You Would Never Guess From Her Videos That She Has No Frontal Lobes

In previous posts such as "Preservation of Mind and Memories After Removal of Half a Brain" and "Cases of High Mental Function Despite Large Brain Damage," I have discussed at great length quite a few cases of people whose minds or memories functioned well despite very heavy brain damage.  These included cases such as these:

• Dandy's patients: The case of Dandy's patients are reported in the American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Jul., 1934), pages 500-503. We read this: "Dandy has completely removed the right cerebral hemisphere from eight patients. He has performed total extirpations of one or more lobes much oftener... There are tabulated below certain generalizations on the effects of removing the right hemisphere.... The operation was the complete extirpation of the right frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes peripheral to the corpus striatum. The weight of the tissue re moved varies, with the pathological conditions involved, from 250 to 584 grm [grams].Coherent conversation began within twenty-four hours after operation, and in one case on the afternoon of the same day. Later examinations showed no observable mental changes. The patients were perfectly oriented in respect of time, place, and person; their memory was unimpaired for immediate and remote events; conversation was always coherent; ability to read, write, compute, and learn new material was unaltered. Current events were followed with normal interest. There were no personality changes apparent; the patients were emotionally stable, without fears, delusions, hallucinations, expansive ideas or obsessions, and with a good sense of humor; they joked frequently. They showed a natural interest in their condition and future. They cooperated intelligently at all times throughout post-operative care and subsequent testing of function." How could the memory of patients be "unimpaired for immediate and remote events" if memories are stored in brains?
• Patient P. G. Described in the 1966 paper "Long-term changes in intellect and behaviour after hemispherectomy," Patient   P.G. had an IQ of 128 before the right half of his brain was removed. After the right half of his brain was removed, he scored 142 on the same IQ test, improving his score by 14 points. The paper tells us that this man with half a brain “obtained a university diploma after operation” and “has a responsible administrative position with a local authority.” If your brain makes your mind, how could taking out half of someone's brain cause their IQ to increase by 14 points, with an end result so far above average?
• Patient D. W. Described in the 1966 paper "Long-term changes in intellect and behaviour after hemispherectomy," Patient D.W.  had an IQ of 97 before the left half of his brain was removed. After the left half of his brain was removed, he scored 100 on the same IQ test, improving his score by 3 points.
• The French civil servant. The case is discussed here in a Reuters story entitled “Man lives normal life with abnormal brain.” Inside a normal brain are tiny structures called lateral ventricles that hold brain fluid. In this man's case, the ventricles had swollen up like balloons, until they filled almost all of the man's brain. When the 44-year-old man was a child, doctor's had noticed the swelling, and had tried to treat it. Apparently the swelling had progressed since childhood. The man was left with what the Reuters story calls “little more than a sheet of actual brain tissue.”  But this same man, with almost no functioning brain, had been working as a French civil servant, and had his IQ tested to be 75, higher than that of a mentally retarded person. The Reuters story says: “A man with an unusually tiny brain managed to live an entirely normal life despite his condition, caused by a fluid buildup in his skull.” The case was written up in the British medical journal The Lancet in a paper entitled “Brain of a white-collar worker.” It is as if the authors tried to make these facts be noticed by as few as possible, by giving their story the dullest title they could. 
• Christina Santhouse. In an article in the New Yorker magazine, we are told of a Christina Santhouse who had the right half of her brain surgically removed: “When I met her, she had taken her S.A.T.s and just finished high school, coming in seventy-sixth in a class of two hundred and twenty-five.”
• Beth Usher. Beth was mentioned in an article in the LA Times, which stated this: "How is it that 8-year-old Beth Usher of Storrs, Conn., can lose her left hemisphere, yet retain her large repertoire of knock-knock jokes? Beth’s memories survived not just the loss of brain tissue, but also the 32 days that she spent in a coma, the result of some brain stem swelling that occurred in response to the trauma of surgery. Shortly after Beth regained consciousness, her father began quizzing her about people and places from her past. Brian Usher didn’t get very far. 'Dad,' Beth interrupted, with a trace of impatience. 'I remember everything.'" Of course, there's a very easy answer to the question asked: the answer that memories are not actually stored in the human brain. 
• Borgstein and Grootendorst's 7-Year-Old. In 2002 in The Lancet these two published a paper "Half a Brain." They reported this on the child who had the left half of her brain surgically removed: "Though the dominant hemisphere was removed, with its language centres and the motor control for the left side of her body, the child is fully bilingual in Turkish and Dutch, while even her hemiplegia has partially recovered and is only noticeable by a slight spasticity of her left arm and leg. She leads an otherwise normal life."
• The Johns Hopkins 58 hemispherectomy patients. In a scientific paper ("Why Would You Remove Half a Brain? The Outcome of 58 Children After Hemispherectomy −−The Johns Hopkins Experience: 1968 to 1996") we read about surgeons at Johns Hopkins Medical School who performed fifty-eight hemispherectomy operations on children over a thirty-year period. At least eleven had the left half of the brain removed; and more had the right half removed. The paper states this: 
  "Despite removal of one hemisphere [i.e. one half of the brain], the intellect of all but one of the children seems either unchanged or improved....It is tempting to speculate, that the continuous electrical activity of these severely dysfunctional hemispheres interferes with the function of the other, more normal hemisphere. This might explain why motor function improves after hemispherectomy and why language recovers after removal of the dysfunctional left hemisphere, but does not seem to fully transfer before surgery. Perhaps it also partially explains intellectual improvement in these children after removal of half of the cortex. We are awed by the apparent retention of memory after removal of half of the brain, either half, and by the retention of the child’s personality and sense of humor."  An appropriate response to such observations would be not mere awe, but the questioning or discarding of belief dogmas such as the dogma that brains store memories (which cannot be found by microscopically inspecting brain tissue). 
• Kim Peek.  Kim Peek suffered from a lack of a corpus callosum, the bundle of fibers that connect the two hemispheres of the brain. Instead of this resulting in two minds in a single body (as we would expect from the "brains make minds" dogma), the result was a single mind and personality with an exceptional memory and astonishing calculation abilities. A newspaper report said Peek could accurately tell the contents of 12,000 books he had read, and the wikipedia article on him says he could "remember almost everything he had read." He could quickly tell strangers which day of the week they were born when they merely told him their birthdays. 
• Martel's boy. In a scientific paper ("Discrepancy Between Cerebral Structure and Cognitive Functioning") we read of a case of a boy who was "mentally unimpaired" until death (despite progressive loss of the senses), and who was found in an autopsy to have almost no brain. We read this: "Martel (1823) described a boy who died at the age of 10. During the first years of his life, he seemed healthy, but eventually, his health deteriorated considerably. He had severe headaches, gradually lost all his senses except hearing, developed fits, and became confined to his bed, but he nevertheless seemed mentally unimpaired until his death. His head appeared enlarged, and upon autopsy, apart from 'residues of meninges,' 'no trace of a brain' was found inside the skull (Martel, 1823, p. 20)." 
• John Lorber's patients. Lorber was a physician who had patients who lost the great majority of their brain due to a disease that replaces brain tissue with a watery fluid. Lorber was astounded to find that many of the patients had above-average intelligence, including a patient that had almost no brain but still had an IQ of 144. His patients are discussed here. 
• Masdeu's 44-year old. In the paper "Ventricular Wall Granulations and Draining of Cerebrospinal Fluid in Chronic Giant Hydrocephalus," Joseph C. Masdeu MD and others report a case of a 44-year-old woman with a huge fluid-filled hole in her brain, one that seemed to have replaced most of the tissue in her brain (judging from the photos in the paper). The paper reports the woman had an IQ of 98, worked as an administrator for a government agency, and could speak seven languages. 
• Egnor's Katie. In an article Michael Egnor MD tells of a patient he had named Katie who only "had a third of the brain that her sister had," her fraternal twin. Egnor tells us that Katie "sat and talked and walked earlier than her sister," "made the honor roll," and "will soon graduate high school."
• The Birjand Cyst patient:  This patient's case is reported in the paper "Giant Brain Hydatid Cyst in an Adult: A New Case Report." We are shown a photo of a giant hole in the patient's brain. We are told "The patient only complained of headache in the last two weeks and had no symptoms of visual or speech impairment." We are told the patient had no psychological problems. Surgery removed a fist-sized brain cyst that was 90 millimeters long and 40 millimeters wide. No mention is made of any mental or memory problem. 
• The 500 gram cyst girl. This patient's case is reported in the paper "Primary Giant Cerebral Hydatid Cyst in an 8-year-old Girl." Doctor's discovered a giant brain cyst of 500 grams measuring 20 cm × 15 cm × 12 cm, and they said "in our search this is the largest brain hydrated cyst in the literature." This was probably more than half the size of her brain, since the average adult female brain is about 1200 grams, and since an 8-year-old female would have a brain of less than 1000 grams. Despite having so large a brain cyst there was "no history of neurological deficits" and "no changes in behavior." A month after the removal of the cyst, the patient is described as "vitally stable, thriving well, no complaints, no neurological deficits, and with the normal neurological examination." No mention is made of any mental or memory problem. 
  
