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Consciousness and the Brain

Interview with Rodolfo Llinás

Conducted by Sérgio Strejilevich, MD

"The brain is not a sausage...it is more like a well tuned musical instrument". R.

Llinás.

Llinás is one of the strongest defenders of the "cerebrality" of the human mind.

For this reason, by comparing the human brain to a musical instrument, he

makes a 180 degrees turnabout in his position, if we wish to be dramatic, fromwhich it will be hard to extricate himself. It is not only a metaphorical question

or a question of form. His thalamo-cortical theory of the human consciousness

adapts easily and flexibly to this analogy, originating multiple possibilities for

new models.

Rodolfo Llinás, was born and graduated in medicine in Colombia, and is

currently the Chairman of the Department of Physiology and Neurosciences of the School of Medicine of the New York University. He came to Buenos Aires for

the World Congress of Neurology and delivered a high-impact lecture in the

School of Medicine on his favorite theory, philosophy of the mind and other

flavors. An audience composed for the most part by students of Exact Sciences

witnessed as this researcher's histrionics survived to an "attack" by the clunky

old projector of our School. It served as the basis for what we listened as a strong

and direct bet on the biological theories of the mind and consciousness. Betweenthis event and the congress, we pursued Llinás to discuss all these matters.



S. Strejilevich. You compared the operation of the brain with that of a musical

instrument. Well then, but musical instruments have developed in intimate

agreement with the manner that its sounds and tuning were set, and this led

many times to dramatic changes in the form of playing them and in itsperformance. A classic example is that of the clavier – the predecessor of the

piano - before and after the "Well Tempered Clavier" composed by Bach. Could

we play with the idea of changes in the configuration of the consciousness

through the evolutionary process?

R. Llinás: I understand your question in two senses, structural and functional.

Structurally we should understand that one cannot think that the human brain is

different from the brain of the other vertebrates. It is an important question,

because we can investigate what is the difference between the brain of a mouse

and ours, and of course the difference is enormous, in size and capacity. But if we

look at the microscopic anatomy of a system such as the thalamo-cortical system

(which generates consciousness) the difference disappears, because they have

the same types of cells in both cases. Then we know that the difference exists in

the complexity of the circuits, but not necessarily in its general architecture

(shacks as well palaces as have a roof!). But if we look at the function, the

situation is different. The brain, similarly to musical instruments, has great

emergent properties. Remember that there used to be strings that one could not

play in the old strings instruments, called "sympathetic chords", which were

inside the instrument. I have suggested that this has happened inside the brain

when it evolved. There is an enormous number of "sympathetic" chords that

increase the cerebral capacity and that make our internal resonances more

complex. This is the richness of the human brain, because the specific areas of

the cerebral cortex are possibly the same in a monkey and in the human being,

but the sympathetic chords are not. The association cortex, the indirect

connections, are the features which really make us different from other animals.

In particular, the capacity to imagine new things (our ideas or imaginations) of

pieces of things, or of properties of the external world, is that allows us to invent

things that don't exist. We began by using bones of animals as weapons and by

using the same process we got to invent the television or the space satellites.



S.A.S.: Very well, but those same characteristics that you assign to us would give

a greater flexibility to the human brain in relation to the way of organizing these

emergent properties. But leaving the musical analogy apart, for example, J.Jaynes in "The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

" proposes that our consciousness, before the Greek culture, was organized in

such way that the people truly dialogued with their own voices. Will we be able

in the future to organize in a different way our conscious instrument?

R. Llinás: The different political systems, religions and social habits demonstrate

that the same brain can be tuned in different manners. But the tuning capacity is

limited. We can never feel as a jaguar, for example. We can imagine a man who

believes or who intends to be a jaguar, but to intend is not the same as to be. We

can have other ideologies, but we will continue restricted by the nature of our

brain and of our body.

