TODO.md

Todo:

Midterm questions: control, contrast questions with specific examples seemed hard.

• Ch 1 link to this: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/12/rich-people-happy-money/577231/

• Ch 2 pantheism -> polytheism for japanese shinto, roman

Ch 3: Neuroscience

• neuro methods figures from _science slides

• Neuromodulator = broadcast signal like radio, other non-neuromdodulators like glutamate are individual conversations between neurons.. also emphasize neuromodulator is a subset of neurotransmitter.

• threshold, spiking: show figure, talk more about that

I am still unsure about what emergent properties mean and how the gears illustrate the property?

I am still unsure about the definitions of the terms “transcends” and combinatorial explosion.

“the pattern of its synaptic connections determines what a given neuron detects, and thus, ultimately, what the brain knows.” is kind of confusing to understand.

the `equipotential system, operating according to some kind of mass action principle '' is kind of confusing to understand.

“The cerebellum deals with very fast online motor control at the scale of milliseconds, whereas the basal ganglia is more involved in the slower outer loop of deciding which of various possible motor plans to actually execute”. What does a “slower outer loop” mean?

The core BIOS brain areas are kind of hard to grasp. What exactly is it?

Page 36 of pdf myriad is used and im not sure a lot of people know that word i know i don’t and it isn’t in the glossary page 39”: The neuron is a cell, and, despite its long tendrils, it has a cell body like other more compact kinds of cells, where the nucleus and other cellular machinery hangs out” what does cellular machinery hangs out? that part isn’t making a whole lot of sense page 39 : “s, including alcohol and valium” give brief description of what valium is bc i have no clue what that is. page 40:” Thus, your brain runs primarily on table salt: N aCl, dissolved in water — we carry the ancient ocean around in our heads!” I’m not sure if I’m taking this too literally but is that why as humans we require salt in our diet? If so maybe add that detail in there page 41: “Likewise, neurons are constantly comparing themselves against their peers, and all of the spiking going on in your brain is therefore always relative to these peer-standards.” If our neurons do this does that explain why we do this? if so add that. page 46 “These purkinje neurons are truly amazing things, receiving over 100,000 different synaptic inputs “ what does purkinje mean

I think the gear example could be explained better because it took me a while to get

There is a typo on page 40 where it talks about contrast or relativity it says “Excitation could bep relatively weak,”. The be has a p at the end

• Why are there two detector neuron figures that go in opposite directions? (pages 37 and 38). Is there a reason that Figure 3.2 has to be upright or could it be the same direction as Figure 3.4? Wouldn't it be better to use the one on Page 38 both times and just switch out the names? That way, both diagrams go the same direction (so it's easier to connect them together and/or remember them) and since we read up to down, we read the diagram as input --> output instead of output --> input [basically what I'm saying that the readability is better when you use the second diagram because it visualizes the order of events in the same way we read things]

• By the way Figure 3.5 is done, it looks like the "size" of excitation never exceeds that of inhibition. Is that true? It's mentioned later that if the excitation super exceeds that of inhibition, it can cause someone an epileptic seizure, I would've liked to see that as a last visual and its cause explained in Fig. 3.5 as well

I would recommend adding diagrams and pictures of the membranes of neuron cells and their charge distribution -- intracellular and extracellular. Possibly a picture that conveys the + charges on the outside and - charges on the inside. This will allow the reader to get a better understanding of what depolarization and repolarization means and the significance of negative ions being inhibitory and + ions being excitatory. Seeing a picture will help greatly.

I would also recommend talking about K+ ions and their importance regarding repolarizing the membrane potential. This will answer the question as to why electrical charges only flow one way.

I can understand for simplicity sake, but going in depth will allow the reading to understand a lot more.

I would also recommend to add where the Striatum (basal ganglia) is on the diagram on page 43. I was unclear exactly what the Stratum is and if it is the entire Basal Ganglia or just part of it.

I really wanted to say great job on the analogies. The analogies I think are my favorite things in the textbook. The Tug-a-War, Jello brain, and LEGOS analogies are super helpful. The more analogies the better.

