"Grooooaaaannn".
All of this stuff has been completely-explicated in AoK all along -
and the Authors still didn't get it right.
"Emotionality" is 'just' a 'portion' of the 'motor-side' ['effector';
'outward-bound'] of the neural topology.
The "two parallel streams" are not actually 'separate', but are
'just' "supersystem configuration" [AoK, Ap5] dynamics 'and' ongoing
"configured-'states'". The 'separateness' of the latter is illusory.
The 'brain' [nervous system] is a massively-parallel processor. What
the investigators are 'confused' about derives in their not
comprehending that the 'brain' works on extremely-many problems
simultaneously, and only configures specifically with respect to
'one' problem subset when, as I've discussed in prior posts, there is
a need to exert force that acts upon, and within, the external
environment. In such instances, motor-'side' 'interfaces', such as
'language'-mechanisms, or general environment-manipulation
effector-activation, are converged upon, and externally-observable
behavior is manifested. The convergence upon 'one' problem subset
occurs only because such is necessary in order to exert force, within
the external environment, that is sufficiently-directed to actually
accomplish work within the external environment.
When the Authors employ what they refer to as 'emotion-invoking'
stimuli, all that's happening is that the stimuli evoke
relatively-high TD E/I, and the Authors look at the TD
E/I-minimization dynamics that follow, and call such "emotion", but
this's just not what's going-on in-there.
What's going-on in there is that the 'sledge-hammer' stimuli just
evoke relatively-high TD E/I, which instantiates correlated
relatively-observable supersystem configuration dynamics.
The Authors are observing these relatively-observable supersystem
configuration dynamics and calling them "emotion", but they aren't
"emotion".
"Emotion" is only motor-'side' [of the neural topology] interface
stuff. It's the stuff that's 'added', within motor-'side' dynamics, t
hat's there as a means of communicating an abstract
[non-specific-information-containing] relative-TD E/I to other
'animals' which share the relatively local external environment.
That is, "emotion" is, itself, 'just' another 'language' interface.
[A particularly-vivid example is the "Infant's crying-behavior"
example that's discussed, with its correlated neural dynamics, in
AoK, Ap5 [which discussion extends right into Ap7 and Ap8 - due,
solely, to the sequential nature of 'language' processing - in
actuality, everything's happening all-at-once - of-a-piece].
There are no "two separate streams".
There is 'just' what's been discussed in AoK all along.
Many problems being 'worked-on' simultaneously, most of which are
strongly-TD E/I-minimized.
And then the Authors introduce 'sledge-hammer' stuff, observe the
supersystem-configuration dynamics, and call such "emotion", but all
they're observing is 'just' relatively-high TD E/I, and the ensuing
TD E/I-minimization dynamics, which is 'just' more of the same stuff
as is in what the Authors refer to as the other 'stream', but not yet
TD E/I-minimized.
It's all been reified in AoK, all along. See, in particular, the
discussions of hierarchical-prioritization in Ap5, and global
prioritization ["volition"] in Ap7, with further relevant discussion
in Ap8.
I'd try to access the paper, and comment further, but PNAS is
for-fee, and I've no "fee" stuff left to give. [Is the National
Academy a Publicly-funded or Privately-funded [for-profit]
Institution?]
It's 'heart'-breaking to see Erroneous Speculation Published, and
presented as 'fact', when AoK, which gets-things-right, has been
Censored.
It's 'heart'-breaking to ponder the Consequences, inherent, in the
Lives of folks who Suffer-Greatly [which, in our age of weapons of
mass-destruction proliferation, and relatively-high intra- and
inter-Nation TD E/I, more and more, is becoming all of us].
"Why?"
This Q is also answered in AoK.
It wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't being forced to look out at it all
through the bars of my 'cage'.
It's like in a verbal-description news report I saw on TV years ago -
a Father restrained - forced to watch as his Children were
Slaughtered.
Partularly-Cruel.
You see how I embed "emotion" - that
'non-specific'-motor-'side'-interface stuff - within the
'language'-interface? [I'd 'jump-up-and-down', but nobody'd see it
:-]
All I ever do is the work of Communication.