• The asymptomatic man with a giant brain cyst. This patient's case is reported in the paper "Asymptomatic giant arachnoidal cyst." We read of "a 39-year-old right-handed man, with a high-school education, good social and job functioning, and good command of three foreign languages (English, Spanish, and, in part, Arabic), had a 3-year history of mild migraine without aura." We are told that "neurologic examination and standardized cognitive assessment revealed normal findings." The man was found to have a giant cyst "occupying the anterior two thirds of the left hemisphere." We see a photo showing a huge hole in the person's brain, so big that it took about one third of the person's brain mass. How could you lose one third of your brain and have no symptoms, if a person's brain makes his mind? 
• Alex, who did not start speaking until the left half of his brain was removed. A scientific paper describing the case says that Alex “failed to develop speech throughout early boyhood.” He could apparently say only one word (“mumma”) before his operation to cure epilepsy seizures. But then following a hemispherectomy (also called a hemidecortication) in which half of his brain was removed at age 8.5, “and withdrawal of anticonvulsants when he was more than 9 years old, Alex suddenly began to acquire speech.” We are told, “His most recent scores on tests of receptive and expressive language place him at an age equivalent of 8–10 years,” and that by age 10 he could “converse with copious and appropriate speech, involving some fairly long words.” Astonishingly, the boy who could not speak with a full brain could speak well after half of his brain was removed. The half of the brain removed was the left half – the very half that scientists tell us is the half that has more to do with language than the right half. 
• The honors student (IQ=126) with only 3% to 10% of a brain. In the scientific paper "Long-Term Memory: Scaling of Information to Brain Size" by Donald R. Forsdyke of Queens University in Canada, he quotes the physician John Lorber on an honors student with an IQ of 126: "Instead of the normal 4.5 centimetre thickness of brain tissue between the ventricles and the cortical surface, there was just a thin layer of mantle measuring a millimeter or so. The cranium is filled mainly with cerebrospinal fluid. … I can’t say whether the mathematics student has a brain weighing 50 grams or 150 grams, but it’s clear that it is nowhere near the normal 1.5 kilograms." Forsdyke notes two similar cases in more recent years, one from France and another from Brazil.  Forsdyke says, "Three independent studies agree that there are, among us, people leading normal lives with approximately 5 % of the quantity of brain tissue found in others."
• The patient of Smith and Sugar. In their paper "Development of above normal language and intelligence 21 years after left hemispherectomy," Smith and Sugar state that "Neuropsychologic follow-up studies of a 5-year-old boy who had left hemispherectomy for seizures showed that he had developed superior language and intellectual abilities." This was a boy who had the left half of his brain removed, but who ended up with "superior language and intellectual abilities."
• Patient B.M. Patient B.M. had the right half of her brain removed, in an operation called a right hemispherectomy. She  had difficulty recognizing faces, a problem called prosopagnosia. But according to a paper on her, her "intellectual and cognitive functions were otherwise normal or only slightly impaired," despite the loss of half of her brain. 
• Brown and Vahidassr's Case: The case was reported by these two in a paper with the misleading title "The Man Who Lost (Part) of His Mind." The paper discusses an 84-year-old without  mentioning any mental problems at all, conflicting with their title. The abnormality they report is that man had lost almost half of his brain, with an air cavity replacing the lost tissue. Despite this loss, no cognitive difficulty is reported, and we hear that except for some muscle weakness "there was no confusion, facial weakness, visual or speech disturbance, and he was feeling otherwise well," and that he was "independent with physical activities of daily living."
• Patient HS4. This patient is discussed in the paper "Intrinsic Functional Connectivity of the Brain in Adults with a Single Cerebral Hemisphere.'" The paper discusses attempts to measure brain connectivity in patients who had half of their brain removed to treat very frequent seizures. The half-brain patient with the highest intelligence was patient HS4, with an IQ of 99 (according to the Supplemental Information of the paper). But this very patient had the smallest brain of the six half-brain patients. This patient HS4 had an average brain connectivity score of only .30, which is the same as one of the group of controls with normal brains, and less than the brain connectivity of the other group of controls with normal brains.   So the smartest person with half a brain (who had an IQ of 99) did not at all have any greater brain connectivity that can explain his normal intelligence with only half a brain. How can this subject HS4 have had a normal intelligence with only half a brain?  In this case, favorable brain rewiring or greater brain connectivity cannot explain the result.  

The half brain of subject HS4, IQ of 99, average brain wiring

I recently learned of another case of this type. The case is particularly interesting because it helps to discredit the claim that the frontal lobes of the brain are necessary for language and thinking.  The case is reported in the paper "Early bilateral and massive compromise of the frontal lobes."  We read about an amazing case of an 8-year-old girl with good mental skills despite having basically no frontal lobes of the brain. We see an MRI scan showing a gigantic black empty region in the brain corresponding to missing frontal lobes.

We read that a brain scan at age three revealed this:

"GC's first report of frontal compromise at age three. MRI scans revealed no structures in the frontal lobe, covered with cerebrospinal fluid. Weighed-T1 MRI scans showed no recognizable frontal structures, expect for a small portion of the ventral frontal cortex. The mesencephalon, pons, and medulla oblongata were present, and so were all other lobes and the cerebellum."  

We read that a brain scan of the girl at age 8 showed basically the same results, with at most only a tiny of the frontal lobes existing. 

