I'm not sure there is any form of electromagnetic "stimulation" of the brain. MRI scans of the head routinely expose the brain to static magnetic fields tens of thousands of times stronger than the earth's magnetic field, with no apparent effects during or afterward.
Electroencephalography (EEG) records very tiny electric fields generated by the surface of the brain. These fields are even tinier than the ones generated by the heart on an EKG, and require very sensitive amplifiers with good noise immunity just to get a decent signal. These electric potentials are generated by the activity of cortical neurons conducting nerve impulses, which in turn depends on the flow of ions at the microscopic level.
Large electric fields might have a disruptive effect on the brain, however. JAMA published a case report in the 1970's (sorry, no link) of a medical student who was horsing around with a cardiac defibrillator. Thinking the device was off, he placed the paddles on his temples and discharged 400 joules through his head. He immediately had grand-mal seizures and fell unconscious, eventually returning to normal after a day or two, with significant amnesia for events surrounding the episode. *********************************************************** 11-24-05, 05:06 AM tsaeb
quote: Originally posted by Professor: Electroencephalography (EEG) records very tiny electric fields generated by the surface of the brain. These fields are even tinier than the ones generated by the heart on an EKG, and require very sensitive amplifiers with good noise immunity just to get a decent signal. These electric potentials are generated by the activity of cortical neurons conducting nerve impulses, which in turn depends on the flow of ions at the microscopic level.
Does anyone know how it can be that 1) there are electric fields generated by the surface of the brain and 2)there is a flow of ions as part of nerve impulses? I mean, is this activity already there in the brain, or does the EEG cause it to be there in the brain? If it is already there, then how did that happen regardless of the EEG simply coming along to measure it? Is the activity maintained by the body or by the earth's magnetic field or whatever?
quote: I mean, is this activity already there in the brain, or does the EEG cause it to be there in the brain?
It's already there. The EEG is just a measurement or monitor of this activity. The apparatus has no more effect on the subject than does a camera taking a picture.
The physiologic mechanisms were worked out decades ago. Unlike most cells in the body, neurons (nerve cells) have a special system of molecules in their surrounding membranes that allow them to conduct electrical impulses. They are NOT like electrical wires, however. Electricity flows through metal wires at nearly the speed of light. Nerve impulses (action potentials), on the other hand, move down the long, thin (and microscopic) axon at roughly walking speed or a little faster.
Here's an analogy: The axon is like a row of dominoes. When the first domino is knocked over, a wave of falling dominoes spreads down the row. But imagine that these are special dominoes that are able to pick themselves up again shortly after falling. They reset themselves and are ready for another wave of falling down. The way the analogy works, falling-down and standing-up dominoes are like depolarization and re-polarization of the nerve membrane. The propagated wave is called the action potential.
Each domino falling down and standing up is analogous to ions moving back and forth across the cell membrane. Since ions are electrically charged their movement causes electrical current to flow. Now I'll switch to a water analogy: If you open a valve in a tank of water it will spontaneously drain. To put the water back requires pumping. The nerve membrane contains molecules that act as valves and pumps, each regulating a specific kind of ion and operating by voltage feedback. It's very cool.
Newnickname, as usual, posted a very nice Wikipedia link that taught me some more: "In 1924, Berger made the first EEG recording in man..."
And also
quote: Berger, in 1935, was not regarded by his associates as in the front rank of German psychiatricists, having rather the reputation of being a crank. He seemed to me to be...as unperturbed by lack of recognition as he was later by the fame it eventually brought upon him. But he had one fatal weakness: he was completely ignorant of the technical and physical basis of his method. He knew nothing about mechanics or electricity." - from The Living Brain, Walter Grey Walter.
quote: Scalp electrodes are not sensitive enough to pick out individual action potentials, the electric unit of signaling in the brain, or whether the resulting electrical activity is releasing inhibitory, excitatory or modulatory neurotransmitters. Instead, the EEG picks up synchronization of neurons, which produces a greater voltage than the firing of an individual neuron.
And it points out that:
quote: As other methods for researching brain activity have time resolution between seconds and minutes, the EEG has a resolution down to sub-millisecond. The brain is thought to work through its electric activity. EEG is the only method to measure it directly.
Nowadays EEG is often processed by spectral analysis, which breaks it down into its component frequencies by computer processing to allow further interpretation.
They also mention Magnetoencephalography, which I had not previously heard of. These are really tiny magnetic fields generated when brain activity is briefly coordinated in a way to cause "current dipoles." The effect is so small it is swamped by the earth's magnetic field, which therefore must first be excluded by putting the patient in a special room. But as with EEG it only measures overall activity and not specific neurons. And of course EEG cannot "read your thoughts" in even the crudest terms. It only shows normal versus abnormal brain function.
