"...vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away " - James 4:14 (MKJV)
"...they were but flesh, A breath that passes away and does not come again " - Psalms 78:39 (NKJV)
" Surely men of low degree are a vapor, Men of high degree are lie; If they are weighed in the balances, They are altogether lighter than vapor " - Psalms 62:9 (NKJV)
In the nervous system we can detect this 'vapor' as electrochemical bubbles (i.e. impulses). These impulses appear for a little time; they will vanish away when reached the appropriate neurons of the brain or tranquilized nerves.
Man in wakeful state is continuously conscious, that is, continuous firings of stimuli's formed impulses must be realized (experienced) and recorded in the brain. Cutting the 'high ways' of those impulses will vanish the consciousness in the organ involved.
Our arms are conscious to touch, cold, hot, pain, pressure, itch, and texture, and that skin-consciousness defines 'us' (specifically, tactile-us). Our arm is part of our selves and we can distinguish it from things not part of our consciousness. If our right arm is amputated and that cut arm is left in an ice box, is that arm a part of our consciousness or not ? Is that amputated arm conscious or not? Obviously, no consciousness arises from that arm going to our brain. Neither we 'feel' that it exists, nor it is a part of our selves. Imagine if our entire lower body is cut away from our head, the remaining consciousness is coming from small area, from the head alone.
Tranquilizing the entire lower body and cutting the auditory nerves, olfactory tissue, tongue, palate nerves, optical nerves, and all skin-muscle-bone sensory nerves in the head will leave a vague consciousness. We cannot hear, see, feel, smell, and taste peripherally, leaving a thin consciousness from thinking. If at last we tranquilized the remaining hippocampi, no consciousness can be experienced even though our old memories are intact. What it means ? Our consciousness is dependent (1) on the memory (i.e. transfer of hippocampal memories into long-term thalamic-cortical memories) and (2) on continuous sensory impulses from neuroreceptors. No consciousness can be elicited without proper functioning memory system and neuroreceptors. When we were babies or infants, we were not aware that we're conscious. In fact, it seems to us that we don't have infant days for we cannot remember any thing from those days. Our consciousness stops to the memory we don't or can't recall. We are conscious to those things we think & then we remember, so that our consciousness is postponed or cut during our deep sleep . Remembering is a process or part of our consciousness. Comparing, intensity, recording, and electrochemical reaffirmation & confirmation are other processing of consciousness.
Did we exist during our 1st and 2nd year of age ?
As far as "awareness" is concerned, No ! But as far as reality is concerned, Yes ! In this case, "awareness" defines "we" . Whatever we do we cannot remember that we existed during our infancy, except possibly by certain "key" to open the traces or fragments of memories from our oldest memory-in-charged neurons (in the thalamus) or perhaps by applying certain amount of electrical stimulation to a proper cortical region or sometimes partly by hypnotic regression. We were conscious during those years but our consciousness did not reach the level of awareness -or, that is, we were conscious, but we were not aware that we were conscious. There are many reasons and the most remarkable is that our memory system during those days was not vividly or intensely recording our consciousness (visual, tactile, auditory, olfactory, kinesthetic, vestibular, etc.) because consciousnesses' arisen neuro-electrochemical impulses were encountering difficulty in travelling in the cortical neurons due (1) to lack of synapses (telodendria dendrites tandem) and (2) to the delay caused by poorly developed myeline sheaths on the neural fibers.
Our rationality or consciousness is affected by the number of dendrites, synapses and/or neurons and presence of myeline sheaths in the cortices and limbic system in the brain and the arrangements of the neurotubules & neurofilaments, because those are affecting our memory system.
It is a fact that in long-term potentiation, dendrites grow and branch out and certain types of synapses increase in number. Thus, long-term memory is a psychological term for a neuronal phenomenon 'increase of synapses and lengthening of dendrites.' Every routinized or learned activity and memorization we are engaged in or done continuously and repeatedly has certain length & number of dendrites in various areas of our brain. It is evident when primates have had a bilateral decortication, taking out both of the cortexes in left and right hemisphere of the brain. Therefore all long dendrites are engram or part of long-term memory. However, long-term memory is divided into unconscious -recall and conscious-recall memories.
(The photographs of Golgi-stained human cerebral cortical pyramidal cells below show equivalent areas of the anterior portion of the middle frontal gyrus with the equivalent neurons, but with increased number of dendrites, from birth, 1 month, 6 month and 2 year old baby. Note that there is a tremendous increase in the complexity of dendritic aborizations with increasing age. Image source: Conel, JL. The postnatal development of the human cerebral cortex.Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1959. )
Another evidence is what we can see on the composite photograph of half brains from a normal person and an Alzheimer's victim (by BrigthFocus Foundation), by which we can determine that there is atrophied innervation (presence of nerve fibers) in the caudate nucleus ( CN ), temporal lobe, and hippocampus or medial temporal lobe, indicative of less connections and of delay neural transmissions...
