June 27, 2013 — A series of studies conducted by Randy Bruno, PhD, and Christine Constantinople, PhD, of Columbia University’s Department of Neuroscience, topples convention by showing that sensory information travels to two places at once: not only to the brain’s mid-layer (where most axons lead), but also directly to its deeper layers. The study appears in the June 28, 2013, edition of the journal Science.
For decades, scientists have thought that sensory information is relayed from the skin, eyes, and ears to the thalamus and then processed in the six-layered cerebral cortex in serial fashion: first in the middle layer (layer 4), then in the upper layers (2 and 3), and finally in the deeper layers (5 and 6.) This model of signals moving through a layered “column” was largely based on anatomy, following the direction of axons — the wires of the nervous system.
“Our findings challenge dogma,” said Dr. Bruno, assistant professor of neuroscience and a faculty member at Columbia’s new Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and the Kavli Institute for Brain Science. “They open up a different way of thinking about how the cerebral cortex does what it does, which includes not only processing sight, sound, and touch but higher functions such as speech, decision-making, and abstract thought.”
It sounds like we know both more and less than we did before, but that is probably a good place to begin, when studying the brain.
Note this however:
The study suggests that upper and lower layers of the cerebral cortex form separate circuits and play separate roles in processing sensory information. Researchers think that the deeper layers are evolutionarily older — they are found in reptiles, for example, while the upper and middle layers, appear in more evolved species and are thickest in humans.
Oh dear, where is that Kevin Padian when we need him? In what sense are modern mammals “more evolved” than modern reptiles?
Since we are here anyway: Reptiles vary greatly in intelligence; some reptiles are actually fairly smart. For that matter, so are some molluscs (but not others). Whatever this new find about the six layers of the cerebral cortex ends up meaning, we should avoid the unbidden mental image of a “tree of intelligence” (= all mammals are smarter than all reptiles; all vertebrates are smarter than all invertebrates, etc.) As far as intelligence is concerned, evolution simply does not work that way.
Journal Reference:
C. M. Constantinople, R. M. Bruno. Deep Cortical Layers Are Activated Directly by Thalamus. Science, 2013; 340 (6140): 1591 DOI: 10.1126/science.1236425
This ‘holistic brain’ study reminded me of this ‘beyond belief’ study from a few years ago where:
Dr. Torley had an article, based on the preceding study, suggesting they seriously underestimated the complexity of the brain:
This following study gives weight to Dr. Torley’s contention that they seriously underestimated the brain by ‘merely’ comparing it to all the computers and routers and Internet connections on Earth:
Moreover, despite having more molecular switches than all the computers routers and internet connections on earth, the brain is surprisingly frugal in its energy consumption:
As well the brain is surprisingly constant in its energy consumption:
Moreover, the metabolic activity of the brain is, despite its not being a muscle, acts as if it is always doing an aerobic workout:
More the ‘metabolic optimization’ for the brain is found to scale across species:
The preceding experiments are very unexpected for Darwinian materialists since Darwinian materialists hold that ‘consciousness’ is merely a ’emergent property’ of the physical processes of the material brain. But why should ‘consciousness’ which is presupposed to be result of, and subservient to, the material processes of the brain constrain the material brain to operate at such a constant and optimal metabolic rate across species whereas the rest of body fluctuates in its metabolic activity? The most parsimonious explanation for such a optimal constraint on the brain’s metabolic activity, especially given that Darwinists cannot even account for how a single neuron arose much less an entire brain, is that the material brain was designed, first and foremost, to house consciousness and to give consciousness the most favorable metabolic environment possible at all times.
Further notes:
Of related note from ENV:
Of related interest to the lead off ‘holistic brain’ study referenced by News in the OP:
The brain, the brain. its all about the evolutionary presumption. fighting the historical christian assumption of the soul as the intelligence source, that the brain is our intelligence.
It isn’t. It just is a middleman from the soul to the body. Yes its complex because the soul needs a complex middleman.
There is no evidence the brain is anything other then a dumb machine.
Its just lines of reasoning to think otherwise.
Apes and cows brains are probably just as complex as ours.
Do they think they could make a computer as smart as a a cow?
If not a human! What would it be like!
Say that that one extant organism is “more evolved” than another is almost meaningless, and certainly ambiguous.
And to say that one brain is “more evolved” than another, even more so. Is a penguin flipper more or less evolved than an albatross wing?
So often criticisms of evolutionary theory are based on a concept of evolution that “evolutionists” don’t actually have. We don’t think that evolution is progression from “less evolved” modern bacteria to “greatly evolved” human beings.
We think evolution is a process of adaptation to the environment (as well of course as drift). So a population that is less well adapted to its environment, and still rapidly adapting, you might say is “less evolved” than a population that has been at an optimum for millions of generation. In that sense human beings are much less “evolved” than, say, modern bacteria, or crocodiles, or sharks.
But the same amount of evolving has gone on (well, more in the case of bacteria, because they breed so much faster).
