Electromagnetic Mind - Other supporting
Fields are involved in the synchronous firing of neurons and other facts to add

Following the steps initialized in the section dedicated to propose and describe how mind is constructed from a variety of electromagnetic (EM) fields [1], here there are addressed some more facts and theories from where they can be extracted points that a complete EM based theory of mind surely should include. ...

Firstly it can be take in consideration, apart from the arguments and theory displayed in [1], an important logical reason described in [17]:

" Locating consciousness in the brain's EM field, rather than neurons, has the advantage of neatly accounting for how information located in millions of neurons scattered through the brain can be unified into a single consious experience (sometimes called the binding or combination problem: the information is unified in the EM field. In this way, EM field consciousness can be considered to be "joined-up information". This theory accounts for several otherwise puzzling facts, such as the finding that attention and awareness tend to be correlated with synchronous firing of individual neurons. When neurons fire together, their EM fields generate stronger EM field disturbances; so synchronous neuron firing will tend to have a large impact on the brain's EM field (and, thereby, consciousness) than the firing of individual neurons."

One important aspect that comprises various subsections is to show how the synchronous neuronal firing, which generates coherent EM fields, is a strong correlate of attention, awareness and consciousness [2], how this synchronous firing generate cross-frequency interactions and coordinations also related to mind function [3] and how endogenous brain EM fields are able to influence neuron firings in return [4].

For example, Watrous et al [5] advances the idea that oscillations provide a reference frame for phase-coded item representations during memory encoding and that shifts in oscillatory frequency and phase coordinate ensemble activity during memory retrieval. Findings in [18] demonstrate that alpha-band activity is directly related to the coding of spatial representations held in working memory and in [19] is show that intrahemispheric theta rhythm desynchronization impairs working memory.

Georgiou et al. [6] show that a growing body of evidence suggests that oscillatory synchrony plays a crucial role in the selective communication of neuronal populations that encode the attended stimuli. Attention itself isn’t continuously active spotlight as as is thought until now and is also based on rhythmic neuronal oscillations [20].

As mentioned, all those synchrony patterns are coordinated in a cross-frequency way, Bonnefond and Jensen [8] show that in visual tasks during the anticipatory pre-distractor period the phase of alpha oscillations was coupled with the power of high (80-120Hz) gamma band activity suggesting a mechanism of gating controlled by the gamma activity in relation to the phase of the alpha activity in the visual system. Or transcribing other examples, Mizuhara et al. [8] show that

" The slow EEG power was enhanced in association with the better accuracy of working memory retention, and accompanied cortical activities in the mnemonic circuits for the natural scene. Fast oscillation showed a phase-amplitude coupling to the slow oscillation, and its power was tightly coupled with the cortical activities for representing the visual images of natural scenes."

Voloh et al. [9] show that exists a

" .. robust increases of 5–10 Hz (theta) to 35–55 Hz (gamma) phase–amplitude correlation between Anterior cingulate and lateral prefrontal cortex during successful attention shifts but not before errors."

Finally in [21] authors demonstrate that changes in synchrony and phase difference can be used to set up or abolish information transfer in a network of cortical circuits.

Need to be mentioned that endogenously generated fields are not just an "epiphenomenon" but they play a fundamental role in neuronal processes. For example, in a research is found that electromagnetic fields from brain cells feed back to the field generating cells and to other cells (ephaptic coupling) and for example, modulate the spiking timing of them, so EM consciousness is not a "ghost in the machine". Anastassiou et al. [11] wrote:

" The electrochemical processes that underlie neural function manifest themselves in ceaseless spatiotemporal field fluctuations. However, extracellular fields feed back onto the electric potential across the neuronal membrane via ephaptic coupling, independent of synapses. The extent to which such ephaptic coupling alters the functioning of neurons under physiological conditions remains unclear. To address this question, we stimulated and recorded from rat cortical pyramidal neurons in slices with a 12-electrode setup. We found that extracellular fields induced ephaptically mediated changes in the somatic membrane potential that were less than 0.5 mV under subthreshold conditions. Despite their small size, these fields could strongly entrain action potentials, particularly for slow (< 8 Hz) fluctuations of the extracellular field. Finally, we simultaneously measured from up to four patched neurons located proximally to each other. Our findings indicate that endogenous brain activity can causally affect neural function through field effects under physiological conditions."

In a model developed in [27] is found that the field picture is a generalization of the presently prevalent current mediated picture for interaction between axons. Another model [22] found that electromagnetic induction is helpful for discharge of neurons under positive feedback coupling, while electromagnetic induction is necessary to enhance synchronization behaviors of coupled neurons under negative feedback coupling. Numerical results from Deng et al [10] elucidate that endogenous field feedback cause a more rhythmic macroscope activation of the network.

In [23] it can be read:

" It is found that field coupling between neurons can change the magnetic flux and induction current, and then the excitability of neurons are changed to modulate the collective behaviors of electrical activities in neuronal network."

In [24] also is found that that magnetic flux coupling between neurons can induce perfect phase synchronization between them.

On the other hand, in this section, are also enlisted a variety of papers that addressed various interesting points that can be added to an electromagnetic mind theory, for example Goodman and Bercovich [12] propose a mutual electromagnetic induction in the axon-glial sheath association. Prevenslik [13] propose that QED induced radiation in EM signaling across the cleft between presynaptic and postsynaptic cells is shown to offer a reasonable alternative to chemical signaling conceptual problems (that are described in the paper). Or, as a last example, Swain [14] propose a large upconversions and mode coupling between Fröhlich states (described in [15]) and biophotons (described and associated to neuronal function in section [16] of this site).

Deserves a separate mention the other two subsections that are attached to this section, that although they don’t speak about electromagnetic fields as a conscious fields are, the first one, a big support for this notion (or something similar to this) and, the second, a consequence of this notion that can be implemented elsewhere (not only in biological systems).

Specifying, the fist subsection [25] speaks about the unicellular intelligence and consciousness (with the amazing capacities of these living systems) that can cause a paradigm shift in those people that think that consciousness is only a brain derived phenomena requiring their physical structures and chemical synapses.

The second subsection [26] It delves into a philosophical issue: if consciousness is electromagnetic in nature then mentality is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the universe, this is the basis for a panpsychistic philosophy, that is described and argued in its favor in this subsection's papers.

References:

Very related sections: