Brain Science Podcast discussion
2015
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BSP 121 Bud Craig
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Fascinating discussion. I think I need to get Dr. Craig's book. I have always wondered about what the brain does with sensory information from the body when it is under anesthesia for surgery. To what degree, if any, does general anesthesia affect the interoceptive pathways? Is there a non-conscious memory of pain?
With another set of input streams one fast and one slower, I wonder more about synchronization in the brain. Is there a timing wave going on we know much about? Dr Craig said we could perceive about 1/10 sec. How do these separate speeds keep in context?
Margaret wrote: "Fascinating discussion. I think I need to get Dr. Craig's book. I have always wondered about what the brain does with sensory information from the body when it is under anesthesia for surgery. To w..."An excellent question, Margaret.
In the book I mention several papers that reported that the anterior insular cortex (AIC) deactivates when awareness fades, as during anesthesia, and it reactivates as awareness returns.
However, the homeostatic processes and the autonomic nervous system are functional as long as the body is alive. A painful stimulus will still cause responses, such as increased heart rate, blood pressure, respiration and cortisol release. And if strong enough, or repeated often, it can cause lasting effects, such as habituation or sensitization. Such changes are similar to the autonomic effects of stress and can be called a form of "non-conscious memory."
Darryl wrote: "With another set of input streams one fast and one slower, I wonder more about synchronization in the brain. Is there a timing wave going on we know much about? Dr Craig said we could perceive ab..."Thanks for asking, Darryl. Yes, actually our heartbeat may serve as a clock that is used by our insular cortex to measure time passage in the range of ~1-40 sec. The brain's alpha rhythm seems to provide the clock ticks used to measure tenths of seconds. And there is solid evidence that the right AIC is the only site in our brains that keeps track of cross-modal timing, for example, the synchronization of sight and sound that underpins ventriloquism. You will find these answers in my book.
Mod
Can you direct me to resources on how to improve my interoceptive awareness? Have you been able to do so for yourself and if so what techniques have you found most useful? Thank you for the wonderful research you are doing and your willingness to share your findings.
Ken wrote: "Can you direct me to resources on how to improve my interoceptive awareness? Have you been able to do so for yourself and if so what techniques have you found most useful? Thank you for the wonderf..."Hi Ken. Many thanks for your appreciation. You can find a number of possible ways to improve your interoceptive awareness by typing "improve interoceptive awareness" or "improve bodily awareness" in the search box of your favorite web-search program, like Google. There are several scholarly papers about using mindfulness meditation (see p 7 in my book). I've read that occupational therapists coach autistic spectrum students in the use of straightforward practice regimens to improve bodily awareness. You might also find useful tools at a website like this one: http://www.foundationforpositivementa...
I hope that helps.
Thank you Dr Craig and Ginger for illustrating another system/s that report on our fundamental beingness. I have kept my eye on proprioception (I am an acrobat) in trying to stay up with Gingers incredible class. I thought that forces measured in our skeletal axis were the fundamental vector then boom you guys start talking about new data cables going past everything else to interoceptive system mostly in humans. I'm on board gonna get your book. Thanks I listened 3 times before I correlated this model in my own brain.
Darryl wrote: "Thank you Dr Craig and Ginger for illustrating another system/s that report on our fundamental beingness. I have kept my eye on proprioception (I am an acrobat) in trying to stay up with Gingers in..."Hi Daryl. You might also appreciate a lecture I gave in Sweden a few years ago. It is available on the web at vimeo and the university's site. Google will find it for you. I hope you enjoy reading the book. Chapters 1, 2 and 9 may be the most interesting for you.
Dear Dr Craig How do your findings tie in with Jaak Panksepp's work?.Is it possible to have both primary emotions and an interoceptive network?.Regards Graham
Hi Graham. Yes, but that's sort of apples+oranges. Emotions drive behavior in all mammals, and humans experience feelings with emotions, though not always. Interoceptive sensory activity serves autonomic motor functions in all mammals, and in humans supports affective bodily feelings, including those that we experience during emotional behaviors. I hope that helps. But, if it just sounds like gobbledygook, then I would hope that reading the most accessible Chapters 1, 2 and 9 might help.
