It is binary at one stage of processing. when a neuron has enough input it fires an action potential which is a binary one or zero. that then gets "read" by the synaptic terminal and turns back into an analog signal to a "post synaptic" neuron.
As you said, how this signal is then processed by the next neuron depends on a lot of factors including the effects of other neurons. Synaptic strength refers to the amount of electricity the post synaptic neuron sees given this binary 1 or 0 and is often measured at rest. However, if other neurons are firing it can go up or down, amplifying or shrinking it by activating other voltage sensitive ion channels or by increasing the conductance across the lipid bilayer of the cell so that the electricity leaks out of the dendrite of the neuron before it is processed at the soma (the cell body where a new action potential can be generated)

I'm a bit surprised the grad student or expert didn't discuss neuromodulators more. The fact is we already have the full connectome of a much simpler system, a worm (C Elegans). And this full mapping is considered insufficient to fully understand the simplified worm behavior because it doesn't fully capture the diversity of different neuromodulators and how they effect processing in neurons. It matters if the neuron is releasing dopamine, serotonin, glutamate, etc. There are ways to approximate these from EM images by analyzing the synapse properties, but ultimately it leads to a much larger problem in understanding neural processing.

In a similar light, the connectome project does not do a good job capturing synaptic strength. We don't really know just from the electron microscopy how strong the connections are. We can try and approximate it by looking at the size/formation of the synapse but ultimately this falls short.

For instance, my memory is that thalamocortical projections (thalamic nuclei to L4 of the cortex) do not make up the primary inputs to L4 on a structural connectivity level, but the strength of those connections are much stronger then the more numerous cortico cortical connections. I don't think the connectome from EM images will be able to pull that out.

The connectome is important, the same way knowing the human genome is important. However, it's really not going to tell us how to simulate a person. It's an important step to be sure, one we are still a good ways away from finishing last I checked (which was three years ago ...)

That sounds a whole lot like some kind of absurd "Reefer Madness" kind of "thinking."

On what are you basing that "feeling?" Leaving aside that serotonin is involved with mood (and not meaning or motivation) and that LSD's binding to the receptor sites increases not decreases the amount of serotonin available in the synaptic cleft (performing the same effect as any other SSRI like Zoloft, Paxil, or Prozac), there is actually no reason why any of the hundreds of successful professionals that I know who have taken LSD multiple times would express such a feeling on the basis of taking LSD.

If anything, your comment reveals a fear of your own mind and, having read your comments, I can't say I blame you.

Yep, terror-ble. Overloads a few synaptic circuits for m'sself...

I'm glad I found this before signing off...

A synaptic misfire at best and base ignorance at shameful worst. Not having received a reply after a protracted period I perceived...poorly. Eric kindly addressed my faux pas with me and indicated he was going to solicit your assistance to rectify the situation.

Much to learn on my part it would seem.

Oh, I have seen bans seconded when the account was banned and subsequently Sifty indicated the second did not go through and someone else discarded thereafter. I picked it up thusly.

I apologize for any trouble to you.

CBD possesses sedative properties (Carlini and Cunha, 1981), and a clinical
trial showed that it reduces the anxiety and other unpleasant psychological
side effects provoked by pure THC (Zuardi et al. 1982). CBD modulates the
pharmacokinetics of THC by three mechanisms: (1) it has a slight affinity for
cannabinoid receptors (Ki at CB1 = 4350 nM, compared to THC = 41 nM,
Showalter et al. 1996), and it signals receptors as an antagonist or reverse agonist
(Petitet et al. 1998), (2) CBD may modulate signal transduction by perturbing
the fluidity of neuronal membranes, or by remodeling G-proteins that
carry intracellular signals downstream from cannabinoid receptors, and (3)CBD
is a potent inhibitor of cytochrome P450 3A11 metabolism, thus it blocks the
hydroxylation of THC to its 11-hydroxy metabolite (Bornheim et al. 1995).
The 11-hydroxy metabolite is four times more psychoactive than unmetabolized
THC (Browne and Weissman 1981), and four times more immunosuppressive
(Klein et al. 1987).
CBD provides antipsychotic benefits (Zuardi et al. 1995). It increases dopamine
activity, serves as a serotonin uptake inhibitor, and enhances norepinephrine
activity (Banerjee et al. 1975; Poddar and Dewey 1980). CBD protects
neurons from glutamate toxicity and serves as an antioxidant, more potently
than ascorbate and α-tocopherol (Hampson et al. 1998). Auspiciously, CBD
does not decrease acetylcholine (ACh) activity in the brain (Domino 1976;
Cheney et al. 1981). THC, in contrast, reduces hippocampal ACh release in
rats (Carta et al. 1998), and this correlates with loss of short-term memory consolidation.
In the hippocampus THC also inhibits N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)
receptor activity (Misner and Sullivan 1999; Shen and Thayer 1999), and
NMDA synaptic transmission is crucial for memory consolidation (Shimizu et
al. 2000). CBD, unlike THC, does not dampen the firing of hippocampal cells
(Heyser et al. 1993) and does not disrupt learning (Brodkin and Moerschbaecher
1997).
Consroe (1998) presented an excellent review of CBD in neurological disorders.
In some studies, it ameliorates symptoms of Huntington’s disease, such
as dystonia and dyskinesia. CBD mitigates other dystonic conditions, such as
torticollis, in rat studies and uncontrolled human studies. CBD functions as an
anticonvulsant in rats, on a par with phenytoin (Dilantin, a standard antiepileptic
drug).
CBD demonstrated a synergistic benefit in the reduction of intestinal motility
in mice produced by THC (Anderson, Jackson, and Chesher 1974). This
may be an important component of observed benefits of cannabis in inflammatory
bowel diseases.

