Skip to main content


One single neuron (seen in blue above) was found wrapped around a mouse brain like a "crown of thorns."  Scientists believe this finding may shed light on how consciousness is developed and how so many different processes of the brain come together so quickly to give us conscious awareness.  The single neuron spans the occipital lobe, temporal lobe, parietal lobe, and frontal lobe.  This means that visual information, linguistic information, face and shape recognition, and somatosensory information, along with our decisions/judgments about all of this information, is all being integrated in the seat of the neuron at the claustrum.  This might shed light on how we, in a split second and without our even knowing it, are able to make prediction and corrections about our perceptions, as in the Predictive Coding Model.  It can also explain Locke's proposal that we make judgments about sense perceptions, such as a flat shape variously colored, without our even knowing it, to give us the idea of a 3-D shape with a uniform color.  I think this new finding is extremely exciting and gives some concrete evidence for the abstract concept of consciousness and how we might make split-second judgments of sense perceptions to form our conscious awareness without us even knowing.

http://www.nature.com/news/a-giant-neuron-found-wrapped-around-entire-mouse-brain-1.21539

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Negative Afterimage

Reber Shukri Professor Vaughn Negative afterimage is a stimulus which elicits a positive image. In order to experience this, one can look at a bright source of light and then look away to a dark area. The way negative afterimage works is when the eye's photo-receptors which are the rods and cones adapt to over stimulation and lose sensitivity. The photo-receptors which are constantly exposed to the same stimulus will fatigue their supply of photo pigment, resulting a decrease in signal to the brain. The way negative afterimage connects to perception is because of bottom up processing where the stimulus influences what we perceive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szy8iNCljlQ <Link to the video

Illusions that Confuse Multiple Senses

In this video, several illusions are shown that deceive your senses. Illusions such as the Zöllner Illusion and the Poggendorff illusion confuse our bottom up processing by tricking our vision. However, our vision isn't the only sense that these illusions can confuse, blind individuals presented with raised versions of the same illusions are also confused by them. These illusions effect the visual and touch systems by confusing our bottom up processing by tricking out sight and touch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je1mkzRU5rc&t=64s
          Evolution of Camouflage & First World War Dazzle Paint Jobs           The origins of modern camouflage owes itself to 19th century naturalist painters.  The most notable of these in the development of knowledge of camouflage was Abbot H, Thayer.  While he harbored some strange views of the scientific development of animal camouflage (all animals were "camouflaged")  He noticed the effect of disruptive patterning and countershading.  He noted that animal markings tended to obstruct their shape in nature.  Their coloring added with this made them often completely invisible. By going from darker shades on top to lighter on the bottom animals canceled out the way we see objects by light illuminated them top down.  Black also aided in disruptive schemes. An example of Countershading. Abbot's demonstration of disruptive patterns. In this image we can see how disruptive patterns observe...