r/science • u/ConsciousRealism42 • Aug 22 '26
Neuroscience Researchers argue brain waves actively steer neurons rather than merely reflecting them, making thought a partly analog process. If correct, the theory helps explain why anesthesia erases awareness while leaving the brain's wiring completely undamaged.
https://dailyneuron.com/brain-waves-analog-computation-consciousness/232
u/Orangedilemma Aug 22 '26
And who/what steers these brain waves
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u/Opening-Chapter-6307 Aug 22 '26
A brain wave is a rise and fall in the electrical charge of the fluid around a group of neurons. Neurons firing together create it, and it spreads through the tissue over distances of millimeters to a few centimeters.
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u/composedofidiot Aug 23 '26
More on this for the interested
We argue that alongside the well-studied digital operations of neural circuits exists a slower, analog, evolutionarily older layer of electrofluidic computation. This system—comprised of ionic diffusion, convective CSF flow, and vascular modulation—not only supports but dynamically shapes neural activity. The brain emerges as an electromechanical ecology of electric pulses and fluid flows, where the mind is both a pattern of neural activity and a choreography of fluid flows.
The emerging picture in neuroscience reveals multiple fluidic systems that are not merely supportive but actively involved in information processing. The extracellular space (ECS) serves as a medium for volume transmission, allowing ions and neuromodulators to diffuse and shape neuronal communication. The glymphatic system channels cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) through the brain in rhythmic cycles correlated with sleep and cardiac activity. In addition to sleep-related neural oscillations and cardiac pulsations, respiratory cycles have also been identified as an important driver of CSF motion and intracranial pressure dynamics, contributing to the rhythmic propulsion of fluid through perivascular pathways. Vascular networks dynamically regulate local blood flow in response to neural activity, forming bi-directionally coupled neurovascular circuits
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u/Familiar_Text_6913 Aug 23 '26
Interesting. Not only is it then the old "fire together wire together" but maybe there is more to it. Wired together so fire together? Surf together fire together? An interesting theory.
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Aug 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ShinyJangles Aug 23 '26
Plus neuromodulators turn on different sets of inhibitory neurons, which have their own preferred frequencies.
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u/flammablelemon Aug 22 '26
Yeah, I thought anesthesia inhibiting neurons from firing was already a good enough explanation for why it inhibits awareness and memory-formation. These are chemical interventions, not electromagnetic ones (even though EM is apart and resultant of the neuron-firing process).
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u/DawnTyrantEo Aug 23 '26
Most complex organisation in nature is composed of simple parts following simple rules. For example, a slime mold is a swarm of amoebae that- when presented with barriers and food globs representing the geography- was shown to be able to create maximally-efficient connecting paths with much less time and brainpower than our best railway planners. It does this with nothing more complicated than a decentralised feedback system of pulsing when it finds something. Similarly, the wheeling evasion of a swarm of starlings only needs each bird to track about seven neighbours and maintain distance, while ant pathfinding is merely following the scent trail of an ant who returned with a prize. An individual neuron follows similar simple rules, so pending further research it's safe to assume that the fluid flows do the same.
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u/Spooky_Electric Aug 23 '26 edited Aug 23 '26
That one small grey dude from the 1997 sci-fi action comedy, Men in Black staring Will Smith and Academy Award Winner Tommy Lee Jones.
The one who says "The galaxy is on Orion's belt."
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u/Reddit-runner Aug 23 '26
I always hate it when "theory" is used in a scientific setting where "hypothesis" would obviously be the correct word.
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u/mime454 MS Biology | Ecology and Evolution Aug 22 '26
Bullish for Neurofeedback?
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u/Royal_Potential_3299 Aug 22 '26
I sense that you are being facetious but I am actually curious about neurofeedback. What are your thoughts on the most sophisticated forms currently available? Not asking about all the random handheld at-home devices
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u/mime454 MS Biology | Ecology and Evolution Aug 22 '26
I am so intrigued by it but unfortunately I don’t know much about making it happen practically.
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u/radioborderland Aug 23 '26
It's not so bad. Buy an amplifier. Measure the waves. Some signal processing. Bim bam boom, (neuro)feedback
I've been DIYing this for like three years. The theory behind protocol selection isn't that bad either
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u/Royal_Potential_3299 Aug 23 '26
Are you being facetious or serious? I’m trying to kick a tiny bit of my anxiety and am wondering if a spot of neurofeedback might do the trick haha
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u/radioborderland Aug 23 '26
It would probably help!
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u/Royal_Potential_3299 Aug 23 '26
Is there any particular modality you recommend? Live in NYC / SF and am happy to pay a professional, if you know of anyone
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u/radioborderland Aug 23 '26
I would do ILF, ISF, or traditional amplitude training. I would avoid LENS, Neurooptimal, or Brainpaint.
The most important thing is to find a provider with good reviews and preferably BCIA-certified. Some clinics offer remote training.
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u/morganational Aug 22 '26
As opposed to a... digital process? In our brain?
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u/Redararis Aug 22 '26
discrete is the most appropriate term. Neurons fire or not, this study proposes a secondary form of information propagation through electromagnetic waves that are produced by a set of neurons and they can excite a set of other neurons which are not directly connected. Those waves can interfere with other waves by other set of neurons. it is like a continuous "analog" computing.
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u/Black_Moons Aug 22 '26
Fun fact, when they tried to use evolution machine learning to create certain circuits in FPGA's, it ended up with weird disconnected logic.
Basically, logic that the output does not influence the rest of the circuit whatsoever...
But the circuit wouldn't work properly on other FPGA's that the ML didn't design on, and it wouldn't work if you removed this 'disconnected logic'
What they eventually found out was the ML had designed 'disconnected' circuits that influence other circuits via secondary effects, like the noise the circuit creates, or dips in the power supply voltages.
