The Information Processing Mechanism of the Brain

 

                                Bertil Osterberg    (CV details)

 

 

SUMMARY

 

This essay presents a hypothesis for how mental data exists in the Brain – that is, a description of the physics of how mental objects, such as perceptions, inner visions, thoughts and feelings exist in the Brain, when these objects are present in consciousness – and how related physical phenomena can be observed from the “outside” of the Brain.

 

The text proposes that mental objects that occur in consciousness externally can be observed as patterns of activity in the neural columns of cortex. A specific mental object in consciousness manifests itself as a distinct set of activities in a distinct set of neural columns in cortex.

 

The text outlines the hardware of the Brain, that is,

- the main functional component, the neural network, made up of neural columns, and

- the interconnection between neural networks in the Brain.

 

The text gives a proposition for how the patterns of activity exist in the “hardware”, and how patterns are stored and recalled in the networks. The text attempts to describe the basic mechanism of thinking – the physical process that takes place when mental objects are processed in the Brain.

 

The text presents a method for empirical verification of the proposed theory.

It is a well-known fact that EEG can trace electrical oscillations on the surface of the skull. The essay gives a method for extracting a ‘signature’ from these oscillations, that reflects the particular mental object that is present in the Brain. This has the potential to lead to a way to unravel the way in which data is processed in the Brain – which can be developed into a full picture of the physical phenomena that underlie the phenomenon of ‘thinking’.

 

 

AIM AND PURPOSE

 

This website is intended to be a publicly accessible forum for creating to a full explanation and understanding of how the Brain works. Please send you comments and suggestions to me ( bertil@icon.co.za ), and I will incorporate these in the essay, either as essay text or as separate comments/elucidations which will be referred to in the essay.

 

I will, for the moment, reserve the right to edit the text of the exposition and the design of the website myself, to maintain the account as a coherent, logical and credible description – but please do write, and we will develop the description and the understanding of this wonderfully fascinating machine, our Brain, together.

 

 

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KEYWORDS

 

brain, neuron, neural network, information, processing, cortex, thalamus, think, thought,
consciousness, perception, deduction, inference, EEG, oscillation

 

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CONTENTS

 

Introduction

 

1.         THE FORMAT OF INFORMATION IN THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM

1.1        Patterns of neural activity

1.2        The input of information to the Brain is in the form of patterns

1.3        The format of data in cortex

1.4        The output from the Brain is in the form of patterns

1.5        Mental activity as the processing of neural patterns

 

2.         THE HARDWARE OF THE BRAIN

2.1        The neural network

2.2        Neural network property 1: The storage and recall of activity patterns

2.3        Neural network property 2: A neural network goes from pattern to pattern

2.4        The hierarchy of networks in cortex

 

3.         THE DYNAMICS OF PATTERNS IN CORTEX

3.1        Flow of activity

3.2        Sequential processing – How mental objects occupy cortex and consciousness
one by one

 

4.         THE STRUCTURE OF INFORMATION IN THE BRAIN

4.1        The representation of objects and concepts in cortex

4.2        Indications of a fixed format for the representation of objects types in the Brain

4.3       Tentative proposition for how fixed format object type representation is formed

4.4        Ensemble coding

 

5.         ACTIVITY PATTERN PROCESSING MECHANISMS

5.1        Attention

5.2        Chains of related perceptions

5.3        Deduction (production from several mental objects/concepts)

5.4        Neural circuit for recording and replaying sequences of sensory impressions

 

6.         EXPERIMENTAL SUPPORT FOR ENSEMBLE CODING OF MENTAL OBJECTS

6.1        Experiments at the University of Cape Town

6.2        EEG oscillation signatures

6.3        Additional evidence about the significance of 10Hz EEG oscillations

6.4        Potential use of EEG oscillation analysis

6.5        The use of EEG oscillation analysis to trace Brain information content

 

References

 

 

 

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