Brains need to make quick sense of massive amounts of ambiguous information with minimal energy costs and have evolved an intriguing mixture of analog and digital mechanisms to allow this efficiency. Analog electrical and biochemical signals inside neurons are used for integrating synaptic inputs from other neurons. The digital part is the all-or-none action potential, or spike, that lasts for a millisecond or less and is used to send messages over a long distance. Spike coincidences occur when neurons fire together at nearly the same time. In this lecture I will show how rare spike coincidences can be used efficiently to represent important visual events and how this architecture can be implemented with analog VLSI technology to simplify the early stages of visual processing.
On February 24, 2012, the Vermont Complex Systems Center at the University of Vermont invited Professor Terrence Sejnowski to discuss this topic as part of the Complex Systems Spire Speaker Series. Terrence Sejnowski is the Francis Crick Professor at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies where he directs the Computational Neurobiology Laboratory, an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and a Professor of Biology and Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego, where he is Co-Director of the Institute for Neural Computation.
V.S. Ramachandran is Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and Professor with the Psychology Department and the Neurosciences Program at UC San Diego. A former BBC Reith Lecturer, he wrote Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind (with Sandra Blakeslee), and is the author of A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Impostor Poodles to Purple Numbers. His latest book, The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human explores human uniqueness and illustrates how we can better understand the normal by studying the abnormal. Called "The Marco Polo of neuroscience" by Richard Dawkins and "The modern Paul Broca" by Eric Kandel, Ramachandran has also been celebrated in the epidemic of medical melodramas: in the episode "The Tyrant" of the television show House, MD., Dr. House cures phantom limb pain using Ramachandran's mirror box.
Eric R. Kandel, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, probes into the mind to demonstrate how it is much more complex than just a series of processes carried out by the brain. The brain produces our every emotional, intellectual and athletic act. It allows us to acquire new facts and skills, and to remember them for as long as a lifetime. Memory exists in two major forms, each located in different brain regions. Explicit memory is for people, places, and objects. In contrast, implicit memory serves perceptual and motor skills. In concert, these two memory systems help make us who we are.
How billions of interconnected cells in the brain can interpret and regulate all our bodily functions as well as mediate our experiences of interactions with and responses to the world around us is a huge and fascinating question that many different disciplines have attempted to tackle.
This lecture will consider what we have learned so far about the principles of neural encoding and how they may begin to explain our memories, emotions and conscious awareness.
Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Thomas M. Jessel, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, explores the human brain, the sophisticated product of 500 million years of vertebrate evolution, assembled during just nine months of embryonic development. The functions encoded by its trillion nerve cells direct all human behavior. Yet the brain is a biological organ made from the same building blocks as skin, liver and lung. How does the brain acquire its remarkable computational power? Answers lie in the details of its construction -- the cellular and molecular mechanisms that drive the formation of thousands of neural circuits, each wired for a specific behavior.
Baroness Susan Greenfield CBE Hon FRCP, Member, House of Lords, United Kingdom, Professor of Synaptic Pharmacology, Lincoln College, Oxford University presents this lecture: How does the brain generate consciousness? This video was recorded at The Australian National University on 30 August 2010, and was the keynote speech at a John Curtin School of Medical Research symposium: New Perspectives in Clinical Neuroscience and Mental Health.
Susan Greenfield was both an undergraduate and graduate at Oxford, but has subsequently spent time in postdoctoral research at the College de France, Paris, with Professor J Glowinski and at the New York University Medical Centre, New York, with Professor R Llinas. As a consequence of working in both biochemical and electrophysiological environments she has developed a multidisciplinary approach to exploring novel neuronal mechanisms in the brain that are common to regions affected in both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The basic theme of her research is to develop strategies to arrest neuronal death in these disorders.
She is also co-founder of a university spin-out company specialising in novel approaches to neurodegeneration, - Synaptica Ltd In addition, Professor Greenfield has a supplementary interest in the neuroscientific basis of consciousness, and accordingly has written 'Journey to the Centres of the Mind Toward a Science of Consciousness' (1995) W H Freeman Co, and 'Private Life of the Brain' (2000) Penguin. Her latest book 'Tomorrow's People: How 21st Century technology is changing the way we think and feel' (Penguin 2003), explores human nature, and its potential vulnerability in an age of technology.
In addition, she is also Director of the Institute for the Future of the Mind, part of the James Martin 21st Century School, which exploits the parallels between the brains of the very young and very old, and how they are all vunerable to technology, chemical manipulation, and disease.
She has also written 'The Human Brain': A Guided Tour (1997) Orion-Phoenix Press, which ranked in the best seller list for hard and paperbacks.
She held the Gresham Chair of Physic from 1996-1999, and has received 28 honorary degrees. In 1998 she was awarded the Michael Faraday medal by the Royal Society and in 1999 was elected to an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians. She is also involved in science policy and has given a consultative seminar to the Prime Minister on the future of science in the UK. Susan has been involved in the 'Science and the Economy' seminars at No 11 and in response to a request in 2002 from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, she produced the Greenfield Report 'SET Fair: A Report on Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology'. She was awarded the CBE in the Millennium New Year's Honour's List and Life Peerage (non-political) in 2001. In 2003 she was awarded the Ordre National de la Legion d'Honneur.
