Neural Darwinism Research Articles

TYPOLOGY OF NONLINEAR ACTIVITY WAVES IN A LAYERED NEURAL CONTINUUM

Neural tissue, a medium containing electro-chemical energy, can amplify small increments in cellular activity. The growing disturbance, measured as the fraction of active cells, manifests as propagating waves. In a layered geometry with a time delay in synaptic signals between the layers, the delay is instrumental in determining the amplified wavelengths. The growth of the waves is limited by the finite number of neural cells in a given region of the continuum. As wave growth saturates, the resulting activity patterns in space and time show a variety of forms, ranging from regular monochromatic waves to highly irregular mixtures of different spatial frequencies. The type of wave configuration is determined by a number of parameters, including alertness and synaptic conditioning as well as delay. For all cases studied, using numerical solution of the nonlinear equations, there is an interval in delay in which the wave mixing occurs. As delay increases through this interval, during a series of consecutive waves propagating through a continuum region, the activity within that region changes from a single-frequency to a multiple-frequency pattern and back again. The diverse spatio-temporal patterns give a more concrete form to several metaphors advanced over the years to attempt an explanation of cognitive phenomena: Activity waves embody the “holographic memory” (); wave mixing provides a plausible cause of the competition called “neural Darwinism” (); finally the consecutive generation of growing neural waves can explain the discontinuousness of “psychological time” ().

Resonance in an exemplar-based lexicon: The emergence of social identity and phonology

Two sets of data are discussed in terms of an exemplar-resonance model of the lexicon. First, a cross-linguistic review of vowel formant measurements indicate that phonetic differences between male and female talkers are a function of language, dissociated to a certain extent from vocal tract length. Second, an auditory word recognition study [Strand (2000). Gender Stereotype Effects in Speech Processing. Ph.D. Dissertation, Ohio State University] indicates that listeners can process words faster when the talker has a stereotypical sounding voice. An exemplar-resonance model of perception derives these effects suggesting that reentrant pathways [Edelman (1987). Neural Darwinism: The theory of neuronal group selection. New York: Basic Books] between cognitive categories and detailed exemplars of them leads to the emergence of social and linguistic entities.

Resonance in an Exemplar-based Lexicon: The Emergence of Social Identity and Phonology

Abstract Two sets of data are discussed in terms of an exemplar-resonance model of the lexicon. First, a cross-linguistic review of vowel formant measurements indicate that phonetic differences between male and female talkers are a function of language, dissociated to a certain extent from vocal tract length. Second, an auditory word recognition study [Strand (2000). Gender Stereotype Effects in Speech Processing. Ph.D. Dissertation, Ohio State University] indicates that listeners can process words faster when the talker has a stereotypical sounding voice. An exemplar-resonance model of perception derives these effects suggesting that reentrant pathways [Edelman (1987). Neural Darwinism: The theory of neuronal group selection. New York: Basic Books] between cognitive categories and detailed exemplars of them leads to the emergence of social and linguistic entities.

Neural Darwinism and consciousness

Neural Darwinism (ND) is a large scale selectionist theory of brain development and function that has been hypothesized to relate to consciousness. According to ND, consciousness is entailed by reentrant interactions among neuronal populations in the thalamocortical system (the ‘dynamic core’). These interactions, which permit high-order discriminations among possible core states, confer selective advantages on organisms possessing them by linking current perceptual events to a past history of value-dependent learning. Here, we assess the consistency of ND with 16 widely recognized properties of consciousness, both physiological (for example, consciousness is associated with widespread, relatively fast, low amplitude interactions in the thalamocortical system), and phenomenal (for example, consciousness involves the existence of a private flow of events available only to the experiencing subject). While no theory accounts fully for all of these properties at present, we find that ND and its recent extensions fare well.

Neural Darwinism

New Perspectives QuarterlyVolume 21, Issue 3 p. 62-64 Neural Darwinism Gerald Edelman, Gerald EdelmanSearch for more papers by this author Gerald Edelman, Gerald EdelmanSearch for more papers by this author First published: 09 July 2004 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5842.2004.00685.xCitations: 1AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume21, Issue3July 2004Pages 62-64 RelatedInformation

Biochemistry and the Sciences of Recognition

Biochemistry and the Sciences of Recognition

Wish, Need, Drive: Motive in the Light of Dynamic Systems Theory and Edelman's Selectionist Theory

