Tuesday, April 30 at 9:00 am Pacific Daylight Saving Time
Guest Speaker: Francine Smolucha
Summary:
In the past forty years, brain imaging technology has identified specific neural networks associated with voluntary and involuntary imagination. This tutorial will review these neural networks, and consider how they interact with the neural networks for inner speech and imaginative activities such as pretend play. Videos and diagrams will be used to introduce the Default Mode Network(DMN)active during daydreaming, the Executive Control Network (ECN) active during tasks, and the Dorsal Language Stream (DLS) active during both external and inner speech.
Please Contact Francine Smolucha at lsmolucha@hotmail.com for the Zoom link for the session on April 23rd.
You can find the Power Point Presentation from the talk by Francine Smolucha here.
Readings, Diagrams, and Videos:
1. An Introduction to Neural Networks for Creative Imagination by Francine Smolucha 3/7/2024 (a work in progress)
There have been many advancements in brain imaging beginning with infancy (and quite possibly neonatal). This has changed the discussion in neuroscience from parts of the brain to neural networks. Publications on neural networks for imagination and creativity, focus on the dual mode networks – being able to shift from daydreaming to being task focused. The Default Mode Network is associated with daydreaming (mind wandering) and the Executive Control Network focuses on completing a task. But these publications are all based on a computer information processing model, that does not take into account how neural networks form as a result of social interactions involving language and actions on objects (i.e., oblivious to the Vygotsky/Luria theory of developmental neuropsychology). The other shortcoming of this research literature is that it does not include research on the Dorsal Language Stream that functions in both external and inner speech (Charles Fernyhough’s pioneering research).
Charles Fernyhough and his colleagues have identified a difference in the neural network for monologic inner speech, in contrast to dialogic inner speech(both involve the Dorsal Language Stream that connects Broca’s Area for speech with Wernicke’s Area for language comprehension). Their work is based on Vygotskian theory that proposed the neural networks develop under the influence of social interactions involving language and actions on objects.[Alderson-Day et al (2016).]
Specific points of connection between the neural network for dialogic inner speech and the Default Mode Network have also been identified – those points being the precuneus and the posterior cingulate. My contribution is that I have noticed that the Dorsal Language Stream and the Default Mode Network have an important part in common, that being the Angular Gyrus . The Angular Gyrus as part of the Dorsal Language Stream also functions as part of the Executive Network (isn’t this consistent with Luria’s pioneering work on the self-regulatory role of the prefrontal cortex?). The Angular Gyrus is involved in understanding word meanings, visual language, metaphor, and Theory of Mind (understanding another person’s perspective).
Bringing together these research literatures (that have been estranged) offers tremendous potential for understanding how imagination and creativity develops – specifically, the role of social interactions involving language and actions on objects with the corresponding development of neural networks. This is what Vygotsky anticipated in his paper On Psychological Systems (1930a) and his three papers on the development of imagination and creativity that have been the focus of this Seminar series (1930b, 1931, 1932).
2. Angular Gyrus
Angular Gyrus in orange, Broca’s area in blue, Wernicke’s area in green (bidirectional nerve tracts make this the Dorsal Language Stream). The Angular Gyrus is also part of the Default Mode Network for day-dreaming and the Executive Control Network for task focused thinking.
3. Default Mode Network (daydreaming, mind wandering)
This diagram illustrates the sections of the DMN that lay along the interior longitudinal fissure. The precuneus at the top is immediately above the angular gyrus which can only be seen from an external view of the cerebral cortex. The angular gyrus is considered part of the DMN while also being part of the Dorsal Language Stream for external and inner speech. Fernyhough and his colleagues have identified both the precuneus and the posterior cingulum (visible in this diagram) as points of connection between the DMN and the DLS.
4. Dorsal Language Stream (for external speech as well as monologic and dialogic inner speech. Dialogic inner speech also involves areas of the Default Mode Network.)
In conclusion, we have presented the first neuroimaging study of some important varieties of inner speech, focusing on the contrast between dialogic and monologic forms of self-talk. Our findings provide initial support for the idea that forms of inner speech exist which can be both phenomenologically and neurologically distinguished from the silent commentary of a single inner voice. The data presented here suggest that generating silent dialogues draws on a wider network than classical regions associated with language production and comprehension, including recruitment of a core part of the ToM network. Further work is needed to disambiguate (i) the exact processes shared between dialogic inner speech and ToM, (ii) the involvement of the DMN in this conjunction and (iii) relative contributions of inner speech and forms of mental imagery to creating vivid inner dialogues.
