On 9/2/2013 3:56 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
On Monday, September 2, 2013 6:11:51 PM UTC-4, chris peck wrote:
Hi Craig
Highlighting the word 'spontaneous' with astereixes doesnt show anything.
Here
'spontaneous' just means 'originates in the brain in the absence of external
stimuli'. This kind of activity is often refered to as 'task unrelated'
which is to
say it is not activity that is bound to some external task. Daydreaming and
remembering past events are common examples. You shouldn't confuse it with
the idea
of uncaused activity which evidently you have done.
I highlighted them to show that the word is not being used in any cryptic specialized
sense, but rather it is used often, and in the general sense of being wholly
unanticipated. Spontaneous in this case means originating in the brain in the absence of
external stimuli but it also means originating in the brain in the absence of any known
cause.
Absence of knowledge is not knowledge of absence.
The study goes to considerable lengths to make this clear.. note the gist of
the headings:
Intrinsic Activity Accounts for Behaviorally Relevant Left SMC BOLD Variance
Ruling Out Evoked Activity
Ruling Out Stimulus-Evoked Activity
Ruling Out Attention and Anticipation
and finally, to directly address your claim:
"Ruling Out Other Potential Confounds
While sensory evoked activity and attention/anticipation are the most concerning
potential confounds, other mechanisms should be considered. For example, global arousal
might cause fluctuations in neuronal activity and behavior. *However, our BOLD-behavior
effect should then be present in all regions or at least regions implicated in arousal
(Critchley et al., 2000), not localized to the somatomotor system*. Similarly,
after-effects such as the BOLD undershoot could persist from the previous trial,
influencing early BOLD time points and confounding our results (Buxton et al., 1998).
However, this possibility is excluded by the lack of a relationship between our BOLD
measurement and ISI."
Do daydreaming and remembering take place in the somatomotor system? Probably
not.
HA! You never had a daydream that produced an erection?
Another conclusion from the study:
" Finally, it provides support for the intrinsic perspective on brain function, showing
that the brain not only exhibits intrinsic organized fluctuations in neuronal activity,
but that these fluctuations impact brain function and behavior in interesting and
important ways."
Not really anything there to support anything that you are claiming.
And there's nothing to support the thesis that the brain activity is not part of a causal
chain extending back to the embryo.
Brent
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