The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning (53 page)

BOOK: The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning
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205
Analogous to human forms of chunking
K. A. Ericcson, W. G. Chase, and S. Falloon, Acquisition of a memory skill.
Science
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205
Extent of our ability to chunk
C. M. Conway and M. H. Christiansen, Sequential learning in non-human primates.
Trends Cogn Sci
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206
Observe different species at play
Ibid.
 
207
Patricia Greenfield . . . abilities to chunk . . . mirrored . . . language
P. M. Greenfield, Language, tools and brain: the ontogeny and phylogeny of hierarchically organized sequential behavior.
Behav Brain Sci
, 1991. 14: 531–595.
 
208
Zinacantecos babies and toddlers in southern Mexico
Ibid.
 
209
Mother’s placenta and the fetus . . . safe sedation
C. Koch, When does consciousness arise in human babies?
Sci Am
, September 2, 2009;
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=when-does-consciousness-arise
.
 
211
Bottlenose dolphins, whose brain weighs . . . 1.8 kilograms
L. Marino, A comparison of encephalization between odontocete cetaceans and anthropoid primates.
Brain Behav Evol
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211
African elephant . . . brain that weighs . . . 6.5 kilograms
M. Goodman et al., Phylogenomic analyses reveal convergent patterns of adaptive evolution in elephant and human ancestries.
Proc Natl Acad Sci USA
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211
Sperm whale . . . brain that tops 8 kilograms
L. Marino, Cetacean brain evolution: multiplication generates complexity.
Int J Comp Psych
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211
Many factors . . . useful ratio of brain to body
S. Herculano-Houzel, The human brain in numbers: a linearly scaled-up primate brain.
Front Hum Neurosci
, 2009. 3: 31.
 
212
Brain . . . similarity . . . in . . . other animals
Edelman and Seth (2009), see above.
 
212
All vertebrates . . . thalamus . . . but not all . . . cortex
A. B. Butler and W. Hodos,
Comparative vertebrate neuroanatomy: evolution and adaptation
, vol. 2. 2005, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
 
212
Octopus . . . behaves . . . utterly belie its primitive label
Edelman and Seth (2009), see above.
 
213
If octopuses are conscious . . . never realize it from . . . anatomy
Ibid.
 
213
Giulio Tononi’s information integration theory
G. Tononi, Consciousness as integrated information: a provisional manifesto.
Biol Bull
, 2008. 215(3): 216–242.
 
214
Adam Barrett and Anil Seth . . . adapt the theory
A. B. Barrett and A. K. Seth, Practical measures of integrated information for time-series data. PLoS Comput Biol, 2011. 7(1): e1001052.
 
215
Massimini . . . practical rough-and-ready approximation
M. Massimini et al., Breakdown of cortical effective connectivity during sleep.
Science
, 2005. 309(5744): 2228–2232.
 
CHAPTER 7: LIVING ON THE FRAGILE EDGE OF AWARENESS
 
221
Concussions . . . severe brain damage . . . Alzheimer’s disease
B. Holmes, Deep impact: the bad news about banging your head.
New Scientist
, 2011. 2829: 38–41.
 
225
Vegetative state . . . thalamus . . . pathways to the prefrontal cortex
S. Laureys et al., Restoration of thalamocortical connectivity after recovery from persistent vegetative state.
Lancet
, 2000.355 (9217): 1790–1791.
 
226
Rating scales, which standardize and quantify the diagnostic
C. Schnakers et al., Diagnostic accuracy of the vegetative and minimally conscious state: clinical consensus versus standardized neurobehavioral assessment.
BioMedCentral Neurol
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227
Invalid . . . assume . . . no conscious life . . . completely paralyzed
M. M. Monti, S. Laureys, and A. M. Owen, The vegetative state.
Brit Med J
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227
One recent large-scale study . . . involved 41 patients
M. R. Coleman et al., Towards the routine use of brain imaging to aid the clinical diagnosis of disorders of consciousness.
Brain
, 2009. 132 (Pt 9): 2541–2552.
 
228
In 2006 with a twenty-three-year-old woman
A. M. Owen et al., Detecting awareness in the vegetative state.
Science
, 2006. 313(5792): 1402.
 
228
Normal, healthy controls performing the same imaginary tasks
M. Boly et al., When thoughts become action: an fMRI paradigm to study volitional brain activity in non-communicative brain injured patients.
NeuroImage
, 2007. 36(3): 979–992.
 
