constantly ‘awake’ brain and bremermann's question

BioSystems 34 (1995) 149- 160

Constantly ‘awake’ brain and Bremermann’s question

R.K. Mishraa-b

“lnternational Institute of Biophysics, D 67661 Kaiserslautern-25, Germany ‘All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110 029, India

Received 13 September 1993; revision received 15 April 1994

Abstract

The sleep state is analysed as a phase of the Living State that reduces some aspects of responsivity while increasing other, more subtle aspects.

Key words: Living state; Sleep; Consciousness

1. Introduction

The objective of this communication is to discuss a question raised by Bremermann (1994) in a seminar in 1992. Bremermann has been known widely for bringing his critical and analytic mind to bear on diverse problems thrown up during the pursuit of problems in life sciences. He demands to know why and whereby the brain uses physiological sleep for attending to complex problems of epistomological significance. He ponders over the substantial expenditure of energy in the CNS rela- tive to that in the waking state when one has merely to sleep.

In itself the problem is not new for a neurobiol- ogist. Whatever stage of sleep an organism - human or animal - may seem to be in, the brain and the nervous system are active fully, although

Correspondence address: All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110 029, India

in a different phase, highlighting some activities and underplaying or not at all playing some others. This and other aspects which are mere indicators have been much investigated (Bremer, 1937, 1938; von Euler and Soderberg, 1956; Lindsley et al. 1959; Hess, 1965; Jouvet and Delorme, 1965; Jou- vet, 1972; Haulica et al., 1973; Henley and Mor- rison, 1974; Zepelin and Rechtschaffen, 1974; Simon et al., 1979; Puizillout, 1980; Snyder et al., 1981; Bandler, 1982; Danguir and Nicolaidis, 1985; Koella, 1985; Krueger et al., 1985; McGinty et al., 1985; Parmeggiani, 1985; Moruzzi, 1989) and in various ways it is expressed that indeed there may be sleep of choice and sleep of necessity. We wish to know what are the organising functions of sleep. Perhaps we should have a detailed view of ‘trophotropic endophylactic’ aspect as stated by Hess (1965) so far as synthetic, recuperative and culturally ‘creative’ aspects of sleep are concerned.

Of course the poet has called attention to the smoothening of the sleeves of the worried psyche

0303-2647/95/$09.50 0 1995 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved SSDI 0303-2647(94)01466-K

150 R.K. Mishra 1 BioSystems 34 (1995) 149-160

by sleep. We also know how geniuses have to our astonishment burst forth from sleep with solu- tions of intractables, sometimes in a state of consciousness bordering on somnambulism.

Sleep must somehow actively clear up paths of resolution of problems. We take the opportunity afforded by the remark of Bremermann to examine afresh the issue of matter-energy and mind whereby active and rhythmic sleep becomes a necessity. We refer to the three worlds into which the two workers on the mind, philosopher and neuroscientist, Popper (see Popper (1972) for his earlier proposal), and Eccles (1970) divide the observables: world 1 of physical objects, world 2 of subjective consciousness and sentience and the world 3 of arts, sciences, technologies, languages, theories of ‘self’ and death - indeed the entire culture of mankind. We adopt a new avenue and trace the evolution of all static and dynamical phenomenology as a complex of four dimensionalities (Mishra, 1992). We then refer to a system of coupled non-linear differential equations and following Haken (1983) show that an order parameter may evolve automatically enslaving the assembly (Mishra, 1992). Connectivity and integration of activity by superposition of fields cre- ated by fluctuant bioelectric states is suggested and based on measurements on human brains an area is postulated (Mishra, 1983, 1992). The rela- tions between memory, dream and ‘will’ are now conjectured. An active state of sleep and its willed or rhythmic onset is necessary.

