Friday, October 28, 2005

What is EEG made of?

In the previous posting I discussed the model for the effects of ELF em fields on brain and its implications. One implication is a radically new view about genes implying the notions of supergene consisting of strings of genes in large number of different cell nuclei through which magnetic flux sheet traverses: a page of book containing as its lines genetic text is quite precise metaphor. Hypergenes are also unavoidable and consists of this kind of text from several organisms.

Second implication is a model for EEG. Living organisms in biosphere are analogous to proteins on cell membrane consisting of two lipid layers acting as a gigantic dark Josephson junction going through litosphere and ionosphere (counterparts of lipid layers at the level for fourth level of dark matter hierarchy). Josephson junction consists of a magnetic flux sheet going through the nervous system to ionosphere and connects thus brain with two parts of magnetic body of Earth analogous to cell interior and exterior. Josephson oscillation at 3.72 Hz defines basic "drum beat" and in the presence of a voltage perturbation the pattern of generated coherent state of ELF photons provides a representation for the perturbation of EEG which is also a part of EEG. Obviously, our relationship to magnetic body of Earth would be similar to that of cells to organism.

The usual classification of EEG frequencies by EEG bands is more or less a convention and the definitions of various bands vary in frustratingly wide ranges. In a more ambitious approach bands should be replaced with some substructures identified on basis of their physical origin and function. In the proposed framework this is possible and explains successfully basic aspects of EEG in various states of consciousness. This can be regarded as a dramatic victory for the notion of TGD inspired theory of consciousness and the notion of dark matter. This identification of substructures of course applies only to that part of EEG from which noise is subtracted. The contribution of neural activity is one such source of noise, often regarded as the only contribution.

1. Basic contributions to EEG

There are three fundamental contributions to EEG besides the neuronal noise.

  1. Schumann resonances characterize Earth's magnetic field and collective aspects of consciousness.

  2. Cyclotron frequencies generated in cyclotron transitions of ions. An attractive guess is that cyclotron frequencies correspond to the control signals from magnetic body so that Josephson junctions and magnetic body would form a closed feedback loop. These frequencies can be classified to those associated with bosonic and fermionic ions respectively.

  3. The frequencies generated by Josephson currents as coherent photons. Harmonics of cyclotron frequencies shifted upwards and downwards by Josephson frequency fJ=3.72 Hz. If the amplitude of the perturbation at cyclotron frequency is strong the EEG looks locally like it would consists of amplitudes with frequencies f+/-=fJ1+/- fJ during most of the cyclotron period so that the visual inspection of time evolution of EEG can be rather misleading. Since these frequencies are involved with communications to the magnetic body of Earth, the natural guess would be that they correlate with the neural processing.

2. Classification of cyclotron frequencies

Consider now the classification of cyclotron frequencies.

  1. Cyclotron frequencies can be classified those associated with atomic and molecular ions. For biologically important atomic ions most frequencies are above 7.5 Hz. For molecular ions frequencies are lower and for DNA sequences the frequencies are in delta band. Thermal stability condition suggest a lower bound of ≈ 1 Hz for significant frequencies of this kind.

  2. Atomic ions can be classified into bosonic and fermionic ions. Practically all biologically important bosonic ions have Z=2 and in alpha band: f(6Li+)=50 Hz and f(Mg2+)=25 Hz are the only frequencies above alpha band. Situation is essentially the same for biologically interesting ions too. 7L+ is exception and corresponds to 42.9 Hz having Josephson satellites at 39.2 Hz and 46.6 Hz. Thus the frequency range 7.5-15 Hz is very strongly represented and expected to be fundamental.

  3. The integer n characterizing the harmonic of the cyclotron frequency in question is an additional classificational criterion and could correlate with the character of neural processing.

3. Wake-up EEG

The question is whether this classification is consistent with the conventional decomposition into various bands and whether it allows to gain some real insights EEG. Consider first wake-up EEG.