229
Owen . . . showed that only about 17 percent
M. M. Monti et al., Willful modulation of brain activity in disorders of consciousness.
N Engl J Med
, 2010. 3 62(7): 579–589.
 
229
Owen’s group . . . testing the use of EEG
D. Cruse et al., Bedside detection of awareness in the vegetative state: a cohort study.
Lancet
, 2011. 378(9808): 2088–2094.
 
229
This technique was later used on . . . a young Belgian man
Monti et al (2010), see above.
 
231
Davinia Fernandez-Espejo . . . relatively novel MRI scanning technique
D. Fernández-Espejo et al., Diffusion weighted imaging distinguishes the vegetative state from the minimally conscious state.
NeuroImage
, 2011. 54(1): 103–112.
 
231
Melanie Boly and colleagues were able to show
M. Boly et al., Preserved feedforward but impaired top-down processes in the vegetative state.
Science
, 2011. 332(6031): 858–862.
 
231
Another principled approach . . . uses the TMS-EEG technique
M. Massimini et al., A perturbational approach for evaluating the brain’s capacity for consciousness.
Prog Brain Res
, 2009. 177: 201–214.
 
232
Nicholas Schiff . . . deep brain stimulation
N. D. Schiff et al., Behavioural improvements with thalamic stimulation after severe traumatic brain injury.
Nature
, 2007. 448(7153): 600–603.
 
232
Raif Clauss . . . a common sleeping drug
R. Clauss and W. Nel, Drug induced arousal from the permanent vegetative state.
NeuroRehabilitation
, 2006. 21(1): 23–28.
 
233
Other research groups . . . shown that zolpidem . . . improve conscious
J. Whyte and R. Myers, Incidence of clinically significant responses to zolpidem among patients with disorders of consciousness: a preliminary placebo controlled trial.
Am J Phys Med Rehab
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CHAPTER 8: CONSCIOUSNESS SQUEEZED, STRETCHED, AND SHRUNK
 
237
(WHO) estimates that up to a quarter of all people
World Health Organization (WHO),
Global status report on non-communicable diseases 2010
. 2011, Geneva: WHO.
 
237
Loss to the economy due to mental illness
D. E. Bloom et al.,
The global economic burden of non-communicable diseases
, W. E. Forum, ed. 2011, Geneva: World Economic Forum.
 
239
Autistic children . . . improvements . . . behavioral intervention program
G. Dawson et al., Randomized, controlled trial of an intervention for toddlers with autism: the early start Denver Model.
Pediatr
, 2009. 125(1): e17–e23.
 
239
Autism . . . centrally defined . . . excessive richness of information
L. Mottron et al., Enhanced perceptual functioning in autism: an update, and eight principles of autistic perception.
J Autism Dev Disord
, 2006. 36(1): 27–43.
H. Markram, T. Rinaldi, and K. Markram, The intense world syndrome—an alternative hypothesis for autism.
Front Neurosci
, 2007. 1(1): 77–96.
 
239
Prominent figures . . . suffered from Asperger’s syndrome
H. Muir, Did Einstein and Newton have autism?
New Scientist
, 2003. 2393: 10.
James, I., Singular scientists.
J Royal Soc Med
, 2003. 96(1): 36–39.
 
240
Give autistics the Raven’s matrices test . . . IQ jumps
M. Dawson et al., The level and nature of autistic intelligence.
Psychol Sci
, 2007. 18(8): 657–662.
 
240
Superior abilities in . . . perceptual and analytical areas
Mottron et al (2006), see above.
 
240
Autism is the opposite of schizophrenia
B. Crespi, P. Stead, and M. Elliot, Evolution in health and medicine. Sackler colloquium: comparative genomics of autism and schizophrenia.
Proc Natl Acad Sci USA
, 2009.
 
241
Small range of superior skills that autistic people adopt
D. A. Treffert, The savant syndrome: an extraordinary condition. A synopsis : past, present, future.
Philos Trans Royal Soc B: Biol Sci
, 2009. 364(1522): 13 5 1–13 57.
 
241
“. . . [N]umerical comfort blanket”
D. Tammet,
Born on a blue day: a memoir of Aspergers and an extraordinary mind
. 2006, London: Hodder & Stoughton.
 
242
Autistic people have an imbalance of these chemicals
A. M. Persico and T. Bourgeron, Searching for ways out of the autism maze: genetic, epigenetic and environmental clues.
Trends Neurosci
, 2006. 29(7): 349–358.

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