--"Cannabis and Cannabis Extracts:
Greater Than the Sum of Their Parts?
John M. McPartland
Ethan B. Russo"

This video describes the very similar process at the synaptic junctions between neurons, and may explain a detail or two more clearly, if less completely.

>> ^luxury_pie:


So @packo decides for whom we can feel bad. Finally, I was looking for you all around!
And suddenly I don't have to feel bad for molested children, because there are children out there who have it much worse and starve to death, yaaaay logic.


Your logic fails as badly as the wingsuit. If we follow your synaptic misfires, the children would be jumping on your dick (you, playing the role of gravity/a non functioning wingsuit don't actually do anything, you're just there) of their own volition and incur injury, possibly even STD's, because of their poor choices...

ie. Choosing to fuck someone is not the same as being raped/molested. But kudos on your Godwin-esque attempt to somehow link some twit jumping off a bridge and hurting himself with a child being raped. You must be so proud... /eyeroll

Why bother animating the synaptic vesicles when the neurotransmitter is apparently made of magic. Also, in my head, diffusion is a lot less springy. Epic *fail

^Chilaxe had the right idea with the impetus involving synaptic misfire caused by steroid use...factor in individual physiology and imprints, and it's a simian waiting to explode-poor girl, poor tax-groveleers that pay the system that houses the perpetrators a day past TOMORROW

At dg: First of all let me say this conversation has been fun. Few people obviously well versed in these issues are willing to engage in this dialogue. I haven't given you your due as someone willing to engage in respectful debate.


The universe does not really have rules, it has limits and structures, no enforcer is needed, because nobody can break rules which can not be broken.

I don't see, at this point, how what you posit is not simply a poetic view of physics. What is the difference between consciousness and existence? Is consciousness simply the attribute of being beholden to physics?

I'm not sure there is a difference between consciousness and existence. And you may be right, it might just be a poetic view of physics. My contention is this, physics, science, and philosophy all exist in order to explain in some precisely predictable manner the nature and causation of our common experience. This includes all aspects of that experience. Thus far it has done a remarkable job at explaining certain aspects of it, but it has come short of explaining experience itself. As I keep saying to you, there is nothing to suggest we should experience anything at all, just as you do not suspect your car engine experiences your depression of the pedals. To me, this begs for inquiry.


Heisenberg makes this entirely unrelateable to cuddling up to a fire, which is the main reason I consider this thesis incoherent.

I'm unclear on what you mean here.


I generate a coherent narrative, but you seem to be suggesting something else entirely. Something which has no context or meaning. Something which we share which is not a narrative, but is an experience in the absence of a narrative. And though it is common in my culture to claim otherwise, I don't see how this resembles anything I have.

What is it that "hears" the narrative? Do you understand the distinction? Why doesn't the narrative simply update synaptic weights, or activate ion channels, or whatever is physically happening, why doesn't that just happen without being experienced? To understand the distinction you'd probably have to refer to how you imagine internal states being recorded, presumably (under your presumptions) without experience. For instance, these words are internally represented by bits being set low and high in registers throughout my computer, but you don't seem to suggest that anything is "experiencing" those registers getting set. It just happens, the way physics always happens. Yet when you consider OUR experience, for some reason we are different. We "decide." We are "counter-entropic." You use these things to explain without evidence why I have experience, yet the computer does not. I, on the other, prefer to posit experience as the atomic element of existence.


