Author: jlolds

Native Angeleno, professor of Neuroscience and Public Policy at George Mason University

Back from Palm Beach


I’m back from Palm Beach and the lifeguard stand yesterday morning was flying a flag that apparently indicates “dangerous marine wildlife”. Obviously my first thoughts (it was near perfect surfing conditions, off-shore breeze and a nice curl) were of large great white sharks cruising just behind the break. But then I started thinking about how the Marine Park’s here in Florida have had their own dangerous marine wildlife conditions–seems to me that an Orca confined within a tank is a recipe for disaster.

But then walking along the beach, and noticing the very dangerous remnants of a Portuguese Man’O War jellyfish, I was satisfied that I’d found the real danger in an invertebrate with a serious attitude (as far as stinging is concerned).

But then I learned later, in fact I’d been right originally–it was the sharks.

I may be the editor of The Biological Bulletin, but I’ve got a lot to learn about marine biology!

Jim

Talking about a theory for neuroscience

I’m giving a talk this evening for the Philosophical Society of Washington–the abstract is here. One of the issues that jumps out whenever I give one of these talks is how neuroscience, unlike disciplines such as physics or chemistry, lacks a general theory that provides a framework or skeleton for both old knowledge and more importantly new discoveries.

As a discipline, we in neuroscience, are very good at amassing and organizing (and even sharing) data. But a general theory (analogous to say quantum mechanics or relativity)–that we are lacking. Instead we have a multitude of nascent bounded theories for various levels of organization within the brain. Hence, we have some idea of how individual neurons signal one another, how groups of neurons may act together to store memories and create perceptions, how brain diseases affect this or that brain region, and how drugs may act to ameliorate brain conditions (or sometimes create addiction). But what we lack, is a general theory of how the brain’s organization and dynamics lead to the phenomena we generally associate with brain: consciousness, creativity, deception and the like.

So that could be a very exciting thing for a discipline (i.e. the most exciting times are yet to come) or very frustrating.

I’m going to argue this evening, that perhaps we can see the vague outlines of what such a general theory might look like.

I’ll post more on this soon.

Jim

Kudos to Pat White

My former FASEB colleague and friend Pat White has been appointed the new legislative director at NIH. This is great news for the NIH and its many friends and stakeholders. Congratulations Pat.

Jim

What the hippocampus actually does

I’ve always been attracted to a theory that, as far as I can tell, was first put forward by Tyler and DiScenna in 1986 in Behavior Neuroscience. The notion was that the hippocampus indexes cortical module associations rather than episodes. Experimental results which appear to reveal mnemonic associations in the hippocampus actually do so because of the “indexed” cortical modules (think columns) which do actually collectively (think cell assemblies) correlate with episodic memory.

The theory has been modified and amplified by many in the field over time. The conventional wisdom was that while the theory was attractive, its fatal flaw was the lack of neuroanatomical evidence for reciprocal connections between neocortex and the hippocampus. In fact, the hippocampus does receive information from the entire neocortex, but unlike the thalamus or striatum, the mapping consists of a convergent stream where many different cortical areas flow information towards the entorhinal cortex which then dumps that combined flow into the hippocampus in a reciprocal fashion (i.e. the output of the hippocampus is also the entorhinal cortex). This makes the Tyler and DiScenna’s original idea difficult to conceptualize, but not impossible.

If the hippocampus was facilitating the formation of neocortical cell assemblies in some way that acted like an index, how might such a mechanism work given the serial (rather than parallel) connectivity between the hippocampus and the neocortex via the entorhinal cortex?

I invite ideas for how this might work from loyal readers.

Jim

Accreditation of Universities in the United States

For an institution of higher education to actually give real degrees (not the fake one’s that are supposedly available for sale on the Internet), in the United States, it must be accredited. Accreditation is a long complex process whereby regional organizations sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Education review and site visit the university and eventually make a decision whether to re-accredit…or not. Our accrediting organization is the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).

Accreditation is very process-driven. From learning goals, to rubrics, all the way to evaluation of the terminal degrees for teaching faculty the institution must provide evidence that higher education is actually being provided to students according to well-defined standards. This evidence-based approach, is critical to maintaining the quality of a U.S. college diploma both in terms of international standards, but also in the context of how a degree adds value over the course of a career to an individual graduate.
But there are concerns. One is that the process is regional. The standards in one part of the U.S. may vary significantly from those in another region. Another is that, over time, the process of accreditation can assume an ever increasing portion of an institution’s collective efforts, displacing energies that perhaps ought to have been expended on education itself. These latter concerns have produced a lively debate (for an example look here).
In any case, George Mason, is now deeply into the accreditation process. It’s a good time to, both look hard at the University, but also to think about what accreditation actually means.
Jim

Blogging sabbatical

Well, I’ve had a very enjoyable sabbatical from blogging at Advanced Studies after five years of more or less constant posting. During the break, we had two amazing blizzards here in Washington and there’s still a whole lot more snow on the ground than we ever get during a “normal” winter–that even though it’s nearly 50 degrees outside and this would be the typical time we’d be seeing daffodils. Also, I’ve been teaching a very enjoyable course on the function of the hippocampus–cross listed to both advanced undergraduates and doctoral students here at Mason. I forget sometimes how satisfying teaching can be.

We saw a pretty entertaining movie the other night, Tenure, which made me laugh, but also reminded me of the very frightening events from Alabama over the past week.

In any case, we’re rested, relaxed and ready to blog.

TTYS