Analyzing Biological Systems: The Brain as an Example

2004 ◽  
pp. 119-142
Author(s):  
Hans Liljenström ◽  
Peter Århem
Keyword(s):  
Biological Systems ◽  
The Brain

The Engineer

Rebel Genius ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tara H. Abraham
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Reticular Formation ◽  
Research Laboratory ◽  
Biological Systems ◽  
Theoretical Modelling ◽  
Research Culture ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
New Research ◽  
Scientific Identity ◽  
The Brain

This chapter examines the ways that McCulloch’s new research culture at MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics shaped the evolution of his scientific identity into that of an engineer. This was an open, fluid, multidisciplinary culture that allowed McCulloch to shift his focus more squarely onto understanding the brain from the perspective of theoretical modelling, and to promote the cybernetic vision to diverse audiences. McCulloch’s practices, performed with a new set of student-collaborators, involved modeling the neurophysiology of perception, understanding reliability in biological systems, and pursuing knowledge of the reticular formation of the brain. The chapter provides a nuanced account of the relations between McCulloch’s work and the emerging fields of artificial intelligence and the cognitive sciences. It also highlights McCulloch’s identities as sage-collaborator and polymath, two roles that in part were the result of his students’ observations and in part products of his own self-fashioning.

scholarly journals ‘The brain needs nutrition’: pupils’ connections between organizational levels

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-63
Author(s):  
Alma Jahic Pettersson ◽  
Lena A.E. Tibell ◽  
Ragnhild Löfgren
Keyword(s):  
Small Intestine ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Biological Systems ◽  
Meso Level ◽  
Written Responses ◽  
Organizational Levels ◽  
The Brain

Previous research suggests that connecting organizational levels of biological systems is challenging forpupils. In the present study we investigated 122 pupils’ written responses to a question in a national biologytest concerning how nutrient molecules are adsorbed by the small intestine and transported to thebrain. We aimed to investigate what awareness the pupils have of the connection between the digestiveand circulatory systems. We mapped the pupil’s expressed knowledge by using content analysis whichwas performed in five steps including connection between the systems, organizational levels and scientificexplanations. We found that the most correct descriptions contained the highest number of connectionsbetween the digestive and the circulatory systems and linking of the different organizational levels. Themost correct descriptions included the highest proportion of the meso level. Therefore, knowledge at themeso level seems to be essential for grasping connections between macro- and submicro-level processes,and connections of digestion and circulation systems.

Coherent Oscillations in Biological Systems I

1978 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 294-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fr. Kaiser
Keyword(s):  
Limit Cycle ◽  
Biological Systems ◽  
Stable Limit Cycle ◽  
Nerve Impulse ◽  
Wave Model ◽  
Qualitative Description ◽  
Stable Limit ◽  
Brain Wave ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Brain

AbstractThe concept of long range coherence in biological systems of Fröhlich and its physical basis as well as his general theoretical considerations leading to the brain wave model are reviewed. The importance of these ideas is stressed both, as a possible explanation of the increasing experimental results and as a starting point to allow a theoretical description of biological events. The brain wave model is studied in detail. All possible bifurcations and the stability of the steady states is considered. The existence, stability and direction of bifurcation of a stable limit cycle is proven. The system may exhibit different types of phase transitions when it is externally disturbed. Phase plane diagrams, arguments of catastrophe theory and approximations to the model equations give a qualitative description of the system's time behaviour. Correspondence between this limit cycle model and nerve impulse generating models is established.

The Spark of Life and the Unification of Intelligence, Health, and Aging

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C. Geary
Keyword(s):  
Successful Aging ◽  
Biological Systems ◽  
Cognitive Systems ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Energy Availability ◽  
General Intelligence ◽  
Cognitive Domains ◽  
Cellular Energy ◽  
Optimal Functioning ◽  
The Brain

General intelligence ( g) represents the factors that influence performance across all academic and cognitive domains. The search for these factors has been ongoing for more than a century and has focused on the brain and cognitive systems that support learning and problem solving. In recent decades, it has become clear that the factors that influence academic and cognitive performance extend to general health and to successful aging in adulthood. The implication is that there may be one or several fundamental processes that influence the functioning of all biological systems, not simply the brain. The functioning of mitochondria is well situated as one of the processes that might unify intelligence, health, and aging. These organelles are located within cells and are the primary producers of cellular energy, among other functions. Energy availability, in turn, is the lowest common denominator needed for the development, maintenance, and optimal functioning of all biological systems. Here, I review the relations among intelligence, health, and aging and outline how the efficiency of mitochondrial functioning can link them together.

