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What Is Consciousness?
Neuronal Correlates of Consciousness (NCC)
The whole brain can be considered an NCC because it generates experience continually.
- When parts of the cerebellum, the "little brain" underneath the back of the brain, are lost to a stroke or otherwise, patients may lose the ability to play the piano, for example. But they never lose any aspect of their consciousness. This is because the cerebellum is almost wholly a feed-forward circuit. There are no complex feedback loops.
- The spinal cord and the cerebellum are not enough to create consciousness. Available evidence suggests neocortical tissue in generating feelings.
- The next stages of processing are the broad set of cortical regions, collectively known as the posterior hot zone, that gives rise to conscious perception. In clinical sources of causal evidence, stimulating the posterior hot zone can trigger a diversity of distinct sensations and feelings.
- It appears that almost all conscious experiences have their origin in the posterior cortex. But it does not explain the crucial difference between the posterior regions and much of the prefrontal cortex, which does not directly contribute to subjective content.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Key Ideas
Near-death experiences (NDEs)
NDEs are triggered during a life-threatening situation when the body is injured by blunt trauma, e.g., a heart attack or shock.
Many survivors tell of leaving their damaged...
Negative NDEs experiences
Not all NDEs are positive - some can be frightening, with intense terror, anguish, loneliness, and despair. Distressing NDEs are underreported because of shame, social stigma, and pressure to conform to the positive NDEs.
A close encounter with death reminds us of the fragility of life and can reveal the layers of psychological suppression that prevents us from these uncomfortable thoughts.
The NDE phenomenon
A 2017 study found that NDEs were recalled with greater clarity and detail than either real or imagined situations were. In other words, NDEs were remembered as being more real than life itself.
NDEs are no more likely to occur in devout believers than in secular or nonpracticing subjects.
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Key Ideas
Performer - audience synchrony
When you are at a concert and you get to the part with a refrain from your favorite song, you are swept up in the music. The performers and audience seem to be moving as one.
Rese...
Dancing to the same emotions
The synchrony between the brain activity of a performer and his audience shows insights into the nature of musical exchanges: we dance and feel the same emotions together, and our neurons fire together as well. This is especially true when it comes to the more popular performances.
Synchronous brain activity was localized in the left hemisphere of the brain (temporal-parietal junction). This area is important for empathy, the understanding of others’ thoughts and intentions, and verbal working memory used for expressing thought.
Music and the right hemisphere of the brain
The right brain hemisphere is most often associated with the interpretation of musical melody.
In the right hemisphere, synchronization is localized to areas involved in recognizing musical structure and pattern (the inferior frontal cortex) and interpersonal understanding (the inferior frontal and postcentral cortices).
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Key Ideas
Our Sense Of Smell And Our Memories
Certain smells that are associated in our minds to events or locations from the past, trigger our memories to revisit them. This association of the past through the sense of smell works bet...
The Memory Association
According to a 2004 research, the sense of smell is a complicated process.
- The olfactory receptor cells send a neuron signal to a part of our brain which is called the olfactory bulb.
- This multistep process which involves over a thousand genes and the nerves connect to the amygdala of the brain, the area responsible for processing emotions.
- It also connects to the memory and cognition area called the hippocampus, forming the association.