  1. The first implication is that each cyclotron frequency fc is accompanied by by two satellites fc+/- fJ. For alpha band these satellites correspond to theta band and beta band identifiable as responses to control signals from magnetic body in alpha band. One can ask whether these bands as a whole correspond to the satellites of alpha band. This identification implies that both bands are present and makes sense for wake-up EEG but not as such for the EEG during first and second period of deep sleep during which theta band is present but higher bands are absent.

  2. Sensorimotor rhythm in range (12-16) Hz is associated with physical stillness and body presence. The interpretation is as a low amplitude satellite of alpha rhythm with low amplitude control signals from the magnetic body so that rhythmicity is not lost and frequencies are clearly fc+fJ.

  3. Beta band is above 12 Hz and associated with active, busy or anxious thinking and active concentration and is chaotic and highly asynchronous. The natural interpretation is as large amplitude satellite of alpha band involving the activation of communications to the magnetic body and large control signals with fJ1>> fc. Hence the spectra would for a considerable part of period 1/fc effectively consist of frequencies f+/-= fJ+/- fJ1, where fJ1 varies in frequency range characterized by the amplitude of perturbation. There is no definite resonance frequency since fJ1 can vary continuously. Globally the situation is different since the spectrum can in principle be decomposed to frequencies fJ+/- nfc. These two descriptions correspond to time domain and genuine frequency domain.

    For sufficiently high harmonics of fc the chaoticity disappears and frequencies fJ+/- nfc become more manifest. The Josephson amplitudes of higher harmonics decrease as 1/nfc.

    Beta band is predicted to have a mirror image in theta band during cognitive activity. The frequencies in theta band are assigned with cognitive activities and memory recall. Note that also alpha band due to cyclotron frequencies should be present as well as the basic "drum beat" defined by fJ for fJ1>> fc.

  4. Odd higher harmonics of cyclotron frequency are expected to be the most important ones and would have interpretation as control signals from magnetic body. Satellites would correspond to responses to the magnetic body.

    For alpha band the third harmonics of most bosonic ions are in the range 28.2-34.2 Hz and roughly in gamma band above 30 Hz assignable with the control of cognitive activities by magnetic body of Earth's magnetic field.

  5. 40 Hz thalamocortical resonance band is very important EEG band. 7Li+ ion corresponds to 42.9 Hz frequency for which the lower satellite is at 39.2 Hz. The third harmonic for Na+ is 39 Hz, which also corresponds to Schumann resonance. Its upper satellite belongs to 40 Hz resonance band. The upper satellite of the third harmonic of Mn2+ is 37.9 Hz.

4. Mirror satellites exist!

The existence of the mirror satellites might be regarded as a killer prediction. Amazingly, narrow EEG bands which are mirror images of each other with respect to alpha band have been reported by Nunez. Besides alpha band at 11 Hz, Nunez mentions also narrow sub-bands at 3, 5 and 7 Hz at delta and theta range, as well as the bands at 13, 15 and 17 Hz in beta band.

All these frequencies are expressible in the form fc+/-fJ, fJ=5 Hz, which is one half of the frequency 10 Hz of the memetic code and by 14 per cent higher than 3.7 Hz predicted assuming λ=211. The value of λ deduced from these frequencies would be λ=1902 and about 7 per cent smaller than λ=211. This estimate cannot be taken too seriously since it is quite possible that the thickness of Josephson junction is not scaled up completely exactly.

The cyclotron frequencies associated with the bands are 8, 10, and 12 Hz. The cyclotron frequencies of bosonic ions 80Se^{2-}, 63Cu2+, and 55Mn2+ for a magnetic field strength B=.526 Gauss are 8.00, 10.11, and 12.00 Hz. The cyclotron frequencies of bosonic ions 64Zn2+, 59Co2+, 56Fe2+ would be 9.90 Hz, 10.52 Hz, and 11.36 Hz and have satellites at frequencies 4.90 Hz, 5.52 Hz, 6.36 Hz and 12.90, 15.52, and 16.36 Hz. All these frequencies belong to the bands reported by Nunez since their widths are 1-2 Hz. Thus the frequencies of all bosonic ions in alpha band and in their satellites belong to the bands reported by Nunez for values of λ and B very near to their nominal values used in calculations!