Overall, this chapter was a bit more difficult to read compared to the previous chapters. I believe that this is due to how much information is given in this chapter about neurons, brain structures, and functions. I know that the brain is complex and so the information will not be concise and simple for most of the time, however, I have a suggestion that might help future students. I think it would be helpful to know what exactly we as students in the course need to pay especially attention to. I know that all of the information is important to create the “big picture” and the bolded terms help to know what topics we should know. I am saying this because I mostly took notes based on the important functions of the various structures of the brain and how they work together but I was left wondering if I should take more detailed notes about certain pathways or processes. It would be helpful to know what students should pay especially attention to for the upcoming quizzes and for overall success in creating the “big picture” of it all. The summary of key terms at the end of the chapters is very helpful to study important topics but I am still wondering if we should have a clear and detailed picture of structures and functions in the brain or if it could be a bit more general. A suggestion would be to include a few sentences in the beginning of the chapters that contain a lot of information stating key concepts that students should understand clearly. The summary before starting the actual brain organization section where you wrote to make sure we know how compression and contrast function to be able to understand the rest of the textbook was very helpful.

The whole thing about tug-o-war wasn’t clear to me. I don’t particularly get what is being tugged and why. Does a neuron receives both Na+ and Cl- ion signals, and it goes back and forth between them before ultimately letting only one pass through, or is it something different? I also didn’t understand the tug-o-war diagram and the explanation about their relative size and strength. I’m also confused about how the hypothalamus work and how it is different from the amygdala. Besides these two things, I think the main reason they seem so confusing to me was that the examples are pretty tricky to understand. It would have been far easier to comprehend if more fun and practical examples were used. For instance, when you talk about the brain being an interconnective system, I think it would be more fun to use a group of household moms as an example. Like the brain, each mom is doing something different like taking care of her kids, cleaning, or working; but collectively, they all get together to gossip and forms a network of what drama is going on in the neighborhood. The example isn’t 100% accurate to how the brain works, but it is much easier to visualize than imagine gears and complex systems. Plus, it’s a funny example.

Page 36: The text says that neurons receive 10,000 inputs but it does not give a time frame. Is this per second? Minute? A lifetime? It is unclear.

Page 37: The italicized phrase "positive electrical potential" needs to be defined.

Page 38: Adding a photo of the axon structures including myelin and glial cells would be great! I am having a hard time visualizing it.

Page 43: The neocortex is called "the most important part of the brain." This is subjective and does not fit. I would say something like "where higher-level thinking takes place" or "the most advanced part of the brain" instead.

Page 44: The amygdala is called a "nucleus." What does that mean? A definition would be beneficial.

Page 50: A metaphor comparing the parts of the brain working together to a business or an organization is hinted at but it would be very helpful to visualize the brain working with its parts if this metaphor were expanded. I would add something about how each part of the brain represents a part of a business and how working together, they can create something new.

Page 51: How is compression related to the hierarchy of detectors in the brain?

Page 52: What are the benefits of seeing spatial vs temporal resolutions in neuroimaging?

Critique: This text is very content dense, as a result of its brevity. While I truly appreciate this style of text (as it doesn't take me four hours to read a chapter), perhaps some sort of repetition is in order. For example, if there is a key point, maybe it should be restated in the following paragraph where it ties into the topic again. Perhaps you've already done this and I missed it or haven't come across it yet, but that is definitely something I'd like to see.

In reference to the descriptions of each part of the brain: I think many people would find it helpful to have a single bland image of the brain that is present next to each description of the parts of the brain. Then, for each corresponding description, that part of the brain could would be the only labeled part of the little image. This would help "put a face to the name" so-to-speak.

Finally, I would like to build off on your idea of this textbook being a story. I LOVE this idea, however there is one flaw I have found. Being that students are reading this story, you must know we cant read and digest it all at once. That being the case, I would find it really helpful to have a brief recap of the important topics from the prior chapter in a format similar to:

"Ch 3: Neuroscience

Last chapter, we covered_____________. This relates to our next subject because ________. Now, we are going to shift gears over to _________ where we discuss how ___________. "

I know a similar effect could be achieved by skimming the following chapter but in reality many people aren't going to do that, and a short paragraph of this fashion would be very helpful to link this story together.

The only part of the chapter that in my opinion could have been better explained was the image about hierarchical organization.

On page 36, you stated that "each [neuron] interacts with so many other neurons (receiving roughly 10,000 inputs and sending a similar number of outputs." When I read this, I interpreted it completely wrong! Of course, you corrected me later on in the text, but in this instance, if you want to make the statement more specific, I think it's important to state that each input is unique, and that the neuron produces only one output, which it broadcasts to 10,000 other neurons.