I hope that answers a few questions, and prompts many more. Smile Poke around Wikipedia for some answers.
I also forgot to mention electroshock (aka electo-convulsive) therapy (ECT), which is a much more subdued and controlled form of the incident I mentioned earlier with the foolish medical student. ECT was once popular (and dramatized in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) but is now only occasionally used by psychiatrists to treat very specific forms of severe depression. The patient is protected from harmful effects on the body while the brain undergoes mild, temporary seizure activity. Its efficacy and usefulness are still controversial.
11-25-05, 05:07 AM tsaeb Professor: I wasn't interested in whether my thoughts could be read by humans, only whether there might be an explanation as to how God and angels can read my thoughts, for example, during my silent praying. The fact that it is written in the Bible that God can answer faster than we can ask or think does jive with your electrical impulses moving at walking speed.
11-25-05, 02:43 PM Professor You think God needs a galvanometer to hear your prayers?
11-26-05, 03:43 AM tsaeb Professor: No. However, I am wondering whether there is an explanation as to how one is able to audibly hear God's answers to prayers. Since this phenomenon is of such controversy, I imagine that God would, first of all, have a way of communicating about a topic with one or few to the exclusion of the many. Well, God should have no trouble doing His thing with those nerve impulses of His chosen one or few.
11-26-05, 09:21 AM frankvan Wow! Maybe the poor woman whose dominoes are not falling correctly gets a garbled answer, and God appears to be telling her to drown her children or throw them off a bridge. Do you think?? I would have just thought she suffered from hallucinations of some sort. Eek
11-26-05, 07:55 PM Professor Good link, n3. According to the article the hallucinations are suppressed in the auditory cortex using . How it work Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) s:
quote: A doctor typically holds a powerful magnet over the frontal regions of the patient’s skull and delivers magnetic pulses for a few minutes a day, over the course of a few weeks. The treatment alters the biochemistry and firing patterns of neurons in the cortex, the part of the brain nearest the surface. Preliminary research indicates that the treatment affects gene activity, levels of neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, and the formation of proteins important for cellular signaling—any of which could play a role in alleviating depression. What’s more, magnetic stimulation seems to affect several interconnected brain regions, starting in the cortex and moving to the deep brain, where new cell growth may be important in regulating moods. (MIT Technology Review, March 2004)
A new meaning to the term "magnetic personality." Big Grin
11-29-05, 06:35 AM tsaeb Well, we now see how we might get rid of auditory hallucinations, if that is what they are. However, how might we make them? I get the idea that increased magnetism is supposed to reduce them, but this does not mean that we can somehow reduce magnetism to make them appear . . . eh, from nothing?!
11-29-05, 09:35 AM newnickname If there were a god who wanted to communicate with people using voices only they could hear, couldn't he or she just do it with a wave of a magic wand?
You seem to want to somehow attach some scientific observations and terms to an entirely religious idea - that's also the premise of (thoroughly discredited) 'scientific creationism', isn't it?
Auditory hallucinations don't come 'from nothing'. They seem to be caused by glitches in the brain's usual functioning. For most people who experience them, they are not like messages from a god. "...voices that a schizophrenic hears, usually come from outside the head and are bizarre (for example, hearing voices from outerspace who are instructing him to kill himself because aliens are invading his testicles). This is a psychotic symptom..." www.fragmentedmind.healthyplace2.com
It is possible to have auditory hallucinations without schizophrenia - some time ago I worked with a man who had auditory hallucinations, but no other symptoms of mental illness. If it was God, then God's favourite song seems to be "The Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen" - He sang it all the time.
01-28-06, 09:58 AM socratus BRAIN.