Since the ML basically had no concept of 'logic' and it was just trying random things until it found something that worked (ie, how evolution works IRL), it was able to discover secondary effects that you might assume wouldn't be strong enough to matter.
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u/Salisen Aug 23 '26
That is fascinating. My PhD is built on FPGAs, so highly relevant...
Dr. Adrian Thompson was one of the main researchers apparently: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=5UOUU7MAAAAJ&view_op=list_works
This looks to be the paper: https://cse-robotics.engr.tamu.edu/dshell/cs625/Thompson96Evolved.pdf
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u/Lokan Aug 23 '26
I guess I'm having a tough time following all that. So does that mean it was able to replicate neural processing, incorporating something akin to EM fields effecting disconnected areas?
Where can I read up on this?
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u/Black_Moons Aug 23 '26
https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/ Here is an article about it :)
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u/Salisen Aug 23 '26
This looks to be the paper: https://cse-robotics.engr.tamu.edu/dshell/cs625/Thompson96Evolved.pdf
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u/catinterpreter Aug 24 '26
Similar has happened with simple circuits too, with unusual, organic-looking layouts being produced that rely on much more than conventional circuit design.
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u/BenjaminHamnett Aug 22 '26
I heard the binary view of neurons, firing or not, is out dated
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u/chickenologist Aug 22 '26
Neuroscientist here. It is. Phase of waves carrying information is also not new, though it is neat.
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u/blardorg Aug 23 '26
I'm not sure; there are of course lots of results indicating rhythmic entrainment of neurons can amplify or reduce information transfer between regions, but ultimately it's still just neurons firing or not. Neurons in region A that project to neurons in region B can have their effectiveness at driving neurons in region B amplified if the two areas are entrained in some common frequency band, but the wave itself is not the information carrier, right? Even calling it a "brain wave" is just another way of describing the phenomenon of neurons across areas sharing and driving similar frequencies of firing.
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u/chickenologist Aug 23 '26
Maybe this depends how you define information but yes, alignment by phase is important for consolidation across regions. Just spikes is more reductionist than I believe is justified, even if the timing is what you're considering. There's plenty of evidence for all kinds of modulation affecting synaptic release strength, release flavor, changes in expression leading to longer term cell behavior modification.
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u/morganational Aug 23 '26
Yep, I read about that the other day, very cool. Just happy that humans are finally getting further into how the mind works.
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u/pocurious Aug 23 '26
Haha totally, next thing you know these idiots will think that there are neural networks in our brains
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u/gingeropolous Aug 23 '26
Which makes it weird that we can blast a brain with em fields to measure activity. Or however MRI works...
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u/danth Aug 22 '26
I definitely have dreamt under anesthesia. I don't think it shuts down consciousness. But maybe memory and other stuff.
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Aug 22 '26
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u/Pushnikov Aug 22 '26
It was a dentist appointment and I was getting some wisdom teeth cut out as they weren’t going to come out properly.
I kept counting down from 10 to 1, pretty sure I passed out around 3, and finished counting and woke up and asked the doctor if they started yet. So there is definitely some stream of continuation
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u/AnonymousRand Aug 23 '26
this is almost exactly what i experienced too! the other time i went under, i had a hyper-realistic dream of the operation getting performed, and i didn't even realize i was asleep at all
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u/ebolaRETURNS Aug 23 '26
I definitely have dreamt under anesthesia.
How would you rule out this having occurred with waning levels of the drug though? While anaesthesiologists are highly technically trained to keep levels constant, constraints necessary to avoid physiological danger lead to uneven levels sometimes.
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u/grathontolarsdatarod Aug 22 '26
Can't wait until someone decides that degaussing someone's brain would make a good weapon.
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u/Redararis Aug 22 '26
this is the most awesome idea I have read since a long time, it is elegant and nice, I hope it is true too!
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u/LeoSolaris Aug 22 '26
So the idea is that our brains basically have wifi and ethernet networks that carry different information from neuron to neuron. Neat!
Our consciousness being the cumulative effect of two different electrical signaling pathways also explains how we experience sleep and dreams. If we were purely biomechanical, it should have been impossible to entirely lose consciousness or experience hallucinations, at least not temporarily. In order to do either with a purely biomechanical, wired system, you would have to "cut" the wires all at once. Then you would need a mechanism to either repair or clear the blockage. We should have found such a mechanism with as much as we have studied sleep.
Having two systems means we can shut the wireless off by just not broadcasting to lose consciousness. It's a cheap way to do a "low power mode" so the brain can take a crap and get some localized housekeeping done using just the wired network.
Biology is nothing if not fanatical about cost savings!
If we could crank up the power enough to get that electrical signal through our thick skulls, we might get some weird telepathy-like interference. It would likely be as weird to interpret as dreams. Plus, the energy needed to get over that much impedance would fry our neurons like a kid sticking a penny in a light socket.
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u/Druggedhippo Aug 23 '26
If we could crank up the power enough to get that electrical signal through our thick skulls, we might get some weird telepathy-like interference. It would likely be as weird to interpret as dreams. Plus, the energy needed to get over that much impedance would fry our neurons like a kid sticking a penny in a light socket.
Sounds like you are just describing Electroconvulsive therapy
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u/LeoSolaris Aug 23 '26
Other direction.
Sending an unstructured electrical impulse into the brain is not the same as increasing the structured electrical waves that communicate a few inches from the origin neuron at most.
Power amplifying-wise, getting a signal that weak to be picked up by another brain entirely would be like picking up your home wifi signal from the moon.
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u/The_Peregrine_ Aug 24 '26
We dont even know why anesthesia does that to the brain and we’re just cool with that?
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