2. Sleep, a holistic phenomenon

Sleep is reputed to have many parts and many facets, even though the gamut of substates with their physiologic correlates which may be run through might indicate a continuous phenomenology repeating itself through a phase of waking. The synchronous sleep, the paradoxical sleep (EEG dysynchronization, PGO spikes, atonia of postural muscles, cardiovascular, respiratory thermal deregulation, depression of sympathetic tone, silence of some but not all neurons), REM sleep, non-REM sleep, short-wave sleep, and delta wave indicate themselves as elements of evolving phenomenology. Brain transactions again support the

concept of sleep as an integral manifestation of various subactivities, like Jouvet’s (1962) work on pontine involvement, or the midbrain lesion of Bremer (1937, 1938). Diffuse involvement of the nervous system is best emphasized by molecular effects on sleep by ‘wet biochemistry’; say, by hypnotoxin, delta sleep peptide, somnogens like factor S or muramyl dipeptide, vasoactive intesti- nal peptide, growth hormone, cholecystokinin, prostaglandin D,, carbachol, glycine, prostigmin, benzotropine mesylate, etc. Widespread receptor sites may be involved as expected by effects on receptors of benzodiazapine, or compounds with muscarinic, dopaminergic effects or adenosine, and ACTH, p endorphin.

This very brief consideration suggests that many parts of the nervous system cooperate to produce the integral phenomenon of sleep. This does not clarify why sleep is necessary and why there is a rhythmic onset and progression of it. True, thermal and metabolic balance may be involved. The posture adopted for sleep in man or dog a horse may be a function of gravity com- pounded with the need for smallest energy expenditure. One therefore wonders if the object of sleep is recuperation, while external perturbations demanding adaptation are reduced to a minimal effectiveness by toning down receptivity.

At this point it is useful to review the readiness or ‘Bereitschaft’ (Hess, 1965) and the capacity to respond - ‘response potential’ (Mishra, 1992) - for an alternate view of the nervous system, inclusive of the brain and the mind.

3. The universal structure principle: four concurrent dimensionalities

The universe of matter-energy obeys rules of physics which are continuously being investigated and incorporated into it. Based on these given a certain state of aggregation (the Living State) phenomenology of ‘body-mind’ may emerge. For a proper understanding of this last aspect one must examine the essential structure principle: every entity has four elements or dimensionalities in different magnitudes simultaneously present making up its total description: (1) humanoid, (2) ‘acausal’ (statistical, dream like), (3) causal (de-

R.K. Mishra I BioSystems 34 (1995) 149-160 151

terminstic); (4) tram-category. The first is an aspect contributed by matter with its extension in space, which is responsible for giving the entity’ a number. The second aspect includes phenomena which are statistical or probabilistic in their origin and existence ‘acausal’ (just to give it a name different from that of the third aspect). The third aspect is domain of ‘causality’ within the confines of the object, relating an identifiable course with effect and thus causal and determinstic. The fourth aspect defies categorisation and description since it escapes detection by direct human sensibil- ity directly or theoretically or assisted by instru- ments. An approximate example of a model will be the ‘dark matter’ of the cosmos (see review of Smith and Lewin, 1990) or the quantum indeter- minacy. It is inferred by effect. This is necessary for the logic of science, But in this area may lie the foundation of all primary forces like gravity or the gravitational field. Operationally, it is useful to realise for our present effort that these four aspects are all concurrently demonstrable in an entity.

For every entity constituted of matter there is a locus in space, or in our mind, and we can attach a number. When dynamical transformation oc- curs, the sense of time is generated, and, with all these, concepts of forces, fields, geometry - indeed all physics. This is anthropic in the sense that we are aware of these contributions because we are here to observe them by our sensorium. Another designation would be that since man is the instrument of observation, an anthroposcope, it is also anthroposcopic. Many designations are frankly based on human-like attributes as observed in man and his experience, such as attrac- tion, repulsion, bias, growth, degrowth. These contribute to the make-up of the model for description. It is also anthropocentric. All descrip- tions and designations arise and dominate description by the use we put them to. For the goldsmith, gold ore is ‘object’, skeleton of a pre-

’ An entity for the purposes of this description may be material or non-material, its absence, or energy field, word, notion, feeling, number, or a mathematical equation.

historic animal buried within is garbage, although very useful to a paleobiologist. Clutter or dirt is simply object in a ‘wrong’ place so far as the user is concerned. We have shown elsewhere that the description of entities in rest or motion is necessarily incomplete because of physiological con- straints. Jahn and Dunne (1987) have shown that this may also be true of careful experimental design. Results concerning all objects, or even their absence, obtained by rigorous search may not be true always; the observer-fudge always remains. For example, a vacuum has an ingredi- ent of this dimensionality.