We start in the middle, with experience. Then we build the tertiary structure, our theory. The theory points to the primary system, matter/energy/universe which gives rise to the systems which allow the theory to be created.

If we are under the spell of an evil genius, then you are right, matter follows from observation, but it is of no consequence, since observation is completely suspect, and in all likelihood meaningless. If the universe is instead how it appears, then our theory is almost certainly correct in pointing out that we, and our ability to create the theory, are consequences of the physical system the theory describes.

I don't understand why observation is "in all likelihood meaningless". Again, I'm not trying to separate us, or anything from physics. I'm simply trying to pull this final aspect of experience, experience itself, into the fold of physics. This, ultimately, is the goal of science. To describe existence as we know it. As of yet we have no physical description, or causation underlying experience, yet this is certainly part of existence as we know it.


I think the vagueness contributes to the ease with which you find agreement, but what you have described seems much more specific, and very different from the "phenomenal experience" most people claim. Just as an example: what is the "qualia of phenomenal experience" while you are dreamlessly sleeping? Many people would claim that they have none, but you suggest that small bits of matter are eternally having phenomenal experience. Are we also consistently conscious? If so why don't we remember sleep, but do remember our waking time? Is our awareness/thinking/memory completely distinct from this phenomenal experience?

Well, the question becomes "can you experience oblivion?" IMHO, yes. In fact, I believe this to be the state that many in your culture aim to attain. It requires practice, however, as quieting the unrelenting, driving signal of sensory input, and ending the maintenance of internal states is against the tendency of the system. When it is achieved, however, I think it helps one to understand the nature of experience itself, as divorced from the sensory input you're so conditioned to associate it with.

You're right - I fixed it. The 'brief' tag is getting horribly abused.

In reply to this comment by ant:
1 minute and 2 seconds isn't brief, man!

>> ^andybesy:
OK. So the 'wires' are called axons, and when a neuron recieves an electrical impulse it transmits neurotransmitter chemicals across a synapse to receptors in another neuron?
Is the synapse the area between two neurons?
Are all neurons chemically connected, or do some have direct electrical connections via an axon?


Axons are just a part of the neuron

(simplified picture of a neuron)
http://www.morphonix.com/software/education/science/brain/game/specimens/images/neuron_parts.gif


The synapse is basically the sum of all components: The end of in the axon sending the electrical signal, the space between them ( called a synaptic cleft) and the receiving end of the other neuron.
http://anthropologynet.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/neuron-synapse.png

The neurons in the video communicate chemically via synapses. Axons are just extensions that each neuron has. Any given neuron can have numerous axons. At the end of each axon, there is an axon terminal this is the rounded ends you see in the video. The space between them is a synaptic cleft. Some neurons have electrical synapses instead. These are found in places where you need the fastest response but dont need to be able to interpret data or make decisions. Reflexes are an example. Electrical synapses are a minority though.

Sorry, I'll edit the description soon to try to make it more clear. I posted it in a rush.

America doesn't like people gathering information on a person suspected of war crimes...

I don't know why Rush didn't just race over to Dubbya's place and paint "murderer" on his door, it would have been a less obvious indicator than this synaptic misfire...

Call it what you will, he appealed to the marginal lowest common denominator rather than the majority.

Obama extended the invite to everyone, even those who despised him.

It's pure ignorance to go in to an election after the 8 years you've had (particularly the last 6 months) and appeal to a small slice of the voters. Not sure which staffer (or McCain himself) had that synaptic misfire, but c'est la vie.

Or mebbe it was the harpy on the side... =)

Either which way, I don't think he could deliver a bad speech at this point (it would just be crass and tasteless, and we know people who aspire to the role of President of the USA don't do that sort of thing... ; D.

I think the thing that would have made me buy it as genuine would have been to actually rebuke the yahoos in the audience booing, to at least not be a bunch of sore losers.

Speaking of which...

>> ^quantumushroom:
There'll be no more blaming of Bush and FOX news for the many, many, many fugazis to come from the Empty Suit and his band of kleptocrats. You will be impaled on reality like a bug on a card.


The ship is sunk, the rescue boat is gone, the life vest has a leak and the shark is chewing on his leg, yet QM will not admit defeat...

And it's still funny...