I'm having trouble remembering all of the relationship between the different parts of brain from just reading text. It would really be helpful to have more basic illustrations such as Venn-diagrams, tables (like the one on page 45), or just some circles with arrows to demonstrate this sort of information.

Perhaps an even more helpful way to do this would be to number order the steps. For example on the chapter 3 quiz there was a question on the order in which the electric signal travels through a neuron. While this is a simple question, the chapter does not really state this head on and I had to look back and read throughout the detailed text to find such a simple answer.

On page 39, mentioning multiple sclerosis as one of the "various disorders that involve the degeneration of this myelin" only adds to the confusion of all the scientific terms you've suddenly thrown out. Especially with the diagrams, which are extremely helpful and useful, I'd personally prefer to keep unnecessary information (information not pertaining to the definition of these new terms) to another chapter until we familiarize ourselves with the material.

There isn't much to say in this chapter, given that most of the material was defining parts of the brain and their functions, which was done moderately well, if not in a condensed manner. I would have appreciated if the chapter were more spread out, so that I would have time to comprehend it, possibly with additional examples, but overall, I think it was relatively easy to understand despite the sudden influx of new terms.

On page 51, however, I feel that the neuroscience methods section and the Functional Neuroimaging: fMRI, PET, EEG, MEG should have been placed in a different chapter. As it is, this information feels shoved in and out of place in chapter three, which focused on the brain and its functions rather than the techniques and machines that are used to figure out these functions.

Maybe emphasize the difference between the thalamus and the hypothalamus. They have very distinct roles, but the similar naming is confusing for new students. Basically anything to help memorize the load of vocab and associated concepts would be a good addition.

Page 37, "Synapses (line 6): I think the sentence does not sound right "positive electrical potential in...". It could maybe be reworded differently

Page 36, first paragraph in "tug-a-war": I think it should be reworded differently to simplify what the two major classes of synaptic inputs are. When I read it, I was not sure what the two major classes were.

Page 41, paragraph 1: It was a good example, as it was straight to the point

Page 51, paragraph 1: I think sentence 3 should be simplified into simple steps "Thus, by building..."

Page 51, "Neuroscience methods": I think this is an unnecessary paragraph as it takes away the topic sentence of the next paragraph.

1. The bold part of this sentence just sounded a little weird and was a little confusing to follow: "The basic machinery is chemical and electrical, but the bottom line is: how strongly do the input signals to a given neuron excite it?"

I think a way to improve the text for this chapter in the textbook would be to add a table displaying all the roles of each part of the brain. For example, all of the information that is in page 43 to 47 can be summarized in a table. The table can include the name of the different parts (hypothalamus, cerebellum, hippocampus, etc.) and then what their main roles/functions are. It can also include what part of the components in the brain (frontal, temporal, occipital, parietal) it belongs in. I think having a table like this in the textbook will make the content a lot easier to understand and visualize.

The connection to social media in the last sentence of the middle paragraph on page 41 is pretty random because it’s just one sentence. I would either remove it or add more to it.

How is the cerebral cortex the most important part of the brain if you just said that all parts are equally important just some get more credit than others like the quarterback on the football team analogy.

It could be an idea to include real pictures of neurons and the different lobes of the brain. It is just a suggestion, and I do like the inclusion of the images that further explain some of that processes that occur in the brain as well.

I found these really long sentences in pages 36 PP 6, 39 PP 3, 43 PP2, 44 PP3, & 45 PP1.

"The cerebellum deals with very fast online motor control at the scale of milliseconds, whereas the basal ganglia is more involved in the slower outer loop of deciding which of various possible motor plans to actually execute. Thus, the basal ganglia typically acts first to select the motor plan, and then the cerebellum takes over and ensures that the selected plan is executed to the best of your ability." These sentences are a little hard to read together because they seemed like they contradicted each other when I first read them.

For example, there's a part that draws a parallel between the frontal cortex and Mad Men, but you could've just said like Shark Tank or literally just used an analogy of a sales pitch instead of using this outdated reference.

Finally, the hierarchal organization section was a mess to read. There's so many words thrown around everywhere that it doesn't really mean anything altogether unless you actually sit down and try to take the time to make sense of each word one-by-one. The thing about it is you explained this hierarchal organization really well in the lecture, but in the textbook it's so vague and messy and hard to understand. Add a small analogy while you're at it; I think that would also help tremendously.

