Public lecture: “Single neuron studies of memories and volitions in the human brain” – by Professor Itzhak Fried.
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Forum for Consciousness Research and The Norwegian Science Academy invites to a meeting and lecture with the renowned neurosurgeon Itzhak Fried, who is famous for, among other, concept cells, which are neurons that respond to specific concepts, such as Jennifer Anniston!

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Programme:
17.30: Welcome and introduction by Johan F. Storm, Neurophysiology, University of Oslo
17.35: Itzhak Fried: “Single neuron studies of memories and volitions in the human brain”
18.35: Coffee break
18.45-19.15: Discussion and questions from the audience
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The ultimate goal of neuroscience is to understand mechanisms of the human brain, including the electrical activity of single brain cells, which for ethical reasons can normally only be studied in animals. Dr. Fried has pioneered the use of invasive brain recordings in patients during various clinical procedures, thus providing a unique access to high-resolution brain signals from humans. Of special value are his rare recordings, in awake humans, of single brain cell activity, providing a unique view of aspects of cognition that are impossible to study in animals, such as imagery, language, and consciousness. In his lecture, Fried will discuss the unique contribution of invasive recordings from patients to cognitive neuroscience, focusing on memory, volition, and consciousness. Humans seem to decide for themselves what to do and when. Studying such volitional acts is a major challenge for neuroscience. Fried will discuss key mechanisms in the generation of voluntary actions: their apparent spontaneity and link to conscious experience, describing patient studies of the cortical basis of conscious volition down to the single-neuron level, the goal-directedness of voluntary action, and how internal generation of action can be linked to goals and reasons.
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Dr. Itzhak Fried is Professor of Neurosurgery and Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. He is Director of the Adult Epilepsy Surgery Program there, and Co-Director of the Seizure Disorder Center. Concurrently, he is a Professor of Neurosurgery at Tel-Aviv University in Israel. After a degree in physics at Tel-Aviv University, Dr. Fried completed his Ph.D. at UCLA, and a medical degree at Stanford and neurosurgery training, specializing in epilepsy surgery, at Yale University. He heads the Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, which is centered on the opportunities to study the human brain afforded by the epilepsy surgery. Some of these patients have depth electrodes to evaluate their seizures for subsequent surgery, and used to record single neuron responses during cognitive tasks, including visual perception, memory, navigation, and imagery.

Lab website: www.itzhakfried.com

Key references:
1. I. Fried et al. (2014) Single Neuron Studies in the
Human Brain, MIT press.
2. Mukamel R, Fried I (2012) Human intracranial recordings and
cognitive neuroscience. Annu Rev Psychol. 63:511-37.
3. Fried I et al. (2017) Volition and Action in the Human Brain:
Processes, Pathologies, and Reasons J Neurosci.37:10842-10847.

Abstract

The last decade has witnessed an explosion of research employing recording of electrical activity directly from the human brain. Intracranial recording provides a powerful window into the neural basis of cognition, thought and consciousness and has been applied to a host of human behaviors.

The first key finding was that the human brain generates robust neural activity up to 250 Hz (high frequency band; HFB) with exquisite spatial (millimeter) and temporal (millisecond) resolution.

The second important observation was that HFB activity, a surrogate for local cortical activity, is modulated by slower cortical oscillations with different tasks eliciting unique sub-second distributed spatial-temporal activity patterns.

I will first discuss how intracranial recording has provided novel insights into the neural basis of attention, language, memory and decision-making with the intracranial findings often challenging prior dogma in the field. I will then review our efforts using HFB activity to decode imagined speech in an effort to develop a brain computer interface for treatment of disabling language deficits.

Bio

Dr. Knight is Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at UC Berkeley and Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery at UC San Francisco. He has a BS in Physics from the Illinois Institute of Technology, an MD from Northwestern University Medical School, did Neurology training at UC San Diego, Post-Doctoral training at the Salk Institute and was a member of the Neurology Department at UC Davis from 1980-1998. He moved to UC Berkeley in 2000 and served as Director of the UC Berkeley Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute from 2001- 2011.

Dr. Knight has twice received the Jacob Javits Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for distinguished contributions to neurological research, the IBM Cognitive Computing Award, the German Humboldt Prize in Neurobiology and the Distinguished Career Contribution Award from the Cognitive Neuroscience Society. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

His laboratory studies neurological patients with frontal lobe damage and also records electrical signals directly from the brain in neurosurgical patients to understand the role of prefrontal cortex in goal-directed behavior.  His laboratory is also engaged in developing a speech prosthesis for use in patients with disabling neurological disorders.

