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The Thalamus - The Kernel in Your Mind
corbettw writes "This article on Yahoo Science News describes a new finding that explains how the thalamus is used by your brain to essentially boot your brain, and provide for central processing and control of all impulses going to and from the cortex. The article describes its function as an operating system, but from the description it actually seems closer to the functions of a kernel." From the article: "The finding, published last week in the journal Neuroscience, changes the way scientists understand nitric oxide's role in the brain, and it also has them rethinking the function of the thalamus, where it is released. The thalamus was thought to be a fairly primitive structure, sort of a gate that could either open and allow sensory information to stream into the cortex, the higher functioning part of the brain, or cut off the flow entirely. Godwin says the new research shows it's more accurate to think of the thalamus not as a gate but as a club bouncer, who doesn't simply allow a huge rush of people to go in or no one at all, but picks and chooses whom to let in and out. "
One interesting thing about this is that nitric oxide is produced in the sinuses. Does "proper" nasal breathing result in altering the concentration of this molecule in the blood and therefore have an effect on consciousness?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
It's not the brain that works like an OS, apparently it's the OS that has a similar structure to a brain (already).
I guess we're on the right way to seeing higher intelligence emerge from machines in the next few decades.
Does this mean we should call the brain the Brain/Thalamus? It's unfair to give the entire package precedence over the kernel, as one is useless without the other.
I used to study neuroscience. The thalamus is a HUGE bank of relay switches in the brain- all these trunk cables go into it from all over. Basically anything you're paying attention to involves some circuit going through the thalamus, and the way the thalamus works is what limits your ability to focus on multiple things at once. Once something becomes rote- like QWERTY typing or good guitar playing- the thalamus is no longer involved.
I have epilepsy- really bad seizures- and my brain gets really messed up on restarts because it regains function piece by piece. Occasionally I'll be totally conscious (forming some long term memories again), and watching stuff come back online- I can hear, then I can see, then I can recognize things I see, etc. There are intermediate states where I can see but not recognize things. The seizures start in the right temporal lobe, so the right hemisphere is completely screwed up, but if my left brain works I can compensate with higher functions. Usually I'm looking for water fountains because my head is really hot and sweaty after a seizure. I'll find a water fountain and think, is this a water fountain? Well it has a stream of stuff that looks drinkable... it has a thing coming out the side that you can turn... it MUST be a water fountain! I almost pissed on my wife's chair once after somehow figuring it was a toilet. But without thalamic activity I'd never be able to patch right brain functions and send sensory information to the forebrain from the left side. If I'm able to pay attention to something at all, then there is some thalamic function. Recognizing it is a different task.
The ability to form long term memories comes later and is a more distributed gradual process as areas of the cortex recover. I was in this cubicle working once... doing simple stuff like cleaning up someone's crappy code... then I started doing more mentally intense work, and I turned around after an hour or two and noticed my cubicle was a mess. Everyone said, "you had a seizure a few hours ago, don't you remember?"
Recently my brain has been passing through a metastable fugue state after really nasty seizures where I have partial function, but it's not me yet- it's like someone else. I answer yes/no questions completely differently, I don't recognize my wife, I fight with people if they get in my way, and I don't know where I'm going but I'm going somewhere, sometimes out the door. Usually no new memories are being formed; I have to go by what people tell me afterward. Apparently I'm getting better at fooling people in the fugue state because my speech in the fugue is starting to almost sound normal even though I have only partial brain function. One of these days I'm going to regain consciousness in jail.
How about watching one (good) movie, playing one (good) game, reading one (good) book all over again?
After forgetting the plot and characters you'll get the same experience as reading/watching/playing for the first time.
From the abstract, it appears that the thalamus does act as a kind of "pacemaker" (or "motivator" as in R2D2).
The really important finding of the study is that this may be the path that alcohol uses to disrupt sleep.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
The scientific paper doesn't say your brain boots like a computer; an ignorant journalist has misinterpreted it.
Your brain doesn't boot. It never ever shuts down, at least, until you die. Once it shuts down, you AREN'T going to reboot it. At best, it goes into "sleep mode", which is quite different than your laptop's sleep mode. Your computer doesn't dream when it's in sleep mode, and your brain doesn't shut down when you sleep, not even when you're in a coma.
When you shut off your brain, it doesn't EVER start back up again. It isn't a computer and is nothing whatever like a computer. It isn't elecronic, it's electrochemical. It isn't binary, it's analog. Thought is merely a series of chemical reactions.
Some people think that if you make a complex enough computer it will become sentient. Yeah? How many more beads do I have to string on my binary abacus before it becomes self-aware?
How many more years before the PETA idiots start campaigning for "machine rights"?