• I am lost at how or where the numbers came from and how that is supposed to help me understand combinatorial explosion (pg. 36)
• I don’t know if you went over it elsewhere in the chapter or the textbook, but what’s so significant or why is it necessary for the binding to “accurately reflect the spiking rate of the sending neuron” (pg. 37)
• Is there a reason you use the word spike throughout the chapter instead of signal. I found that to be confusing when you wrote about the axon because I thought of it more as a signal or do you mean it as like an electrical signal? Maybe choose one or debrief on what your meaning is in this portion (pg. 39)
• Did you mean to put for example at the end of the sentence of the 2nd to last paragraph on pg. 46? I just don’t think it reads correctly.
• Typo in Parietal section on pg. 48 where it says, “its position betwixt the occipital and frontal lobes”
• Another example that comes to mind when reading the frontal section was how maximizing the reward / to the cost is similar to how animals in nature have to think about what creatures they will consume to minimize the energy they spend capturing, killing, and digesting it in comparison to the energy consumption and nutrients animal will receive from their dinner. There’s a direct correlation there and I think it might be another way for people to realize that neuroscience and psychology also has an affect on nature in ways we don’t always think about (bottom of pg. 48)
• I like when you tell what we will be focusing on and I found there was no focus in the top paragraph of pg. 51. I got confused and needed more explaining or an example here to connect it in my brain. I didn’t understand what was so significant or important to take from that paragraph regarding the section on Hierarchies.

The specific parts that I could not bring myself to understand were the sections: “Simple Neurons Make Complex Work” and “The Tug-of-War in Your Brain”. A change I would suggest, now that I am thinking about it, is the captions to the figures (images) in the textbook, those are a bit dull and hard to understand, but maybe I am not trying hard enough.

key terms are supposed to be a kind of test for you to see if you can explain them -- don't want to have the "answer" there in that case -- and also it would be redundant (and some students might just try to memorize that end part and not get the full story).

When writing about neural compression on page 60, it is mentioned that "Only when a neuron detects something 'interesting' does it get excited enough to send this..." While the concept is clear, I was left wondering what is considered interesting vs. not? I think a bit more elaboration or even an example on what constitutes interesting would be useful.

Also, on page 63 toward the end of the page where the ideas are getting wrapped up, I found myself thinking that another simple recap on what compression and contrast are and how they relate to each other. In this section the importance of these two concepts are mentioned, but instead of this I think a "bring-it-all-around" type discussion would be useful.

On page 70, we learn a bit about Henry Molaison (H.M.) and the removal of his hippocampus, plus the effects on him. I found this kind of example really interesting and helpful in terms of fully understanding the parts of the brain and their responsibility (plus what happens when that part is lost or removed). Maybe some other examples or mentions like this for the other parts of the brain would be helpful.

On page 75, the medulla oblongata is mentioned however is not talked about too much. It's certainly possible that this may not be too important to what we need to be focusing on, but if it is, some more elaboration here would be great.

Like I mentioned in my RR submission and in discussion on Tuesday, I noticed that it was never explicitly stated how the membrane potential operates through Na+/K+ pumps, though it is partially explained. I feel like it could be beneficial to demonstrate how neurons are able to depolarize their cell membrane through these Na+/K+ pumps to explain how/why neurons are constantly at a negative voltage. It might help students struggling with the material better understand the physiology and reasoning behind why & how neurons work the way they do.

Specifically the laser pointer and indications of where and how things were moving was helpful, may a more detailed diagram with arrows could help, including the axon hillock and the spike. Four paragraphs before “Large-Scale Brain Organization,” the paragraph beginning with “The main treatments for epilepsy…” the last section of the sentence about drugs in anesthetics feels unrelated to the rest of the sentence and could be either its own sentence or placed somewhere else.

Lastly, there was one more thing I wanted to address. I don't know how important the medulla oblongata is going to be in this class, but I was still a little confused about it. In the section that describes the medulla oblongata, you have written that it provides "essential low-level body control signals." I feel like there should've been an example here so we'd know what the low-level body control signals would be.