Effects of Anomalous Diffusion Mechanisms in Developing Tissue Engineered Constructs

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Chao ◽  
Cees Oomens ◽  
Rene van Donkelaar ◽  
Frank Baaijens
Keyword(s):  
Anomalous Diffusion ◽  
Extracellular Space ◽  
Biological Systems ◽  
Heterogeneous Materials ◽  
Fick's Law ◽  
Normal Diffusion ◽  
Diffusion Mechanisms ◽  
Diffusive Processes ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Extracellular Environment

Many diffusive processes in biological systems refuse to obey the standard laws of diffusion. In normal diffusion, the diffusivity can be considered constant and the concentration of the diffusive particles follows Fick’s law. However, in highly heterogeneous materials such as tissues, the complex microgeometry of the medium imposes serious restrictions to the mobility of the particles. This scenario is known as anomalous diffusion. Experiments in diverse biological systems including diffusion in the extracellular space of the brain [1], morphogen movement in the extracellular environment [2], protein movement inside cells [3], identified anomalous, rather than Fickian, transport.

scholarly journals Memoryless Systems Generate the Class of all Discrete Systems

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Erwan Beurier ◽  
Dominique Pastor ◽  
David I. Spivak
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Discrete Time ◽  
Internal State ◽  
Biological Systems ◽  
Discrete Systems ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Simple Cells ◽  
Simple Machines ◽  
Fixed Set ◽  
The Brain

Automata are machines, which receive inputs, accordingly update their internal state, and produce output, and are a common abstraction for the basic building blocks used in engineering and science to describe and design complex systems. These arbitrarily simple machines can be wired together—so that the output of one is passed to another as its input—to form more complex machines. Indeed, both modern computers and biological systems can be described in this way, as assemblies of transistors or assemblies of simple cells. The complexity is in the network, i.e., the connection patterns between simple machines. The main result of this paper is to show that the range of simplicity for parts as compared to the complexity for wholes is in some sense complete: the most complex automaton can be obtained by wiring together direct-output memoryless components. The model we use—discrete-time automata sending each other messages from a fixed set of possibilities—is certainly more appropriate for computer systems than for biological systems. However, the result leads one to wonder what might be the simplest sort of machines, broadly construed, that can be assembled to produce the behaviour found in biological systems, including the brain.

General discussion

1987 ◽  
Vol 413 (1844) ◽  
pp. 199-199 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Influencing Factors ◽  
Deterministic Model ◽  
Biological Systems ◽  
Middle Layer ◽  
Bottom Layer ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Rational Thinking ◽  
The Brain

E. C. Zeeman, It is advisable to be cautious about using chaos to model biological systems, particularly human behaviour, because there are usually so many influencing factors that it is difficult to isolate any part of the system for sufficiently long to allow a chaotic deterministic model to be tested. There is one part of the brain, however, where chaotic modelling may prove useful and that is the limbic brain. Broadly speaking the human forebrain is divided into three layers, and, although there are strong pathways between the layers, nevertheless each layer tends to act as a separate unit anatomically, histologically, dynamically and functionally. Following MacLean, and again very broadly speaking, the top layer is the neocortex where language is stored and rational thinking occurs; the middle layer is the limbic brain where emotions and moods are generated; and the bottom layer is the R-complex, including the corpus striatus, where instincts are stored. We are aware of these three simultaneous activities in our minds most of the time.

Acknowledging the Clinical Effects of Words in Pain Medicine and Psychiatry

2020 ◽  
pp. 330-341
Author(s):  
Lise Bouchard ◽  
Mario Incayawar
Keyword(s):  
Wide Spectrum ◽  
Biological Effects ◽  
Biological Systems ◽  
Psychiatric Research ◽  
Clinical Effects ◽  
Pain Medicine ◽  
Doctor Patient Communication ◽  
Nocebo Effects ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Brain

Despite the importance and widespread presence of words in our life, the study of their effects on biological systems and the brain per se has been largely neglected. This chapter draws from biomedical and psychiatric research to illustrate the underlying biological effects of words used in a wide spectrum of human activity, such as writing, verbal communication, and reading, as well as the purposeful use of words during bullying and racist attacks, the triggering of placebo and nocebo effects, the words expressed during emotional and physical pain and psychopathology, and talkative psychotherapy. The authors conclude that words have a concrete impact on biological systems and the brain. This could be beneficial or deleterious. Therefore, positive doctor–patient communication is essential for achieving a high-quality medical encounter. It is suggested that medical linguistics could contribute to the development of clinical conversational strategies useful to physicians and psychotherapists treating patients suffering from pain and psychiatric disorders.

scholarly journals Psychophysical identity and free energy

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (169) ◽  
pp. 20200370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex B. Kiefer
Keyword(s):  
Free Energy ◽  
Bayesian Inference ◽  
Biological Systems ◽  
Free Energies ◽  
Population Code ◽  
Variational Bayesian ◽  
Variational Bayesian Inference ◽  
Variational Free Energy ◽  
Neuronal Encoding ◽  
The Brain

An approach to implementing variational Bayesian inference in biological systems is considered, under which the thermodynamic free energy of a system directly encodes its variational free energy. In the case of the brain, this assumption places constraints on the neuronal encoding of generative and recognition densities, in particular requiring a stochastic population code. The resulting relationship between thermodynamic and variational free energies is prefigured in mind–brain identity theses in philosophy and in the Gestalt hypothesis of psychophysical isomorphism.

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