S.A.S.: You mentioned in your lecture the fact that consciousness seems to result

in some way from an interaction between the thalamo-cortical scanning activity

and the incoming stimuli from the environment. If we explore in more depth this

proposal, we could get explanatory models for the action of some psychoactive

drugs. For example, we could say that neuroleptics act as filters or "gates",

impeding the generation of those interactions or resonances that could be

present in the structure of some psychotic symptoms. What possibility do you

see in these analogies?

R. Llinás: Definitely this seems to be the reality. And that not only from the point

of view of neuroleptics, where the thalamo-cortical function can be changed, in

the sense of "let's play another music" which is in better agreement with the

external world (cheerful when it is sunny, sad when it rains) and not the

continually sad music of the depressive or the continually cheerful music of the

maniac. Besides, it changes in the parkinsonian or in the individual who has

epilepsy of the "petit mal" type, also called epileptic absence. About this we know



enough. We have discovered a large part of the biophysics of this type of activity

in terms of its neural basis.

S.A.S.: What role would you ascribe to memory as an underlying mechanism of consciousness?

R. Llinás: Well, that is a different situation. Here we no longer see the evolution

of the nervous system, but that of a certain individual. The role of the memory is

very important but... not as important as we believe. Most of the important

things that we do don't depend on memory. To hear, to see, to touch, to feel

happiness and pain; these are functions which are independent of memory; it is

an a priori thing. Thus, for me, what memory does is to modify that a priori thing,

and this it does in a very profound way. But we cannot learn how not to

recognize the differences between green and red. What we can learn is to change

its sensibility (for example, that orange color is too red to paint an orange fruit)

or its meaning (red, stop; green, proceed). We are two-legged omnivorous

animals, and this means that we have many ecological niches, regarding the

possible places where we can live. Therefore, we have to adapt to these different

environments and we cannot predict, in a generic way, in which type of world we

are going to live (cold as the North Pole or hot as Congo). Those parameters,

which are the ones that change in the external world, give us the indication what

type of memories we should have (for example, a seal should be killed with a

harpoon and a tiger with an arrow). The most precious example is that of the

phonemes of the human language. Everyone of us was born with the capacity to

understand and to speak all and any of the human languages, but as time passes,

we simply specialize in one or a few languages, and are unable to hear some

phonemes of other languages (the boy who learned how to speak only in

Japanese or Chinese, when he becomes adult is unable to hear the difference

between "L"s and "R"s and they say "clazy" instead of "crazy").

S.A.S.: Since we spoke about language, do you believe that its evident "narrative"

style is a fundamental part of consciousness? To what extent does the peculiarity



of the human linguistic module in generating continuously inferences about facts

participate in the structure of our consciousness?

R. Llinás: Language changes only those aspects of our consciousness which arebased on information, but not the feelings themselves. The words are as stones

that can cause wounds or as caresses that becalm and that guide us, but the

content of consciousness is intrinsic. It is the same as with a suite of playing

cards: we have a finite number of cards, but we can combine them and produce

an infinite number of hands, but the "ace of hearts" will always be an "ace of

hearts". The values don't change, only the place where we place them.

S.A.S.: Are the instinctive theories of language in the line of Chomsky's or

Pinker's well adjusted to your ideas and do they contribute in some way to

them?

R. Llinás: Chomsky is a good friend of mine, and in spite of this, I agree with

many of his ideas. In particular, the idea of functional modules in the brain and

its genetic pre-specification is in accordance to what I think.

S.A.S.: You recently wrote a book with Patricia Smith Churchland titled "The

Mind-Brain Continuum". Do you believe that there is somehow a "remodeling" of

the Cartesian dualism when one thinks about these subjects in terms of mind-

brain relationships?

R. Llinás: The book is actually a collection of papers, but the title "mind-brain

continuum" was suggested by me, because all its authors are cradle-to-grave

monists, just like me.

S.A.S.: How emergent properties fit in this landscape?

R. Llinás: They don't present any problem. Emergent properties are what we

usually call physics. Atoms combine among themselves and produce water; cells

combine among themselves and produce the brain.