Silver-stained section of cerebral cortex showing many pyrimad-shaped neurons with their processes and a few glial cells. Medium magnification (Junqueira and Carneiro, 2005)
"...And with length of days, understanding " - Job 12:12 (NKJV)
Memory undergoes a gradual period of stabilization before it becomes consolidated or stable. This consolidation continues for several months or years in our brain.
Thalamic dorsomedial (DM) nucleus, hippocampal formation, entorhinal, amygdala, and prefrontal neurons are possibly availing 'compression' method to store voluminous amount of conscious-recall memories.
* Object-oriented compression is distinguishing individual units and storing them at various storing centers, and will gather them again together when needed (i.e. playback).
- Possibly, for an instance, tactile 'consciousness' will leave 'impressions' in the somatosensory neural dendrites, telodendria, and axon, and will be encoded there microtubular, microfilamentous neurodendritically. Likewise, other consciousnesses (visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, kinesthetic, vestibular, etc.) of the same date (or minutes) of recording are distributed diffusively to their appropriate recording centers. When needed to playback, all or fragments of these units (particular consciousnesses) are gathered together in a form of playback electrochemical impulses from pyramidal cells of the primary sensory cortices and from associative areas and rhinal & entorhinal cortices, combining them into a single experience in the hippocampal formation, emotionally screened in amygdala, and focused by the thalamus, and back again to prefrontal neurons to be analyzed, and apparently finalized in the thalamus' dorsomedial (DM) nucleus.
It is apparent that there are a lot of ways in the brain for a conscious mind to recall, depending on the strategy may it apply with.
The 'remembering' of one's seen image/scene, heard story/sound, or personal experiences starts in the innermost region of the brain, i.e., the thalamus. Peripherally-induced conscious Mind is theoretically generated in the thalamic ventral posterior (VP) neurons,where perception as an entity separated from external world -but seemed confined in a body- is realized. This voiceless/image-less perceiving 'feeling' takes its audio-video consciousness from the thalamic pulvinar, where visual & language consciousnesses are possibly crudely perceived. Now this audio-video perceiving 'feeling' takes its 'awareness' of being an entity distinct to others from the thalamic dorsomedial (DM) neurons. Elaboration of DM functions is aided by the dorsolateral prefrontal neurons (area 9), where planning is logically considered from. Mind having this audio-video planning conscious perceiving 'feeling' can begin to ask recollection of past events by the aid of some neurowares (softwares) in the brain.
Since image and/or language are involved in remembering, the center that will form signal (electrochemical impulses) for playback is but, probably, the pulvinar. The mind (visiting nascentiraptic charges) will start to influence the synapses there to generate playback signal (i.e. coherent impulses for conscious-recall memory). There is a multi-traffic system for 'recollection' in the brain aided by one or more neurowares or recall-reflexes. The playback-conscious signal is distributed from pulvinar to four possible major primary destinations
(1) thalamic dorsomedial (DM) nuclei,
(2) occipital area 18-19 neurons and nearby,
(3) parietal cortical neurons, and
(4) temporal cortical neurons.
The thalamus is apparently having an object-oriented compression memory (OOCM), whose gateway is the dorsomedial (DM) nucleus, where learning for new scene discriminations happens. The signal of this tiny OOCM will become elaborated and detailed if it switches the cortical neurons on.
Storage Centers ?
Elaborated stored memories are possibly in the cortexes of the glutamate neurons.
In the occipital area 18-19 neurons is stored colors & definite images and, in fact, certain electrical stimulations of those neurons in man can evoke images and colorful flashes of light (Charles Herbert Best, 1961). Possible extension or incomplete duplication of this storage are the temporal neurons of areas 21 & 22 and/or between areas 20 and 37 of the brain. In fact, tumors in certain part of the temporal lobes may trigger rewinding of images (miniature or incomplete in form) or unformed flashes of light.
Storage for seen (read) language is believed to be in the inferior parietal lobule (angular gyrus) area 39 neurons, of which destruction can, in fact, cause inability to name objects (i.e. anomic aphasia).
Tumors in the anterior temporal lobe or parietal operculum near on insula may cause 'replay' of smells and tastes and, therefore, may be suspected to be a storehouse for scents & tastes/savors.