What is also very remarkable that the 10 Hz magic frequency of the memetic code corresponding to the secondary p-adic length scale L(2,127) associated with Mersenne prime M127 characterizing electron appears. It should be also noticed that fJ=5 Hz frequency corresponds to cognitive theta appearing during tasks requiring mathematical skills.

5. Alpha band dominance during relaxed state

In a relaxed state beta band disappears and the spectral power in alpha band increases. This seems to be in conflict with the idea that beta band is a mere satellite. There are two mutually non-inclusive manners to understand this.

  1. The first possibility is that cyclotron frequencies in alpha band are not actually present and only Schumann frequency 7.8 Hz and 10 Hz resonance frequency associated with the excitations of electric field in ionospheric cavity behaving like 2-dimensional waves on sphere.

  2. Second possibility is that lito-ionospheric Josephson junction is somehow closed so that only the cyclotron contribution of various ions is present. This might be caused by DNA level mechanism which simply prevents the flow of the Josephson currents flowing along magnetic flux sheets through DNA strands. This mechanism would be completely analogous to the closing of ionic channel associated with cell membrane protein.

6. EEG during sleep

The EEG during sleep provides a testing ground for the proposed anatomy of EEG. Sleep consists of 90 + 90 minute periods of NREM and REM sleep. This period is also the period of brain hemisphere dominances during wake up and day dreaming occurs with the same period as REM sleep. During REM sleep the EEG is essentially similar to that during wake-up. These observations inspire the hunch that brain hemisphere dominance dictates whether REM or NREM is in question. This turns out to be a correct guess.

a) EEG during stage 1

During stage 1 theta of deep sleep waves in frequency range 4-8 Hz dominate and amplitudes increase when frequency is reduced. The control signals from magnetic body are expected to be weak so that fJ1fJ approximation should hold true implying that frequencies fJ+/- fc should dominate and EEG would look rhythmic rather than chaotic as indeed observed. The amplitudes behave as 1/fc and thus increase with decreasing fc. The fact that amplitudes increase with decreasing EEG frequency suggests that the frequencies they correspond to different cyclotron frequencies.

These facts does not conform with the general picture as such. If theta and beta bands are mere satellites of alpha band, both of them should be present during stage 1 sleep but this is not the case. The idea that cyclotron frequencies of heavier ions in B=.5 Gauss (strength of Earth's magnetic field) could replace those appearing during wake-up does not work. Theta band simply does not contain the cyclotron frequencies of biologically important ions for B=.5 Gauss.

The only reasonable way out of difficulty seems to be that the value of the magnetic field associated with active flux sheets is reduced by a factor of 1/2. This would mean that the most important range 7.5-15 Hz of cyclotron frequencies would be scaled down to 3.75-7.5 Hz which indeed corresponds to the theta band. If one excludes Ca2+, the range for bosonic ion reduces from 7.5-11.4 to 3.75-5.7 Hz. The satellites correspond to the range .05-8.7 Hz and 7.45-9.4 Hz plus Ca2+ satellites at 3.8 Hz and 11.2 Hz. With Ca2+ forming a possible exception, the resulting frequency ranges are consistent with empirical facts. Of course, it is quite possible that magnetic body does not generate cyclotron transitions at Ca2+ cyclotron frequency.

The resolution of the puzzle might relate to the character of ions at the flux sheets in left and right hemisphere.

  1. The quantization of magnetic flux reads as

    Ze×INT BdS= n× hbar

    and for Cooper pairs and bosonic ions with Z=2 (Z refers to absolute value of charge) it gives magnetic field strength which is one half from that for fermionic singly charged ions. Both fermionic ions with Z= 1 and bosonic ions and Cooper pairs with Z=2 are allowed in this case by the single valuedness of wave functions. For Z=2 the quantization condition allows single valued wave functions for Z=2 ions or Cooper pairs only.

