| Literature DB >> 8266742 |
Abstract
Scientific endeavour has often tried to localize superior cerebral functions either in areas like the ones described by Broca as being those connected with language in the left hemisphere, or in the huge array of the hundred billion of interconnected neurons. But in this last case the coined description of the "grandmother" neuron, tends to show humorously that hopes have fallen short of their target. Along the same lines, the specific timing of electric neural activity is known to take place around a few milliseconds, which seems to be insufficient to account for the high potential speed necessary to sustain the very massive and complex process which is involved in mental activity. It is therefore necessary to go down to a much smaller scale to explain the considerable speed of usual mental processes. That is the reason why we have proposed the Nano-Mental Element of Representation (NMER) as a possible candidate for describing these specific nano-indexes of mind. At that level (10(-10) to 10(-9) meter), these mental processes can be associated with, or take the probabilistic aspect of, a wave function. This concept enables us to bring down the problems of temporal scaling to the quantum level and, therefore, make the extremely fast behavioral or sensory answers accessible to our appropriate level of observation.Entities:
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Year: 1993 PMID: 8266742 DOI: 10.1007/bf00712780
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Acta Biotheor ISSN: 0001-5342 Impact factor: 1.774