Under a heading of "Neurological and neuropsychological assessment" we read that "she could describe sensory and affective experiences, and reacted to environmental events with apparent emotional and cognitive congruency (e.g., pleasure, tiredness, playfulness, anger, and basic symbolization  Supplementary Video 1, Supplementary Video 2)." The links take us to a page of videos of the young girl. We see her seeming to act pretty much like a normal girl of her age. I recommend watching all of the short videos on the page. The girl with basically no frontal lobes stands, dances, seems to speak normally, and responds to requests to touch parts of her body, and show how she brushes her teeth. The person asking the questions to the girl speaks very rapidly, but the girl seems to have no difficulty understanding the questions, and the girl makes appropriate verbal and manual responses.  Asked to point to the questioner's thumb, the girl points to the right spot. Asked to point to the girl's eyes, the girl points to the right spot. Asked where she would wear a pair of glasses, the girl points to her eyes. Asked where she would wear a pair of shoes, she points to her feet. The girl is able to distinguish between herself and a fantasy character (Minnie Mouse), and says that she is not Minnie (Video 9). 

We hear in the text of the paper vague mentions about various types of "deficits," but we seem to get very little in the way of  specifics. None of the nine videos of the girl seem to show any signs of cognitive deficits. 

We see below a visual of the girl's brain, from Supplementary Video 11:

A much better title for the paper would have been "Good cognitive performance despite loss of the frontal lobes."  Why is that when neuroscientists discover cases that contradict their dogmas, that they report such cases using titles that fail to alert us of the important finding in conflict with their dogmas? It's as if they were trying as hard as possible to make such "inconvenient truths" as hard to discover as possible. Also, the authors have used language in their abstract that fails to alert any readers of this important case. Rather than referring to an absence of the frontal lobes (as they do in the body of the paper), they merely refer in the abstract to "nearly complete affectation of bilateral frontal structures," as if they were trying to prevent people from discovering this case that should shock a neuroscientist to the core. 

Our neuroscientists keep telling us that higher cognitive capabilities such as abstract thought and self-consciousness come from the frontal lobes of the brain. The case reported above shows that such a claim is untrue.  For many other reasons for rejecting such a claim, read my post here.  Referring to removal of brain tissue (resection), the paper here states that " intellectual or memory decrements are seldom found after frontal resections."

Erring Experts #9

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Erring Experts #7

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No, Scientist, That Isn't Human Memory or Brain Action, But Merely Computer Activity

There are many problems involving human memory that neuroscientists have made no progress on. Neuroscientists have done nothing substantial to answer these questions:

1. How are humans able to instantly form memories, much faster than can be explained by imagining that synapses are strengthened by protein formation (which takes minutes)?

2. How are humans able to remember things for 50 years, which is 1000 times longer than the average lifetime of the proteins in synapses?

3. Why do humans who have their brains shut down during cardiac arrest continue to have extremely vivid near-death experiences that they can remember very well?

4. How are humans able to instantly recall very old memories despite the lack of any known physical characteristic in the brain (such as indexing, neuron numbering, or a neuron coordinate system) that would allow the brain to perform the “instantly finding the needle in a mountain-sized haystack” operation needed to instantly find an obscure memory?

5. Why are autistic savants such as Kim Peek so often able to have astonishing mental skills far beyond those of ordinary people, even though such savants often have major brain damage?

6. How is that people with hyperthymesia (and brains not significantly different from ordinary people) are able to remember in great detail what happened to them every day since reaching adulthood?

7. How could a human ever be able to memorize vast amounts of words (such as 10 major operatic roles), when the words use a language that is less than a thousand years old, which human biology (having only very old genes) should never be to store as neural states?

8. How could a brain ever be able to learn or recall anything, when the brain seems nothing resembling a writing mechanism, and nothing resembling a reading mechanism?
9. How could human minds that learn things and form memories of such great diversity ever remember anything by writing to a brain, when no one has discovered any type of encoding scheme by which human memories and learned information could be converted to neural states or synapse states?

If a neuroscientist restricts himself to the brain, he will never be able to give a convincing answer to any of these questions, although he may fool many people by giving some vacuous answer that is so cluttered up with neuroscience jargon that it serves as a kind of "smoke screen" for the underlying ignorance.  But there is a sneaky trick used by quite a few neuroscientists. The trick is to create something using computer software and computer hardware, and to try to make that cybernetic hi-tech construction sound rather neural or brain-like. There are various devious tactics that can be used as part of this trick:

• Trick # 1: something that is not at all biological or neural or organic can be misleadingly described with adjectives such as "neural," "synaptic" "cortical" or "hippocampal." The classic example of this misleading trick was when computer programmers created a purely software creation that they called a "neural net," even though it involved no neurons at all.  
• Trick #2: a neuroscientist can create a purely software innovation that runs on computer hardware, and describe this using some phrase such as a "model of how the brain works" or a "human memory model" or some such phrase.  This involves a deceptive comparison between something that is digital, transistor-dependent and the result of human design, and something (the brain) that is not digital, not transistor-related, and not the result of human design.  
• Trick #3: Particular parts of some software construction can be given misleading names corresponding to the components of brains.  For example, some class or module or subroutine or section or layer of a computer program can be called a "neuron," a "cell," or a "synapse" or maybe even a "hippocampus" or a "cortex."

A recent example of this kind of misleading affair was a paper entitled "A generative model of memory construction and consolidation." The title is misleading because what the paper describes is a computer software construction that stores and retrieves data. Such stored data is not at all "memory construction" or an example of "memory experiences" in any human sense. 

In the abstract of the paper, we have this sentence that is very misleading: "Here we present a computational model in which hippocampal replay (from an autoassociative network) trains generative models (variational autoencoders) to (re)create sensory experiences from latent variable representations in entorhinal, medial prefrontal and anterolateral temporal cortices via the hippocampal formation."  The authors have misleadingly given the name "hippocampal replay" for some computer software activity that does not involve any brain hippocampus at all, and they have misleadingly used the terms "entorhinal, medial prefrontal and anterolateral temporal cortices" for some computer software activity that does not involve any brain cortices or brain cortex. Consequently, there is no truth in the later claim in their abstract that their "model explains how unique sensory and predictable conceptual elements of memories are stored and reconstructed by efficiently combining both hippocampal and neocortical systems, optimizing the use of limited hippocampal storage for new and unusual information," if by "memories" you mean human memories. 

Figure 1 of the paper shows that the paper is making  use of the Trick #3 described above. We have a diagram referring to parts of something that is purely a computer software implementation running on computer hardware. But these parts are misleading labeled with names taken from neural anatomy.  So some purely software piece of code is called a "hippocampus," and another purely software piece of code is called a "sensory neocortex."  And also the terms "episodic memory" and "imagination" are used for some purely computer software events that are not human mental experiences. The same thing happens throughout the paper, with the brain anatomy term "hippocampus" being repeatedly use for something created by the authors that is purely a software construction.   

The paper makes use of trick-language equivocation involving the word "memory."  In many of the times that the paper uses the term "memory" it means a human memory such as a human acquiring a memory or recalling a memory. But in many other places in the paper the term "memory" is used in an entirely different way, to refer to some computer capability not involving mental experiences.  We all know that computers can store and retrieve images, data and records.  That does nothing to explain human memory, both because the physical details of digital computers and digital software are vastly different from the physical details of human brains, and also  because something merely occurring in a computer is not comparable to a human memory experience.  Computers don't have experiences. 

To review the differences between the human brain and computer systems, read my post "The Brain Has Nothing Like 7 Things a Computer Uses to Store and Retrieve Information." Below are some  things computers have and brains do not have:

• an operating system (an elaborate set of stored subroutines for general-purpose tasks);
• a physical component specialized for storing non-genetic data;
• a physical component specialized for reading stored non-genetic data;
• a CPU unit that sequentially processes programmed instructions;
• various applications to store and retrieve data arising from human interactions;
• the ascii code for encoding information;
• a decimal to binary conversion table or utility;
• a medium (such as a hard disk) that allows a permanent, stable storage of information;
• a storage location system by which the exact position or address of a data item can be specified, allowing the creation of indexes;
• indexes that use such addresses to allow fast retrieval from an exact location.