  2. Assume the quantization condition corresponds to Z=1 for the right hemisphere and Z=1 for the right hemisphere. The presence of fermionic ions implies additional cyclotron frequencies on left hemisphere and the presence of fermionic ions conforms with the old proposal that fermionic Fock states provide a realization of quantal version of Boolean algebra. This conforms with the view that left brain is more reductionistic and performs linear logic operations whereas right brain is more holistic.

  3. As a consequence the cyclotron frequency scale in right hemisphere is reduced by a factor of 1/2 and during right hemisphere dominated NREM sleep alpha band would be scaled down to theta band.

  4. The prediction is that, apart from the Schumann frequencies and neural noise, left hemisphere EEG spectrum consists of right hemisphere EEG specrum scaled up by a factor of 2 plus the contribution of fermionic ions and the Josephson satellites of these frequencies.

    The assumption that the two quantization conditions correspond to just left and right hemispheres rather some other pair is of course un-necessarily strong and one can imagine also other correspondences.

b) EEG during stage 2

Sleep spindles appearing in the state 2 of deep sleep are sudden increases in EEG amplitude and frequency from theta band to 12-16 Hz. The spindles .5-.1.5 seconds and appear with a period of about minute. In some sources frequency range 7-16 Hz is given as sleeping spindle range. The so called K-complexes are sudden increases in EEG amplitude but no change in frequency associated with spindles.

One interpretation is that sleep spindles correspond to the occasional wake-ups of the left hemisphere. Sleep spindles would thus correspond to the satellites of alpha band identifiable as responses of the corresponding Josephson junctions to occasional strong control signals at cyclotron frequencies in alpha band. K complexes could be interpreted as signals from magnetic body to left hemisphere but inducing no response. It might be that these sudden responses reflect the fact that the left brain is not fully asleep yet.

c) EEG during stages 3 and 4

Most of EEG power during deep sleep stages 3 and 4 is in the in the range .75-4.5 Hz. This implies that control signals at cyclotron transition frequencies of ions from the magnetic body cannot be appreciably present and the control signals at cyclotron frequencies of molecular ions, such as DNA with cyclotron frequencies below 1 Hz, should be responsible for the EEG. The small amplitude of control signal implies 1/fc behavior and large amplitude as compared to the corresponding amplitudes at higher bands at weak amplitude limit.

Taking into account the fact that magnetic field strength is scaled down by factor of 1/2 this means that mass numbers of the ions in question must satisfied A/Z > 150 for fc< 1 Hz. For DNA sequences with charge of 2 units per single base-pair one would have A> 300. The atomic weights for base pairs plus phosphate group and deoxyribose sugar are 327, 321, 291, 344 corresponding to A, T, C, G.

7. Transcendental states of consciousness and EEG

Transcendental states of consciousness are characterized by the presence of alpha and theta bands (note that theta band is present also during childhood, youth and even early adolescence but usually disappears at older age). It is found that that theta and alpha bands are preserved also during deep sleep. A possible interpretation is that the presence of alpha band signifies that left brain remains awake in a state of relaxed alertness involving weak signals from magnetic body.

For more details see the section "What is EEG made of?" in the just updated chapter Bio-Systems as Super-Conductors: Part II of "TGD Inspired Theory of Consciousness....".

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Matti,
I have been reading your TGD material off and on and I admire your talent but somehow haven't contacted you for so long.
I have a question not a comment:
In November 1996 (9 years ago), in "EEG and generation of nerve pulse", you described the #throats model of EEG and how the sine-gordan theory can account for observed EEG frequencies. Your most recent article on EEG and Nerve pulse briefly mentions sine-gordan model but your article "What is EEG made of?" does not. Are the # throats model and sine-gordon description consistent with your explanation of EEG in this article? In otherwords, is your EEG model of 1996 compatible with your most recent explanation of EEG?
I am asking you this question because I have not been in touch with Quantum Theory since 1972; my career in US since then has been in Telecommunications and nothing to do with Physics. Still, my bacground in Mathematical Physics and Artificial Intelligence got me interested in Consciousness and that is why I came across your work. Consciousness has been my hobby. If you like, you may take a look at http://primordality.com/consciousness.htm#living
to have an idea about how I think.

