Current Focus

Current Focus (Draft Notes)

Note 1: Computation is inherent in the brain. Any movement requires computation. Maintaining balance is a computation; throwing a ball is computation; picking up a rock is computation. The question is whether any of these computations can be used to carry out computation in the usual sense.

Note 2: The cerebellum, a phylogenetically older structure than the cerebrum, evolved to allow for rapid movements (ballistic actions), precise actions in pursuit and defense, and later evolved as an integral part of the neuro-motor system in the human. Because the cerebellum is a very precise "computer", one wonders to what extent it contributed to the evolution of human cognitive computation.

Note 3: Our current focus will be in the area of the hippocampus and cerebellum. In this regard, I have asked PJ to develop exercises that specifically challenge the cerebellum. Our standard tennis drills already perform this function.

Note 4: The tennis drills serve the function of using a primitive weapon to kill prey, defend against attack, and engage in adaptive, creative behavior.

Note 5:

Exercise during development induces an increase in Purkinje cell dendritic tree size
JJ Pysh and GM Weiss

"Mice allowed to exercise during the late postnatal period had Purkinje cells with larger dendritic trees and greater numbers of spines than littermates whose physical activity was severely restricted. These changes in Purkinje cells were accompanied by a selective reduction in the thickness of the cerebellar molecular layer. The data provide evidence for cerebellar plasticity during late development and demonstrate that physical activity can modify the development of Purkinje cell dendrites" REF

Note 6: Purkinje cells in the cerebellum perform massive integration and project the resulting integrated output into the cerebrum.

Summary of Notes 1-6: Early reptiles evolved the ability to do physics, signal processing, and geometry to survive. They could pursue, jump at the right moment, fight, and compute their location in three-dimensional space as well as compute speed, and use timing to capture prey. Their senses of smell, sight and hearing are naturally "signal processing computers" and therefore carry out computations. Their ability to compute is an "instinctive" ability, not a conscious ability, that existed in the cerebellum. So "computational capabilities" were present even in the reptiles. However, as the human evolved, computational capabilities evolved in the frontal lobe as well as the parietal lobe. And all of these abilities became integrated. Now is it possible that there evolved a preprocessor in the human brain that either replicated these abilities and made conscious use of them in another part of the brain (koniocortex.?), or that there is a preprocessor (koniocortex?.) that presently makes it possible to make conscious use of these abilities in physics, signal processing and geometry? Or is the situation entirely different? It is known that females use their entire brain to do computation, contrary to men, and this fact suggests that they may have access to innate computational systems in the various parts of the brain that are used for other purposes. Assuming the principle of efficiency [13]applies to the use of neurons in the self organizing dynamics of the brain, we will begin at an elementary level, stimulating the development of the cerebellum and improving the hippocampus and proceed on ward from there.

Note 7: The body has the ability to exert back pressure on the brain, forcing it to rearrange neurons. For example, individuals who have lost their arms learn to paint and eat with their feet. This is a case where necessity and determination have caused the brain to rearrange the motor neurons, once allocated to the hands, and allocate them to the feet. This ability likely developed early on in the brain and was driven by crisis of survival and the forces of nature. Consequently, it should be possible to simulate the environment that brought about neural reallocation and rearrangement to some degree in order to rehabilitate lost capabilities or to stimulate the formation of missing capabilities in special needs individuals.

The "crisis" environment must be constructed using the Langer protocol to insure the greatest probability of success. An essential requirement is that the subjects be willing and determined to carryout the exercises that are formulated to improve their capabilities and to push themselves to their limits if there is to be a possibility of success.

Note 8: "The Purkinje cells are the principal integrating neurons of the cerebellum, the classic example of an integrator. From each a large axon descends into the deeper portions of the cerebellum. Its function is to receive input from various sources, make a "decision" to fire or not, and to send a single integrated on/off signal from its own axon reflecting that decision. The arrangement of the Purkinje cell's dendrites and their relationship to the nerve fibers in the molecular layer are the important factors in making the system work"--REF

Note 9: "The function of the cerebellum has been the topic of many theories and models, maybe more so than any other brain structure. Early on around 1970, the work by Marr and Albus on possibilities of controlling movement execution based on learnt input patterns excited the whole field. In fact, the property of LTD was found because of its theoretical prediction by Albus, a feat rarely achieved by theorists of neural function. To this day researchers don’t fully agree on what the function of the cerebellum is in detail. It is quite clear, however, that the cerebellum is an extremely fast processing machine, suitable for the on-line control of movement accuracy and error-correction. It is also quite clear, that the activity of cerebellum is modified by learning. In some sense, then, the cerebellum improves the control of behavior based on previous experience, and it using a lot of sensory inputs to perform this function"--REF

The cerebellum is about 1/10th of the brain's volume physically while containing almost half of all neurons in the brain. That is, about 10% of the physical volume of the brain contains almost 50% of all neurons in the brain.

Click on image above for reference

Note 10 We will be using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) top evaluate progress in the development of skills in abstraction (to see what is essential in an idea by discarding irrelevant details), association, analogy (the ability to see common structures in two seemingly different situations), and generalization (.reasoning from detailed facts to general principles ).

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