Below is a quote from the Supplemental Information document of the above paper, one making clear that the so-called "model" of the paper is a very convoluted computer software processing pipeline unlike anything that the brain could have:

"The following list describes the sequence of operations within the large VAE’s encoder network, using the layer names from the TensorFlow Keras API7 (see also Figure 3):
1. Input layer for arrays of shape (n, 64, 64, 3), representing n 64x64 RGB images 

2. Dropout layer with a dropout rate of 0.2 (during training, dropout randomly sets a fraction of the input units to 0 at each step, reducing overfitting and encouraging robustness) 

3. Conv2D layer with 32 filters (i.e. convolutional windows, or feature detectors) and kernel size of 4 (i.e. windows of 4x4 pixels) 

4. Batch normalisation layer (batch normalisation is a common technique which computes the mean and variance of each feature in a mini-batch and uses them to normalise the activations) 

5. LeakyReLU activation layer (LeakyReLU is an activation function that is a variant of the Rectified Linear Unit, ReLU) 

6. Conv2D layer with 64 filters and kernel size of 4 

7. Batch normalisation layer 

8. LeakyReLU activation layer 

9. Conv2D layer with 128 filters and kernel size of 4 

10. Batch normalisation layer 

11. LeakyReLU activation layer

12. Conv2D layer with 256 filters and kernel size of 4 

13. Batch normalisation layer 

14. LeakyReLU activation layer 

15. Global average pooling 2D layer 

16. Dense layer to produce the mean of the latent vector 

17. Dense layer to produce the log variance of the latent vector (in parallel with the layer above) 

18. Custom sampling layer that samples from the latent space, with the mean and log variance layers as inputs."

But this is only part of the incredibly complex computer software activity that was occurring.  We are told that the software activity also involved this:

"The same information for the decoder network is as follows: 

1. Input layer for arrays of shape (n, latent dimension), where latent dimension is 20 in these results, representing n latent vectors 

2. Dense layer that expands the latent space to a size of 4096 

3. Reshape layer to reshape the input to a 4x4x256 tensor 

4. Upsampling 2D layer with a 2x2 upsampling factor 

5. Conv2D layer with 128 filters and kernel size of 3 

6. Batch normalisation layer 

7. LeakyReLU activation layer 

8. Upsampling2D layer with a 2x2 upsampling factor 

9. Conv2D layer with 64 filters and kernel size of 3 

10. Batch normalisation layer 

11. LeakyReLU activation layer 

12. Upsampling2D layer with a 2x2 upsampling factor 

13. Conv2D layer with 32 filters and kernel size of 3 

14. Batch normalisation layer 

15. LeakyReLU activation layer 

16. Upsampling2D layer with a 2x2 upsampling factor 

17. Conv2D layer with 3 filters and kernel size of 3"

All of these software layers were built by purposeful human programming activity using human constructed high-tech tools such as compilers, programming languages and integrated development environments (IDEs). Such layers can be built only if you have a digital high-tech transistor-based infrastructure. Such artificial hi-tech software constructions have no relevance to explaining how a brain could store or retrieve memories, because brains have no such infrastructure, and nothing corresponding to any such layers. 

The paper authors have provided the programming code they wrote. For example, there is the file here and the file here, in which we have doubly nested loops. Doubly nested programming loops are something that can be done by advanced computer programs, but we know of nothing physical in the brain that could correspond to such a thing or allow such a thing.  Similarly, the lines above refer many times to batch programs, which typically are computer programs that are automatically run at some scheduled time. The brain has nothing corresponding to batch programs.  The lines above also refer to hundreds of different filters, but other than the brain blood barrier we know of no filters in the brain.  And the lines above  refer many times to data conversion subroutines, something not corresponding to anything known to physically exist in the brain.  

By trying to insinuate that the software package described above has some relevance to explaining how a human could have mental memory experiences by brain activity, the authors are like someone claiming that his writing "high marks" on a college dormitory wall is a basis for bragging about having achieved "high marks" at college. That is like what occurs throughout the paper discussed above, with the word-trick equivocation occurring not on the word "marks" but on the word "memory." 

The Cambridge Dictonary lists three definitions of memory:

(1) "The ability to remember information, experiences, and people." Each of the seven examples given refer to mental experiences of people. 

(2)  "Something that you remember from the past." Obviously this definition can only refer to mental experiences of people.

(3) "The part of a computer in which information or programs are stored either permanently or temporarily, or the amount of space available on it for storing information."  This definition is entirely different, as it involves only computers and does not involve mental experiences.  A computer can operate overnight in "batch mode" without any human observing what it is doing. 

It is a grotesque abuse of language and  a grotesque fallacy of equivocation to be mixing up the first two definitions with the third, and to fool people into thinking something involving computers (but not involving mental experiences or brain activity) helps to explain what goes on in human minds during mental experiences. Equally grotesque equivocation would occur if you argued that Taylor Swift is a star, that a star is a giant hot sphere of gas, and that therefore Taylor Swift is a giant hot sphere of gas. A more honest title for the paper "A generative model of memory construction and consolidation" would be "Some computer programming we did, which we strangely describe using brain anatomy terms and psychology terms." 

What goes on in papers like this is that misimpressions are created by massive mixing of mentions of dissimilar things. A discussion of a purely software creation running on a digital computer is interspersed everywhere with mentions of human memory, factual mentions of the anatomy of brains, and implausible speculations about how certain parts of brains might be involved in memory. Much of the speculations are things that are ruled out by facts about the brain's physical shortfalls, such as the very short lifetimes of synapse proteins, the unreliable signal transmission in brains, very high levels of neural noise, and the lack of any addresses or indexes in brains. 

Neuroscientists lack any credible explanation for human memory, which cannot be plausibly explained by any type of brain activity.  If someone ever makes you think he has explained how a brain could store and retrieve a memory,  the odds are 100 to 1 that some type of misstatement or vacuous hand-waving or trick language was involved.  The human brain does not have any physical characteristics that can explain the wonders of instant human recall and the wonder of precise, accurate, detailed recollections that can persist for 50 years or longer.  Physical shortfalls of the brain (such as the short lifetimes of synaptic proteins, very high neural noise, lack of addresses and indexes, and unreliable synaptic transmission) exclude the brain as a credible explanation for human memory.  Such shortfalls are of the greatest importance in judging this matter, but are senselessly ignored by neuroscientists. 

Erring Experts #5

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Erring Experts #2

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Erring Experts #1

 Here is the first in a series of short videos.

Cox's Cases Were Better Explained as Evidence Brains Don't Make Minds

 Edward W. Cox was a 19th-century writer who wrote the book "The mechanism of man: an answer to the question, what am I? A popular introduction to mental physiology and psychology."  The title page lists Cox as "SERJEANT-AT-LAW, PRESIDENT OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN." Confusingly, we find the same figure listed in some of the parapsychology literature of the time under the name of Serjeant Cox rather than Edward W. Cox. 