On page 40, Figure 3.3's description was the most difficult to understand. I think it would be more clearer if GABA and Glutamate were described as neurotransmitters. It wasn't until the end of page 41 that it was defined as neurotransmitters. While reading it the first time around, I mistaken GABA to be an ion like Cl-. On page 42 of the PDF, it states " Excitation could bep relatively weak, but if inhibition is also weak, then the net balance between the two will be the same as if each was proportionally stronger."

Concept of Emergence: Example: I think a music example really fits well with this concept of emergence. It’s like an orchestra since multiple instruments are needed in order to create this “magical” thing that emerges resulting in a beautiful chord. Instruments by themselves have their own sound but when interacting with other instruments is when they produce something great.

”the pattern of its synaptic connections determines what a given neuron detects”: Unclear: I understand that synapses are the tiny gaps between neurons but what are synaptic connections? It is a little unclear to me so maybe explaining it a bit more?

P35—Suggestion: change the “and” between “relevant behavior” to “to see if” for sentence flow.

I haven’t yet read the entirety of the textbook, but at the end of this chapter I was expecting the analogies to come back and be reexplained with the parts of the brain. For example, when talking about the intertwined thalamus and cortex, mention how similarly the gears cannot operate solely alone or something.

P36— Change thus or although or rewrite this sentence for better structure.

P36— Please add “myriad” to the glossary.

P36—omit the comma between “explosion” and “and gives”

P36—add hyphen to large-scale

P37— omit as an aside

P37-39 This sentence is too wordy with many breaks in between, not to mention a page break as well. The sentence reads. “…both sides, and, as usual, the truth” followed by “cell, and, despite, it, … of cells, where…”

P39—omit the comma between “functioning” and “and”

P39—Change “introductory treatment” to a different word

P39—change to “synapses and compresses” and omit “then” between “it” and “broadcasts”

P39—I hope to read future sections on the “advent of Facebook” or this closing sentence becomes a moot point.

P39—”understanding how this works helps us understand”, redundant, rewrite.

40—typo, [could be] relatively” weak

41—Maintain parallel structure throughout the sentence. For example, change to “the reason alcohol makes you sleepy and causes you to pass out” (alcohol makes you sleepy, but it doesn’t pass out)

41—change “and” between “above material” and “see” to “to”

41—Add “s” to “by thinking in term[s]” (must’ve been burning the midnight oil)

41—Define or elaborate on “level-spanning”; this word lost me.

42— “propensities and tendencies”; same word

42—omit comma between “interdependent” and “and”

43—"Often, we’ll just refer to this… “ Pointing out the confusion of referring to the neocortex as the cortex further confused me. If we are going are going to call it the cortex, why does it matter what other parts of the brain are?

43 – The dash between “animals” and “in humans” is an example where a period would serve you better. Many other times I will see lots of dashes or commas creating one choppy sentence, were there could be shorter, easier, chopped-up sentences that don’t cause stops like dashes do.

45—Omit comma between “way” and “and often”

45—Curious if patient H.M. successfully stopped having seizures, though I’m assuming it’s irrelevant

46—possibly change eating and drinking to digesting? Or specify what parts about eating? We just learned the conscious decision to start eating is within the cerebellum and basal ganglia, so these points collide.

48—I’m finding some words with the hyperlink are not redirecting to the glossary (both .pdf and e-book) e.g. semantic and somatosensory on this page redirect to page 1. This problem could also be on my end.

48—"punishment/cost pick” one or add “reward”/something else

50—"specializing on”--> specialized in

50—omit “(e.g.)” and add such as companies, universities, and militaries for better sentence flow.

51—omit comma between “actually work” and “and”

51—Please add voxels to the glossary

51—I wasn’t sure why EEG was introduced after MRIs if they were discovered first. If not chronological, what order? Match the heading (“functional neuroimaging…”) with the order mentioned in the paragraphs.

51- Add hyphen for “Large-scale functional…”

51—mysteries remaining and discoveries unfound implies the same thing.

Such as on page 111 and 112 where you are going on about the 'magical' and 'mysterious' properties of interacting gears, in this area you almost seem to backtrack several times over saying practically the exact same thing at least twice, about the material of the gears when you reiterate the irrelevancy of the materials. I understand this was probably purposeful for emphasis on the topic, which I will admit did work since the subject stuck with me, but at the same time, while reading it, I felt like I was reading the same page all over again, and I can say an avid reader myself, that unless there was a whole several paragraphs of additional description that could have made the reader forget the material after all of the extra details, the reiteration isn't necessary.

