Book Review: "Neuroelectrodynamics: Understanding the Brain Language" D. Aur and M. S. Jog (2010)

Abstract

In this book, Neuroelectrodynamics: Understanding the Brain Language, the authors implicitly talk about a paradigm shift. They literally postulate that the central tenets of computational neuroscience and neural computation are bluntly wrong. On p. 76 the authors state: “the current theories of neural computation fail to mimic the power of the brain, new concepts regarding computation need to be developed.” The authors use the Against Method which would seem to me to be an anarchistic approach to science given that no alternative mathematical models are presented to support their view. However, the authors’ claim in the last chapter that the book is not meant to include detailed mathematical complexities as it is meant as an introductory book to lay the groundwork for what the authors call the “NED (neuro-electro-dynamics) model”. This contradicts the authors’ statement on p. 30: “The fundamental postulates of this book are based upon providing a mathematical formulation and an experimental base to understand brain computation.” In a nutshell, the book is all about as stated on p. 79 “considering charges as basic elements of neural computation in the brain.” It discusses about the need for those who study brain computations to move forward based on the presence of how the dynamics of charged particles interact in three-dimensional neurons. The method is designated as the “computational cube” paradigm allowing for the neurobiology of semantics to be developed through dynamics of charges “read” by neighboring neurons both synaptically and extrasynaptically. This is expanded in detail in chapter four, which is the main chapter of the book. A representation of an image is decoded i.e., “read” when a certain density of charges in a certain volume is evaluated through a repeated cycle of coding and decoding. However, no clear algorithms are postulated on how this is actually accomplished. The authors talk about the neurobiology of semantics as changes in the emergent dynamics of electrical charges and their interactions