Almost all psychoanalytic theorizing posits some basic and presumably built-in motivational thrusts. The goal of this paper is to present an alternative way of thinking about the beginnings of motivation. I go into some detail about recent contributions from two areas of research: dynamic systems theory as applied by Esther Thelen to infantile motor development and Gerald Edelman's (1992) theory of “Neural Darwinism.” What emerges are two interlocking hypotheses: The first is that what we infer as drives or other versions of “basic” motivations are already a late development of motivational organizations that started out from a collection of rather primitive biases. The second hypothesis, based on dynamic systems thinking or complexity theory, is that a great many developmental features that appear to be driven by a built-in genetic program or design, are, in fact, the spontaneously emergent, and therefore the never completely predictable, resultant of the interplay of embedded, embodied, and environmental elements. It is also hypothesized that, just as motivational systems lead to the emergence of new capacities and functions, so too do new capacities beget new motivational derivatives in an ever-more complex developmental spiral. Early experience plays an enormously important and highly individual role in the creation of conative patterns that eventually crystalize into what we, as observers and theoreticians, begin to categorize into systems of motivation. Depending on the observer and his or her frame of reference, certain motivational systems are held to be superordinate to others; these then are held up as basic motives. As psychoanalysts we currently find ourselves in a situation of competing organizational systems vying for prominence. The multiplicity of such systems speaks to our uncertainty and the need for further study to clarify the many questions that this line of thinking evokes. The second section of this paper explores the relations among need, wish, impulse, and defense as varieties of motivational systems that have already crystalized out of the early beginnings of motivation.

An exemplar-based account of emergent phonetic categories

This paper describes how an exemplar-based model can be used to study the early stages of language acquisition and phonetic category formation. The paper discusses in particular how a (conceptually) very simple model, inspired by Edelmans notion of Neural Darwinism, may account for the emergence of phonetic categories arising from the interaction between ambient language input and limited memory-representation resources. It presents an explicit attempt to demonstrate how phonetic categorization may emerge ‘‘spontaneously’’ from exposure to natural infant-directed speech data. The results suggest that phonetic categories may emerge if the auditory input is statistically correlated with one (or several) other sensory inputs. The perceptual-magnet effect is also discussed in the light of the present model. According to the model, the perceptual-magnet effect can be seen as a consequence of distributed memory representations. [Work supported by The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, grant 94-0435.]

The seven deadly curs’d sins …Lust

The seven deadly curs’d sins …Lust

The flexible brain. On mind and brain, neural darwinism and psychiatry.

A theoretical introduction is given in which several theoretical viewpoints concerning the mind-brain problem are discussed. During the last decade philosophers like Searle, Dennett and the Churchlands have taken a more or less pure materialistic position in explaining mental phenomena. Investigators in biological psychiatry have hardly ever taken a clear position in this discussion, whereas we believe it is important that the conclusions drawn from biological research are embedded in a theoretical framework related to the mind-brain problem. In this article the thesis is defended that the theory of neural darwinism represents a major step forward and may bridge previous distinctions between biological, clinical and social psychiatry.

Is neural Darwinism Darwinism?

Neural Darwinism is a theory of cognition developed by Gerald Edelman along with George Reeke and Olaf Sporns at Rockefeller University. As its name suggests, neural Darwinism is modeled after biological Darwinism, and its authors assert that the two processes are strongly analogous. both operate on variation in a population, amplifying the more adaptive individuals. However, from a computational perspective, neural Darwinism is quite different from other models of natural selection, such as genetic algorithms. The individuals of neural Darwinism do not replicate, thus robbing the process of the capacity to explore new solutions over time and ultimately reducing it to a random search. Because neural Darwinism does not have the computational power of a truly Darwinian process, it is misleading to label it as such. to illustrate this disparity in adaptive power, one of Edelman's early computer experiments, Darwin I, is revisited, and it is shown that adding replication greatly improves the adaptive power of the system.

Is Neural Darwinism Darwinism?

Neural Darwinism is a theory of cognition developed by Gerald Edelman along with George Reeke and Olaf Sporns at Rockefeller University. As its name suggests, neural Darwinism is modeled after biological Darwinism, and its authors assert that the two processes are strongly analogous. Both operate on variation in a population, amplifying the more adaptive individuals. However, from a computational perspective, neural Darwinism is quite different from other models of natural selection, such as genetic algorithms. The individuals of neural Darwinism do not replicate, thus robbing the process of the capacity to explore new solutions over time and ultimately reducing it to a random search. Because neural Darwinism does not have the computational power of a truly Darwinian process, it is misleading to label it as such. To illustrate this disparity in adaptive power, one of Edelman's early computer experiments, Darwin I, is revisited, and it is shown that adding replication greatly improves the adaptive power of the system.

Is neural darwinism darwinism

Neural Darwinism is a theory of cognition developed by Gerald Edelman along with George Reeke and Olaf Sporns at Rockefeller University. As its name suggests, neural Darwinism is modeled after biol...

Nature's imagination: the frontiers of scientific vision

Freeman Dyson: . 1: Introduction: the Scientist as rebel. Roger Penrose: . 2: Must mathematical physics be reductionist. Gregory J. Chaitin: . 3: Randomness in arithmetic and the decline and fall of reductionism in pure mathematics. John Barrow: . 4: Theories of Everything. Pat and Paul Churchland: . 5: Intertheoretic reduction: a neuroscientist's field-guide. Gerald M. Edelman and Giulio Tononi: . 6: Neural Darwinism: The brain as a selectional system. Oliver Sacks: . 7: A new vision of the mind. Peter Atkins: . 8: The limitless power of science. Mary Midgley: . 9: Reductive megalomania. Margaret Boden: . 10: Artificial intelligence and human dignity. Hao Wang: . 11: On computabilism and physicalism: some sub-problems. William Clocksin: . 12: Knowledge representation and myth. Gerald M. Edelman: . 13: Memory and the individual soul: against silly reductionism