Hi Dr Craig Thank you for your response.What I wanted to know is whether there is room in your framework for emotions that are given to us as per Affective Neuroscience -i.e seeking,fear,anger,caring,lust,anxiety and play.
By the way I am reading your book and actually found the first 2 chapters the most difficult (so far!).However I really believe it must be a game changer and already I'm dreaming up practical ideas for treatments.I feel the world of psychology will benefit most ,but I deal with pain and feel there are massive implications resulting from your findings.
Regards Graham
Hello Dr. Craig,I have a few questions hierarchically entered in terms of importance to me.
1. Based on the 2 Point discrimination test, though the validity is in question, it appears that tactile discrimination varies over the body between 2-40 mm. This would imply a tremendous number of tactile sensors exist.
Question: What is the architectural scheme employed in the peripheral nervous system that provides the location of a perceived tactile sensation?
It would appear that the number of locations would require far too many nerve fibers to conduct responses from each point to the cortical maps, so I'm guessing that each nerve fiber exiting the spinal column for a given region must be sending out overlapping projections to skin that provides some x-y-z coordinate that can be remapped in the cortex to represent the location in the somatosensory cortex.
2.My efforts to understand how the brain manages and interprets the flood of modal stimuli is by developing biologically plausible circuit designs. I view the brain as a classical binary system (no quarks or microwaves conducted by microtubules) based on the neuron for interpreting and comprehending experiences.
My question concerns the degree of binary operations that the neuron can perform. Let me clarify the question with two examples:
a. Counting:
Counting would be necessary to categorically represent the past, could employ tiered banks of neurons that use a 100 cps oscillator feed, latches via axonal feedback to dendritic input, central soma lateral inhibition from the subsequent stage, and central inhibition from the next tier to reset individual levels. This would seem to be the most biologically plausible mechanism, but such a system consumes a tremendous amount of resources for both the temporal mechanism and its cortical target synapses.
Alternately, the neurons could reduce the amount of resources, feeds, and the needed synapses on targets if it could generate and interpret binary computational patterns (like we do in computing - 8 bits represent 256 possibilities).
b. Sequencing
The second example where counting can be problematic is in sequencing the stages in processing and episodic recall.
Question: Has anyone tested and confirmed the potential of the brain to actually generate and decode binary representations between subsystems?
Sincerely,
Dalton Seymour
Hi, I was curious to know whether the insular cortex has a topographical representation of the body like what has been classically observed in the somatosensory cortex. It would seem to be required in order to interpret the origin of the complex signals coming in from around the body along the interoceptive pathways. Also, isn't the insular cortex supposed to be involved in our perception of taste? Could you say anything about this sense's relationship to the insular cortex's interoceptive representation of the body?Thank you!
Hi Daltonthe somatotopic organization of the receptors from the skin is a classic finding that is taught in introductory neuroscience courses. I recommend that you find a good textbook; there are many to choose from.
Hi Konstantin
Yes, there are somatotopic maps of two classes of nociceptors in the insular cortex, and one of thermoreceptors. There may be more. This issue is directly addressed in my book.
Yes, it is involved in taste. That is also well-described in my book.
Keep on reading!
Given what has been elucidated in "How Do You Feel", what more does the field of neuroscience need in order to progress? In the literature, many emotion-specific patterns of peripheral autonomic activity have been reported for many of the basic emotions. Similarly, emotion-specific patterns of neural activity have also been demonstrated in association with specific feeling states (Damasio, et. al., 2000). Therefore, how many channels of physiological activity should be measured to understand our emotional nature? So far, we have only measured a dozen peripheral indices of autonomic activity, and focused on the cardiovascular, respiratory and electrodermal systems. It has been suggested that emotion-specific patterning of physiological responses are most likely much more extensive: we need to assess which response channels are most indicative of a particular emotion, including a broad assessment of ANS functioning to distinguish for example one emotion contrast (fear versus sadness) from another (fear versus anger).