I did ask this for my question of the week, but I going back over the chapter, I really do wonder how compression of input really works. This was one of my favorite areas in the text to read because to me it seems like one of the areas with the least amount of information to really provide any solid answers as to how or why this compression occurs. I honestly really would have liked to hear some of the theories though after this point about the 10,000 to 1 ratio after compressing the neural signals and I think it would have also spiced up this section to hear some.

I am a bit confused on a matter on page 129. On hear you write "Inhibition pulls the membrane potential (written as Vm, where V=voltage and m=membrane)..." and then after this point about the membrane potential being written as Vm, you continue to speak of it--literally in the same sentence(!!!)-- as mV, and I am so confused! I mean, I understand that at the end of the day the equation is basically the same regardless of which character is placed before the other because one way or another they are both being multiplied by one another, but I really want to know the correct way to write the membrane potential. It might not even be relevant or something I ever use again after this course, but I'm really stuck on it. Like are Vm and mV not actually the same thing? Are they written in one form or another for different purposes? or did I completely misread or miss an area here?

Another point I recognized that could have been an error, was on page 131, where you say "excitation could bep relatively weak, but if inhibition is also weak...", my problem is that you say "bep" here and I am unsure whether this is like a new term or something that I've never heard of (honestly that would be cool because bep sounds like a cool term), or if you meant to write "be"-- personally I think its the latter and if it is I hope you are able to correct it in time

One last part in this chapter that I found rather confusing was under the description of the hippocampus where you go on to almost repeat yourself? You say "the hippocampus has somewhat separable cognitive and emotional components with the emotional one extensively interconnected with the amygdala and those frontal emotional areas that strongly connect with the amygdala". I'm confused with this portion of the sentence on this topic here because you describe two parts of the amygdala in the same sentence right after each other, both which are describing emotional responses but neither describing cognitive when you said cognitive is the second part and I feel like you meant to replace one of these descriptions of the amygdala with that cognitive example.

In Chapter 3 I found that a lot of the words that were in bold to show their importance that were not defined in the glossary. I.e Irreducible on page thirty-five, Combinatorial Explosion on page thirty-six , Detection on page thirty-six, etc… I had to look these words up online and it created some confusion because for example the definition for Combinatorial Explosion was a mathematical one and I wasn’t sure whether or not that was the right definition. This could lead students to think they have a correct understanding of a word which isn’t necessarily true. Besides that I found that this chapter was more information packed and I found myself taking more breaks while reading so my brain would not be overwhelmed. I also found that sometimes I would get confused about which parts I was reading for example on page thirty-seven when talking about the biological parts of the neuron when looking at the definition of Synapses and Dendrites, there could have been a space in between which could signify or give a small mental break from the heavy information being learnt.

• On page 93 where the sentence starts as, "but it does mean that there is a really huge mystery here.." there's a parentheses in this sentence that then ends directly with a colon. I'm not sure if this is a grammatical error but to me it read weird and I feel like rewording where the parentheses are or making what is in the parentheses shorter might help it be easier to understand.

• On page 94 the principle of emergence is used. Emergence is defined in the glossary but I wasn't sure if the principle of emergence was a different thing, like a rule. If so I feel like maybe clarifying that the sentence after could help, but again I'm not sure just pointing it out in case.

• On page 95, in the sentence, “This seems like a good analogy for the relationship between the mind and the brain (but where the complexity and number of interactions is magnified billions of times over).” I don't feel like the but in the parentheses is needed, and using it makes it feel clunky.

-On page 97, in the sentence, “the exact configurations of all those molecules and cells in your brain mean something special in terms of your unique memories,” should there be commas after brain and after special. It felt like those should be separated.

On page 102, in this excerpt, “All of this complex-sounding machinery and terminology is actually very simple: Neurons like to excite other neurons by sending them exciting signals! The basic machinery is chemical and electrical, but the bottom line is: how strongly do the input signals to a given neuron excite it?”

The N in Neurons is capitalized after the colon but the H in how is not capitalized after the colons. I'm not sure if this is on accident or if Nuerons is capitalized because its a proper noun.