The second dimensionality concurrently present (to a varying degree, but not absent) is the dream- like dimension. In this, images representing objects and their interaction follow each other in a non-determinstic sequence and are bunched up in a statistical manner depending upon whole body autochthonous forcing. Together they act on autonomic nets. These properties associated with ‘dream’ are always present in entities, to a vari- able degree. The third aspect or dimensionality is strictly determinstic. It is determinstic for emer- gence (or dissipation) of an entity or phenomenon. Much scientific work is directed to this aspect.

However, running through all the three aspects of reality, imprisoned within human limits of observation and description stated above is the tacit but the unavoidable admission of a concurrent fact which may not follow human observation, imagination and reason. This fact may contain the reason for such things as why gravity obeys laws of gravity or electromagnetism of electromagnetism. Or, is there any dark matter?, etc. or why the paradox of quantum indeterminancy. Roughly it generates Richard Feynman’s exclamation: ‘The paradox [quantum indeterminancy] is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality ought to be.

4. Consciousness as ‘response potential’

The compulsions and forcings frequently aris- ing from this view are enshrined in expressions like Monod’s ‘Chance and necessity’, profound determinism and chaos, and Schuster’s use of


terms like ‘determinstic chaos’. However, in spite of all information in this area and vividness of result one rule stands out operationally: when a system of any kind is examined remorselessly in all relevant details and completeness it is apparent that nature does indeed prohibit abrupt changes in force fields. They tend to smoothen out by manipulating structure, composition, process or process time. The kernel of this is the ability to respond to a stimulus appropriate for it (‘eigen- stimulus’) as contrasted with those to which the entity is indifferent or refractory. This response potential is the beginning of consciousness of which ‘mind’ is a specialised conglomerate of processes and ‘brain’ the conglomerate of responsive structures. This concept differs from Bereitschaft (Hess, 1965) which expresses readiness, somewhat like tone in a muscle. Response potential refers to potential of ability to recognise and respond to another entity.

It is reasserted (Mishra, 1992) that when ade- quately tested “no evidence for ‘mind’ as an organ apart from processes exists”. Much confusion would have been avoided if this was recognised as suggested. What exists, without fail, is evidence of responsitivity. It generates the phenomenon called consciousness, provided the stimulus employed for test is of the necessary ‘complex of dimensionalities’ and adequate for the test, i.e. biological, neurological, psychological, electronic, field-like, numerical disequilibrium in an equation, etc. as the case may require. The reason why nobody has found evidence of an isolable identifiable mind is that no test within this constraint was employed. If the purpose and utility of sleep is to be investigated it has to be within the four walls of this notion. It transpires, as it should, that the ‘mind of humans’ is the ‘mind for the humans’, and hence the tremendous difficulty in devising adequate controls for investigation. Much introspec- tion has to be combined with experiment to evolve a suitable concept. In the case of sleep we have to seek a spectrum of processes for recovery.

5. The Living State and ‘the response potential’

To explain the extraordinary properties of living bodies in terms of sensitivity, specificity, am-

plification, autonomy, and homeostasis, codification of the description of the organism itself (as in genes) has to be done within the bounds of the available laws of physics. We need to describe the living matter in a living organism to present a hitherto undescribed state of matter ‘the Living State’. The first rudiments, proposed in 1972 (Mishra, 1969, 1972), were followed up (Mishra, 1984, 1985, 1990, 1994). The essential parts of the concept, stated briefly, imply that given certain selected atoms (structure-dictating) and bonds that are approximately of the same energies as intermolecular association energies, then impingement of the field due to an ion, frontier electron density of approaching molecules, pressure, compaction rarefaction, or vibration (acoustic or thermal) causes an au- tochthonus force to emerge whereby energy is transported in solitary beams from one point to point, leading to a network of solitary beams, reflected, or where permissible, resonantly ab- sorbed. This coordinates various different phase transitions all over the organism - the hallmark of processes collectively indicating ‘life’ in an organism. The essential carriers of these energies are bosons of various wavelengths.

Previously, the chemical potential of bosons was considered (Mishra, 1992), but a chemical potential to initiate biochemical and physiological activity can be demonstrated in a three-wave bo- son model also (Mishra and Sen, 1993). In a biological system, subsystems are hierarchically arranged. Thus, we have a hierarchy of coupled non-linear systems, each having its response potential. As stated earlier, using Haken’s formula- tion (1983) an order parameter depending on time constants emerges ‘enslaving’ (Haken’s term) the behaviour of the assembly. This order parameter has thus a ‘mind’-like role. Thus, ‘mind’-like properties arise from a coupled hierarchical responsive systems.