Bright air, brilliant fire: on the matter of the mind

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS PART I PROBLEMS 1 Mind 2 Putting the Mind Back into Nature 3 The Matter of the Mind. PART II ORIGINS 4 Putting Psychology on a Biological Basis 5 Morphology and Mind. Completing Darwin's Program 6 Topobiology: Lessons from the Embryo 7 The Problems Reconsidered. PART III PROPOSALS 8 The Sciences of Recognition 9 Neural Darwinism 10 Memory and Concepts: Building a Bridge to Consciousness 11 Consciousness: The Remembered Present 12 Language and Higher Order Consciousness 13 Attention and the Unconscious 14 Layers and Loops: A Summary. PART IV HARMONIES 15 A Graveyard of Isms: Philosophy and Its Claims 16 Memory and the Individual Soul: Against Silly Reductionism 17 Higher Products: Thoughts, Moments, Emotions 18 Diseases of the Mind: The Reintegrated Self 19 Is It Possible to Construct a Conscious Artifact? 20 Symmetry and Memory: On the Ultimate Origins of Mind. Epilogue. Mind Without Biology: A Critical Postscript. SELECTED READINGS. CREDITS. INDEX.

Building a bridge between neurobiology and mental illness

GABA (γ amino butyric acid) is the most abundant and important inhibitory transmitter in mammalian CNS. It counterbalances the glutamate mediated neuronal excitation. Abnormalities of the interaction of these two transmitters might change the mechanisms of neuronal group selection that according to Edelman [ Neural Darwinism. Basic Books, New York] play a role in mediating several brain functions including cognition processes. Indeed imbalances in GABAergic functions were shown to elicit psychoses. They can be obtained by administration of drugs that affect synthesis, metabolism and uptake of GABA and thereby cause a persistent stimulation of GABA A receptors or perhaps by genetic abnormalities in DNA transcription, pre-mRNA splicing, mRNA translation and posttranslation modifications of GABA A receptor subunits. The complexities in the regulation of GABA A receptor subunit structure, synthesis, assembly and the brain location of specific mRNA encoding for these subunits are investigated with in situ mRMA hybridization specific for subunits of GABA A receptors. The role of the variability resulting from the complexities in the regulation of GABA A receptor allosteric modulation by drugs and putative endogenous allosteric modulators of GABA action at GABA A receptors is discussed. This discussion gives relevance to the possibility that genetic abnormalities in the expression of proteins participating in GABAergic function are to be considered as a possible target of the genetic defects operative in psychoses. In line with this thinking, it is suggested that partial allosteric modulators (partial agonists) of GABA A receptors and the phosphothioate of methylphosphonate analogs antisense to specific mRNA oligonucleotides that mediate the expression of genetic information concerning GABA A and glutamate receptor subunits may become valuable tools in psychiatric research. Perhaps in the future these studies might generate new ideas useful in the therapy of genetically determined psychiatric illness.

Angeborene, Stereotype Verhaltensweisen und Neuraler Darwinismus

The stereotopy of the “Fixed Action Pattern” of classical ethology is customarily attributed to “hard wiring”. We submit that this explanation is akin to the 17th century use of the homunculus to explain development. We propose extendingEdelman's notions of neural Darwinism to explain the emergence of species-characteristic (“innate”) motor patterns.

Brains, computation, and selection: An essay review of Gerald Edelmanns Neural Darwinism

Brains, computation, and selection: An essay review of Gerald Edelmanns Neural Darwinism

Philosophical issues in Edelman's Neural Darwinism

Abstract Gerald Edelman's Neural Darwinism advances an hypothesis that the brain develops epigenetically in the individual according to principles of natural selection operating over populations of neuronal groups. The central idea is that the organism does not adapt to a pre-categorized world, but generates categories (for instance for visual recognition) that have survival value. Hence, it is argued, brain process-development can not be modeled by instructionist - program-driven sequential processes - methods. AI must therefore fail in principle in attempting to explain cognitive processes. The alternative is the parallel, distributed processing model, which must be subject to evolutional change and devoid of precategorization or based on assumptions of a ‘pre-labelled’ world. In the present paper I argue that computational models are not limited to sequential programs, but that embodied algorithms as are realized in hardware and probably in neural circuits do afford adequate models. Thus there is no pr...

Book Reviews

Books review in this article: Glial Cell Receptors edited by H. K. Kimelberg Pineal Research Reviews, Volume 6, edited by Russel J. Reiter Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection by G. M. Edelman Receptor Biochemistry and Methodology, edited by J. C. Venter and L. C. Harrison Volume 8: Dopamine Receptors, edited by I. Creese and C. M. Fraser Volume 9: Structure and Physiology of the Slow Inward Calcium Channel, edited by J. C. Venter and D. Triggle The Alpha‐1 Adrenergic Receptors edited by R. R. Ruffolo