scholarly journals Comparing supervised and unsupervised approaches to emotion categorization in the human brain, body, and subjective experience.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bahar Azari ◽  
Christiana Westlin ◽  
Ajay Satpute ◽  
J. Benjamin Hutchinson ◽  
Philip A. Kragel ◽  
...  

Machine learning methods provide powerful tools to map physical measurements to scientific categories. But are such methods suitable for discovering the ground truth about psychological categories? We use the science of emotion as a test case to explore this question. In studies of emotion, researchers use supervised classifiers, guided by emotion labels, to attempt to discover biomarkers in the brain or body for the corresponding emotion categories. This practice relies on the assumption that the labels refer to objective categories that can be discovered. Here, we critically examine this approach across three distinct datasets collected during emotional episodes- measuring the human brain, body, and subjective experience- and compare supervised classification studies with those from unsupervised clustering in which no a priori labels are assigned to the data. We conclude with a set of recommendations to guide researchers towards meaningful, data-driven discoveries in the science of emotion and beyond.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bahar Azari ◽  
Christiana Westlin ◽  
Ajay B. Satpute ◽  
J. Benjamin Hutchinson ◽  
Philip A. Kragel ◽  
...  

AbstractMachine learning methods provide powerful tools to map physical measurements to scientific categories. But are such methods suitable for discovering the ground truth about psychological categories? We use the science of emotion as a test case to explore this question. In studies of emotion, researchers use supervised classifiers, guided by emotion labels, to attempt to discover biomarkers in the brain or body for the corresponding emotion categories. This practice relies on the assumption that the labels refer to objective categories that can be discovered. Here, we critically examine this approach across three distinct datasets collected during emotional episodes—measuring the human brain, body, and subjective experience—and compare supervised classification solutions with those from unsupervised clustering in which no labels are assigned to the data. We conclude with a set of recommendations to guide researchers towards meaningful, data-driven discoveries in the science of emotion and beyond.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 263310552110187
Author(s):  
Christopher D Link

Numerous studies have identified microbial sequences or epitopes in pathological and non-pathological human brain samples. It has not been resolved if these observations are artifactual, or truly represent population of the brain by microbes. Given the tempting speculation that resident microbes could play a role in the many neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases that currently lack clear etiologies, there is a strong motivation to determine the “ground truth” of microbial existence in living brains. Here I argue that the evidence for the presence of microbes in diseased brains is quite strong, but a compelling demonstration of resident microbes in the healthy human brain remains to be done. Dedicated animal models studies may be required to determine if there is indeed a “brain microbiome.”


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius Cătălin Iordan ◽  
Victoria J. H. Ritvo ◽  
Kenneth A. Norman ◽  
Nicholas B. Turk-Browne ◽  
Jonathan D. Cohen

AbstractLearning requires changing the brain. This typically occurs through experience, study, or instruction. We report a new way of acquiring conceptual knowledge by directly sculpting activity patterns in the human brain. We used a non-invasive technique (closed-loop real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging) to create novel categories of visual objects in the brain. After training, participants exhibited behavioral and neural biases for the sculpted, but not control categories. The ability to sculpt new conceptual distinctions in the human brain, applied here to perception, has broad relevance to other domains of cognition such as decision-making, memory, and motor control. As such, the work opens up new frontiers in brain-machine interface design, neuroprosthetics, and neurorehabilitation.One Sentence SummarySculpting new visual categories in the brain with neurofeedback restructured subjective experience and neural processing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-27
Author(s):  
Karnarajsinh Vaghela

Consciousness exists, or so it seems to us most of the time. However, consciousness is unlike your car-keys or your cell-phone in that it is not located at a specific point in space and time. The applicability of physical laws like gravity seem moot at best when it comes to consciousness. What is desirable is an explanation of consciousness that allows it to exist and be part of the very same reality as the car-key or the cell-phone, a ‘philosophy of immanence’ as Gilles Deleuze would put it.  I prefer a view that construes consciousness as causally-efficacious (having material effects upon one’s body in real time) and metaphysically separate from the brain. In essence, to say that the mind is metaphysically separate from the brain is to deny the proposition that there is nothing more to our subjective experience of mind than the mere activity of the physical brain. This paper looks at a view proposed by John Searle and tries to show that there are empirical problems with a consciousness that is causally inefficacious (unable to cause material changes) and metaphysically identical (not separate from the brain).


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Jonas ◽  
Konrad Paul Kording

AbstractThere is a popular belief in neuroscience that we are primarily data limited, and that producing large, multimodal, and complex datasets will, with the help of advanced data analysis algorithms, lead to fundamental insights into the way the brain processes information. These datasets do not yet exist, and if they did we would have no way of evaluating whether or not the algorithmically-generated insights were sufficient or even correct. To address this, here we take a classical microprocessor as a model organism, and use our ability to perform arbitrary experiments on it to see if popular data analysis methods from neuroscience can elucidate the way it processes information. Microprocessors are among those artificial information processing systems that are both complex and that we understand at all levels, from the overall logical flow, via logical gates, to the dynamics of transistors. We show that the approaches reveal interesting structure in the data but do not meaningfully describe the hierarchy of information processing in the microprocessor. This suggests current analytic approaches in neuroscience may fall short of producing meaningful understanding of neural systems, regardless of the amount of data. Additionally, we argue for scientists using complex non-linear dynamical systems with known ground truth, such as the microprocessor as a validation platform for time-series and structure discovery methods.Author SummaryNeuroscience is held back by the fact that it is hard to evaluate if a conclusion is correct; the complexity of the systems under study and their experimental inaccessability make the assessment of algorithmic and data analytic technqiues challenging at best. We thus argue for testing approaches using known artifacts, where the correct interpretation is known. Here we present a microprocessor platform as one such test case. We find that many approaches in neuroscience, when used na•vely, fall short of producing a meaningful understanding.