I mean no 'offense'.
I mean just-the-opposite stuff.
But I've only this way - here in 'bionet.neuroscience' through which
to do everything that needs to be done.
Building Communication out of almost-nothing, just like my Father
built his sturdy 'chairs' out of almost nothing [scraps of wood
discarded by others.]
Folks 'think' I'm this or that that's 'unworthy'.
But all I am is a Man, Doing what needs to be done, with 'scraps'
discarded by others.
'course, if I write, 'on-approval', to a clone-server, then the
difference between "Doing" and "attempted-Doing", is the relevant
thing over which I've no control.
But it's becoming increasingly-'hilarious' to witness folks 'caging'
me, 'rattling-my-cage', and then 'blaming' me when this 'big dog
fights'.
Self-fufilling-'prophecy' stuff, in-there, with respect to which I do
not 'hang my head'.
"Thet jest ain't rawt."
K. P. Collins
Ian Goddard wrote in message <3d624c5c.49424128 at news.erols.com>...
>http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/pnas.html>>Duke University - Duke News Service
>> MRI Studies Provide New Insight Into How Emotions Interfere With
>Staying Focused
>> DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University researchers have shown how emotions
>such as fear or horror travel along separate paths through the brain
>and are more likely than simple distractions to interfere with a
>person's efforts to focus on a task such as driving.
>> Using functional MRI to watch human brains in action, the
researchers
>showed that emotional stimuli and "attentional functions" like
driving
>move in parallel streams through the brain before finally meeting up
>in a specific part of the brain's prefrontal cortex.
>> The results, published in the August 20 issue of The Proceedings of
>the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), help explain why a person
who
>suddenly feels a pang of emotion is especially likely to lose focus.
>They also may lead to new avenues of research for treating
depression,
>attention-deficit disorder, post-traumatic stress syndrome and other
>disorders.
>> "We've known for a long time that some people are more easily
>distracted and that emotions can play a big part in this," said
Kevin
>S. LaBar, assistant professor at Duke's Center for Cognitive
>Neuroscience and an author of the study. "Our study shows that two
>streams of processing take place in the brain, with attentional
tasks
>and emotions moving in parallel before finally coming together." The
>two streams are integrated in a region of the brain called the
>anterior cingulate, which is located between the right and left
halves
>of the brain's frontal portion and is involved in a wide range of
>thought processes and emotional responses.
>> LaBar and his colleagues used functional MRI devices to study the
>brains of neurologically healthy subjects who tried to pay attention
>to specific visual targets on a screen. The test subjects were
>distracted in various ways, sometimes by images that were likely to
>evoke an emotional response. The results confirmed previous findings
>that emotional stimuli are more likely to cause a person to lose
>focus. However, they also shed light on the long-standing mystery of
>how the brain juggles different kinds of signals, and how the
signals
>travel.
>> The Duke study indicates that the brain segregates attentional and
>emotional functions into parallel streams that extend into the
>prefrontal cortex. Emotional processing tends to occur in the
ventral,
>or lower, part of the brain's front, while attentional tasks occur
>near the top. Surprisingly, an increase in one type of function is
>accompanied by a noticeable decrease in the other.
>> "This study is part of our larger effort to identify parts of the
>brain that are associated with emotional processing," said Gregory
>McCarthy, director of the Duke-University of North Carolina Imaging
>and Analysis Center, who headed the research study. "These findings
>are important because diseases that involve distractability, from
>Alzheimer's to attention-deficit disorder, always seems to involve
the
>prefrontal cortex. Understanding the biology of this will speed
>efforts to develop drugs or therapies that may influence these
>systems."
>> The research team is now carrying out a similar study with subjects
>diagnosed with clinical depression to see how their brain activity
>might differ. The study reported in PNAS was supported by the
>Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Institute of Mental
>Health, the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and
>Depression and the Japan Foundation for Aging and Health.
>>>>http://IanGoddard.net>> Out-of-Body Explanation: http://iangoddard.net/paranorm.htm>>>
