Introducing the brain: sensory neurons do more than accept (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, November 12, 2020, 19:02 (1470 days ago) @ David Turell

They also analyze:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-11-sensory-cortex-recognising-patterns.html

"The research, published in Current Biology, suggests that neurons in the sensory cortex don't just detect sensory information, but could actually decipher meaning and regulate bodily responses too.

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"Dr. Maravall said: "The cerebral cortex is the part of the mammalian brain where we make sense of new objects and relate them to actions and memories.

"'We reasoned that, somewhere in the sensory part of the mouse's cerebral cortex, there would be a group of neurons that processed these sequences of vibrations. There would perhaps then be another group of neurons elsewhere that prompted the animal to respond whenever the target sequence was presented. This would be the basis for the animal reporting the sequence.

"'However, we found something far more intriguing. Even in the most sensory parts of the cortex, we observed neurons that directly linked the learnt sequence to the animals' motor response. Some neurons even responded to whether the animal was getting the expected reward or not."

"The findings suggest that the sensory cortex is not just sensory, as previously thought. Instead of responding only to stimuli around us, Dr. Maravall's study suggests that the sensory neurons are also involved in processing the meaning of the stimuli, and planning the subsequent behavioural responses.

"This means that learning to recognise a specific pattern or sequence and process the ensuing actions and outcomes, whether that be a new song or a speech, involves neurons across the whole cortex. This fundamentally challenges basic ideas about how our brains work.

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"'Our findings challenge that process. Instead, we've seen that all kinds of information makes its way to the sensory cortex and that neurons there are even able to predict the animal's response, and report its consequences—almost as if the normal decision making process I've just explained is bypassed.

"'What's exciting is that we're seeing similar results coming out of multiple labs. Neurons in the sensory cortex are doing so much more than we first thought. An animal does not, it seems, sense the world separately from what it needs to feel in order to guide behaviour.

"'If sensations are tied into the task itself, this has implications for how we think about how the cortex is organised and how this might be affected by disease.'"

Comment: That neurons are not limited but can be jacks-of-all-trades explains way our brains work so cleverly. That makes the brain not just another computer. A very compelling new finding about its design. Not by chance.