Professor Susan Greenfield argues that new digital technologies are rewiring the brain's frontal cortex - the area of the brain responsible for cognitive analysis and abstract thought. Greenfield suggests that 'mind change', brought on by increasing internet use and the popularity of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, will be the new climate change.
The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow's world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.
The third Copernicus Center Lecture - "Our Emotional Brains" - was delivered by Professor Joseph LeDoux, a famous neuroscientist. The 2011 Copernicus Center Lecture was part of the 15th Kraków Methodological Conference - "The Emotional Brain: From the Humanities to Neuroscience and Back Again", which was co-organized by the Copenicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies.
The Academy's Teatro was packed with an enthusiastic crowd eager to learn about recent advances in the neurosciences from the best-known scientists in the world, including Antonio Damasio, V.S. Ramachandran, Raymond Dolan, Vittorio Gallese, Joseph LeDoux, Semir Zeki, and Margaret Livingstone, along with responses and reflections from noted artists including Marina Abramovic, Robert Irwin, Richard Meier, Lynn Davis, Laurie Anderson, Terry Winters, Joan Snyder, Philip Taaffe, George Condo, and David Salle. The conference was led by the Academy's Director, David Freedberg, along with Arthur C. Danto and Nobel Laureate Eric R. Kandel. The Forum was sponsored in part by the Louise T. Blouin Foundation. https://vimeo.com/album/1885202
Baroness Susan Greenfield CBE Hon FRCP, Member, House of Lords, United Kingdom, Professor of Synaptic Pharmacology, Lincoln College, Oxford University presents this lecture: How does the brain generate consciousness? This video was recorded at The Australian National University on 30 August 2010, and was the keynote speech at a John Curtin School of Medical Research symposium: New Perspectives in Clinical Neuroscience and Mental Health.
Susan Greenfield was both an undergraduate and graduate at Oxford, but has subsequently spent time in postdoctoral research at the College de France, Paris, with Professor J Glowinski and at the New York University Medical Centre, New York, with Professor R Llinas. As a consequence of working in both biochemical and electrophysiological environments she has developed a multidisciplinary approach to exploring novel neuronal mechanisms in the brain that are common to regions affected in both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The basic theme of her research is to develop strategies to arrest neuronal death in these disorders.
She is also co-founder of a university spin-out company specialising in novel approaches to neurodegeneration, - Synaptica Ltd In addition, Professor Greenfield has a supplementary interest in the neuroscientific basis of consciousness, and accordingly has written 'Journey to the Centres of the Mind Toward a Science of Consciousness' (1995) W H Freeman Co, and 'Private Life of the Brain' (2000) Penguin. Her latest book 'Tomorrow's People: How 21st Century technology is changing the way we think and feel' (Penguin 2003), explores human nature, and its potential vulnerability in an age of technology.
In addition, she is also Director of the Institute for the Future of the Mind, part of the James Martin 21st Century School, which exploits the parallels between the brains of the very young and very old, and how they are all vunerable to technology, chemical manipulation, and disease.
She has also written 'The Human Brain': A Guided Tour (1997) Orion-Phoenix Press, which ranked in the best seller list for hard and paperbacks.
She held the Gresham Chair of Physic from 1996-1999, and has received 28 honorary degrees. In 1998 she was awarded the Michael Faraday medal by the Royal Society and in 1999 was elected to an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians. She is also involved in science policy and has given a consultative seminar to the Prime Minister on the future of science in the UK. Susan has been involved in the 'Science and the Economy' seminars at No 11 and in response to a request in 2002 from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, she produced the Greenfield Report 'SET Fair: A Report on Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology'. She was awarded the CBE in the Millennium New Year's Honour's List and Life Peerage (non-political) in 2001. In 2003 she was awarded the Ordre National de la Legion d'Honneur.
The third Copernicus Center Lecture -
"Our Emotional Brains" - was delivered by Professor Joseph LeDoux, a
famous neuroscientist. The 2011 Copernicus Center Lecture was part of
the 15th Kraków Methodological Conference - "The Emotional Brain: From
the Humanities to Neuroscience and Back Again", which was co-organized
by the Copenicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies.
Vilayanur Ramachandran, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and Professor, Psychology
Department and Neurosciences Program, University of California, San
Diego
V.S. “Rama” Ramachandran has
pursued research in two areas, one in the study of visual perception
(what a subject is seeing based on what they report), and the other in
behavioral neurology (in which his experiments, despite their seeming
simplicity, have had a significant impact on the way we think about the
brain). He is credited with introducing the use of visual feedback as a
treatment for phantom limb pain and complex regional pain syndrome and
for stroke rehabilitation. More recently, his work has focused on the
causes of autism.
The third Copernicus Center Lecture -
"Our Emotional Brains" - was delivered by Professor Joseph LeDoux, a
famous neuroscientist. The 2011 Copernicus Center Lecture was part of
the 15th Kraków Methodological Conference - "The Emotional Brain: From
the Humanities to Neuroscience and Back Again", which was co-organized
by the Copenicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies.