Also when I first read through the textbook and got to the part explaining what the homunculus is, I was extremely confused. I did not understand until I watched the lecture that Professor O'Reilly was saying that the homunculus was a concept about how the sensory aspects aline with motor aspects across the brain.

On page 35 the sentence "Thus, you really can’t isolate these emergent properties to either gear in isolation...." is redundant (for emphasis) but you should change wording to "...when either gear is in isolation..." in order to make the sentence flow better. I had to reread the sentence a few times in order to completely understand the example but is a marvelous example.

p, 36, para: 2: This factorial function lies at the heart of combinatorial explosion -- What makes the factorial of 69, different from any other factorial?

p. 38, para 2: As an aside -- This part of the sentence does not make sense.

On page 37 in the Dendrite paragraph, the first line, “…arbor for all synaptic inputs into a neuron…,” I think you forgot a word between “inputs” and “into.” Then on page 40, the second paragraph from the bottom, in the third line, there’s a typo: “bep” should be “be.”

On page 45, I don’t really understand the chart in Figure 3.8, as well the difference between punishment and error signals. Could you add a definition or go into more detail about error signals?

On page 39, in the axon paragraph, could you explain why myelin helps convey information faster? Like how does it do that?

Then on page 48, Figure 3.9, how did scientists/psychologists figure out which part of the brain did what? I know that we now have functional neuroimaging, but how did those techniques actually figure out each part? For example, did they just have someone pick between an apple or a pear, and then see what the striatum would do? If the each part of the brain is functioning, how could they distinguish which part is actually doing the work?

CH 3: The LEGO set metaphor [pg 36] is a good and easily envisioned example Simple Neurons Make Complex Work Section The process of neuron excitation (within an actual neuron) [pg 37-39] could better be described using a diagram or visual The process description is lengthy with several different areas of a neuron involved and might be more effective with a visual accompaniment for each step The Tug-of-War in Your Brain Section The definition for the terms “adaptation/accommodation/fatigue” [pg 41] should be elaborated on Specifically what does the “same level of excitatory input” [pg 41] Large-Scale Brain Organization (“Gross Anatomy”) Section The comparison between the interconnected properties of neurons in the brain and a sports team [pg 42] should start as its own paragraph (to make it easier to read) The Big Brain Chunks Section The portion of the Hippocampus section that starts with “Also, the hippocampus has somewhat separable…” [pg 45] should be separated since it shifts in nature of information (to make it easier to read) The metaphor for control using the experiences of a driver vs passenger in a car is well put and useful [pg 47] Functional Organization of the Neocortex Section The description of a “homunculus” [pg 48] should be elaborated on What is meant by “its focus on the most important areas at the expense of others”? [pg 48] This could also be further explained with a visual (to show what is noted as "important") Neuroscience Methods Section Different methods are noted in the Key Terms Section, but are not bolded in their respective paragraphs [pg 51-52] They are noted in the header, but bolding them would make it easier to identify them/their definitions and functions

page 51 in PDF

On this page the discussion about the fMRI is confusing to me. It feels like there are multiple contradictions here, in terms of the quality of the temporal resolution. I think it is confusing because the explanation of the fMRI is very long and this makes it easy for there to be contradictions. I think slimming this section, just the part referencing the fMRI, would solve this problem and get more to the point.

page 48 in PDF

I don't know how important the discussion of the homunculus is, but from just this description I don't really understand it, and then I don't really understand the picture representing it afterward. So maybe a little extra description there if it feels right.

page 43-47 in PDF

I think all of the descriptions of the parts of the brain are really clear, but throughout these descriptions there are connections drawn between the different parts. While this is helpful, they all get sort of jumbled since they are all in different places. I think it would be a better layout if there was a small section after all the descriptions of the brain chunks that talked about how they were connected and worked together. This would make the flow better and the layout more clear with the information being presented easily.

Page 42 : The word equipotential maybe explain the definition of this word. I had to look it up

Link: https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Education/Life-and-Death-Neuron#:~:text=Neurons%20also%20travel%20by%20using,neuron%20to%20its%20final%20location (Links to an external site.).

This link talks about the neuron’s introduction, structure, migration, differentiation, birth and death. I find the answer in the migration part.