It must be stressed that the response potential here determines innate responsiveness of the systems and not the ‘Bereitschaft’ of Hess (1965, 1974) which really implies only the readiness to act. Thus, given a responsive hierarchy an order- ing and pacemaking would naturally arise. The hierarchy follows from the principles of the Living

R.K. Mishru 1 BioSysrems 34 (1995) 149-160 153

State. Response potentials are ubiquitous and in- herent. The first kick-off for ‘life’ is the ‘high’ energy-yielding process of fertilisation of the ovum, actually reaching optical photon levels.

6. The background radiation fields

Since all volumes in a living body are in an active state metabolically and mechanically the above considerations leads to the notion of a background radiation field due to photons in various frequency ranges (microwaves to optical) due to dissipation during energy transformation or mechanical transduction; this is a probability. Ex- perimental proof has accumulated over several decades (Popp, 1988, 1985). ‘It is to be realised that there is a constant interaction between the radiation field and matter at any temperature. When chemists investigate transformations of ma- terials the fact that the radiation field is always present is often neglected. This problem is becom- ing more and more important in the study of chemical reactions in the condensed phase’ (Hed- vig (1975) with reference to polymerisation processes).

Indeed the reason why the biological ‘high energy bond’ may well be related to the facts (1) that the reactants are sitting on a raised - in energy terms - background and (2) the living state is organised using molecules in which in- tramolecular energies are not too far different from intermolecular ones. The reactants do not have overly high energy barriers to cross and subtle elevation of energy of reactants can bring about macroscopic results.

7. Brain, ‘mind’, sleep

With the notion that fields generated by neural activity would propagate and run through a medium which has an essentially non-linear dielectric constant thereby collapsing into beams, with their lengths depending on excitation, it was decided to consider the possibility of superposition of fields. For this task, the lengths of perpen- diculars from the surfaces of the cerebrum were measured. Their crossover point was defined and revealed an area with interesting connectivities,

direct or indirect. The field in the brain certainly does not propagate with the velocity of light but is expected to be faster than that due to ionic exchanges, modified to an extent by synaptic delays. It is to be emphasized that cross-over is not a Euclidean point but a volume harbouring many cells of biologic relevance which, by connectivities, represent virtually the entire organism. It is noteworthy that the fields from various areas arrive with some time delays generating the sense of time domain of the entity perceived. One may perceive the light of a firecracker earlier than the sound, for intrinsic reasons, other than the veloc- ities of propagation of light and sound; or one may see the gesture of a singer in a proper time sequence for the familiar evocative appeal to a participative listener.

Behaviourist Karl Lashley stated that when awareness of ‘self’ is generated there is some electrophysiological activity in regions of the tongue as the only indication of the sense of ‘self’. Stimulation of the cross-over region is more likely to generate the sense of ‘self’, the base line of all adaptation, response, mentation, imagination, emotion and thought, the basis of the ‘mind’ and ‘self’, hence the name - area 0, (see Figs. 1 - 3).

Quite evidently this aspect is ‘speculative’, and is suitable only for a place, at best, in a critical journal of philosopy (Mishra, 1983, 1992) but this cannot be avoided since our own earlier admoni- tion was to derive the information on the mind of man from the mind of man and that is impossi- ble’. The work of Roland et al. (1992) and Seitz et al. (1992) using positron emission tomography gives impressive, but regional, information and not information that is molecular or on a single cell in a collection.

However, it is essential to bring the concept into connection with the theme of the present paper. The idea makes an integration of various

2 Much impressed by Academician Bachteriva, daughter of the noted Russian investigator Becherev working on chroni- cally impaled intracerebral electrodes, she was approached for any information on this 0, area. As expected there was none.

154 R.K. Mishra / BioSystems 34 (1995) 149-160

Fig. I. Sagital section of the brain from cerebral cortex down to the brain stem. Cross-hatched area denotes the postulated area 0,.

PARIETAL LOBE

FRONTAL LOBE

EREBELLUM

HT -HYPOTl-hLAMUS l-l -HYPQPHYStS P -PINEAAL M -MIDBRAIN lY -H VENTR K;LE

The inset shows the cut made to show the area.

informational stimuli for a complete three-com- plement (physical) integration of auditory, optic, somesthetic, time, and emotion relevant regions, and all the memory modules with their spines and tangles for an effective (reflex and partially volun- tary) outflow as required for homeostasis of this representation of ‘self’.

