Hi Craig your biases are protecting your theory from threats with a vengeance!
>>I highlighted them to show that the word is not being used in any cryptic >>specialized sense No one is arguing that the use of 'spontaneous' is cryptic but rather that you have not understood the way they are using it. That's a big difference. They do have a specific sense in mind though, there is a whole field of study around spontaneous activity and the meaning is abundantly clear from reading that: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627307007192 "This “default-mode network” is believed to represent brain regions that are more active during rest. Since the correlated fluctuations within the resting state networks occur in the absence of an explicit task, they are often referred to as “spontaneous” or “task-unrelated” fluctuations." >> "but it also means originating in the brain in the absence of any known >> cause. 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" Craig, part of any half decent study involves ruling out confounding factors which might interfere with the measurement of the phenomenon under scrutiny. What is being ruled out in these sections are not causes of the spontaneous activity, but alternative sources of the fMRI signals they measured. They rule out that the signals were not in fact 'stimulus evoked', they were not signals dues to changes in attention, etc. They are just isolating the phenomenon. The causes of spontaneous/task-unrelated fluctuations is not even addressed. >> Not really anything there to support anything that you are claiming. You brought the study up not me. It supposed to be supporting your claims. It doesn't support anything though, because it is not addressing the causes or lack of causes of spontaneous/task-unrelated fluctuation. Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2013 16:31:57 -0700 From: meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Spontaneous Brain Activity Controls Behavior 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 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. 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