On page 293 of the June 17, 1875 edition of The Spiritualist, we have an example of Cox drawing the wrong conclusions from some important evidence. In that edition he writes an article entitled "The Duality of the Mind."  He writes this, referring to different hemispheres of the brain:

"A multitude of undisputed facts prove that one brain can be destroyed, or its action paralysed, and yet the other brain preserve its power and perform all the mental functions. As already stated, this result may be witnessed in cases of paralysis. One-half the body has lost sensation by reason of disease in one brain only; the other side of the body continues in full possession of its powers of sensation and action, because the other brain is uninjured. Dr. Wigan tells us of a boy who, climbing a tree, fell on a sharp edge of iron, which sliced off a large portion of the skull and brain on one side of his head; 4 oz. of his brain were thus lost. His mental faculties remained uninjured until his death from hemorrhage many days afterwards. In another case, one hemisphere of the brain was wholly destroyed by disease, but the man conversed rationally. Dr. Conolly records the case of a man of family, one side of whose brain was found on examination to have been annihilated by an abscess, and in its place was 'a yawning chasm.'  His mental faculties were apparently quite perfect to the moment of death. Dr. James Johnson reported another case of a man who preserved his mental faculties, although, on a post mortem, it was found that one hemisphere of the brain had been reduced to a thin membrane, the whole solid contents of one-half of the cranium having absolutely disappeared. A similar case is recorded by Cruveilhier, of complete atrophy of the left side of the brain without apparent injury to the intellectual powers, proving conclusively that the functions of the mind were performed wholly by the right side of the brain. These are but a few of a multitude of cases reported by medical observers, and they are adduced here merely as illustrations of the evidence upon which the great physiologists named have based their contention that each brain is a complete machine, capable of performing alone the work of mind."

These are all very interesting cases,  but they do not prove what Cox claims they prove. Instead of being evidence that each hemisphere of the brain can by itself produce the mind, such cases help to show that the brain is not the source of the mind.  One reason is that according to Cox's reasoning, a human would consist of two minds rather than one, since humans have two brain hemispheres. 

On the next page Cox states his full reasoning, which takes him to an untenable position:

"The propositions sought to be maintained in this paper are : —

 1. That the brain is constituted of two hemispheres. 

2. That the brain is the mechanism by which mental operations are conducted. 

3. That one hemisphere of the brain may be injured or destroyed without seriously impairing the operations of the other hemisphere. 

4. That in such cases the mental operations also proceed without serious impediment. 

5. That therefore each hemisphere of the brain is a complete and perfect mental machine, capable of performing alone most, if not all, mental operations. 

6. That therefore we have two minds. 

7. That this is proved abundantly by recorded cases of persons who have exercised the ordinary mental faculties when one brain has been destroyed."

This was very bad reasoning. Humans do not have two minds, but a single unified mind. The ability of the human mind to survive with little apparent damage after the destruction of most or all of a hemisphere is not evidence that backs up the claim that the brain is the source of the mind. Such an ability is instead evidence that the human brain is not the source of the human mind. Any line of reasoning that leads you to the conclusion that humans have two minds is one that must be an error. And Cox's reasoning was very much in error. 

The cases that Cox cites above are very similar to many other cases that I cite in my posts below:

Cases of High Mental Function Despite Large Brain Damage

More Evidence of High Mental Function Despite Large Brain Damage

Some People Our Neuroscientists Don't Want You to Know About

Preservation of Mind and Memories After Removal of Half a Brain

Brain Dogmas Versus Case Histories That Refute Them

Cox's theory of "two brains and two minds" has been effectively debunked by the rare cases in which the fibers connecting the hemispheres of the brain have been severed. Such operations are called split brain operations. The result is a single mind, not two. Claims that split-brain operations result in two minds are some of the most outrageous lies of materialists, who tell many dozens of types of lies (as documented here). Split brain operations actually leave people with a single unified mind. 

Cox seemed to have had  a great tendency to try to make observations fit his theories, which often involved awkward cases of trying to hammer round pegs into square holes. Cox's 1872 book Spiritualism Answered by Science was a book that appeared the year after the Dialectical Society's 1871 report summarized here; and Cox was one of the investigators involved in that report which found resoundingly in favor of various types of dramatic paranormal phenomena.  Probably some people bought Cox's book hoping to read someone discredit reports of the paranormal that may have irritated them.  If someone bought the book hoping to see a wholesale debunking of the paranormal, they must have been sorely disappointed. Before  long the book's pages start telling us that some of the main types of paranormal phenomena are well-established observational facts.  On page 20 the author states this:

"Not only is the evidence by which the phenomena of Psychic Force are established stronger than any upon which the criminal courts daily convict and punish even with death ; it is at least equal to the evidence upon which most of the other sciences are founded. The experiments with Psychic Force are in all respects as perfect and trustworthy as those exhibited by Professor Tyndall at the Royal Institution. They are as plain to the eye, as palpable to the touch, as audible to the ear, as any witnessed in that famous lecture room. If the senses can deceive in the one, so are they equally liable to be deceived in the other, and the argument of imposture would be found equally applicable to both."

On page 29 the author describes being part of a group of investigators testing the hypothesis (suggested by Michael Faraday) that table turning (also called table tipping) was merely the result of involuntary muscular effort by the hands, and decisively debunking such a hypothesis:

"Such was the reasonable argument that led us to look to involuntary muscular action as the explanation of the motions and sounds that were continually being made. To ascertain if this hypothesis was correct, we devised a series of tests that should place the matter beyond all possible doubt. First, all hands were laid upon the table ; then one hand only of each person ; then the table was touched by the tips only of all the fingers ; then by the fingers of one hand alone ; then with one finger only. Still the motions and sounds continued with but slightly diminished force. If our theory of involuntary pressure was correct, the force should have diminished in precise proportion to the lessened points of contact. Moreover, it did not explain the fact, continually before our eyes, of the table being raised several inches from the floor on one side only, the muscular action of the fingers upon that side of the table being antagonistic and not contributory to such a motion ! We continued our experiments with lessened faith in our foregone conclusion. First, one person withdrew from all contact ; then a second, and a third, until one finger of one person only touched the table. Nevertheless it moved, the sounds continued to come from it, and a frequent motion was the lifting up of the table at the side on which the finger was pressing down, if exercising any pressure whatever. I should state that at all of these test experiments the tables employed were the large and heavy dining tables, some nine feet and some twelve feet long, with six legs, in common daily use in the dining-room of members of the committee, standing upon Turkey carpets, therefore not easily slid and difficult to move by the arm. 

We next tried a more decisive test. All hands were joined and held over the table at the height of three inches from it, no part of any hand touching it, the room being well lighted with gas and all eyes keeping careful watch over the lifted hands. The sounds were heard and the motions produced as before. It was suggested that possibly the feet might be at work ; so two of the members seated themselves under the table to observe. The motions and sounds continued, but not a foot stirred. Then all the persons present stood, so that no foot could touch the table unseen. Still it moved. Lastly we devised a test that conclusively settled the question as to the possible agency of muscular action, conscious or unconscious. It was contrived thus : All present turned the backs of their chairs to the table, and kneeling upon the chairs, placed their arms upon the backs of the chairs, their hands being extended above the table, but without possibility of contact with it. The chairs were first placed six inches from the table, with which, as the reader will readily understand, neither foot nor hand, nor any part of the person, of any of those present could possibly come into contact unseen. In this position the table moved eight inches over the carpet and tilted several times. The chairs were then withdrawn further from the table, on each trial to an increased distance, and with the same results. At the distance of two feet from it the motions were continued, with but slightly diminished power....These experiments of motion without contact were repeated many times at different meetings in different houses, and with the same results. Thus was our third and last explanatory conjecture, which we had eagerly accepted on the authority of Faraday, completely demolished by the facts, and we were compelled reluctantly to the conclusion that there is a Force apparently proceeding from the human organisation by which motion is produced in heavy substances without the employment of any muscular force, and without contact or material connection of any kind between such substances and the body of any person present."