We spoke of memory module based on modules of Szentagothai (1975) and emphasized by Eccles (1977) (see Figs. 4 and 5). Two considerations may further be made. Many psychotropic molecules may act by compaction and rarefaction of the packing of molecules’ ‘memory modules’. Earlier work on subsynaptic membranes prepared essentially after Whittaker procedures, showed by a Cole-Cole dielectric dispersion plot that the enthalpy of rotation of components in cells may be reduced to a fraction of a kilocal/mole by taraxein, a protein found in schizophrenics (Mishra, 1969), virtually a gaseous film, implying a confluence of memory, if memory was based on degree and design of compaction of such micelles

in the synaptic membranes. This may still be so, but at the level of the membranes of the memory modules or at the level of molecules of neuronal spines in the modules or their spines as a whole. In quite another context, not referring to brain or mind, Nordenstrom proposed that biological activity resulting in flow of blood, a conductor, is tantamount to flow of a current around an irregu- larly shaped volume, thus production of a biolog- ically closed electronic circuits (BCEC). This has led to a useful application in cancer therapy in both Sweden and China. In the case of modules, this emphasises another arguable reason to regard the module as a microchip; then its physical state may determine its dominance.

Figs. l-3 illustrate the location of area 0, and Figs. 4 and 5 the structure of modules, based on the work of Eccles (1977) and Szentagothai (1975). Quite conceivably the compaction and rarefiction of an activated set of modules and their electrolytic surround will alter the interaction of fields.

R.K. Mishra 1 BioSystems 34 (1995) 149- 160 155

&f ou P -PUTAMEN G -GLOBUS PALLIDUS T -THALAMUS

C.C. -CORPUS CALLOSUM R.N. -RED NUCLEUS S.N. -SUBSTANTIANlGRA

L -LATERALVENTRICLE

Fig. 2. The coronal section reveals the area 0, which is shown as cross-hatched part. The inset shows the cut made to demonstrate the structure. C.C., corpus callosum; G, globuspallidus; L, lateral ventricle; P, putamen; R.N., red nucleus; S.N., substantia nigra; T, thalamus.

One may say that sleep is the ‘diastole’ in the activity of the nervous-soma system. While the brain may be the pace-setter, its very neural connections to its external environment and internal ecology emphasize the concept of the whole brain - and the ‘parabrain’. By parabrain we mean the entire receptive and exteriorising ap- paratus which may modulate the ultimate response. Sleep in this scheme should be a stepwise onset of a phase of synthesis, restoring of de- fences, replenishment, reactivation and vigilance (hormonal, immunological). The overall vigilance of the organism is reduced to an affordable mini- mum, by diminishing Bereitschaft in view of the testimony by the organism through light and vision, sound which otherwise may be demanding attention, and so on, as well as to internal stresses.

An ensemble of adaptive processes manifests itself and is called the ‘mind’. It is thus an au-

tocrine3 body of processes subsumed under dynamic adaptation following endogenous and exogenous perturbations. Thus, the ‘mindal’ properties arise in the system by the needs resulting from its dynamic adaptation. They have some relation to the structure of the system, but they cease when the dynamic response ends. Activity as a whole is seamless; when one ends others are there. While, in simple systems stimulus-response limits the story, in the case of complexity of structure beyond a critical threshold with a spectrum of gates, transfer functions, decay constants,

3 If terms such as endocrine, exocrine, holocrine, aprocrine, paracrine, etc. are to be used. Autocrine secretion stimulates the cell from which it is derived, as demonstrated in some pathological processes, as per Marcel Nirenberg refering to oncogenesis.