Evolution isn’t a ladder, it’s a process of adaptation and diversification. The reason modern organisms include more complex organisms than ancient organisms is simply that if you start simple, and vary, there’s more scope for more complex than less. There’s a floor, but no ceiling.
Elizabeth Liddle, the authors were not criticizing evolution, they were representing it as they honestly believe to be and they are as fully evolutionists as you are. I don’t expect you to understand or agree with this, but that is one of a growing list of problems. – O’Leary
I was just challenging the term “more evolved” comment, Denyse. It certainly makes sense to talk about things being “evolutionarily old”, but to talk about extant species being “more evolved” than other extant species, is misleading. I agree it was their term, and you commented on it. I’m trying to clarify.
I’m actually agreeing with you. You say:
No, it doesn’t. I don’t think Bruno et al do either, but they spoke carelessly when they used the term “more evolved species”. What they mean (surely) is “species with phylogenetically more recent brain organisation”.
But I’m still not clear what problem you think has been added to your “growing list” – could you elaborate?
Also, Sakmann’s comment that “The prevailing view that the cortex is a collection of monolithic columns, handing off information to progressively higher modules, is an idea that will have to go.” seems very odd! It “went” a very long time ago! This is the problem with press releases. People (especially press officers) always want to make the new research seem radical and “game changing”. It usually isn’t – and if it is, it’s often wrong! Science is tediously incremental. Well, not tedious to the scientists, but tedious to press officers.
Dr. Liddle writes,
Organic evolution, as I have been taught, is the theory that the first living organism developed from nonliving matter; then, as it reproduced, it changed into different types of living things via the mechanisms of natural selection and mutation.
You seem to be using a logical fallacy known as “moving the goalposts”. You claim evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life, but rather with the adaptation of life to various environments.
Here is what the Science Channel thinks evolution is:
The theory of evolution seeks to explain the origin of life on Earth and the origin of different species. Despite the fact that most of the scientific community has regarded it as fact for more than a century, a large number of people still dispute the theory of evolution, and various public controversies have resulted from this disagreement.
According to evolutionary theory, life began billions of years ago, when a group of chemicals inadvertently organized themselves into a self-replicating molecule. This tiny molecule gave rise to everything that has ever lived on the planet. Different and more complex organisms grew from this simple beginning through mutation of DNA and natural selection.
(http://curiosity.discovery.com.....-evolution)
This is one of the major problems with evolutionary theory, in my opinion; scientists themselves don’t agree on what exactly it is. Either it has to do with the origin of life (the book is titled “On the Origin of Species…”) or it does not.
Unfortunately, you were taught incorrectly. Evolutionary theory cannot and does not attempt to explain the origin of life. It attempts to explain the diversity of life as found today and in the past. It is a prerequisite for the theory that self-sustaining self-replicators (the simplest possible living organisms) are in place. Then the process of adaptation to the niche environments that come and go by the reiteration of selection by the environment via differential survival of alleles, the variation of which is constantly being added to by mutation and other processes such as recombination and duplication, symbiogenesis, horizontal gene transfer, can begin.
PS @ Barb
The Science Channel has it wrong.
The statements
and
are incorrect.
The origin of life on Earth is still a complete mystery, though there are many hypotheses. The evidence of what happened on Earth 2- 3 billion years ago that resulted in the first living things is no longer available and I doubt we’ll ever be certain how it happened unless evidence of life elsewhere turns up. Then all bets are off.
Alan Fox:
Then it has nothing to say about its diversity as the origins and diversity are directly linked.
If life was designed then it was designed to evolve and evolved by design.
Why are evos so dull that they cannot grasp that simple fact?
Thanks for responding, Alan. You state:
Unfortunately, you were taught incorrectly. Evolutionary theory cannot and does not attempt to explain the origin of life.
Then a lot of high school and college level textbooks should be changed. This also goes for the Science Channel’s website.
If they suggest that evolutionary theory offers an explanation of life’s origin, yes, they should. At least a correction slip could be pasted in.
Is this the Science Channel? I doubt they’ll listen to a layperson from France but I’ll try. Can you post a link to the quotes?
Alan Fox:
Joe:
The dullness is yours, Joe.
You might as well claim that what Kepler did wasn’t astronomy because he couldn’t explain the origin of stars and planets.
Barb,
The origin of life and the origin of species are separate questions. Evolutionary theory explains the latter, but not the former.
keiths:
Nope, not even close.
If living organisms were designed then it is obvious they were designed to evolve and evolved by design. That is because it takes too much work to get a habitable planet and organisms just to let them go on by chance.
Again the only way darwinian mechanisms rule over evolution is if blind and undirected processes produced living organisms from non-living matter.
And nothing the ignorant evos can say will ever change that. The OoL is key to its subsequent diversity.
Nest the evos will tell us that sure Stonehenge was designed but its alignment is just chance.
keiths:
1- There isn’t any “evolutionary theory”
2- If it cannot explain the OoL then it has nothing to say about its diversity as the two are directly linked.