The event is hosted by RITMO Center for Interdisciplinarity Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion (University of Oslo) in collaboration with Forum for Consciousness Research / Forum for Bevissthetsforskning. See here for more information.

The resting brain, including the mind wandering that it produces, has been argued to play an important role in creating conscious experience. Its role in meditation varies: Concentrative meditation seeks to avoid mind wandering, mindfulness to accept but then let go of it, while nondirective meditation sees it as a central part of the process. This workshop attempts to shed light on various aspects of the interplay between consciousness, meditation and the resting brain.

The workshop will take place on the 6th and 7th of September, 2019, 09.00-18.00 at the University of Oslo, Blindern campus, Niels Treschows hus, 12th floor conference room. See the bottom of this post for a tentative programme. Attendance by request. Send an email to Professor Halvor Eifring at: halvor.eifring@ikos.uio.no if you would like to participate. Limited number of seats.

In addition to this workshop, psychiatrist and philosopher Georg Northoff, from Canada, will on the 5th of September hold a workshop with Professor Halvor Eifring and Professor Svend Davanger about how consciousness comes into existence. The event is hosted by ACEM Norway, at Sporveisgaten 37, Oslo. The event will occur from 18.00 to 20.00, and costs 100 NOK to attend. For a longer description about the event (in Norwegian), go here.

Tentative programme main workshop:

Friday 6 September

9-12.30

● Zac Irving, University of Virginia

Harnessing the wandering mind: meta-control in cognitive science and Zen

● Karin Kukkonen, University of Oslo & Ylva Østby, University of Oslo

Reading experiences, memory and mindfulness: the ReadMemo project

● Reidar Tyssen, University of Oslo

Long-term mental health effects of mindfulness training in medical and psychology students

● Sebastian Watzl, University of Oslo

Changing us or changing them? Meditation and the ethics of distraction

14.00–17.00

● Augustine Casiday, independent researcher

Topic to be announced

● Halvor Eifring, University of Oslo

Modern philosophical discourses on mind wandering

● Johan F. Storm, University of Oslo

Assessing the capacity for consciousness in the resting brain

Saturday 7 September

9-12.30

● Georg Northoff, University of Ottawa

The brain’s resting state and its relevance for consciousness

● Are Holen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

The experience of time in nondirective meditation

● Svend Davanger, University of Oslo

How the brain’s synaptic memory creates a personal sense of time

● Stein Andersson, University of Oslo

A non-invasive EEG-based method to study neural plasticity: feasible for exploring basic neurocognitive mechanisms of meditation?

14.00–17.00

● Kieran Fox, Stanford University

Creativity and the wandering mind: novelty and utility in spontaneous waking and sleeping cognition

● Øyvind Ellingsen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

The brain and the rest: nondirective meditation and physiological responses related to the autonomic self

● Anders Nesvold, Oslo University Hospital

Alterations in autonomic nerve activity during nondirective meditation

● Vilde Haakensen, Oslo University Hospital

Meditation and the brain: stress reduction in relatives of cancer patients

CANCELLED

This lecture has sadly been cancelled due to a minor illness preventing Professor Daniel Dennett to travel to Europe at this time. Hopefully a new opportunity will present itself in the future.

Abstract:

The deep relation between human consciousness and moral responsibility seems obvious, but it has some underappreciated complexities. The traditional idea of free will has misled many into thinking it requires some sort of exemption from external determination, when in fact it requires something more interesting: the kind of autonomy that, independently of indeterminism or determinism, can be achieved —or lost—by some complex physical systems under certain conditions. All living things do things for reasons, but only human beings have reasons they can comprehend and act on. The capacity to be “moved by
reasons” (as Kant put it) depends on having language, which both enables and depends on a special kind of consciousness so far exhibited only by our species. The difference makes a difference: we don’t—and shouldn’t—hold wolves or orcas morally responsible when they kill people. They are conscious but are not morally competent agents.

Daniel Dennett is a prominent American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology. He was a student of W. V. Quine at Harvard University, and Gilbert Ryle at the University of Oxford, where he received his D.Phil in philosophy in 1965.   He is one of the most famous living philosophers and the author of numerous books.

