🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec21.182154.4670@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>, dcasadon@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Donald J Casadonte) writes:
...
> This is both a hot and cold topic at the moment, in that there is a lot of
> theory and computer experimentation, but little emperical proof from humans or
> higher vertebrates.  Chaos has been implicated in everything from sense of
> smell to schizophrenia in the human brain.  Brain and Behavior Science spends a
> lot of time arguing about these topics.  There is a lot of solid work on
> dynamical systems applied to neurobiology, but not a lot yet on chaos, in my
> opinion.

There is some long-forgotten work using "noise" in a neural system (vertibrate
[dog]) as the basis for building a quantized model of the adrenocortical
feedback control system.  I don't have the cite at hand, but authors include
Donald S. Gann, James Schoeffler, and Lee Ostrander.  Perhaps the first article
was in a volume edited by Mijalo Mesarovic, Proc. of the Nth Systems Syposium,
Cleveland, Ohio, 196X.

The work is/was important in that this may be the first time that a computer
model told the physiologists where to look for a previously-undiscovered neural
pathway (a connection between the median eminance of the hypothalamus and the
adrenal cortex).  Several years later, thanks to horseradish peroxidase, this
pathway was identified and confirmed physiologically.

Dr. Gann is, at last information, now chairing the Department of Surgery at
Brown University.

<OPINION MODE ON>
It seems that the chaos-focussed researchers can't see the forest for the
trees.  The "chaos" that is enamoured for its inherent "beauty" may, in fact,
be conveying a set of signals bearing important information for the control of
some neural process.  Decoding the "chaos" that bears the message is likely to
be less than fruitful  ...  the key is the range of the variation in the
information borne by the "chaos".
<OPINION MODE OFF>

Robin Lake
BP Research
lake@rcwcl1.dnet.bp.com