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These abstracts are primarily of articles published in the journal Science. Their subjects are considered potentially important for psychoanalysis, particularly in regard to mind-brain relations and cognitive controls. I begin with the topic of research on corollary discharge, on the one hand, and reports on important revisions of the neuron doctrine, on the other; I then add a discussion of our conceptions of what controls development and behavior, citing recent work in molecular biology on protein pathways.
A recent article by Poulet and Hedwig (2006) clarifies an older neurological concept, that of corollary discharge, in a way that may help us better understand a key aspect of brain organization and mental life. These researchers wired the nervous systems of singing crickets sufficiently to anatomically determine “a single, multisegmental interneuron [that] is responsible for the pre -and postsynaptic inhibition of auditory neurons …. Therefore, this neuron represents a corollary discharge interneuron that provides a neuronal basis for the central control of sensory responses” (p. 518).
The central idea, in a nutshell, is that the cricket's “ears” (located in their feet) modify its hearing based upon information forwarded from motor areas to sensory areas about motor plans (e.g., intentions for action, such as the instruction to flap the cricket's wings, an action that could well add to auditory input). Let me elaborate.