S.A.S.: You surely know Daniel Dennett's works. What opinion deserve the mind

models proposed by this philosopher?

R. Llinás: In fact, I know him well and personally. Dennett has fallen in love with

artificial intelligence and I think that the content of his books doesn't deserve the

titles that he gave them. When he says to me "Consciousness Explained", I will

think that, in exchange for a certain amount of money and some hours of reading,

Dennett will give me an explanation, but the only thing that he tells me is "what I

don't know". That book should be called "Consciousness Unexplained" or " How

to Bore the Public ".

S.A.S.: Since we have touched the topic of artificial intelligence: do you believe

that the contact between the human brain and computers, and the virtual spaces

generated by them are gradually modifying our consciousness?

R Llinás: Definitely. To such an extent that some people prefer to see the game in

the television than to go to the stadium. With virtual reality this will go to be

worse, but at the end the "real" reality will win, because a virtual meal is not the

same thing as a real one!

S.A.S.: How do you believe that this restructuring of the "concept of ourselves",

which implies a greater knowledge about the mechanisms of consciousness will

have a broad impact the social relationships, political structures, etc.?

R. Llinás: This is a very important issue. Imagine if we didn't have a soul, that

there exists no heaven and no hell. Then, how could we appreciate life and why

would we respect it? However, there are some people who don't respect it, even

when they accept that life has a "second chapter" after earthly existence. But,

what if this doesn't exist? I believe that we would be better individuals; we

would appreciate life more, we would respect it more. This is my point of view.



S.A.S.: How could we reconcile the fact that, at least in the case of the United

States, all those progresses in the concepts and philosophical-scientific

knowledge about our brain and consciousness are accompanied by an important

increase in the belief on mystic and religious ideas by the public in general?

R. Llinás: I think that this increase in the interest for mystic ideas has something

to do with a dichotomy between the well-educated and the not well-educated

groups. The well-educated people have less desire for magic solutions than the

not so well educated. But the speed of generation of new knowledge is so high

that for many people it seems much easier to hide behind something that solves

everything, than to have to try to fight with the knowledge that has been growing

in an incredible way. For this reason, I think that is some kind of social defense.

Now, I don't know what will be the end of this seesaw movement. I have been

hearing that the 21st century will be religious or not... I don't know.

S.A.S.: At least in psychiatry this is producing already what we could call "the

consequences of the Cartesian thought for the clinic". For example, patients who

are submitted to lithium therapy suffer from important subjective ruptures

when they try to reconcile the incredible effect of this metal with their

paradigms concerning themselves. Wouldn't possibly this situation being helped

by a certain ideological delay on the part of the clinical neuroscientists?

R. Llinás: Yes, above all in psychiatry. There are powerful schools in psychiatry

which do not wish the changes to happen. It is a pity, because many of them are

dying off due to this absence of changes, and biological psychiatry is increasing

in an exponential way. Psychiatry branches with a psychotherapeutical bent are

already dying out, and I believe that the professionals who are practicing

psychotherapy should know that sometimes a word to the patient is equivalent

to an injection of a drug. What we have to do is to translate the meanings of these

words and those ideas into concepts, which are more concretely related to the

Neurosciences.



S.A.S.: Why do you think that we have to develop more neuroscientific

knowledge in Latin American countries?

R. Llinás: The future of human relationships will be directly related to thecerebral functions. For this reason it is already a fundamental thing. In the past,

and well until today, some South American countries have had a great

neuropharmacological history, since the natives' times. It is necessary that we

remind ourselves of the many licit and illicit drugs that were generated in our

continent and that act on the brain. We have to remember the incredible

histories with coffee, chocolate, etc. On the other hand, the Neurosciences do not

exist exclusively to understand man's nature. They also serve a social function,

such as in the treatment of the cerebral diseases or when helping us to have a

more pleasant and constructive life. It is a thing that one could explore well.

