Reentry is a
neural structuring of the
brain
The brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head ( cephalization), usually near organs for special ...
, which is characterized by the ongoing bidirectional exchange of signals along reciprocal axonal fibers linking two or more brain areas. It is hypothesized to allow for widely distributed groups of
neuron
A neuron, neurone, or nerve cell is an membrane potential#Cell excitability, electrically excitable cell (biology), cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses. The neuron is the main component of nervous ...
s to achieve
integrated and synchronized
firing
Dismissal (also called firing) is the termination of employment by an employer against the will of the employee. Though such a decision can be made by an employer for a variety of reasons, ranging from an economic downturn to performance-related ...
, which is proposed to be a requirement for
consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
, as outlined by
Gerald Edelman
Gerald Maurice Edelman (; July 1, 1929 – May 17, 2014) was an American biologist who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work with Rodney Robert Porter on the immune system. Edelman's Nobel Prize-winning research concerne ...
and
Giulio Tononi
Giulio Tononi () is a neuroscientist and psychiatrist who holds the David P. White Chair in Sleep Medicine, as well as a Distinguished Chair in Consciousness Science, at the University of Wisconsin. He is best known for his Integrated Informat ...
in their book ''
A Universe of Consciousness
''A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination'' is the title of a 2000 book by biologists Gerald Maurice Edelman and Giulio Tononi; published in UK as ''Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination''. This book, written with Giuli ...
''.
[.]
See also
*
Embodied philosophy
Embodied cognition is the theory that many features of cognition, whether human or otherwise, are shaped by aspects of an organism's entire body. Sensory and motor systems are seen as fundamentally integrated with cognitive processing. The cognit ...
*
Neural Darwinism
Neural Darwinism is a biological, and more specifically Darwinian and selectionist, approach to understanding global brain function, originally proposed by American biologist, researcher and Nobel-Prize recipient Gerald Maurice Edelman (July 1, ...
*
Primary consciousness Primary consciousness is a term the American biologist Gerald Edelman coined to describe the ability, found in humans and some animals, to integrate observed events with memory to create an awareness of the present and immediate past of the world ar ...
*
Secondary consciousness
Secondary consciousness is an individual's accessibility to their history and plans. The ability allows its possessors to go beyond the limits of the remembered present of primary consciousness.Edelman, G. M. (2003). Naturalizing consciousness: a ...
References
Neural circuits
Neurophysiology
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