Auditory (sounds) storage is also in the temporal lobes apparently in the auditory association area 42 near on the uncus. In fact, uncinate attacks are associated with paroxysmal attacks (buzzing, ringing, etc.) or hearing mental sounds. Broca's area (opercular and triangula parts of inferior frontal gyrus areas 44 and 45) is believed to be storage for verbal uttered language because its damage could lead to impairment of writing or utterances.
Not only conscious-recall 'experiences' are stored (encoded), even probably some procedural 'experiences' (e.g. to and fro penile movement; eye, body, arm, or leg movements, cry of an infant, and so forth).
One thing is for sure<<, electrical stimulation is involved in remembering past experiences. This fact is serendipitously discovered from many experiments done on certain parts of the exposed brain, after of which semiconscious patients were reporting of remembering long-forgotten incidents of their earlier years (read also: Justus Schifferes 1976. The Twentieth Century (1895- )IV: Proving the Depths of Human Personality,p.104. The Book of Popular Science, vol.9. Grolier International, Inc. USA).
The conscious Mind will do this 'electrical stimulation' by raising playback-conscious coherent electrochemical (PCCE) impulses from the thalamus to the appropriate cortical neurons.
Decoding
Two major perception signals are traversing in the cortical and pyramidal neurons but have two different effects. The sensory perception (SP) signal will encode 'infos' (by constructing neuro-polymers coded-ly) in the dendrites, telodendritic spines, and apparently axons, whereas the playback-conscious perception (PC) signal will decode (retrieve) the infos from the said coded neuropolymers.
(Image: StudyBlue.com)
Playback-Conscious Signal
The playback-conscious impulses are coherent (i.e. they must come from the same date & time of memory) and must compose a diffuse-able signal. This playback-conscious coherent (PCC) impulses are simply traversing in the appropriate pyramidal neural processes (telodendria, axons, dendrites) and receives 'impressions' or 'indentations' from the neuropolymers there. (The neuro-polymers are the microtubules, intermediate filaments, and actin filaments.) If it is correct, then it appears that the playback-conscious signal is like a 'blank tape' running on an impressing magnetic needle, where 'electric indentations' or encoded infos are copied or transferred from.
(If old IBM has these tiny magnetic cores for computer to store bytes or information by arranging them by the passage of electric currents at two directions...
(Image source of 1949 Magnetic Core Memory: public domain, GNU Free Documentation License)
...the neurons of our brain have the neuroploymers (below) to store information we have sensed or perceived)...
(Image source neuropolymers: © 2010 Nature Publishing Group Fletcher, D. A. & Mullins, R. D. Cell mechanics and the cytoskeleton. Nature 463, 485-492 (2010) doi:10.1038/nature08908. All rights reserved.)
The playback or mental-eye-induced IMPULSES, which is (usually) containing sodium (Na+) ions, will be indented (marked) when passing on pyramidal neuroplolymers. This marking or indentation is analog to the way an external-world stimulus encodes 'infos' to the peripheral neuroreceptors (e.g. visible light encoding visual infos in the eyes which is then to be automatically sent in the brain, for realization 'percepting', storage, and replay). More than 16 million arrangements of ions in a visual signal can be possibly encoded to have more than 16 ooo ooo different colors - thus a matter of arrangements gives different effects. But on playback-conscious signal, less than sixteen (16) arrangements of sodium (Na+) ions are needed to have a colorful remembered memory. And unlike to ear- or eye-induced perception signal, mental-induced signal is too thin and weak.
Increased nerve fibers in appropriate locations in the temporal lobe, hippocampus, left planum temporale, and caudate nucleus can increase 'thickness' and strength of the signal, and increase easy access to the prefrontal area 9 neurons.
The now memory-encoded perception signal from various storage centers will be sent into (1) cingulate fibers, (2) thalamus' pulvinar & VPL/VPM neurons, and (3) parahippocamplal gyrus; and (4) portions from parietal postcentral area 2 and frontal precentral area 6 and prefrontal area 8 nerves are projected into the caudate nucleus, which then receives reiterating signal from the ventral anterior (VA) thalamus and which sends impulses to the thalamic ventral lateral (VL) neurons to confirm there the other coherent impulses from the parietal neurons.