Glossary

The following is an explanation of several of the words, concepts, institutions

and words used in this interview. Additional pointers to resources available on

the Internet are given, so that the interested reader may explore them further.

A priori

A thing or concept which exists before the one we are considering; also: an

intrinsic, integral or inherent component of something. In Latin: "from former"

Artificial Intelligence

A branch of computer sciences which studies the theory and practice of artificial

systems that imitate human perception and reasoning in a machine. Many are

based on the formal grammar theories developed by Chomsky. See the AI's FAQs

Association cortex

Parts of the cerebral cortex which receive input from the sensorial cortices

(vision, hearing, etc.) and which associate, integrate and process them in higher

order mental functions.

Biological Psychiatry



A branch of psychiatry which studies mental disorders from the point of view of

biological (neural and hormonal) causation, and treat them accordingly. See the

Society of Biological Psychiatry home page

Cartesian dualismIt refers to the philosophical position championed by René Descartes (1596-

1650), French mathematician and philosopher, which states that brain and mind

are two distinct and irreducible principles, and that mind cannot be explained by

the brain alone. See: Brain Project's Extracts from René Descartes' Philosophical

Analysis of the Mind and the Brain.

Cerebral cortex

The part of the brain which covers the two hemispheres of the encephalon. It is

composed by a thin and convoluted layer of gray matter (a high proportion of

cell bodies). In higher vertebrates and in humans it is responsible for voluntary

motor control, perception of most of the senses, cognition, and many other so-

called higher functions of the brain. See "The External Architecture of the Brain"

(Brain & Mind Magazine)

Chomsky

Noam Chomsky (1928- ), renowned American intellectual, MIT professor and

linguist, who proposed theories of organization and representation of language.

He revolutionized the study of languages with his theory of generative

grammars. See his official home page

"Consciousness Explained"

The title of a bestseller book by author Daniel Dennett, which discusses theories

of consciousness and how they relate to the mind, from the point of view of the

cognitive sciences. See the book advertisement

Daniel Dennett

Daniel Dennett is Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences and Director of

the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University in Massachusetts. He is a

leading contemporary author and wrote two bestseller books, Consciousness

Explained (1993) and Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1996). See his official home

page.

Emergent properties



The term refers to properties or behaviors which arise in a system as a result of

the interactions among its constituent elements, thus being more than the simple

sum of individual contributions. For example, computation is an emergent

property of neural networks. Complex systems usually show emergent properties. See On Complexly Organised Systems and Consciousness, by Stephen

Jones (The Brain Project)

Lithium Therapy

Lithium carbonate salts have been introduced succesfully to treat depressive and

manic depressive disorders. Its main use is to control mania and stabilize mood

swings. See Pendulum's Resources: Lithium Therapy

Monists

Used by Llinás as the opposite of "dualists", i.e., those who defend the Cartesian

dualism hypothesis. Modern monists believe in a brain-mind continuum, and

that behavior, the mind and its properties and manifestations are nothing more

than the expression of a complex biological system. i.e., the nervous system.

However, monism refers more properly to a philosophical school started in the

18th century which believes that all phenomena may be explained by one

unifying principle or as the manifestation of a single substance (mind, energy,

deity, etc.). See the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy

Neuroleptics

Chemical substances which have an affinity for, or action on the nervous system.

In Greek: "nerve seizing".

Parkinsonian

A person who suffers from Parkinson's disease, a progressive neurodegenerative

disorder characterized by lesions on certain regions of the brain which control

movement (basal ganglia). See Harvard University Parkinson's Web

Patricia Smith Churchland

A philosopher and renowned author of many books specializing on

"neurophilosophy", i.e., philosophical matters related to the current knowledge

amassed by the neurosciences and its relation to cognitive sciences, artificial

intelligence, etc. See her official home page

Petit mal epilepsy



A form of nervous seizures, characterized by frequent but transient lapses of

consciousness and only rare spasms or falling. It occurs mainly in children and

adolescents. In French: "small disease"

PinkerSteven Pinker, a MIT psychologist and professor (Department of Brain and

Cognitive Sciences), specializing in empirical studies of linguistic behavior and

theoretical analyses of the nature of language and its relation to mind and brain.