Reports such as the one above will seem shocking only to those who have failed to study the extremely abundant evidence for paranormal phenomena in the 19th century, including very frequent reports by very many distinguished witnesses that untouched tables had levitated or moved around inexplicably. A good starting point if you want to look into such matters is my 13-part "Spookiest Years" series (you can reach Part 11 and links to the first 10 parts here). 

On pages 39-40 Cox reports a paranormal phenomenon of the mysterious alteration in the weight of tables (something similar to what was reported by Sir William Crookes in very careful observations):

"Alterations in the weight of tables and other furniture have been frequently exhibited. Bidding the table to be light, a finger lifted it ; the next moment, bidding it to be heavy, the entire force of the body was required to raise it from the floor. It was, however, suggested by myself and others who were engaged in the scientific investigation of the phenomena of Psychic Force, that possibly this change in the weight of the subject of the Force might be merely in our own sensations, and not an actual change in the gravity of the wood or the operation of any pressure upon it. To test this, a weighing machine was constructed with a hook to fix to the table, the index accurately marking the weight of whatever was attached to it. Applying this machine to the table and other bodies, we found that the change was really in them, and not sensational merely, as we had suspected. This simple experiment was tried so often, and with, so many precautions, as to establish it beyond doubt. The weights varied at every trial, but all proved the reality of the Force that was operating. One instance will suffice. Weighed by the machine, the normal weight of a table, raised from the floor 18 in. on one side, was 8 lb. ; desired to be light, the index fell to 5 lb. ; desired to be heavy, it advanced to eighty-two pounds ; and these changes were instantaneous and repeated many times."

On page 45 Cox begins to speculate about the nature of the mysterious force he has observed, what he has called a Psychic Force.  Cox's speculations on this matter are not very believable.  He seems determined not to go all the way towards admitting the existence of a mysterious supernatural force from some external agency beyond living humans. He tried to inhabit some halfway house between materialism and the supernatural. 

Cox tries to suggest that the effects he has observed can be explained as some natural but poorly understood force coming from human beings, not from beyond them. He imagines a kind of unconscious telekinesis or subconscious psychokinesis "mind over matter" coming from psychics or mediums or even ordinary people. 

On page 49 Cox states his theory:

"There is a Force proceeding from, or directly associated with, the human organisation, which, in certain persons and under certain conditions, can cause motion in heavy bodies, and produce audible and palpable pounds in such bodies, without muscular contact or any material connection between any person present and the heavy body so moved or on which the sounds are produced. This Force appears to be frequently directed by some intelligence. For the reasons presently to be specified, we conclude that this Force is generated in certain persons of peculiar nervous organisation in sufficient power to operate beyond bodily contact." 

Since the nineteenth century we have learned much about the organization of human bodies. We have learned that human bodies are vastly more organized than any one in the nineteenth century had imagined. But nothing we have learned about the stratospheric levels of organization in human bodies supports the idea that the human organization could result in some power to mysteriously manipulate matter outside of the human body.  It could be that the human soul has some ability to manipulate matter outside of the body, through something like telekinesis or psychokinesis. But nothing we have learned about the physical body can explain such an effect it if exists. 

One problem with such a theory of subconscious telekinesis is that it can explain only a fraction of reports of paranormal phenomena, only physical effects. Such a theory of subconscious telekinesis cannot explain reports of inexplicable mental effects. Subconscious telekinesis cannot explain the very many well-documented accounts in the nineteenth century of dramatic clairvoyance of hypnotized subjects. Subconscious telekinesis cannot explain cases such as that of the medium Leonora Piper, who (while in trance) stated a great deal of correct information relating to deceased people who should have been unknown to her.  

But we can at least credit Cox for being better than the average neuroscientist of today, in the sense that he reluctantly acknowledged evidence for paranormal phenomena that he preferred not to believe in. Conversely, today's typical neuroscientist goes all "head buried in the sand" when encountering any of countless abundant observational reports of paranormal phenomena beyond any neural explanation. Today's typical neuroscientist shows zero evidence of having seriously studied the evidence for such phenomena, and just follows a witless policy of "deny, deny, deny" whenever such evidence is mentioned.  

Types of paranormal phenomena discussed here

The insight of Edward W. Cox may have grown after the publication of the "we have two minds" statement quoted above. On page 136 of the March 23, 1877 edition of The Spiritualist, Cox states this:

"The paper contributed to the Psychological Society by Mr. Croll almost demonstrates as a fact in nature and science that the universe is not wholly material—probably the material part being the least part of it. It proves scientifically that spirit—by which I mean nothing more than nonmolecular being, affirming nothing whatever what that being is—underlies, surrounds, possibly permeates, all molecular matter—that the forms of life and being arc not determined by chance nor by the fortuitous combination of atoms, but are moulded by forces that are not the blind physical forces, but some power with a plan, which determines organic structure and perhaps all mundane structure; that matter, which is the proper study of the chemists, is not, as the materialists would have it, the all in all, but that there is behind the world of matter, and probably underlying it a cosmos of spirit—a universe of soul, whose investigation is the proper province of psychology. While the materialists are usefully toiling to learn the laws of those physical forces that mechanically move the dead unconscious matter which alone they recognise, we psychologists are not less usefully employed in exploring the facts and phenomena of living conscious being, the forces by which it is moved, and that yet greater force which determines the direction of all the forces of nature, and builds up that world of organic and inorganic matter which the materialists are analysing. We thank them for this good work. We cordially recognise the great service physical science is doing. We complain only that physicists will not be content with labouring in their own province, leaving psychology to psychologists, but, without seeing or knowing, they venture to pass judgment upon another branch of science of which they confess themselves wholly ignorant. Psychologists justly complain...that they [materialists] refuse to hear any evidence or any argument that goes to prove its. existence—that they insist upon pronouncing a verdict upon that which they have never seen, nor tried, nor studied..."

Sadly the situation Cox described persists to this day, with physicists and neuroscientists who have never properly studied human minds and human mental experiences (a topic of oceanic depth) issuing pronouncements about the nature of mind, which is rather like someone who never paid attention in physics class and shunned reading about physics issuing dogmatic proclamations about the nature of the subatomic world. 

On page 266 of the June 4, 1875 edition of The Spiritualist, Cox describes a state of extraordinary memory, what sounds like a case of photographic or eidetic memory. Cox describes himself as having a similar memory. Cox states this:

"The Rev. Henry Christmas, formerly of Sion College, possessed an extraordinary memory. I have seen him read a page of Greek or Latin opened at random, close the book and repeat the whole of the page verbatim, beginning with the broken sentence in the first line. He knew by heart the entire of many volumes of poems. He could repeat the whole of Horace from memory : one perusal usually sufficed. He informed me that this marvellous memory of his was a memory not of sound but of sight. He did not recall the words, but the page on which they had been printed when he learned them, and in his mind’s eye he saw that page and read from it. I suspect such a form of memory to be not uncommon. It is possessed by myself. When I desire to repeat anything learned by rote I am compelled to recall to my mind the book and the page of the book from which I learned it. I see in my mental vision the very misprints, creases, and spots upon the paper, and I mentally read it from the ideal representation of the book. This is plainly memory for objects of sight, not for language."