,- _____ - ______ -_--____--__ ‘7

’ SENSORIMOTOR - SOMESTHETIC /

PARIETAL CORTEX k TEMPORAL - AUDITORY VESTIBULAR

y INSULAR -TEMPORAL - GUSTATORY

III \ OCCIPITAL-VISUAL

f I

CINGUIATE CORTEX

Fig. 3. The area 0, shown as an area which is connected to common sensation, motor activity, hearing, taste, vision, endocrines (hypophysis), and diurnal rhythm (pineal gland). It is connected to areas for ‘waking and dream’ by structures in the midbrain and the brain stem.

and imaginary quantities, a process structure which may be called a ‘mind’ with perception, ‘memory’, ‘recall’, ‘choice’, etc. would arise. It is not possible to discuss these here in any detail except to indicate some possibilities. In one type of deterministic chaos, numerical iteration of the following type of equation will generate selfsimilar objects, regardless of magnification (of say, up to two orders in biology) as already observed in fractal geometry (Mandelbrot, 1982).

x n+l = f(X,) = X,’ + c

In autocrine cells in a nucleus of the nervous system, in general and especially in idiodendritic neurones where the dendrons re-enter the nucleus, the basis of such iterations at molecular level leading to a constancy of experience is apparent.

This view should not be-taken to reduce ‘mind’ to a computer or a machine. The problems of esthetic compulsion and ‘ethical values are dis- cussed elsewhere (Mishra, 1976). The above is compatible with such appearances which seem to transcend structure and matter. Having recog-

nized ‘mind’ as a process structure we must seek the substratum which could support these.

8. Some more on area 0,

As if in answer to our demand for a suitable substratum which will biomodulate processes, sep- arate them or synthesize them for the entire range of internal or external stimuli as communicated by memory modules and stimuli originating from various areas, a plausible structure does exist. Man seems, currently in his unfinished journey for adapting to all stimuli to which he is exposed, to have developed a unique network, controlled by time. This net acts as a kaleidoscope by the simple expedient of changing thresholds for information transfer, through the agency of biomodulators. This is the ‘reticular formation’ so closely connected with sleep, and altered states of consciousness. Since the geography of thresholds is not uniform, but varied, quite generally, a lowering or increasing of the thresholds may uncover new spectra of responsivity. No wonder, taraxein, as

R.K. Mishra / BioSystems 34 (199.5) 149-160 157

. II

.

III

. IY

.

II .

YI

SP

s5

Spk Ass&. call ati. aff.

Fig. 4. Constituents of Modules postulated by Szentagothai (1975). An example showing thalamic input to 6 laminae in cortex. Assoc. call. aff., association commissural fibres; spec. aff., specific afferent fibre; S,, S,, excitory interneurons - S, localised in action; S,, inhibitory interneurons; S,, cellule a double bouquet - excitory to a pyramidal cell dendrites by cartridge synapse (possibly vertically excitory); S,, short axon is inhibitory; Se, an interneuron with ascending axon to Lamine I; Sp, stellate type pyramidal cell. Diagram based on Szentagothai (1969).

stated above a protein from the blood of schizophrenics, ablates a natural ‘drive’ resulting in the abolition of natural aggressive behaviour in Siamese fighting fish by including general depression, and LSD modifies the enthalpy of rotation of molecules in subsynaptic terminals in rat cerebrum thus allowing for widespread disorder of experience.

It is not possible to discuss here at length the precise boundaries, connections, chemistry and input and output pathways of the reticular formation which has, in addition to other functions, in general to do with states of consciousness, sleep, arousal, perception; yet it is necessary to state that it does fulfill the requirement of a hierarchical system, receiving information from diverse sources through a common network (Table l), mediated by various pools of biomodulators (Table 2).

The following features deserve mention in order to point out that sleep may be an active state of the reticular formation. This connects with all levels of the neuraxis, in the spinal cord, brain-

9.9 WBrn

??=m 9.9

??=m mmm

mm. ??

I mm mm

+-

/ / / / -I rc’

Fig. 5. Overview, from above, of layers I-VI showing cross sections of modules. Intramodular and intermolecular compaction (or rarefaction) in an electrolytic medium would change field properties at the point and induce adaptive changes elsewhere in the modular aggregates. Changes may also occur in the cluster of spines on relevant neurons (com- pare Mishra, 1969; Roland et al., 1990; Seitz et al., 1990). Left-hand coordinate system indicates compaction and the right hand dilatation.