Antonio Damasio is David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Neurology, and director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California.
From one of the most significant neuroscientists at work today, a pathbreaking investigation of a question that has confounded philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists for centuries: how is consciousness created?
Antonio Damasio has spent the past thirty years studying and writing about how the brain operates, and his work has garnered acclaim for its singular melding of the scientific and the humanistic. In Self Comes to Mind, he goes against the long-standing idea that consciousness is somehow separate from the body, presenting compelling new scientific evidence that consciousness—what we think of as a mind with a self—is to begin with a biological process created by a living organism. Besides the three traditional perspectives used to study the mind (the introspective, the behavioral, and the neurological), Damasio introduces an evolutionary perspective that entails a radical change in the way the history of conscious minds is viewed and told. He also advances a radical hypothesis regarding the origins and varieties of feelings, which is central to his framework for the biological construction of consciousness: feelings are grounded in a near fusion of body and brain networks, and first emerge from the historically old and humble brain stem rather than from the modern cerebral cortex.
Damasio suggests that the brain's development of a human self becomes a challenge to nature's indifference and opens the way for the appearance of culture, a radical break in the course of evolution and the source of a new level of life regulation—sociocultural homeostasis. He leaves no doubt that the blueprint for the work-in-progress he calls sociocultural homeostasis is the genetically well-established basic homeostasis, the curator of value that has been present in simple life-forms for billions of years. Self Comes to Mind is a groundbreaking journey into the neurobiological foundations of mind and self.
Eric Kandel, who received the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, is professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and a senior investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He was also the founding director of the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, which is now the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia.
Kandel has recently authored In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind (W.W. Norton), which chronicles his life and research. The book was awarded the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Award for Science and Technology.
Eric R. Kandel, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, examines whether the brain's two major memory systems, implicit and explicit, have any common features. Implicit and explicit memory both have a short-term component lasting minutes, such as remembering the telephone number you just looked up, and a long-term component that lasts days, weeks, or a lifetime, such as remembering your mother's birthday. Short-term memory is mediated by modifications of existing proteins, leading to temporary changes in the strength of communication between nerve cells. In contrast, long-term memory involves alterations of gene expression, synthesis of new proteins and growth of new synaptic connections.
Eric R. Kandel, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, probes into the mind to demonstrate how it is much more complex than just a series of processes carried out by the brain. The brain produces our every emotional, intellectual and athletic act. It allows us to acquire new facts and skills, and to remember them for as long as a lifetime. Memory exists in two major forms, each located in different brain regions. Explicit memory is for people, places, and objects. In contrast, implicit memory serves perceptual and motor skills. In concert, these two memory systems help make us who we are.
V.S. Ramachandran is Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and Professor with the Psychology Department and the Neurosciences Program at UC San Diego. A former BBC Reith Lecturer, he wrote Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind (with Sandra Blakeslee), and is the author of A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Impostor Poodles to Purple Numbers. His latest book, The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human explores human uniqueness and illustrates how we can better understand the normal by studying the abnormal. Called "The Marco Polo of neuroscience" by Richard Dawkins and "The modern Paul Broca" by Eric Kandel, Ramachandran has also been celebrated in the epidemic of medical melodramas: in the episode "The Tyrant" of the television show House, MD., Dr. House cures phantom limb pain using Ramachandran's mirror box.
Dr. V.S. Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and Distinguished Professor with the Psychology Department and Neuroscience Program at the University of California, San Diego at the San Francisco Asian Art Forum for Museum Directors at the Asian Art Museum (November 8-9, 2011)
Eduardo Galeano: "El mundo se divide en indignos e indignados"
The Crime of Ecocide
http://www.pollyhiggins.com/
"... move away from property laws to trusteeship laws, so rather than I own, to I owe. I owe a duty of care to this planet."
12-year old Victoria Grant explains why Canada (her homeland) and most of the world, is in debt.
"How the Media Frames Political Issues" by Scott London
In The Emergence of American Political Issues (1977) McCombs and Shaw state that the most important effect of the mass media is "its ability to mentally order and organize our world for us. In short, the mass media may not be successful in telling us what to think, but they are stunningly successful in telling us what to think about."[13] The presidential observer Theodore White corroborates this conclusion in The Making of a President (1972):
The power of the press in America is a primordial one. It sets the agenda of public discussion; and this sweeping political power is unrestrained by any law. It determines what people will talk and think about - an authority that in other nations is reserved for tyrants, priests, parties and mandarins.[14]
McCombs and Shaw also note that the media's tendency to structure voters' perceptions of political reality in effect constitutes a bias: "to a considerable degree the art of politics in a democracy is the art of determining which issue dimensions are of major interest to the public or can be made salient in order to win public support."[15] http://www.scottlondon.com/reports/frames.html
I am just an anonymous citizen who firmly believes that we are the ones we are always waiting for. No saviors, heroes, leaders, gurus, or superior or inferior, we are all equals, and we need to think and behave as if it matters.