Brains don't boot, computers don't think. Somebody needs to give the journalist the boot.
This sounds somewhat similar to some recreational experiences I've had with dissociative drugs, primarily Dextromethorphan, although much less pleasant! The brain is a complex web of interconnected systems, the world becomes radically different when elements of that system operate out of spec. Have you ever had "strobing"? That was always one of the more interesting qualities of DXM at certain dosages - it's almost like being in a dark room with a strobe light except there is almost a kind of buffering, it's really quite amazing the first time it happens. At higher doses the part of your brain that handles facial recognition goes completely out of synch, what's interesting is that everything else can still be recognized properly, but identifying faces becomes like the water fountain in your story ("I know she has blue eyes and blond hair, this MUST be Susan!").
The software and hardware are interchangeable. The brain makes hardware and software changes to itself during operation.
*Tangent*
Some day we may make DNA to build cells for computational biomasses. Such cells DNA would not need to be nearly as complex as real living creatures. Even single celled creatures need much more DNA based information than any artificial cells. Artificial computational biomass cells would only need enough information for replicating on command, following operation instructions and continuation (aka living). Some day we may have enough knowledge to build such systems (creatures). A biomass computer is only the first step to harnessing a very powerful technology. We may even be able to make cells that can build new cells with new DNA that we program. That way we could experiment with out having to build such cells and DNA by hand.
Thermal depolymerization - Lazy recycling.
As a stopgap, large genetic studies will be more fruitful. What we need is for gene sequencing to come down to the $1000/person range--and it's getting there. Then we take detailed medical histories and sequences from a hundred each of normals, bipolars, epileptics, and migraineurs. Comparing their genes will tell us which ion channels, transporters, receptors, and so forth are "hot spots". Once we know that, it's straightforward to find drugs that target just those proteins. Right now we're stuck with "dirty" drugs that madly stomp on all sorts of stuff at the same time, which means bizarre and evil side effects. (The antipsychotics and antiepileptics are notoriously dirty. The tricyclic antidepressants, which I take for chronic migraine, are only a little better.)
Indeed. Right now the best diagnoses come from a conversation and a basic neurological exam. fMRI scans might be helpful, but the cost is very high, and it's hard to catch an intermittent event that happens the day before a migraine attack or manic episode.Incidentally, I seem to remember that lithium acts as a sodium or potassium analog all over the body. It competes for the same transporters and ion channels, but acts just a little different. I think it also builds up in cells and changes their osmotic conditions (concentration of water versus everything else). The upshot is that it pushes many things a little out of equilibrium, putting them at new operating points where, for unclear reasons, they are less likely to oscillate.
While I do not have seizures, I can relate a little. Two years ago I had neurosurgery to remove a brain tumour. The first couple days in the ICU were difficult, not from any sensation of pain, but beacuse my perceptions of the world were so distorted by the trauma of the procedure. Whenever I opened my eyes, everything was like an offset double-image. Very confusing. By the third day, my brain had fully remembered how to properly integrate the inputs from each eye. Now, I am pretty much back to normal. The main thing that remains is that I lost about half of the peripheral vision on my right side (the tumour was on the left side of my brain), and a difficulty in maintaining concentration (a frequent result of having brain tumour/surgery, but have meds that help that).
Anyways, best wishes for you in getting effective treatment!
-j
Well.. I think the kernel analogy is far from precise. The kernel (at least the monolithic one) is a far too complex and massive system to be paralelled to the thalamus. I think interrupt-controller is a more suitable analogy. Shit comes in and shit goes out and control is being enforced (to some extent).
Drivers in a kernel would in the brain be something like "control of muscular movement" (cerebellum, parts of cortex, somatic part of the peripheral nervous system, etc...), interfaces would be something like "riding a bike" (using all the "drivers" for muscular movement, balance, memorysystems for planning route, motivational systems for motivation, sensory systems for navigation and real-time collision avoidance, etc...).
The Thalamus is (at least as I see it) an interruptcontroller issuing "interrupt service routines" on a regular basis, telling our brain that we are about to loose our balance or crash into the tree in front of us.
The (brain) kernel is the abstract "mind"/"soul" "thing" that is a mental superorganism made up of all our brains organs.
well... thats just my 2 eurocents.
It takes a fair bit of work to die from DXM itself, unless you're abusing pure powder to the point of total anaesthesia or doing something like juggling chainsaws while on it. The most likely cause for DXM-related mortality would be poisoning from other ingredients in combination preparations -- especially acetaminophen -- due to failure to read or understand the product labeling.
I ingested 600mg of pseudoephedrine once via such a mistake. Not fun, but not nearly as life-threatening as playing with Benadryl/Dramamine.