confused with the waking state or with subjectivity. They are linked, but not the same.

#onconsciousness #mindbrain #blog #brainfood

New blog post! How do we define #consciousness? In scientific usage the topic of consciousness today refers to the “conscious-unconscious dimension,” which includes subjective experiences, but always compared to close #brain analogues that aren't conscious. #neuroscience #subjectivity

10/22/2020

Bernard J Baars

#podcast #onconsciousness 🧠🎙💡

#TBT In episode 10 of 'On Consciousness' we discussed some of the evidence that supports Global Workspace Theory and the brain areas involved in #conscious experiences. Stay tuned for the upcoming premiere episode of season 2! #brain #science #biology #GWT

10/09/2020

Bernard J Baars

Deep #sleep is the most unconscious natural state. Physiologically, it is needed for consolidation of experiential #memory traces via hippocampal-neocortical theta-gamma signaling. We do not know the full set of functions of deep sleep, but more than 200 types of gene expression are known to correlate with the sleep-waking cycle. Deep sleep therefore does not mean the absence of active, biologically important brain activities. More on the subject of #unconscious states in my recent #blog post.

Deep #sleep is the most unconscious natural state. Physiologically, it is needed for consolidation of experiential #memory traces via hippocampal-neocortical theta-gamma signaling. We do not know the full set of functions of deep sleep, but more than 200 types of gene expression are known to correlate with the sleep-waking cycle. Deep sleep therefore does not mean the absence of active, biologically important brain activities. More on the subject of #unconscious states in my recent #blog post.

10/09/2020

Bernard J Baars

#TBT In episode 6 of 'On Consciousness' neuroscientist David Edelman, neuroroboticist Jeffrey Krichmar from UC Irvine, and myself, discussed the potential timeline and bumps in the road in the quest to build #conscious machines. #neuroscience #machinelearning #AI

#TBT In episode 6 of 'On Consciousness' neuroscientist David Edelman, neuroroboticist Jeffrey Krichmar from UC Irvine, and myself, discussed the potential timeline and bumps in the road in the quest to build #conscious machines. #neuroscience #machinelearning #AI

10/03/2020

Bernard J Baars

"One neuron reaching out and connecting to another. That’s where the magic is. One neuron is not conscious, I would say, but a collection of them are. That’s the magic. This is how it works. This is how the brain becomes the brain." - Dr. Jay Giedd, professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine. #neuroscience #consciousness #neuron #brain

"One neuron reaching out and connecting to another. That’s where the magic is. One neuron is not conscious, I would say, but a collection of them are. That’s the magic. This is how it works. This is how the brain becomes the brain." - Dr. Jay Giedd, professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine. #neuroscience #consciousness #neuron #brain