(1) The signal in cingulate gyrus will be transmitted to the amygdala to be emotionally screened and compared to the signal in (3) parahippocampal neurons. Synchronously, (2) the signal in the thalamus will be realized as 'consciousness' and enhanced this 'consciousness' prominently in the occipital area 19 and/probably via area 18, possibly via prefrontal area 8 apparently from dorsomedial (DM) nuclei and in the temporal lobes via pulvinars. Realization that it was really 'past memory' happens when the thalamic-cortical signal meets or merges with the signal of in the "Gateway to Long-Term Memory" hippocampus by the route of amygdala and then parahippocampal-entorhinal nerve fibers. To confirm or recognize that the images involved have previous record, the hippocampus will send this 'realized memory-encoded perception signal' to the mammillary bodies & the thalamus by way of fornix, and then conveyed it to the "Gateway of Long-Term Conscious-Recall Memory" thalamic dorsomedial (DM) nuclei, distributing it in to the prefrontal areas 9, 10, 11, & 12, and area 8. After comparing it with the record in prefrontal dorsolateral area 9, it is then finalized as 'CONFIRMED.'
The finished confirmed memory-encoded signal will be automatically re-sent by the thalamus for duplication (that is, now with thalamic long-term potentiation signal) back to the cingulate cortexes via thalamic anterior nucleus and via dorsomedial (DM) -prefrontal routes and to the parieto-occipito-temporal association cortex via pulvinar route.
Thalamus
(Image: http://www.edoctoronline.com/medical-atlas.asp?c=4&id=21820)
(Image: http://www.gehirn-atlas.de/limbisches-system.html)
(Image: http://www.neurochirurgia-ire.it/eng/1-2_glossary_1.shtml. The image is edited)
The damage to hippocampus may impede the confirmation 'realization' of 'recalled memory' because hippocampus is active in generating new neurons and hippocampal neurons are active in production, apparently, of 'object-oriented compression memory code-able neuroploymers', although alternative route can be accessed (e.g. amygdalar route or arduous amygdalar accessed). Despite of hippocampal damage, old memories (e.g. two years before the damage and beyond) can be retrieved by easy accessed (i.e. hypothalamus-DM-prefrontal-caudate-nuclei route). Damaging the easy accessed route may cause an impairment for the retrieval of the old & recent memories.
(Image source:National Institute of Mental Health http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/educational-resources/brains-inner-workings/brains-inner-workings-student-manual.shtml)
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From the four images of composite scanning and sketched brain (above) we can see where is the ruakh/pneuma (breath, spirit) in the brain during its metabolic activities caused by sensation or command.
Thus,
" the ruakh (spirit/breath) of a man is the lamp of the YHWH, searching all the innermost parts of the belly " - Proverbs 20:27.
Consciousness Control Center
The center of control of consciousness is located in the thalamus' intralaminar neurons; and bilateral damage to the nerves therein results in prolonged coma or unconsciousness. This relay center, which interconnects with other thalamic nuclei's neurons, receives nerve fibers from reticular formation, basal ganglia, cerebellum, and (ascending) somatosensory neurons and projects nerves to divers neuroses of the cortxes.
Percepting Consciousness
The consciousness perceived (realized) in the thalamus is greatly elaborated (detailed) upon in to the cerebral cortex. This means that if our cortex for sensory perception (distant to our thalamus) is destroyed, we can retain very crude form of awareness -i.e. mainly an ability to know the fact of being 'felt' or sensed- but the ability to specify the intensity or exact location of stimulus is severely impaired. Nearly total abolishing of somatic sensation in the opposite side of the head & body, a noticeably impairment of vestibular (balance position) sense and kinesthetic (muscle detection & movement) sense will be a result of the extensive destruction of the posterior thalamus. Pulvinar receives nerves from retina and superior colliculus and making it involved in certain aspects of visual perception and language storage or formation: there are occasional reports that its damage may cause language deficits. It projects nerves to the parietal-occipital-temporal association cortex.
THALAMUS' DM
Rationalizing Consciousness
The thalamic dorsomedial (DM) neurons are reciprocally interconnected with the prefrontal cortex and possibly tandemed with prefrontal neurons as far as some functions are concerned, such as ability to focus, foresight, reason (abstract), lengthen attention, or have an affection. Damage to prefrontal cortex, like what had happened to Phineas T. Gage in 1848, can cause impairment to concentration, spontaneity, reasoning, and planning.
( Image source:the National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health ) See how active is the inner most part of the normal brain and hippocampal formation, compare to with Alzheimer's disease.
Gateway to Long-Term Conscious-Recall Memory
Extensive damage to the thalamus due to over alcoholism may result to anterograde and retrograde amnesia. Air force personnel N.A. suffered extreme retrograde amnesia after a foil penetrated his right nostril in to his brain accidentally. When examined by CAT scan, it was found out that there is a damage to his dorsomedial (DM) nucleus. (read also: R.D. Baron 1992. Psychology,p.238, 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon)
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