Sensory projection centers
According to Henry Ey's definition, sensory projection centers are the areas in the brain in which the analysis of visual , auditory or co-aesthetic data is carried out.
Origin of the term
The term comes from the context of a humanities discourse, including on the phenomenology of consciousness.
The term formulation contained in this projection refers to the idea that in the perception in the brain of the perceiving subject a kind of inner image (sounds, smells, etc.) generates. The subject itself, which these perceptions refer to, is not addressed in the term also used in brain research.
For the positivist ( critical rationalism ) natural sciences, Descartes' epistemological specification of a non-objectifiable "thinking of the ego" is valid. Only when something like ego-consciousness, soul or spirit can be structurally and functionally described by a verifiable model, would a statement be made about the nature of consciousness in a scientific sense; as an objective, d. H. material, organic state or process.
As early as the middle of the 19th century, John Hughlings Jackson postulated that certain brain regions must be connected to perceptions or actions. In 1864 Jackson confirmed Paul Broca's discovery that the speech center of right-handed people is in the left hemisphere. As neuroscience advances, so has knowledge of the anatomy and functions of areas of the brain. This did not lead to a refutation, but to a more precise description of such sensory projection centers.
Use as a structural and functional description
Around the same time as Henry Ey, the brain researcher Rolf Hassler also used the term when he presented his research on ARAS , the so-called unspecific activation system , which he also called the sleep-wake system of the brain. There the term sensory projection centers is used by Hassler in such a way that it could be replaced by the visual, auditory, olfactory, etc. cortex , adapted to the current state of neurophysiological concept formation .
In general, the term is currently experiencing a revival. References to its current use can also be found in the epistemological field under perception, for example on the web under epistemology.
In psychological departments of interdisciplinary cognitive science, such areas are now called projection fields , e.g. B. as visual fields or auditory fields, but also based on the physiology, z. B. somato sensory cortex. It is also used in Humberto Maturana's humanistic-epistemological biology .
The phrase projection center has been used for a long time in connection with impaired consciousness. It probably goes back even further, based on Descartes' epistemology .
In hospital psychiatry there is another reference to the term oneroid state , which means roughly that a patient is in a state in which he can no longer distinguish whether he is awake or dreaming.
In modern neurobiology, the functional modes of description come to the fore. So z. B. the ARAS (Ascending Reticular Activating System) described from the functional point of view of the regulation of mental activity. From this purely functional description, however, difficulties arise with the structural assignment. Questions are discussed such as the affiliation of the basal ganglia and the limbic system or other names for the ARAS, for example as an extrapyramidal motor system (EPMS).
That is why a structural consideration cannot simply be neglected. In addition, with the improved instruments such as CT and NMR, the three-dimensional structural features (density, degree of cross-linking, nodes, bridges, etc.) in the living brain can be recorded even more than in the past. For this purpose, the activities of the brain in particular must be structurally mapped well using functional magnetic resonance tomography . Therefore, the notion of localizable areas - e.g. B. as sensory projection centers that are responsible for the psychological processes of consciousness (perceiving, recognizing, remembering, feeling, acting, etc.) - a well-established scientific hypothesis . Research into nerve cells lies below the brain research level and is often carried out separately from it. However, it must be consulted in order to fathom the structure and functioning of the brain and consciousness processes and to better understand them.
At the moment, eleven “leading neuroscientists” who call themselves this are assuming that “in the foreseeable future, i.e. in the next 20 to 30 years, ... one will consistently regard mind, consciousness, feelings, acts of will and freedom of action as natural processes, because they are based on biological processes. "
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Henry Ey “Awareness”, translated by Karl Peter Kister, 1967, de Gruyter, p. 1
- ↑ Literature insight problem.de/archives/category/literatur ( Memento of the original of September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Introduction to Cognitive Science
- ^ Monthly for Psychiatry and Neurology . Vol. 21, 1907, p. 261 ( Google Books ).
- ↑ Psychiatry ( Memento of the original from October 8, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The Manifesto
