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
Post a Comment