Philosophy of mind.  Dennett is primarily concerned with providing a philosophy of mind that is grounded in empirical research. In his dissertation, Content and Consciousness, he broke up the problem of explaining the mind into the need for a theory of content (later discussed in The Intentional Stance) and for a theory of consciousness, outlined in Consciousness Explained, where he presented his multiple drafts model of consciousness. He argues that the concept of qualia is confused and cannot be put to any use. His strategy mirrors Ryle’s approach of redefining first person phenomena in third person terms.

Free will. Dennett is a compatibilist, arguing that free will and determinism are mutually compatible. In his 1978 book Brainstorms, he proposed a two-stage model of decision making in contrast to libertarian views: “The model … has the following feature: when we are faced with an important decision, a consideration-generator whose output is to some degree undetermined, produces a series of considerations, some of which may of course be immediately rejected as irrelevant by the agent (…). Those considerations that are selected by the agent as having a more than negligible bearing on the decision then figure in a reasoning process, and …, those considerations ultimately serve as predictors and explicators of the agent’s final decision.”

Books by Dennett:

Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology (1981); Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting (1984); The Mind’s I (1985); Content and Consciousness (1986); The Intentional Stance (1987); Consciousness Explained (1992); Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (1996); Kinds of Minds: Towards an Understanding of Consciousness (1997); Brainchildren (Representation and Mind) (1998); Freedom Evolves (2003); Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness (2005); Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (2006); Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind, and Language (2007); Science and Religion (2010); Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking (2013); Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind (2013);       From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds (2017)

 Dennett on Evolution of Consciousness at the World Economic Forum in Davos, 2018; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbOP0IKpsZ0

Spiking neural network simulation on SpiNNaker 

A massively parallel neuromorphic computing platform

Wednesday, 24 October, 14.00-15.00

Physiology Lunch Room/Library, Domus Medica, UiO (next to Rikshopitalet and Gaustad Hotel)

SpiNNaker: SpiNNaker is the largest massively-parallel neuromorphic computer platform in the world. It  has a million cores and can simulate hundreds of millions of neurons, and hundreds of billions of synapses.

Abstract: Simulating the brain is a challenge, even for modern supercomputers. As simulations grow in
size, traditional memory and communications mechanisms do not scale, and energy consumption can
become prohibitive. A solution to this problem is to develop bespoke hardware tailored to brain
simulation, also known as neuromorphic hardware. This seminar will introduce SpiNNaker (Spiking
Neural Network Architecture), a neuromorphic platform developed at the University of Manchester.
This massively parallel machine, comprised of over 1 million programmable ARM cores with a unique
routing framework, enables real-time power-efficient simulation of large-scale spiking neural
networks. As well as introducing the machine architecture and software, a range of simulations will
be presented, including a discussion of how simulating the brain can also inform the field of computer
science in order to help us develop more efficient, fault-tolerant computing machines.

Oliver Rhodes is a researcher from the University of Manchester,
UK. He earned a masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from the
University of Exeter, and was awarded a PhD in Aeronautical
Engineering from Imperial College London, for his work exploring
optimal design methods for flexible morphing structures. After several
years in industry with SIMULIA, the simulation division of the Dassault
Systemes software company, he joined the lab of Prof. Steve Furber
in Manchester to work on neural simulation software for the
SpiNNaker neuromorphic platform.

Lecture by: 

Prof. Dr. Cyriel M.A. PENNARTZ, 

Head of Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience group,

University of Amsterdam

Consciousness and the integration of modalities: theory and experiment

Thursday, 22 February, 14.00-15.30

In: Auditorium 1, G. Sverdrups Hus/ Universitetsbiblioteket, Blindern,  Moltke Moes vei 39  ved/ Blindernveien,   Oslo 0317

Programme:

14.00 – 14.05:  Welcome and introduction by Johan F. Storm, Neurophysiology, Univ. of Oslo
14.10 – 15.00: Lecture by Cyriel Pennartz: Consciousness and the integration of modalities
15.00 – 15.30: Discussion and questions from the audience