Video: Anatomy of the Brain: Dissectible Model
5. The Dorsal and Ventral Language Streams
In the dorsal and ventral language streams the arcuate fasciculus nerve tract (lower red arrow) goes through the angular gyrus (green) before connecting Broca’s area (orange) with Wernicke’s area (blue). It also shows a connection between the lateral prefrontal (upper red arrow) going through the angular gyrus (green area) before connecting with the Ventral Language Tract (language comprehension). Ventral Language Tract being Wernicke’s Area in blue and additional auditory memory (the purple area and purple tract). The Ventral Language Stream is connected (operational) at birth, but the Dorsal Language Stream connections develop during from infancy though the preschool years.
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From my comments posted on XLCHC:
I consider the functioning of psychological systems as having a synergistic effect that is more than just the sum of the parts (the sum of the neural networks). This would be
similar to the synergistic effect that results from the combined activity of several muscle groups (a standard use of the term synergy in biology). One of the characteristics of the synergistic effect of psychological systems would be subjective experience.
This is not biological determinism because social interactions directly affect the
development of neural networks, as well as their functioning in present circumstances.
Something I posted on XLCHC:
The issues that Eugene raises are rarely addressed by neuroscientists who assume that neurological processes in the brain cause subjective experience. Even if we operate by that same assumption subjective experience as lived experience can become a causal factor. The subjective experience of depression, like the experience of pain, can become detrimental. Neurologists can identify a brain center for pain (in the hypothalamus), but there is no brain center for depression. Depression is a dysfunctional state of consciousness. I remember hearing a neurologist say that while he was recording a baseline waking EEG for someone, the EEG pattern changed dramatically when the subject mentioned she recently broke up with her boyfriend. It changed instantly to that of morbid depression.
The neural networks that I described in my presentation interface (for lack of a better word) functioning as “psychological systems”. The angular gyrus is important because it is a nexus for the DMN for daydreaming, the ECN for executive control, and the Dorsal Language Stream for inner speech.
Eugene posed three possibilities for the relationship between imagination and the brain. This is a fundamental dilemma in neuropsychology that is rarely addressed.
One possibility, that the neural networks (perhaps angular gyrus) cause imagination (a subjective experience). The other, is that imagination causes the activity of neural networks. And the third possibility (if I understand correctly) is that the two are not causally related but rather there is a synchronicity, a co-occurring. My response was that I thought all three things could be happening. I do not see why there has to be only one type of causal relationship or correlational relationship.
The first possibility is the one that science is based on. Dare we speculate about the
other two?
Here is a further explanation that Eugene posted on XLCHC:
“I distinguish between magical causation (participation}, when the link between the two distinct entities is not hierarchical cause-effect link and is not mediated by physical forces, and physical causality in a classical sense, when a cause precedes the effect in time and content and occurs through one of the four physical forces. Magical participation could exist between two ontologically different entities (such as imagination and a certain area in the brain), but it can also exist between ontologically identical entities, such as between two opposite ideas (e.g., right-left, male-femail) in the mental domain or between two entangles quantum particles in the physical domain. Paraphysics is consistent with materialism, but it is still a branch of physics and a sophisticated attempt to escape the acknowledgement that our living mind is a non-physical foundation of physics.” For more on the topic see my recently published book “Examining the Psychological Foundation of Science and Morality” https://www.routledge.com/Examining-the-Psychological-Foundations-of-Science-and-Morality-Explaining-the-Inexplicable/Subbotsky/p/book/9781032392035
Just to clarify, the reason the angular gyrus is so important is because it is a common nexus for the three neural networks (Default, Executive Control, and the Dorsal Language Stream).This has not been previously recognized in any of the research literature. From a Vygotskian perspective, this provides a direct connection between
inner speech (DLS) and daydreaming (Default Network) and the Executive Control Network. I am not suggesting that the angular gyrus is where imagination is located. Rather I view the neural networks as integral components of the neuropsychological systems that Vygotsky discussed in 1930 in his papers “On Psychological Systems”.