Brain of a man approximately consists of sixteen milliards neurons. All of them form the system that manages human body. That is why it is of no wonder that with the work of all the sixteen milliards neutrons of brain, a man cannot catch a single impulse of Electron, Quantum of light, his God: (mass of electron is equal 10-31 kg., charge of electron is equal 10-19 k.) Quantum of light, Spiritual particle, which has created us, turned out to be under control of the material existence. However, the spiritual particle aspires to establish its supremacy over material nature. And the possibilities to reign over material nature are limited. The expansion of the possibilities of the development of spiritual particle is connected with the creation of specific (vacuum) conditions. These conditions are reached as a result of constant religious practice. To perceive the universe, to perceive the spiritual essence, it is necessary to the man to take possession of religious practice. PRACTICE. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES. We pray the GOD and we do not realize that HE is inside us. Each of us carries in him the SPIRITUAL PARTICLE (QUANTUM OF LIGHT - AN ELECTRON). But we do not realize that HE is inside us. Behind the habitual forces of nature there is one force hidden - a spiritual one (h - е). But ITS action is almost completely disguised by the other forces (mechanical, electromagnetic, nuclear, and chemical and others), therefore it remains unnoticed in an ordinary processes. But God never operates outside of natural principles. There are the processes in which He reveals himself. Therefore, His disclosing is a technical question. How can we learn it? For this purpose it is necessary to create the following effects in our computer-brain: A). Nonlinear effect B). Superconducting effect C). Holographic effect D). Vacuum effect. Nobody, except for us, can make this technical work. Only we (by the constant, thin, internal practice) can create conditions for these effects. This practice has called "a Religious practice". In this lies an essence of Religion - to establish the communication of a Human being with his Divine origin. * * * Our computer-brain works on a dualistic basis. In a usual daily life all we do is done logically, under an influence of our feelings. On the other hand, in a religious practice it is vital to learn to perceive and to operate: 1) Without the participation of the sense organs. 2) Without the participation of the logic mental processes. When these conditions will be created, then the opportunity to operate will be given to a QUANTUM OF LIGHT (AN ELECTRON), to OUR DIVINE ESSENCE. We will acquire new forces, new abilities. Once again. An electron's mass is 10-28gr . The size is 10-13sm. A charge is 10-19k . With these characteristics it is hard for IT to become apparent. Therefore it is clear, why don't we know IT in an ordinary life. ITS cognition is achieved by a very hard, thin and laborious work. This work demands of a person to be obsessed by it.
03-05-06, 08:43 AM socratus Question. What inhale the Life in formulas and equations ? What must be present in a body to make it alive ? The answer. Soul. Quantum of Light. Because, from all particles, only and only the quantum of light is a privileged particle. What is a quantum of light? Quantum of light is a particle and wave simultaneously. Exact there is a simultaneity of space and time. For me such explanation is unsatisfactory. It just as to speak, that the logic information and the senseless message are the same simultaneously. To say half truth is worse then to say lie. * * * Quantum of light is a privileged particle. Only the speed of a light quantum in Vacuum has a maximal, constant, absolute quantity of c=1. No other particle can travel with the speed c = 1. If quantum of light flies always rectilinearly c=1, it is a mad one. Is he really mad?
03-05-06, 09:58 AM Professor Socratus asks, "What must be present in a body to make it alive?" The concept that living tissue is imbued with the "spark of life", also known as vitalism (and fancifully dramatized in Frankenstein), pretty much fell by the wayside during the 19th C, once scientific inquiry began to reduce living organisms to smaller subunits, each acting by well-established principles of chemistry and physics.
The presence of a "soul" is, of course, a metaphysical notion standing apart from science. It requires a "leap of faith" to believe in its existence.
Socratus, I'm not sure why you say that photons are "privileged particles." According to quantum theory, all quanta are simultaneously particles and waves -- not just light.
In any case, I don't see how quantum theory is relevant to this topic.
03-06-06, 12:45 AM tsaeb newnickname: I am happy that you met one such crazy who you claim is not crazy. How broadminded you are!
socratus: While it is possible to examine the teeny-weeny conceptually and even on paper, while not necessarily by microscope or experimentation, we cannot equate such prophetic phenomena with God: they must not rise to more than representations of God or parts of His system of things, events, and situations. I am glad that you imply that God is in control, not some devil.
03-06-06, 10:02 AM babthrower After electricity was first studied as a phenomenon back in the 18th century, there was a frenzy of experiment, especially among the rich and famous of the day. DC current was produced by a manually-operated generator and stored in a Leyden jar, and contacts were applied to the skin so that the current ran directly through the adjacent body part.
It was a feature at some house parties to have a display of the effects of these experiments on human volunteers.
Soon people were reporting wonderful benefits to their health. Migraine headaches disappeared, memory was improved, almost every malady could be cured by electricity! Every magazine carried advertisments for wonderful machines you could use in your own home.
(Similarly when the effects of ether on humans was first discovered, it became a recreational drug. Only when a number of people died during 'ether parties' was the experimentation discouraged.)
This belief in the curative powers of electricity inspired Mary Shelley's book Frankenstein in which electricity is used to bring a dead human back to life. But Ms. Shelley thought this was going way too far!
During the same period, people studied hypnotism and spiritualism (speaking to the dead) and phrenology (how the shape of the brain affects personality).
So I'm sure they tried electricity to invoke mental states such as trance. The results didn't seem to be very useful. Still, Tsaeb, you could look up some of these old experiments, and see where that leads.
And of course high-intensity microwaves -- a form of electromagnetic radiation -- will cook your brain just like a microwave oven. Don't try THAT at home.
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