Abstract: The last three decades have witnessed several ideas and theories on brain-consciousness relationships, but it is still poorly understood how brain systems may fulfill the various requirements and characteristics we associate with conscious experience. This seminar will pay attention in particular to the basic requirements for generating experiences set in different modalities given the rather uniform nature of signal transmission from periphery to brain. We will next examine a few experimental approaches relevant for understanding basic processes underlying consciousness, such as changes in population behavior during sensory detection and changes in system-wide spike correlations as studied with multi-area ensemble recordings. For visual detection, the primary sensory cortices have been a long-standing object of study, but it is unknown how neuronal populations in this area process detected and undetected stimuli differently. We will examine whether visual detection correlates more strongly with the overall response strength of a population, or with population response heterogeneity. Zooming out from visual cortex to larger interconnected neural systems, we will study how long- and short-range, spike-based functional connectivity between brain areas varies across the sleep-wake cycle. Next we will revisit the issue of multimodal integration by asking how “visual” the visual cortex is when tested in a multisensory setting. Finally, we will return to long-standing theoretical issues: (i) the Explanatory Gap, i.e. that gap that is facing us when comparing, and seeking to connect, qualitatively rich conscious experience with raw physiological activity of neural substrates, and (ii) requirements to design empirically testable theories of consciousness-brain relationships. It will be argued that a productive way forward comes from thinking about world representations as set across different levels of computation and complexity, ranging from cells to ensembles, multi-area networks and yet larger representational aggregates.

References: 

Montijn JS, Goltstein PM, Pennartz CMA (2015) “Mouse V1 population correlates of visual detection rely on heterogeneity within neuronal response patterns”. eLife 2015; 4:e10163. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.10163.

Pennartz CMA (2015) “The brain’s representational power – on consciousness and the integration of modalities”. MIT press (382 pp.). ISBN: 9780262029315.

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Open meeting in Forum for Consciousness Research and  The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters,

Monday, 22 January, 2018, 18:00:

 A conversation with Björn Merker about consciousness and the brain

 Place: The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Drammensveien 78, Oslo

Time: Monday 22 January, 2018, 18:00 – 20.15

Program:

18.00- 18.10:  Welcome and introduction by Johan F. Storm, Neurophysiology, University of Oslo

18.10 – 18.30: Introduction by Björn Merker

18.30 – 19.00: Panel discussion I and questions from the audience

Panel: Björn Merker, Kenneth Hugdahl (Univ.of Bergen), Sebastian Watzl (Philosophy, UiO), J.F. Storm (UiO).

19.00 – 19.15: Coffee break

19.15 – 20.15: Panel discussion II and questions from the audience

Björn Merker, born 1943, is a neuroscientist and independent interdisciplinary scholar who is knownfor his work on behavior and apparent consciousness in children that are born without almost any cerebral cortex (hydranencephaly; Merker, 2007), and his ideas about possible subcortical origin of consciousness (Merker, 2013).

Merker studied psychology and brain science in the U.S., receiving a B.A. in psychology at Queens College of the City University of New York (1975), and a PhD in psychology and brain science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980 for work on midbrain orienting mechanisms. He then worked on oculomotor physiology in cats at UCLA and on the primary visual cortex of macaques at New York University. An interest in comparative behavioral biology led him to study song development and mirror self-recognition in gibbons, and eventually to research on the biological roots and evolutionary background of human music and language. With Nils Wallin and Steven Brown he edited the interdisciplinary volume The Origins of Music. In retirement, he continues active work on theoretical topics that include the analysis of brain macrosystems and their interaction, countercurrent modelling of cortical memory, the subcortical foundations of brain mechanisms of attention and consciousness, and the biological background to human music and language.

Selected articles and books

• Merker, B. (2013). The efference cascade, consciousness, and its self: Naturalizing the first person pivot of action control. Frontiers in Psychology 4, article 501: 1-20.
• B. Merker (2012): From probabilities to percepts. A subcortical “global best estimate buffer” as locus of phenomenal experience”. In: S. Edelman, T. Fekete and N. Zach (Eds.): Being in Time. Dynamical models of phenomenal experience. (pp. 37–79). Amsterdam. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
• B. Merker (2013): “Cortical gamma oscillations: the functional key is activation, not cognition”. In: Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 37 (2013) 401–417

• B. Merker (2007): “Consciousness without a cerebral cortex: a challenge for neuroscience and medicine.” Target article, commentaries and author’s response. In: The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30: 63-134
• B. Merker (2004). “Cortex, countercurrent context, and dimensional integration of lifetime memory.” Cortex, 40: 559-576. Preprint at: http://cogprints.org/6456/
• M. Ujhelyi, B. Merker, P. Buk & T. Geissmann (2000). “Observations on the behavior of gibbons in the presence of mirrors.” Journal of Comparative Psychology, 114: 253-262.
• B. Merker & C. Cox (1999): “Development of the female great call in Hylobates gabriellae: A case study.” Folia Primatologica, 70: 96-106.
• E. Schwartz & B. Merker (1986). “Computer aided neuroanatomy: Differential geometry of cortical surfaces and an optimal flattening algorithm.” IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 6: 36-44.
• B. Merker & J. Schlag (1985): “Role of intralaminar thalamus in gaze mechanisms: Evidence from electrical stimulation and fiber sparing lesions in cats.” In: Experimental Brain Research, 59: 388-394.
• B. Merker (1980): “The Sentinel Hypothesis – A role for the mammalian superior colliculus.” Doctoral Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cambridge, Mass

