ULTIMATE COMPUTING - Quantum Consciousness Studies

78 From Brain to Cytoskeleton
hippocampus. O’Keefe and Speakman find that the grain of the representation is
at or below the single cell level. That is, each cell in a small cluster participates in
the representation of different patches of environment. Conversely, any cluster of
about 8 to 10 cells appears adequate to provide a coarse representation of an entire
environment. The addition of more cells to the network increases the resolution,
or grain of the representation, but does not alter it. The representation of an
environment is thus distributed and the “graininess” is at a level below that of
individual nerves and synapses. E. R. John and collegues (1986) from New York
University have used metabolic mapping of memory traces in cats to show that
information is extensively distributed, requiring that “(nerve) cells participate in
multiple memories.” They implicate:
... cooperative processes in which the nonrandom behavior of huge
ensembles of neural elements mediate the integration and processing
of information and the retrieval of memories. Memory and
awareness in complex neural systems may depend on presently
unrecognized properties of the system as a whole.
Walter Freeman (1972, 1983) of the University of California at Berkeley
agrees that nervous systems are more than the sum of their parts. According to
Freeman, this occurs because interconnections of numbers of neurons give rise to
collective properties belonging to the neural populations in general rather than to
specific individual neurons. Such collective properties related to mental processes
are thought by Freeman to be generated by the interconnectedness of numbers of
neurons of at least ten thousand or more.
Freeman and others who advocate cooperative collective aspects of mental
processes cite the electroencephalogram (EEG) as supportive evidence. EEG is a
continuous electromagnetic wave which pervades the brain and is composed of
frequencies from one hertz (= Hz = cycles per second) to a few thousand Hz, but
concentrated in the range between 3 and 50 Hz (Chapter 7). EEG has been used
for half a century to diagnose brain disease, but not until the 1960’s was the
source of the “brain waves” clarified. EEG arises not from the sum of propagating
action potentials in axons, but rather from the slow, graded potentials produced by
dendrites and cell bodies. Local potentials combine to form regional and brainwide
patterns. Individual neurons and their dendrites slip in and out of phase with
the surrounding EEG field. Studies by Adey (1977), John (1980) and many other
scientists have correlated mental activities in animals and humans with EEG
pattern changes. Because the EEG is produced by large numbers of neurons, these
correlations may suggest that collective neuronal effects are the basis for mental
activities. Freeman proposes that functionally significant EEG wave phenomena
occur within neural masses in which there exist feedback connection of one
neuron with many others in the same mass. Collective waves of graded potentials
are Freeman’s candidate for the grain of consciousness. Localized wave activity
within neural masses or “cartels” would be related to EEG waves in the same way
that atmospheric temperature and pressure waves generate cloud patternsobservable
side effects which may yield information about the internal dynamics.
Opinions regarding the significance of local collective EEG wave fields vary
from superfluous epiphenomena, to information transmitters, to the substance of
consciousness itself. E. R. John (1984) is perhaps the strongest proponent; he
points out that individual neurons are sensitive to the fields they generate. Adey
(1984) and colleagues have applied “EEG-like” fields to the brains of
experimental animals and found they produce behavioral effects. John proposes
that a specific electromagnetic field is evoked by sensory stimuli and “resonates”
with similar patterns stored in memory. New patterns bring new resonances which