WEBVTT 00:00:01.119 --> 00:00:04.780 This video is going to be all about sensory processing, 00:00:05.120 --> 00:00:08.539 how autistics learn, the fast rates of information 00:00:08.539 --> 00:00:12.259 coming in. We'll talk a little bit about sensory 00:00:12.259 --> 00:00:15.380 processing, but we'll talk a lot about many columns. 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:17.960 We've mentioned many columns in the visual thinking 00:00:17.960 --> 00:00:21.359 episodes, so this is just drawing these things 00:00:21.359 --> 00:00:23.539 out, because I know the episodes are very dense. 00:00:24.100 --> 00:00:25.739 I want people to follow along though. I want 00:00:25.739 --> 00:00:28.019 it to be easy to understand, because I want the 00:00:28.019 --> 00:00:31.449 autistic phenotype to be understood. because 00:00:31.449 --> 00:00:35.509 these are real benefits what the biology of autism 00:00:35.509 --> 00:00:41.450 gives us if understood and if put into environments 00:00:41.450 --> 00:00:44.810 and situations where they can utilize the autistic 00:00:44.810 --> 00:00:47.789 phenotype. So this is all about many columns. 00:00:57.570 --> 00:01:01.560 Over the recent few episodes, we've covered A 00:01:01.560 --> 00:01:03.740 lot of things regarding the autistic phenotype 00:01:03.740 --> 00:01:06.879 and the ability to learn and sensory processing, 00:01:07.180 --> 00:01:10.680 the fast sensory processing. I know it's pretty 00:01:10.680 --> 00:01:14.280 dense and so forth. We talk a lot about excitation 00:01:14.280 --> 00:01:18.799 and inhibition. The last three episodes were 00:01:18.799 --> 00:01:21.519 about excitation and inhibition more specifically. 00:01:22.739 --> 00:01:26.040 Episodes four and five way back were about excitation 00:01:26.040 --> 00:01:29.280 and inhibition as well and throughout many different 00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:33.780 episodes. We've kind of woven in the excitation 00:01:33.780 --> 00:01:37.340 and ambition kind of phenomena with autism But 00:01:37.340 --> 00:01:40.560 since we've detailed it more and more and we've 00:01:40.560 --> 00:01:43.079 talked about sensory processing those high rates 00:01:43.079 --> 00:01:46.060 of information more and more There's some things 00:01:46.060 --> 00:01:49.680 here that maybe can help us understand What is 00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:52.439 happening with the autistic phenotype? Okay, 00:01:52.879 --> 00:01:56.060 so there's some recent episodes that are kind 00:01:56.060 --> 00:01:58.760 of regions of interest for us. That's visual 00:01:58.760 --> 00:02:02.579 thinking part one which is mostly the neurobiology 00:02:02.579 --> 00:02:05.159 of visual thinking, and visual thinking part 00:02:05.159 --> 00:02:10.280 two, which is how autistics learn. We talk about 00:02:10.280 --> 00:02:12.759 the machine learning, similar to AI, and how 00:02:12.759 --> 00:02:15.340 we build up different categories for different 00:02:15.340 --> 00:02:18.020 catalogs. We have massive amounts of databases 00:02:18.020 --> 00:02:20.900 to pull from. And in large part, that's because 00:02:20.900 --> 00:02:23.780 of what we're going to kind of get into today 00:02:23.780 --> 00:02:30.240 with the intense detail. And a large part of 00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:34.240 our learning is paying attention to the information, 00:02:34.419 --> 00:02:37.780 kind of time on task. With autistic phenotype 00:02:37.780 --> 00:02:40.020 and these high rates of information coming in, 00:02:40.280 --> 00:02:43.080 we'll talk about the gamma waves briefly before 00:02:43.080 --> 00:02:45.180 we talk about, we're really gonna talk about 00:02:45.180 --> 00:02:48.599 many columns, okay? That was mentioned in, I 00:02:48.599 --> 00:02:51.939 think, visual thinking part two episode, but 00:02:51.939 --> 00:02:53.900 we'll really draw them out and understand them 00:02:53.900 --> 00:02:58.539 a little bit better. But. One thing with the 00:02:58.539 --> 00:03:01.719 autistic learning style is it's very structured 00:03:01.719 --> 00:03:05.340 and that's huge for learning, right? That's when 00:03:05.340 --> 00:03:08.180 we're learning something we have to have kind 00:03:08.180 --> 00:03:12.259 of an order To go about doing this. Otherwise, 00:03:12.300 --> 00:03:15.960 it's friction a lot of friction inside and it's 00:03:15.960 --> 00:03:20.479 very unstructured The autistic phenotype learns 00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:24.240 in a very specific and accelerated accelerated 00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:27.560 way And that's because the sensory information 00:03:27.560 --> 00:03:32.219 coming in allows us to not scan the information 00:03:32.219 --> 00:03:36.199 so much, but pay specific attention on the detail, 00:03:36.780 --> 00:03:40.919 on a specific detail. You'll hear about Temple 00:03:40.919 --> 00:03:45.080 Grandin talking about churches, and she'll talk 00:03:45.080 --> 00:03:48.379 about the different types of blocks or doors 00:03:48.379 --> 00:03:51.960 or something specific. And then from there, just 00:03:51.960 --> 00:03:54.939 with those databases, just massive amounts of 00:03:54.939 --> 00:03:58.939 imagery comes across. Okay. This is another part 00:03:58.939 --> 00:04:01.479 about accelerated learning as well, because there's 00:04:01.479 --> 00:04:06.960 an added layer of visualizing. And this is massive, 00:04:07.400 --> 00:04:10.180 because we are not only taking in the sensory 00:04:10.180 --> 00:04:13.240 information from the outside, but we're pulling 00:04:13.240 --> 00:04:16.240 from many different types of sources, if you 00:04:16.240 --> 00:04:20.649 will. And this is huge, because This is increasing 00:04:20.649 --> 00:04:23.949 time on task and attention to detail. If you're 00:04:23.949 --> 00:04:25.589 thinking about learning, you have to learn the 00:04:25.589 --> 00:04:29.769 detail. It's not that complicated. So the biology 00:04:29.769 --> 00:04:33.490 that gives us autism really allows us to be here, 00:04:33.670 --> 00:04:37.589 and this is huge. So some of the episodes recently 00:04:37.589 --> 00:04:40.709 about excitation and inhibition that are kind 00:04:40.709 --> 00:04:45.310 of a region of interest is Sonic Hedgehog. Sonic 00:04:45.310 --> 00:04:53.410 Hedgehog. Inhibitory. Neurons and Autism. Okay, 00:04:53.810 --> 00:04:59.230 and let's see. Dilemmic reticular nucleus. Sensory 00:04:59.230 --> 00:05:11.470 gating. And Autism. And the excitation episode. 00:05:13.050 --> 00:05:20.560 Goal signals. And Autism. These are the last 00:05:20.560 --> 00:05:23.620 three episodes that we've done. This is inhibition 00:05:23.620 --> 00:05:26.500 here because inhibition is more of a region of 00:05:26.500 --> 00:05:30.439 interest for us. And then excitation here, which 00:05:30.439 --> 00:05:33.899 are mostly the pyramidal neurons, which we'll 00:05:33.899 --> 00:05:36.480 map these out in the many columns here shortly. 00:05:37.399 --> 00:05:40.779 So a way of thinking about excitation inhibition 00:05:40.779 --> 00:05:45.879 is our default is go. The whole reason we have 00:05:45.879 --> 00:05:47.699 a central nervous system is to move the living 00:05:47.699 --> 00:05:52.759 organism. So our default is go. We can't just 00:05:52.759 --> 00:05:55.220 always go though. We need some sort of pull. 00:05:56.360 --> 00:05:58.980 And this is what inhibition cells are doing. 00:05:59.259 --> 00:06:03.980 It's kind of pulling back into an optimal range. 00:06:04.740 --> 00:06:07.939 If you think about excitation and inhibition, 00:06:08.439 --> 00:06:12.839 it's kind of like a seesaw, okay? Excitation 00:06:12.839 --> 00:06:16.660 here, inhibition here. You want a healthy balance. 00:06:17.639 --> 00:06:20.360 It's context dependent, depending on the activity. 