I have referred to my blog, “Waves in Our Brains,” Part Two, several times since it was posted on October 3, 2020. I invite your review of it to refresh your understanding of dualist interactionism between the immaterial mind and the material synaptic networks of the human brain. In that blog I referenced an important and exciting study that provides compelling confirmation of this interaction. I am copying the work of the authors of that study here that I summarized in that blog. It will serve as the basis for my subsequent blogs that will expand on their findings. My research continues investigating how the mind exerts an energy expressed as wave forms that transmit information through synaptic networks of the brain within linguistic neural codes.
THE NEURAL CODES OF OVERT AND COVERT SPEECH
THROUGH PART TWO OF THIS BLOG REFERENCES HAVE BEEN MADE TO COGNITION, ATTENTION AND INTENT, AND WE HAVE SEEN THAT WAVES ARE TRANSMITTED INTRINSICALLY THROUGH NEURAL NETWORKS TO BRING ABOUT SPECIFIC FUNCTIONS SUCH AS TO MOVE AN EXTREMITY. WHAT IS LEFT IS TO ADDRESS THE QUESTION RAISED ABOVE, HOW DOES THE IMMATERIAL MIND RELATE TO THESE PROCESSES IN A DUALIST INTERACTION? DOES THE HUMAN MIND GENERATE WAVES EXTRINSIC TO THE BRAIN ITSELF THAT CAN ACT CAUSALLY ON IT? STEPHANIE MARTIN AND EIGHT COWORKERS PUBLISHED AN ARTICLE IN FRONTIERS IN NEUROENGINEERING THAT ADDRESSES THIS QUESTION WITH EXCITING FINDINGS. (17) I CONCLUDE THIS BLOG WITH A DISCUSSION OF THEIR FINDINGS.
THE MODEL USED WAS ECOG IN SEVEN EPILEPTIC PATIENTS WHO PERFORMED AN OUT LOUD AND SILENT READING TASK. SUBJECTS READ SHORT STORIES THAT WERE PRESENTED TO THEM BOTH ALOUD AND SILENTLY. A HIGH GAMMA (70-150 HZ) NEURAL DECODING MODEL WAS BUILT “TO RECONSTRUCT SPECTROTEMPORAL AUDITORY FEATURES OF SELF-GENERATED OVERT SPEECH.” THE DECODING MODEL TRAINED FROM OVERT, SPOKEN SPEECH WAS USED TO DECODE THE NEURAL ACTIVITY OF COVERT, SILENTLY READ SPEECH (WHICH DID NOT INVOLVE AUDITORY SENSORY INPUT, ONLY INPUT FROM MENTATION!). SPECTROGRAMS WERE GENERATED IN CONTROLS AND IN SUBJECTS WHO USED OVERT AND COVERT SPEECH TO RECONSTRUCT NEURAL RESPONSES WITH A HIGH STATISTICAL ACCURACY. EVIDENCE WAS PROVIDED THAT SHOWED THAT REPRESENTATIONS OF OVERT AND COVERT SPEECH COULD BE RECONSTRUCTED SHARING A NEURAL SUBSTRATE. IN OTHER WORDS, OUT LOUD SPEECH AND READ TEXT COULD BE RECONSTRUCTED IN NEURAL NETWORKS MONITORED VIA ECOG. NO WIRES CONNECTED THE TEST SUBJECTS TO THE CORTICAL MONITORS, INDICATING THAT THE CEREBRAL NETWORK RESPONDED TO WAVES GENERATED BY THE MIND OF THE TEST SUBJECTS. THE HIGH GAMMA BAND RELIABLY TRACKED NEURONAL ACTIVITY AND CORRELATED WITH THE SPIKE RATE OF THE UNDERLYING NEURAL POPULATION. THE KEY TEST OF RECONSTRUCTIVE ACCURACY, ACCORDING TO THE AUTHORS, WAS THE ABILITY TO USE THE RECONSTRUCTION TO IDENTIFY SPECIFIC SPEECH UTTERANCES. THIS WAS POSSIBLE ESPECIALLY FOR OVERT SPEECH.