I would very much appreciate your response.
Regards
Syamala Hari

Matti Pitkänen said...

Dear Syamala,

thank you for your question.

The evolution of the model for nerve pulse has suffered several twists during years. The first models were indeed based on Sine-Gordon solitons but at this moment their precise role is somewhat unclear. Certainly solitons should be there since the notion of Josephson junction is now firmly coupled to EEG and among other things explains beta and theta bands as satellites of alpha band.


I am not sure whether I have claimed that the Sine-Gordon model could explain EEG frequencies. The reason is that I started to ponder this problem for about, I think 7 years ago, when I encountered the experimental findings suggesting that cyclotron frequencies in Eearth's magnetic field might relate to important EEG frequencies.

I am now working through the model of nerve pulse and hope that I can get through it within few weeks. I can already now tell that the vision about dark matter brings in new understanding and modifies earlier picture.

The new element is a non-local charge transfer which provides universal control mechanism. The exchange of dark relatively light dark virtual W^+/- bosons (massless below the Compton length of dark W boson) makes possible nonlocal polarization mechanism without currents. This mechanism could function between cell interior and exterior and modify charge balance and in this manner reduce membrane potential below the threshold in purely quantal manner.

The mechanism works at all levels of dark matter hierarchy could induce changes in charge equilibrium over arbitrarily long length scales and thus also currents. Remote mental interactions provide an obvious application.

Neutral dark weak bosons would be responsible for communication and charged weak bosons for biocontrol. A nice division of labor! Topological light rays (massless extremals, MEs) would be the space-time correlates.


I have not yet got to the section about solitons so that I dare not say anything about their role.

I will visit your homepage.

With Best Regards,
Matti Pitkanen

Anonymous said...

Dear Matti,
Thanks for the quick response. You are right. Your 1996 paper did not attempt to explain the EEG frequency spectrum. Anyway, I have a follow-up question on the same paper. There, you said:The spacelike vacua should correspond to EEG waves. The fact that macroscopic quantum system does not obey local causality but behaves as single particle would be in accordance with the tachyonic nature of the EEG waves. Since EEG oscillations seems to be collective phenomenon, 'spacelike' cells should form macroscopic quantum systems. Glial cells [Alberts] form a considerable fraction of cell population of brain are glial cells are connected to each other by gap junctions, which can serve as Josephson junctions so that macroscopic quantum systems are obviously possible for glial cells. Nerve cells correspond to 'timelike' vacua and nerve pulse is soliton interpolating between vacua Phi= n*2*pi and (n+1)*2*pi. EEG oscillations around 'timelike' vacua have frequencies of order 10^(10) Hz and provide ideal pacemaker for the coordination of the conformational changes of proteins, whose dynamics has just this characteristic time scale. Glial cells are identified as 'spacelike' vacua and ordinary EEG corresponds to small oscillations around these vacua."
I know you are going to revisit the soliton theory but here is my question: if the theory in that paper is correct, does that mean that there is evidence of presence of tachyons (as defined by Gerald Feinberg) in a brain? The reason I am asking this is because I conjecture that human thought is due to the interaction of tachyons with ordinary matter in the brain. Of course, I have plenty of intuitive reasons for this conjecture. I hoped that your sine-gordon model would support that.
Regards
Syamala

Matti Pitkänen said...

Dear Syamala,

thanks for questions. It is a real pleasure to find that there are people who have read carefully what I have written during years.

The solitons in question can be
be classisifed as tachyonic or lightlike. The tachyonic solitons conform with the idea that basic dynamics units are not points but 3-dimensional surfaces so that it becomes impossible to reduced dynamics to that for signals moving at luminal or subluminal velocities. I therefore think that the very notion of signal breaks down. Hence the notion of "tachyon" in the sense that I use it is not a particle moving with superluminal velocity but a collective excitation with superluminal phase velocity but involving no transfer of energy.

I started to think about the role of solitons in the new framework and realized that the new view about quantum control might fit very nicely. I explain a little bit.

The dynamics of solitons is essentially that of gravitational pendulum.