Perhaps emotion induction, physical and psychological contextual factors have to be controlled for regarding context-emotion and context-deviation specificity. In other words, I have read your book and am very interested in how it interacts with the current state of neuroscience moving forward. It is way to little to thank you so much for a lifetime of focused investigation, Wayne.
Wayne wrote: "Given what has been elucidated in "How Do You Feel", what more does the field of neuroscience need in order to progress? In the literature, many emotion-specific patterns of peripheral autonomic a..."Hi Wayne. It sounds like you are most interested in the physiological connections between emotion, brain function, and autonomic activation patterns, consistent with Wm James' proposals. First, there are investigators who don't believe that such interactions are specific, so more refined evidence is needed. Second, the significance of such interactions for clinical treatment of mental disorders remains to be elaborated. There is now confusion even in the correspondence of brain imaging results with categories of mental dysfunction, not to mention symptoms. Third, the interactions between the two sides of the brain and autonomic and behavioral indices are just beginning to be studied. In my opinion, this is the most exciting frontier in the neuroscience of feelings and emotions.
I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed reading "How Do You Feel." Thanks for sharing your ideas and questions.
All the best
Bud
Bud: on page 286 you state "Did a philosopher propose or reject this concept long ago? I hope a reader will tell me."Bad News: First, I am profundly appreciative of all the neuroscience you have integrated for the benefit of us all: regarding your concepts as presented on p. 286, mental phenomena are caused by neurophysiological prcesses in the brain and are themselves features of the brain, but not reducible to entities per se (i.e., my motor system made me do it). Brains are no more conscious than they are capabel of taking a walk or holding a converstation. It is my person, not the brain--nor my motor system--that engages om tjese actovotoes. Reducing the person, the agent, to the motor system is the false recuctionism here.
Good News: Your findings can be re-presented in a non-reductionistic manner. That is my current project! With great admiration--Wayne.
Bonjour Dr. Bud Craig,One of the output from reading many times your essential "How Do you Feel" is that hundreds of patients are now feeling and being drastically better.
Would it be correct to teach physiotherapists and MD’s, that in order to:
- stimulate a sympathetic reaction, perform the sensual touch on the left limbs?
- stimulate a parasympathetic reaction, perform the sensual touch on the right limbs?
Here is a typical clinical case. A woman aged 55 who had suffered for 10 years from severe neuralgia of the pudendal nerve. Her history was like a horror story; she basically had ‘no life’. She opted for everything that medicine had to offer, including morphine.
After getting her comfortable and well covered on a massage table, giving her a few minutes to get quiet herself, the patient felt pain in the perineal region of 4/10. I then performed four passes of slow and light sensual touch on the right leg from mid-thigh to toes. I then left the patient for five minutes. When I came back… she said, "Don't touch me…I have no more pain". The absence of pain last 48 hours, until a bowel movement generates irritation and more pain.
To distinguish the effect of left and right sensual touch, I sometimes will test, when appropriate, sensual touch on the left side limbs…and the pain is often amplified. My students have also experimented with this and have had the same results. Is this a result of chance? Is it placebo? Is it mirror neurone?
One of our main goals in treating patients is to balance the autonomous nervous system - sympathetic and parasympathetic. Then, the body is able to do its job of healing, and homeostasis is on the way.
Your feedback would be much appreciated…
Sincerely,
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Pierre Saine
Bowen and Niromathé international instructor
7071 rue Saint-Denis
Montréal QC H2S 2S5 Canada
I would love to have Dr Craig speak to how his work can be utilized in progressing the practice of treating addictions though cognitive therapy. I'm certain his insight could help inform counselors of perhaps the depth and nature of addictions and so expand the scope of their possible therapeutic approaches.
Please post your comments in this thread.
Dr. Craig is willing to answer questions and can return to the show if there is enough interest in going into more detail about his work. This podcast episode requires no prior knowledge of anatomy or neuroscience.