Such cases strengthen the case against the idea of a brain storage of memories, as they give us facts of exceptional human memory that make all claims of brains storing memories seem more implausible. The more exceptional human memory performance is, the less credible are claims that human memory can be explained by something with the many physical shortfalls of the brain. 

Convoluted "Spaghetti Code" Analysis Pathways Help Neuroscientists Conjure Phantasms That Don't Exist

In my post "How the Academia-Cyberspace-Pharmaceutical-Biotech-Publishing Complex Incentivizes Bad Brain Research" I gave a long analysis of some of the social and economic factors that are driving poor-quality neuroscience and misleading claims in the press about such research.  Below is a quote from one of the bullet lists in that post, part of a much larger list of items in that bullet list:

• Once a study has been published in a scientific journal, it is announced to the public by means of a university press release or college press release. Nowadays university press offices are notorious for their hype and exaggeration, and routinely make interesting-sounding claims about new research that are not justified by the observations in the scientific paper being announced.  An abundance of such hype helps to glorify universities, keep them in the public's eyes, and helps to justify the very high tuition rates of universities. Misstatements in press releases come both from press office copywriters who are encouraged to glorify and hype new research, but also from scientists quoted in the press releases, who often make unwarranted or false claims about their own research, in an effort to maximize the attention such research will get. 
• There is nowadays an extremely large cyberspace industry that has an incentive to uncritically parrot university press releases, and an additional incentive to further exaggerate and hype the results reported by such press releases.  The incentive comes in the form of web pages containing ads that generate revenue for the owners of web pages.  So we see an enormous "clickbait" effect, in which sensational-sounding headlines appear on web pages, with the headlines being hyperlinks that take the reader to a page filled with ads.  Every time a page with such ads is viewed, money is generated for the owner of the web site.  The "clickbait" headlines often take you to pages discussing research that never justifies the sensational clickbait headline. For example, you may see on some web page a headline "Scientists Make Giant Leap in Understanding Memory." Clicking on that headline will typically take you to some story about merely another very poorly designed study using mice, something that is no actual progress in understanding memory. 

The two paragraphs above were only part of a much larger explanation of why we get these days so many misleading claims appearing in neuroscience papers and press articles about such papers. The paragraphs written in 2023 describe well two recent 2024 cases in which groundless claims of progress were made about neuroscience research. In these cases we got particularly egregious and glaring examples of misleading claims. Great breakthroughs were claimed, even though no evidence was provided to justify such claims. 

The first was a January 2, 2024 press release from Dartmouth College entitled "Researchers identify new coding mechanism that transfers information from perception to memory." Nothing of the sort actually occurred. Scientists have no robust evidence that memories are stored in brains, and have no understanding of how information could be transferred in a brain from perception to memory storage.  Scientists have no understanding of how something that you see could be stored in the brain as a memory. 

The text of the press release makes the untrue claim that "researchers identified a neural coding mechanism that allows the transfer of information back and forth between perceptual regions to memory areas of the brain." Nothing in the corresponding scientific paper justifies such a claim.

The paper is behind a paywall. But doing some additional work, you can find a preprint of the paper ("A retinotopic code structures the interaction between perception and memory systems") on the biology preprint server. The link here gives the full text of the paper. The paper is yet another example of the Questionable Research Practices so predominant in today's experimental neuroscience. The study group sizes are way too small, being no greater than 17 and sometimes as small as only 8 or 9.  The study is based on fMRI analysis, but it has been established that fMRI analysis like this is hopelessly unreliable when the study group sizes are so small. See the appendix of this  post for a discussion of why very large study group sizes are needed for reliable results in fMRI analysis of this type. The study mentions no use of any control subjects or any meaningful use of experimental controls. We read of analysis of a memory activation task, but no analysis of a control state in which subjects were not remembering. An essential element for credibility in a study like this is the following of a rigorous blinding protocol. But no blinding protocol was followed.  The paper is also not a pre-registered study. We have a "see whatever you want to see" situation in which the authors were free to analyze the data in any of endless ways until they could report something they wanted to see.  The reported result is almost certainly mere pareidolia on the part of the researchers.  No credible evidence has been provided that any kind of neural code has been discovered. 

In the "Spatial Sensitivity Analysis" part of the paper, we have an example of what sounds like some statistical skullduggery or sleight-of-hand going on:  

"On each iteration (1000 iterations total; randomized PMA pRF order): 1) For every pRF in a PMA, we computed the pairwise Euclidean distance (in x, y, and sigma) to all +pRFs in the paired SPA and found the SPA pRF with the smallest distance that was smaller than the median distance of all possible pRF pairs, 2) we required that all pRF matches were uniquely matched, so if an SPA pRF was the best match for two PMA pRFs, then the second PMA pRF was excluded....

Second, we compared the correlation in trial x trial activation matched (versus non-matched) pairs of pRFs with 'unmatched' pRFs. To create the 'unmatched', random pRF pairings, we randomly sampled pRFs in the memory area (repeated 1000 times). We then computed the unique correlation in trial x trial activation during recall between SPA pRFs and PMA pRFs, using the same procedure as in our main analysis (e.g., the partial correlation between SPA pRFs with PMA -pRFs, controlling for PMA +pRFs) for each iteration of the pRF matching. We compared the mean of the Fisher transformed partial correlation values across the iterations for the matched pRFs with the mean of random (i.e., unmatched) pRFs. To ensure that matched pRFs had better corresponding visual field representations than unmatched pRFs, we calculated the visual field overlap between pRF pairs in the matched samples, compared with the random samples (average dice coefficient of the visual field coverage for all matched versus unmatched iterations)."

This is only a small fraction of the byzantine "spaghetti code" statistical rigmarole that was going on. No one should be impressed by the language above. To some this gobbledygook may sound "scientific" or "mathematical," but what it actually is a confession of some convoluted, arbitrary "Rube Goldberg" analysis pathway that is the opposite of a straightforward analysis.  We get a strong smell here of "keep torturing the data until it confesses."  The more convoluted an analysis and data manipulation pathway, the less confidence we should have in it. If someone told you that he processed the famous Zapruder film of John Kennedy's assassination by doing a simple straightforward filter, you might be impressed if this yielded something unseen by someone looking at the original film, such as what looked like a gunman hiding in the grassy knoll. But if someone told you that he did a long, convoluted, arbitrary series of manipulations that yielded such an impression of a gunman hiding in the grassy knoll, you should have no confidence in an analysis so arbitrary and byzantine. And when we read scientific papers that describe an arbitrary convoluted spaghetti-code analysis pathway (one of thousands of possible analysis pathways), we should have very little confidence in the claimed results. 

We have in the press release quotes by two of the researchers claiming to have found something that the research did not actually find, because the research was such a very bad example of Questionable Research Practices. Often in today's neuroscience press releases we have some copywriter at a university press office making claims about research that were never made by the researchers. But in this case the  fault for the misleading press release lies largely with the researchers themselves, who gave press release quotes claiming to have shown something their shoddy methods research never showed. 

We have the same thing going on in another January 2024 press release, a press release making the groundless claim "New study reveals how your brain organises experiences in time." The press release makes a groundless claim of a "breakthrough discovery." Nothing mentioned in the press release justifies any such claims. We have a reference to a new scientific paper ("Minute-scale oscillatory sequences in medial entorhinal cortex") that is another very bad example of Questionable Research Practices. The study group sizes were ridiculously small, consisting of only 3 mice and 4 mice. No blinding protocol was used. We read no mention of control subjects. We read that "Power analysis was not used to determine sample sizes." A proper use of sample size calculation (power analysis) would have revealed that the study group sizes were way too small for a reliable result. 

