Neurotechnologies are a range of applications that help to study and influence the human brain. They are useful, with limits, in some conditions and suggested for more, under serious moral and ethical bounds.
Though advances continue, the general focus of neurotech is not mimesis. The human mind holds interpretations [or representations] of smell, sight, sound, touch, taste, emotion, feelings, cognition, modulation, movement and so forth. What is beyond the reach of current neurotech is copying respective configurations, for replication.
The brain organizes information. Yes, but how? If this is found, how can it be replicated elsewhere within the brain, when the initial one is lost, like in Alzheimer’s disease? How is depression organized in the brain? What are the codes of [the sets of the impulses of] sleep, to allow for a good one and in time? How do the cravings for an addiction take charge of the brain? How can schizophrenia be corrected, through the features of sets of impulses?
This is beyond inhibiting or inducing brain activities somewhere, but to copy how they are mechanized, to be reproduced—for care and cures, or strictly for therapeutic purposes.
The human mind is proposed to be the sumset of all the electrical and chemical activities of neurons, including their features and interactions. Neurotechnology works with electrical impulses, but their second half, chemical impulses, which medications influence, bear a fused completion that defines interoception and exteroception.
It is hypothesized that the way the brain holds information is by the fusion of electrical and chemical impulses, in sets. It is in this state that they come to decide functions, even though chemical impulses are the stations, and electrical impulses the vehicles.
Dopamine is implicated in several brain functions, but dopamine is not experienced. There are ways to influence dopamine, serotonin and other monoamines in the brain. However, because they work in configurations, the result might be good for a condition, and bad for others—or side effects.
In a cluster of neurons, it is theorized that electrical and chemical impulses are in sets. It is within these sets that they hold information for functions. Simply, all the electrical and chemical impulses in a set of neurons carry a configuration, or formation that becomes how functions are defined, like a specific smell, taste, or why vision is different from touch and so forth. This is made possible by rations of chemical impulses, each contributing to give that formation.
This means that pleasure could be B3579, with the figures as fills of chemical impulses. The type or intensity of pleasure could be a chemical impulse as the highest ration, the last or availability at a particular location. This means that the formation must have those combinations, to result in the pleasure and its extents. The same applies to craving, emptiness, language, math, emotions, pain, memory and so forth. They are all configurations of impulses. The letter B can be described as a bundler of electrical impulses that came in, fusing into the formation.
It is proposed that in a set of impulses, some of the inactive synapses between active synapses contribute to qualify some of these rations, with attention, awareness, intent and subjective experience.
Electrical impulses also carry these configurations, though not often in full. It is proposed that electrical impulses are always splitting, with some going ahead of others. In brain science, it is established that electrical impulses leap from node to node, in myelinated axons, in what is called saltatory conduction. It is theorized here that in a set, some go ahead of others, to interact with chemical impulses like before, which may change if it does not match with the formation, explaining what is observed as predictive coding, processing and prediction error.
Simply, hearing a sound and ‘knowing’ what comes next is a split of electrical impulses in a set, if the rest of what comes in matches, relays proceed, if not, the incoming ones interact appropriately within that set or with another in the array [of sets of impulses].
Copying electrical impulses may be useful. However, their splits and distributions might leave out much. Chemical impulses have the advantage because they host the fusing ports. They are the warehouses of configurations as well as lift off points for actions that prompt electrical impulses.
Copying the configurations of chemical impulses may change brain science. These configurations may be used to substitute and place functions. It is possible to try this, first in the brains of certain species, beyond their connectome. Connectome is focused on wirings, but the functions of mind are directly based on the relays of impulses, which may not always be a result of the connections.
Clefts can be tracked for their frequency of neurotransmitter transport, volume, intervals, as well as activated receptors. There can also be tracking of non-active synapses between active ones with monitoring of changes from side-to-side, in a set.
Since neurons from other circuits send fibers that contribute chemical impulses elsewhere, the focus will be on sets within a cluster. Sets can be decided not just by activity, but by totality in that time, especially for a function that starts and finishes within a range. Some sets may be difficult to define, while some may consist of the whole cluster of neurons.
Formularizing configurations may start with the stretch of chemical impulses including densities. For electrical impulses, those that split in a set can be grouped, while accounting for the curves of the axon [provided by the corrugation of some structures], to determine the specifications they use in their transportation and distribution.
The technical feasibility of this, for the human brain, for now, is slight, but may work out for simpler organisms. The possibility of having this misused if it ever gets done may wipe out many of its advantages.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