He is the celebrated author of a bestseller, "The Language Instinct". See his

official home page

Psychoactive drugs

Chemical substances which act on the brain and affect behavior and the mind.

They are usually employed to treat mental or psychic disorders and

dysfunctions, but may be also used as substances of abuse.

Thalamo-cortical system

A functional and anatomical system in the brain, responsible for the interaction

between sensory stimuli coming from the peripheral organs and the cortex

(primary and associational). Among its many functions, current hypothesis

ascribe to it a fundamental role in the maintenance and control of the states of

arousal, awareness, sleep, dreaming and consciousness.

Virtual Reality

An immersive computerized interface system which creates a highly realistic

interactive environment by means of stereoscopic visual displays with

computer-generated imagery and sensors for head and hand position and

movement; coupled together by special software. See Yahoo's VR section

Other articles: Consciousness. Jorge Martins de Oliveira, MD, Brain & Mind

Magazine.

Who is Rodolfo Llinás

Dr. Rodolfo Llinas, MD, PhD, is the Thomas and Suzanne Murphy Professor in

Neuroscience of the New York University School of Medicine. He received his

medical education at the Universidad Javeriana, in Bogota, Colombia (1959) and



his graduate education (Ph.D in Neuroscience) at the Australian National

University, in Canberra (1965), under the supervision of John Eccles (Nobel prize

in Medicine in Physiology). Dr. Llinas was a also postdoctoral research fellow in

the Stanley Cobb Laboratory, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard MedicalSchool from 1960-61. He held a NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship while working in

the Department of Physiology of the University of Minnesota, 1961-63, and was a

Research Scholar in the Department of Physiology of the Institute of Advanced

Studies at the Australian National University from 1963-65. The MEDLINE

bibliographical database lists 212 research papers bearing his authorship, on

May 1998.

Dr Llinás research pertains mostly to neuroscience from the molecular to the

cognitive level:

intrinsic electrophysiological properties of mammalian neurons in vitro

ionic channels, sodium and calcium currents and their distribution in different

cell types

the role of calcium conductance in synaptic transmission (concept of calcium

microdomains)

cerebellar control of movement and thalamocortical connectivity in brain slices

and isolated wholebrain preparations

ionic-concentration-dependent imaging techniques

computer-based mathematical models

thalamocortical interaction and functional mapping in the human brain

noninvasive magnetoencephalography.

Home Page of Rodolfo Linás: http://www.med.nyu.edu/people/R.Llinas.html

Representative Publications

Llinás R. The intrinsic electrophysiological properties of mammalian neurons:

Insights into central nervous system function. Science 242:1654-1664, 1988

[MEDLINE abstract]



Llinás R, Sugimori M, Lin J-W and Cherksey B. Blocking and isolation of the

calcium channel from neurons in mammals and cephalopods utilizing the toxin

fraction (FTX) from funnel-web spider poison. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 86:1689-

1693, 1989Llinás R, Sugimori M and Silver RB. Microdomains of high calcium concentration

in the terminal presynaptic. Science 256:677-679, 1992

Llinás R and Ribary U. Coherent 40-Hz oscillation characterizes dream state in

humans. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 90:2078-2081, 1993 [MEDLINE abstract]

Llinás R, Sugimori M, Lang EJ, Morita M, Fukuda M, Ninobe M and Mikoshiba M.

The inositol high-polyphosphate seriates blocks synaptic transmission by

preventing vesicular fusion: A squid giant synapse study. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA

91:12990-12993, 1994

Hund M, Rezai A, Kronberg E, Cappell J, Ribary, U and Llinas R. MEG-mapping:

Basis of a new functional risk-profile (FRP) in the selection of patients with

cortical brain lesions. Neurosurgery, Vol. 40, No. 5 p 936-943

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