As in the previous case, the paper confesses an absurdly convoluted and byzantine analysis pathway that is the opposite of straightforward. Below is only a small fraction of the "spaghetti code" rigmarole gobbledygook that went on:

"First, the similarity in preferred phases of all cells within spatial bins of the FOV was used as a proxy for local gradients. The similarity in preferred phases was calculated as the mean vector length (MVL) of the distribution of preferred phases within each bin of the FOV. The analysis was performed for individual sequences separately. For each of the 15 oscillatory sessions (over 5 mice), the FOV was divided into spatial bins of 100 μm x 100 μm (6 × 6 bins in 10 sessions, 10 × 10 bins in 5 sessions), or 200 μm x 200 μm (3 × 3 bins in 10 sessions, 5 × 5 bins in 5 sessions) (note that for 10 of the 15 oscillatory sessions the FOV was 600 μm x 600 μm, mice no. 60355, no. 60584, no. 60585; while for 5 of the 15 oscillatory sessions the FOV was 1,000 μm × 1,000 μm, mouse no. 59914; mouse no. 59911 did not show the oscillatory sequences). Next, the preferred phase of each cell per sequence was calculated (as we did in ‘Correlation between differences in preferred phase and anatomical distance’) and for each sequence and every spatial bin of the FOV the MVL was computed (only spatial bins with 10 or more cells were considered). If the MVL was 0, then all preferred phases in that bin were different and homogeneously distributed between −π and π, whereas if the MVL was 1 then all preferred phases were the same. In the presence of a travelling wave, each bin should have a high MVL value compared to chance levels. Statistical significance was determined by repeating the same MVL calculation after shuffling the cells’ preferred phases within the FOV 200 times, and using, for each spatial bin, a cutoff for significant of 95th percentile of the shuffled distribution...To determine whether long sequences act as a template for the formation of given activity patterns in a neural population, we built a simple perceptron model in which 500 units were connected to an output unit (Extended Data Fig. 12a). There was a total of 500 weights in the network, one per input unit. The total simulation time was 120 s, with 3,588 simulation steps and a time step of 33.44 ms (original time step was 129 ms, to mimic the bin size used in calcium data, rescaled so that the length of one of the input sequences was 120 s, similar to the length of the sequences in Fig. 2b). The response of the output unit was given by R = WX, where W was the vector of weights, and X the matrix of input activity (each column is a time step, each row is the activity of one input unit). The weights were trained such that the output unit performed one of two target responses (see below). For each target, we trained the model using as input periodic sequences with 5 different lengths (one length per training), covering the range from very slow to very fast as compared to the characteristic time scale of the targets (100 s).''

This smells like the same situation as in the previous paper: keep torturing the data until it confesses, or until you get the faintest whisper you can call a confession. 

No research was done to show that the brain "organizes memories in time." Since the research involved only mice rather than humans, the claim that the research "reveals how your brain organizes in time" is a particularly egregious misstatement. 

What happens with the literature involving these shoddy practices studies is often an effect in which the misstatements grow worse and worse the farther you get from the original paper. The paper may contain bad misstatements, or may be cautious in its language. The paper may be announced by a press release making glaring misstatements. Then press articles derived from the press release will tend to make ever-more-outrageous misstatements. It's an escalation of hype and error, driven by the economics of clickbait, in which web sites try as hard as possible to have sensational headlines so that more advertising revenue will come from people looking at ads on the web sites. So in the case of the study above, we went from a "Minute-scale oscillatory sequences in medial entorhinal cortex" paper title to an untrue "New study reveals how your brain organises experiences in time" press release title to a news story based on the press release with the false-as-false-can-be title "Breakthrough discoveries of how the brain stores memories." No progress has been made by scientists in showing that brains store memories or how brains could store memories. 

Convoluted "spaghetti code" analysis pathways are only one of many ways in which scientists can conjure up phantasms that don't exist. To read about other such ways, read my post "Scientists Have a Hundred Ways To Conjure Up Phantasms." 

You can search for the presence of arbitrary rigmarole "spaghetti code" analysis pathways in a scientific paper by manually checking, or by searching for the word "iterations." The word "iteration" will typically indicate that the data was passed through processing loops of a computer program.  Once data is being passed through such processing loops, it is pretty much an "anything goes" situation in which the scientist may play around with the data according to whatever arbitrary whim he had when writing some programming code. I know from my many years in software development that professional computer programmers often commit programming errors.  I would imagine that scientists dabbling in computer programming probably commit far more programming errors than professional software developers. Or, the code may be written by some software developer who does not well understand the data. When scientific experiments rely on programming code (as in the two cases above), almost always the code is not published with the paper. Or, if some promise is made about code accessibility, it is typically something where someone wanting to see the code will have to "jump through hoops" to obtain it.  Often there are empty promises that the code is "available upon reasonable request," with such requests not producing responses, or empty-sounding promises such as the promise that the code "will be published on GitHub." 

The "Minute-scale oscillatory sequences in medial entorhinal cortex" paper mentioned above does actually publish its code, and you can view it using the link here. Opening up one of the many programming code files by using this link I see code that looks like the worst kind of gobbledygook rigmarole spaghetti code. You might describe what is occurring as "keep torturing the data with bizarre arbitrary-looking programming loops until it whispers the faintest confession." Looking at other programming files in the repository, I see that quite a few other programming files have similar-looking code, which makes you think: "What on Earth were these guys thinking?" When code is as sparsely commented as this code, and has so many arbitrary-looking inscrutable lines, it is usually true that no one understands what the code is doing except the original programmer; and it usually also is true that even the original programmer does not know what exactly the code is doing. What you have is a goofy black box doing God-only-knows-what kind of distortions and transformations of the original data.  When did our neuroscientists start thinking they had a license to play with their data in a hundred obscure murky convoluted ways rather than just analyzing the original data in a straightforward way? The situation reminds you of people who think it is okay to apply unlimited photo filters to their smartphone snaps so that their obese old bodies standing in front of average houses look like slim young bodies standing in front of mansions. 

When neuroscience research degrades into manipulation malarkey and contortion convolutions,  in an "anything goes" fashion in which people are not thinking "stick to the original data gathered from instruments," it is a very sad state of affairs. 

How often is it like this?

Appendix:  A press release from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities announces results which indicate that such small-sample correlation-seeking brain imaging experiments are utterly unreliable.  The headline of the press release is "Brain studies show thousands of participants are needed for accurate results."

We read this:

"Scientists rely on brain-wide association studies to measure brain structure and function—using MRI brain scans—and link them to complex characteristics such as personality, behavior, cognition, neurological conditions and mental illness. New research published March 16, 2022 in Nature from the University of Minnesota and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis...shows that most published brain-wide association studies are performed with too few participants to yield reliable findings."

The abstract of the paper in the science journal Nature can be read here. The paper is entitled, "Reproducible brain-wide association studies require thousands of individuals." 

The press release tells us this:

"The study used publicly available data sets—involving a total of nearly 50,000 participants—to analyze a range of sample sizes and found:

• Brain-wide association studies need thousands of individuals to achieve higher reproducibility. Typical brain-wide association studies enroll just a few dozen people.
• So-called 'underpowered' studies are susceptible to uncovering strong but misleading associations by chance while missing real but weaker associations. 
• Routinely underpowered brain-wide association studies result in a surplus of strong yet irreproducible findings."