Page 32 - Microsoft Word - The Future of Learning April 2017.docx

20
We used to think that one little patch of cortex takes care of this function and another little patch takes care of that function, but now we see it's more about systems that are cooperating on one task, then they switch over and cooperate on another task. On the fly you want to link these areas to do a task, and when the task is over, you want to decouple them and let them link up with someone else. Ryan has shown that the theta waves allow this coupling and uncoupling by locking into phase.35 Heidi Kirsch
Despite the different organs that detect and sense our world, all sensory information is processed in a similar manner within our brain’s cortex. After all, when the optic nerve picks up signals from the back of the eye, those signals are not pictures, but electrochemical data. Theoretically, each of our sensory organs should be able to carry out the sensory processing of any other organ. Dr Paul Bach-y-Rita36 first proposed this theory in the 1960s.37
To test this idea, researchers at The National Institute of Health in the USA placed miniaturised cameras in a pair of glasses that were worn by clinically blind volunteers. The digitised information was passed to an array of 144 sensors embedded in a small plastic paddle. When the blind volunteer placed the plastic paddle on their tongue, and after some practice, they could make out shapes and forms. Following further training and practice, the volunteers could navigate a complex maze and even shoot basketball hoops. The volunteers could see, using their tongue. How is that possible?
A program director at the National Eye Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Oberdorfer has worked for years to find ways to overcome the loss of vision and is currently supporting ground-breaking research into an unlikely detour to get visual signals to the brain: the tongue... Scientists and researchers such as Oberdorfer hope that eventually, the device will allow people walking down a city street to read signs, or walking down a trail to follow someone.38 Gazette.Net
As a large percentage of our input to form memories comes from our sensory system and mapping, remembering and manipulating this information is a critical learning system. In this model, we are proposing, one of the amygdala’s roles is to link memories to each other that relate to specific sensory events and this task is carried out via the application of the interference of our brainwaves.
It is also critical that we can associate the correct sensory information with the right event. It would be very confusing if my voice were associated with the fridge, or vice versa. It appears that another of the amygdala’s roles is to merge all our sensory data to give us a holistic sense of the event we are experiencing. If this process were not carried out, all our sensory inputs would appear disjointed and we would not be able to make sense of our world.
An additional role of the amygdala may well be to filter out ‘noise’, that is, background sensory data that is not required by the brain at that specific point in time. It is common to be completely unaware of background noise until someone draws our attention to it. People who live on busy roads sleep through all the noise effortlessly as the amygdala has identified this as background noise of no consequence, but if that noise changes from what is expected and mapped, even slightly, we are immediately awake.
35 University of California – Berkeley. (2016). Slow Brain Waves Play Key Role in Coordinating Complex Activity. Retrieved from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060914155903.htm
36 Abrams, M. (2003). Plasticity and the Senses: (Paul Bach-y-Rita). Discover Magazine. Retrieved from http://discovermagazine.com/2003/jun/feattongue
37 Kendrick, M. (2009, August). Tasting the Light: Device Lets the Blind ‘See’ with Their Tongues. Scientific American. Retrieved from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=device-lets-blind-see-with-tongues
38 Ujifusa, A. (2009, April 8). Gazette.net. Retrieved from http://ww2.gazette.net/stories/04082009/kensnew204526_32485.shtml