Small oscillations have frequency not depending on amplitude: in this case the frequency would correspond to about 10^(13) Hz and mean coherent infrared photons produced by Josephson current as a signature.

Large amplitude motion corresponds to rotation of the pendulum and the period of rotation would define the slow time scale of nerve pulse, perhaps kHz frequency or average rate of pulse generation. The new ingredient to the model is that this frequency is dictated by a dark W^+/- boson field oscillating and inducing purely quantally and nonlocally change in the charge equilibrium and thus a large Josephson current between cell and cell interior and in this manner generating nerve pulse activity at the level of ordinary matter. Note that the chemical appearence of nerve pulses is time asymmetric due to the dissipation but solitons would time symmetric: this is the reason why solitons can only serve as triggers.

It seem that the two kinds of solitons would indeed correspond to the propagating and standing EEG waves and the assignment to glial cells and neurons is very attractive.

I must admit that I somehow lost some of my confidence to original model and the reason was the lack of concrete view about Josephson junctions. The new view about dark matter seems to however change the situation.

Matti Pitkanen

Anonymous said...

Dear Matti,
You answered my questions. Thanks.
Actually, even Feinberg said tachyons are nonlocal and are not particles in the true sense of that word. After Feinberg, many physicists pursued tachyon theories and for example, a paper by Shay an Miller (1977) expressed the view of tachyons as a strictly nonlocal phenomena produced and perhaps absorbed nonlocally by a system of detectors acting in a coherent and coperative way; thus tachyons do not move faster than light but one cannot talk about their flight from one position to another. So, their use of the word tachyon is close to your use of it in your phrase "tachyonic nature of EEG waves"

In your reply to me, you refered to "a lack of concrete view about Josephson junctions". Please elaborate if you can on what you mean by this phrase, if you have a chance.
I am looking forward to your new model of EEG and nerve pulse.

Syamala

Matti Pitkänen said...

The story is too long to tell here but I try to sketch basic points. The starting point was a model for high temperature super conductivity which I constructed few months ago.

The essence of the model (see here , here, and here ) is the presence of dark matter phases.

The model predicts that the superconductivity is quantum critical: there are two competing superconducting phases, interior and surface phases, which can coexist at a finite temperature range. Interior Cooper pairs are like normal ones but in large hbar state which scales up the critical temperature by the ratio hbar/hbar0=about 2^(11). For surface currents Cooper pairs are different and the model for them explains the several mysterious looking absorption lines associated with them in terms of internal transitions.

What was surprising that the surface phase decomposes to two layers (corresponding to electrons of Cooper pairs) with thickness of lipid layer of cell membrane. The total thickness is thus that of cell membrane. Also cell size scale emerges naturally.

That fundamental biological length scales emerge from this model of high Tc superconductivity (p-adic length scale hypothesis and simple stability considerations) puts course puts bells ringing. I have applied this theory to cell membrane as high Tc electronic quantum critical superconductor in temperature range 36-37 K, where also the strange effects of radiation at cyclotron transition frequencies at Earth's magnetic field appear.

Also protonic superconductivity and Bose-Einstein condensates of bosonic biologically important ions
appear: most of them have cyclotron frequencies in alpha band. If this does not put bells ringing, nothing can do it.

Josephson junctions would connect the interior superconductors separated by cell membrane: at
least nuclear membrane but perhaps also cell membrane. There would be also hierarchy of scaled up variants of this structure corresponding to dark matter hierarchy for which Planck constants come as lambda^k*hbar0, lambda=about 2^11. This hierarchy is in a key role in the model of EEG hierarchy. Scaling arguments allow to deduce the Josephson frequencies for oscillating Josephson current from that for cell membrane resting potential and k=7 level would still correspond to Josephson frequency in human time scales (something like 40 years) and to levels of consciousness accessible to humans under normal state of mind. Perhaps the 7 chakras have something to with physical reality!

In this framework Sine-Gordon soliton sequences are very natural and could be the manner how dark matter induces nerve pulse sequences.


With Best Regards, Matti

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