There are two ways for the neurons to travel: following the long fibers of cells called radial glia by using chemical signals

On the first page of the third chapter, the book talks about emergence and the concept of emergence. However, it then begins to go on about how the material of the gears don’t matter. For me personally, I don’t really understand the relevance of talking about the materials. I understand the the gears are sort of a metaphor for the interactions between neurons, so in bringing up the material doesn’t really make any sense to me In keeping with the gears and emergence metaphor, the book says "“ And yet, it nevertheless depends entirely and directly on having an actual material basis — e.g., the picture of those gears doesn’t work at all like two actual gears!” This I do not understand at all. I wish it were a little more clear about what this means. It really just doesn’t make sense to me in the context of talking about the mind, the neurons, and their interactions.

The only comment I have is that there are some really critical pieces of information in the figure notes. I think that some of the information in the Tug-of-War (figure 3.5) should maybe be moved into the main section of the reading- specifically this section: "The Tug-of-War between excitation and inhibition... every one of your neurons."

One improvement I can think of is to possibly add quick summaries after each analogy. The analogies are great; however, I feel that it's quite a lot of text. If the analogies were a bit condensed, then it would be easier to understand and remember.

Example:

(Analogy of the gears and how it connects to our brain).......

• Summary:

(Quick summarization to stick with the reader)

Ch 4: Consciousness..

Ch 5: Perception

• Ch4: on / off: add tiny circles for cones, make point about RF of ganglion recv from many cones

• Ch4: signal detection theory

• Ch4: auditory subcortical pathways turning time patterns -> spatial patterns

Ch 8: Thinking

• Concrete example of working memory capacity of 4 -- show visual working memory task.

Ch Social

• Ch9: sales techniques: door-in-face, foot-in-door, etc

Disorders

• Ch11: legal insanity, free will..

DONE:

• decide on a consistent strategy for bolding key terms, vs. glossary lookup, and redo all bolding etc to match. basically, should bold when primarily discussing in chapter, and glossary otherwise. just do it.

Neuro

• Ch2: cortical neurons only send excitation or inhibition, not both

Consciousness

• Ch3: hypnosis

• Ch3: is twitter conscious?

• Ch4: context effects and top down: THE CAT figure

• Ch4: add McGurk effect

• Ch4: JND = Contrast effect

Learning

• Ch5: Secondary vs. primary reinforcers

• Ch5: better example of reinstatement

• Ch5: better Go / NoGo figure

• Ch5: better classical vs. operant: key role of behavior -- also shaping better

• Ch5: Limits of conditioning: food -> nausea, lights / tones -> shock, not other way

• Ch5: Work motivation, grad student example, approach avoid, social media perfect storm -- look at slides!

Memory

• Ch6: get figs from slides!

• Ch6: diagram of pattern completion in terms of partial cues -- make a better version of existing one.

• Ch6: key terms: issues with consciousneses

Thinking

• Ch7: talk about BG as production system, ACT-R, not PBWM!

• Ch7: Add System 1, 2

• Ch7: gambler's fallacy

• Ch7: add confirmation bias!

• Ch7: Flynn effect: growth mindset writ large in the population!

• Ch7: social dominance, niche finding, geeks etc: everyone is constantly trying to establish their own domain of "specialness", including "smart" people, who gain self efficacy by reifying their own special status... -- this is in Origins..

Language

• Ch8: entire chapter on language!

• Ch10: critical periods.. sheesh. -- language

• Ch10: statistical learning -- language

Social

• Ch9: person - situation controversy term for Mischel68

• ch9: power of situation for zimbardo / milgram

• Ch9: add point about relative comparison of $$ made to happiness -- also parapalegic point.

• Ch9: make sure has: satisfaction vs. momentary, adaptation, contrast effects, parapalegic vs. lottery, etc

Origins

• Ch10: figure numbers are off by 1.

• Ch10: nature / nurture etc -- strangely missing summary!

• Ch10: habituation procedures for studying infants

• Ch10: Fig 9.7 -- make a better explanation of C going down specifically.

• Ch10: conspec / conlearn, mother's face preference

• Ch10: aging, dopamine curve, crystialized vs. fluid

• Ch10: MAOA gene

• Ch11: randomized control studies for therapy

• Ch11: hypothesis testing in CBT?

• Ch11: Repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation..

• Ch11: ADHD motivation: people are bored, give them stimulants to let them be engaged in otherwise boring stuff..

• Ch11: Autism and impaired function so not able to deal with social world: social world is unpredictible, complex: this is why we have big brains in the first place.