2020 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 1609-1622
Author(s):  
Franziska Mathies ◽  
Catharina Lange ◽  
Anja Mäurer ◽  
Ivayla Apostolova ◽  
Susanne Klutmann ◽  
...  

Background: Positron emission tomography (PET) of the brain with 2-[F-18]-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) is widely used for the etiological diagnosis of clinically uncertain cognitive impairment (CUCI). Acute full-blown delirium can cause reversible alterations of FDG uptake that mimic neurodegenerative disease. Objective: This study tested whether delirium in remission affects the performance of FDG PET for differentiation between neurodegenerative and non-neurodegenerative etiology of CUCI. Methods: The study included 88 patients (82.0±5.7 y) with newly detected CUCI during hospitalization in a geriatric unit. Twenty-seven (31%) of the patients were diagnosed with delirium during their current hospital stay, which, however, at time of enrollment was in remission so that delirium was not considered the primary cause of the CUCI. Cases were categorized as neurodegenerative or non-neurodegenerative etiology based on visual inspection of FDG PET. The diagnosis at clinical follow-up after ≥12 months served as ground truth to evaluate the diagnostic performance of FDG PET. Results: FDG PET was categorized as neurodegenerative in 51 (58%) of the patients. Follow-up after 16±3 months was obtained in 68 (77%) of the patients. The clinical follow-up diagnosis confirmed the FDG PET-based categorization in 60 patients (88%, 4 false negative and 4 false positive cases with respect to detection of neurodegeneration). The fraction of correct PET-based categorization did not differ between patients with delirium in remission and patients without delirium (86% versus 89%, p = 0.666). Conclusion: Brain FDG PET is useful for the etiological diagnosis of CUCI in hospitalized geriatric patients, as well as in patients with delirium in remission.


Author(s):  
Preecha Yupapin ◽  
Amiri I. S. ◽  
Ali J. ◽  
Ponsuwancharoen N. ◽  
Youplao P.

The sequence of the human brain can be configured by the originated strongly coupling fields to a pair of the ionic substances(bio-cells) within the microtubules. From which the dipole oscillation begins and transports by the strong trapped force, which is known as a tweezer. The tweezers are the trapped polaritons, which are the electrical charges with information. They will be collected on the brain surface and transport via the liquid core guide wave, which is the mixture of blood content and water. The oscillation frequency is called the Rabi frequency, is formed by the two-level atom system. Our aim will manipulate the Rabi oscillation by an on-chip device, where the quantum outputs may help to form the realistic human brain function for humanoid robotic applications.


Author(s):  
Sally M. Essawy ◽  
Basil Kamel ◽  
Mohamed S. Elsawy

Some buildings hold certain qualities of space design similar to those originated from nature in harmony with its surroundings. These buildings, mostly associated with religious beliefs and practices, allow for human comfort and a unique state of mind. This paper aims to verify such effect on the human brain. It concentrates on measuring brain waves when the user is located in several spots (coordinates) in some of these buildings. Several experiments are conducted on selected case studies to identify whether certain buildings affect the brain wave frequencies of their users or not. These are measured in terms of Brain Wave Frequency Charts through EEG Device. The changes identified on the brain were then translated into a brain diagram that reflects the spiritual experience all through the trip inside the selected buildings. This could then be used in architecture to enhance such unique quality.


Author(s):  
Henrik Hogh-Olesen

Chapter 7 takes the investigation of the aesthetic impulse into the human brain to understand, first, why only we—and not our closest relatives among the primates—express ourselves aesthetically; and second, how the brain reacts when presented with aesthetic material. Brain scans are less useful when you are interested in the Why of aesthetic behavior rather than the How. Nevertheless, some brain studies have been ground-breaking, and neuroaesthetics offers a pivotal argument for the key function of the aesthetic impulse in human lives; it shows us that the brain’s reward circuit is activated when we are presented with aesthetic objects and stimuli. For why reward a perception or an activity that is evolutionarily useless and worthless in relation to human existence?


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 803-816
Author(s):  
Umberto di Porzio

AbstractThe environment increased complexity required more neural functions to develop in the hominin brains, and the hominins adapted to the complexity by developing a bigger brain with a greater interconnection between its parts. Thus, complex environments drove the growth of the brain. In about two million years during hominin evolution, the brain increased three folds in size, one of the largest and most complex amongst mammals, relative to body size. The size increase has led to anatomical reorganization and complex neuronal interactions in a relatively small skull. At birth, the human brain is only about 20% of its adult size. That facilitates the passage through the birth canal. Therefore, the human brain, especially cortex, develops postnatally in a rich stimulating environment with continuous brain wiring and rewiring and insertion of billions of new neurons. One of the consequence is that in the newborn brain, neuroplasticity is always turned “on” and it remains active throughout life, which gave humans the ability to adapt to complex and often hostile environments, integrate external experiences, solve problems, elaborate abstract ideas and innovative technologies, store a lot of information. Besides, hominins acquired unique abilities as music, language, and intense social cooperation. Overwhelming ecological, social, and cultural challenges have made the human brain so unique. From these events, as well as the molecular genetic changes that took place in those million years, under the pressure of natural selection, derive the distinctive cognitive abilities that have led us to complex social organizations and made our species successful.


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