stem and (possessing well-ordered structures) the diencephalon and in itself extends to the midbrain, pons, medualla and perhaps the olivary complex, the red nucleus (parvocellular element), substantia nigra, certain thalamic, hypothalamic, posterior commissural and interstitial nucleus, and intracerebeller nuclei. The reticular core around the central canal of the spinal cord has been described as part of it (Gray, 1990). As neu- roanatomists point out ‘how such a bewilderingly complex and fluctuating array of information channels is used to direct cooperative responses remains one of the central and most intractable problems in neurology’ (Klimer et al. and Webster quoted in Gray’s Anatomy, 38th Edn., p. 948. Churchill). It is important in connection with this communication to enumerate the structural sub- strate of one activity of the reticular formation, namely the arousal reaction and dysynchronization of the EEC. This consists of spinoreticular inputs, collaterals from ascending pathways, sen-


Table I Connections of the reticular formation (anatomic system re-

lated to an aspect of dream)

Afferent projections From: ( 1) Spinal cord - spinoreticular pathways, collaterals of long

ascending tracts (2) Cranial nerves (also includes acoustic and vestibular path-

ways) (3) Indirect via tectoreticular fibers from visual and acoustic

pathways (4) Cerebelloreticular pathways (5) Thalamus, subthalamus, hypthalamus (6) Corpus striatum (7) From sensorimoter regigns by corticofugal fibers (8) Limbic systems, septal areas, amygdaloid nucleus,

hippocampus

Efferent projections To: (1) Autonomic locomotor control centres reticulospinal stem (2) Short tracts to brain stem (3) Cerebellum (4) Red nucleus, substantia nigra and tectum (5) Nuclei in subthalamus, hypothalamus, thalamus (6) Corpus striatum (7) Neocortex: the limbic system

sory parts of cranial nerves, reticula-diencephelic projection, and possibly also the thalamostriate and pallidothalamic loops. This emphasizes (i) the network is activated by some or other activity all the time, and (ii) that increased activity of this net would make this the dominant activity and en- slave the rest. Perhaps Scheibel and Scheibel’s suggestion that network theory be applied in order to understand this random nerve network can now be done along with Haken’s principles.

Perhaps in the same sense we could speculate regarding the ‘idea’ of the center of self-identity (ego), an area otherwise named 0, in the rostra1 end of the floor of the third ventricle. This con-

Table 2

Biomodulator pools (1) Acetylcholine ~ most places (2) Catechoiaminergic - I5 groups (3) Serotonergic - 9 groups (4) Dopaminergic - 8 groups

Putative inhibitors, like GABA, and excitory ones like taurine, ascorbic acid are found, as well as metenkephaline-endorphin, Substance P for pain mechanisms has been demonstrated.

nects with all major tracts, including the collaterals for the pineal. This area coordinates all sensory and effector outputs - a representation of what we mean by ‘self’ or self identity, spread out in space and time. We speculate this as the highest element in the network dominating the order in all activity.

To establish not only neuronal but biochemical connectivity for modulating the activity of the network, rich pools of modulators exist, men- tioned above, to bring about fine electrochemical modulation of the network making a part of the network electrochemically dominant depending upon the environmental stimulus. Motor, so- matosensory, visceromoter, rhythmic, and circa- dian control of the organism are the result. Yet again, we know more and more of the endogenous electrical, and biophotonic (photogmorpho- genie) stimuli. For example, take the recent example of adaptation to wounding in a plant. If a cotylydon of a plant is wounded, it leads to electrical propagation of information to induce the proteinase-inhibitor genes (pin 1 and pin2) for protection. Others could exclude rapidly propagated hydraulic signs (100 m/s) (Roberts, 1992; Wildon et al., 1992).

While the intrinsic structures could produce these adaptive changes, states corresponding to emotions could also produce morphological sentic expression (Clynes, 1977) say, on the face. Dar- win devoted considerable attention to the muscles of facial expression. The connection of network with semiotics (sign language) bridges the sensorium with language and motor expression. The connectivity of the network establishes its contin- ual activity.

9. Conclusion

These considerations permit the notion that while sleep abrogates some aspects of responsivity, it uncovers some others and systematises much activity not otherwise outwardly manifest. Simple ionic exchanges can evoke propagated dis- turbances in the field and strength can determine entrainment. Sleep is a new phase of living system not necessarily quiescent.

R.K. Mishra / BioSystems 34 (1995) 149%160 159

Acknowledgement

The author is thankful to Dr F.A. Popp of the International Institute of Biophysics for all the help given and facilities for this work, to Dr T.P. Singh of the AIIMS, for the facilitation during the preparation of this communication, and to Dr R.W. Anderson for his understanding and pa- tience.

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constantly ‘awake’ brain and bremermann's question

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