This blog post explains many of the reasons I blog, especially intrinsic interest in staying current with new literature and sharing existing new articles with others. Excellent. Well done.
 Brain (@BrainCosmos)5/7/11 2:38 AM Why Academics Should Blog: A College of One's Own bit.ly/m3PUnn |
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Kevin McGrew, PhD
Educational Psychologist
5 comments:
Hello, my name is Gregory. Firstly, my apologies for taking up your time in what may be a flippant and unimportant way. I've no professional interest in neuroscience or educational psychology (I deliver newspapers and do odd jobs) and my knowledge in this area is somewhat brutish. Secondly, thank you for blogging! I've been looking for quite awhile for something like what your blog appears to be, my interest piqued by an inability to function adequately in a temporal-centric society.
Before i dive in to the blog and start reading, I'm wondering if you could point me in the right direction. I'm looking for research into how aspects of neuralogical function and structure drives people to want to learn, particularly how this could relate to the cholinergic looping of the dorsal striatum, and to the possibility of a 'neural timestamp' being active at the gap between the caudate nucleus and the putamen (i think that's where, but my geography may be off).
I'll post another comment shortly to explain better.
Hi, Gregory again. further to the comment i just posted u:
In thinking about thinking, it occurred to me that we do enjoy it at so many levels. I once read Humour described as 'unexpected, sudden knowledge', tickling is only really an overabundance of stimulus, teaching is the ignition of curiosity rather than the filling of a vessel (some old Greek said that?) and when considering the nature of beauty in art school it seemed to me that the interelated stimulation of interest, recognition and significance combined to produce an analogy of knowledge. I'm babbling, sorry, back to the point.
Neuronal processes dependent on consecutive signal transduction involve axons which run through the gap between the C.N. and the Putamen. The passing of a spike of signal current throguh this C.N/P gap should through induction produce a related potential difference in the C.N /P neurons themselves, and/or the process can work in reverse with the C.N/P gap inducing a change in the neurons within the gap. (cont.)
Gregory again.(Comment #3)
Sorry for babbling, 3 years worth of contemplation into a few paragraphs to give you an idea of the research i'm looking for.
So, we then have a timestamp or clock involved in the modulation of and by perception/action, the associated colinergic signalling loop to the substantia nigra providing a 'Pulse' to the cerebrum (Enabling access to long term memory), and the routing of this pulse to the global pallidium (not sure if my spelling is correct) similarly enabling a working memory (and possibly during sleep long term memory). Further, the more closely aligned this pulse is with the regeneration/degeneration of signalling molecules in axonial pathways, the more effective these axonial pathways will be. perhaps differences in the timing of the pule affect the length of established pathways, accounting for the axonial path length/density differences found in people with autism spectrum traits, or the motor activity irregularity of parkinsons disease. looks like i need a 4th comment
Gregory again. (comment #4)
I keep wandering off on a tangent :) thanks for your patience.
anyway, the ideas being that knowledge is gained, confirmed and reinforced by exploration and contemplation, stimulus being external and internal to memory. This is facilitated by dopamine, seratonin and adenosine levels being affected by their role in the working of a 'clock' which is modulated by the striatum, where the pairing of the C.N. and putamen produces an induction effect between the clock and the neural pathways it regulates. At a most primal level, we seek out the activity which encourages these 3 cholinergic transmitters, activity such as eating, mating and physical dexterity. Success there results in evolutionary success for the striatum clock, the ability and urge to learn developing in tandem with the symbiotic ability and urge for socialisation.(a thought-what are the implications of the popular modern sources of cholinergic activity, i.e. recreational drugs, fast food, t.v. game shows?) (cont)
Gregory again (comment #5? #6? last one in any case - i promise)
ok. so all that rambling i hope gives you some idea of the sorts of research i'm interested in. What it is that drives learning, how the brain discerns temporality, the functioning of the temporal medial lobe for real (not just 'what happens if i cut out this bit of brain?' type research), and how this temporal functioning of the brain relates to various phenomena of human experience (e.g. music, disease, language). i hope you can post a comment to this post "why Academics should blog" that will direct me to some relevant research and save me from reading too much drivel. speaking of drivel, I hope these comments haven't inconvienienced you enough to inspire a "why academics should NOT blog" post :) I'll even spare you my thoughts on the overloading of glial cells in association to pain sensations and greif. Or at least leave it as brief as that :)
in any case, it's been nice to try to get these ideas accross, and even nicer to find your blog!
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