Technical workshop:

Uncovering dreams within sleep with magnetic brain stimulation and EEG

10.30–11.15   Dr. Jaakko NIEMINEN: Uncovering dreams within sleep with magnetic brain stimulation and EEG

11.15 – 11.30  Questions and discussion

11.30–12.15   Dr. Jaakko NIEMINEN:  Multi-locus transcranial magnetic stimulation

Auditorium 2, Sverdrups Hus (Universitetsbiblioteket), Blindern,

Moltke Moes vei 39 ved/Blindernveien, 0317 Oslo

All are welcome!

ABSTRACT for the first lecture (taken from an article by Nieminen et al. 2016*):

When subjects become unconscious, there is a characteristic change in the way the cerebral cortex responds to perturbations, as can be assessed using transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroencephalography (TMS-EEG). For instance, compared to wakefulness, during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep TMS elicits a larger positive-negative wave, fewer phase-locked oscillations, and an overall simpler response. However, many physiological variables also change when subjects go from wake to sleep, anesthesia, or coma. To avoid these confounding factors, we focused on NREM sleep only and measured TMS-evoked EEG responses before awakening the subjects and asking them if they had been conscious (dreaming) or not. As shown here, when subjects reported no conscious experience upon awakening, TMS evoked a larger negative deflection and a shorter phase-locked response compared to when they reported a dream. Moreover, the amplitude of the negative deflection-a hallmark of neuronal bistability according to intracranial studies-was inversely correlated with the length of the dream report (i.e., total word count). These findings suggest that variations in the level of consciousness within the same physiological state are associated with changes in the underlying bistability in cortical circuits.

ABSTRACT for the second lecture:

“I will present the multi-locus transcranial magnetic stimulation of the brain (mTMS) instrumentation that we have develop at Aalto University and  some mTMS–electromyography results. Our mTMS device allows hanging the stimulation target electronically without any coil movement.”

Sponsored by the Human Brain Project and SERTA: The Changing Brain

Evolutionary and developmental transformations of apical function in neocortical pyramidal cells

Prof. Bill PHILLIPS, University of Stirling, Scotland, UK

An OPEN MEETING the 20th of April, 2016, 14.00-16.00: Runde Auditorium, Domus Medica (next to Rikshopitalet and Gaustad Hotel)

Timetable:

14.00 – 14.20   Introduction: Bridging levels from brain cells to experience, Johan F. Storm, University of Oslo

14.20 – 15.20   Evolutionary and developmental transformations of apical function in neocortical pyramidal cells, Prof. Bill PHILLIPS, University of Stirling

15.20- 16.00   Discussion and Questions

About lecturer:
Bill Phillips is Emeritus Professor at the University of Stirling, Scotland. He has worked on theories of neural computation, psychophysics and neurophysiology of visual event perception, and developed the theory of Coherent Infomax as a computational goal for neural systems.

About the lecture:
In reptilian 3-layer cortex and in immature mammalian 6-layer neocortex apical inputs provide excitatory drive to pyramidal cells. In mature neocortex apical input modulates response to basal input by amplifying signals that are relevant in the current context while suppressing those that are irrelevant or interfering as hypothesized by the theory of coherent infomax. This context-sensitive flexibility depends upon HCN channels that have a long post-natal developmental time-course, and which tend to isolate distal apical input from the soma unless they are closed by the adrenergic system. Adrenergic arousal turns apical amplification (AA) on when we awake and turns it up when we attend, thus suggesting that AA is closely related to conscious state, as others have suggested. Computational studies indicate that AA can be used in algorithms for Gestalt organization, contextual disambiguation, priming, attention, and invariant object recognition. It is likely that malfunctions of AA are involved in the altered conscious states that occur in several neurodevelopmental and psychotic disorders. For an open-access review see: http://nc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/niw015

All are welcome.

Sponsored by: The Human Brain Project, and SERTA; the Changing Brain

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