00:06:21.139 --> 00:06:24.319 But the default for the autistic phenotype is 00:06:24.319 --> 00:06:28.240 here. High excitation. And in large part, from 00:06:28.240 --> 00:06:31.639 what we've covered, is we have low inhibition, 00:06:31.939 --> 00:06:44.560 especially the parvalbian interneuron. This is 00:06:44.560 --> 00:06:49.050 the most dense GABA cell that we have in the 00:06:49.050 --> 00:06:51.649 human body, parvalbumin interneuron. Remember, 00:06:51.670 --> 00:06:54.410 these are very fast acting. We have a whole episode 00:06:54.410 --> 00:06:59.089 on this maybe six or seven weeks ago about parvalbumin 00:06:59.089 --> 00:07:02.769 interneuron and the autistic phenotype because 00:07:02.769 --> 00:07:06.730 autistics lack these, especially in key brain 00:07:06.730 --> 00:07:10.089 regions like the insula, the medial prefrontal 00:07:10.089 --> 00:07:14.879 cortex is lacking. kind of all throughout though. 00:07:14.879 --> 00:07:17.939 So this is the very fast acting GABA. This works 00:07:17.939 --> 00:07:22.720 on GABA -A. Remember the different here we talked 00:07:22.720 --> 00:07:24.980 about the different GABA receptors. We only have 00:07:24.980 --> 00:07:29.579 three GABA receptors. A and C are kind of fast, 00:07:29.639 --> 00:07:33.060 but GABA -A is more dense. We have more GABA 00:07:33.060 --> 00:07:37.379 -A. These are ionotrophic, which means they activate 00:07:37.379 --> 00:07:40.439 within two to 10 milliseconds compared to GABA 00:07:40.439 --> 00:07:44.100 -B, which is metabotrophic. anywhere from 10 00:07:44.100 --> 00:07:46.199 to 50 milliseconds. So there's a big difference 00:07:46.199 --> 00:07:50.079 there with the different types of inhibition. 00:07:50.199 --> 00:07:54.079 But this is our most dense one, parvalbum interneuron. 00:07:54.740 --> 00:08:00.800 So the autistic phenotype, there's not enough 00:08:00.800 --> 00:08:04.899 pullback from that go system. So there's always 00:08:04.899 --> 00:08:08.000 massive amounts of go. And that is a big benefit 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:12.000 for learning though. However, the outside world 00:08:12.250 --> 00:08:16.029 Doesn't really go like we go. So there's a big 00:08:16.029 --> 00:08:19.870 contrast. Okay, it's a it's quite the conundrum 00:08:19.870 --> 00:08:23.769 with the autistic phenotype and the same the 00:08:23.769 --> 00:08:27.930 classroom or the society at large remember the 00:08:27.930 --> 00:08:32.629 examples of B movie how the cameras zooms out 00:08:32.629 --> 00:08:35.570 and you can see the hive and there's thousands 00:08:35.570 --> 00:08:37.970 upon thousands of bees swarming around at high 00:08:37.970 --> 00:08:43.539 rates very efficient like so We've also covered, 00:08:45.320 --> 00:08:50.840 and this is relevant, the waves. The inputs coming 00:08:50.840 --> 00:08:57.720 in with the sensory processing. So different 00:08:57.720 --> 00:09:05.159 waves. So we have high gamma, and this is 80 00:09:05.159 --> 00:09:15.809 plus Hertz. Low gamma. So 30 to 80 Hertz Yeah, 00:09:15.889 --> 00:09:24.090 it's showing up Beta So let's say 12 to 30 Hertz 00:09:24.090 --> 00:09:41.250 Alpha 8 to 12 Hertz Theta is 4 to 8 Hertz and 00:09:41.250 --> 00:09:47.230 then delta, which you're probably sleeping or 00:09:47.230 --> 00:09:54.429 some sort of psychedelic maybe in that state. 00:09:54.690 --> 00:09:57.730 But we also know from people like Earl Miller 00:09:57.730 --> 00:10:01.250 at MIT that we kind of have theta ranges going 00:10:01.250 --> 00:10:03.809 on in the background to help us task switch and 00:10:03.809 --> 00:10:08.029 modulate our attention. But not to get sidetracked 00:10:08.029 --> 00:10:11.600 here, The autistic phenotype, when we're processing 00:10:11.600 --> 00:10:17.200 sensory information, we live mostly here. That's 00:10:17.200 --> 00:10:19.620 because the rates of information are coming in 00:10:19.620 --> 00:10:25.500 at mass scales compared to kind of the normal 00:10:25.500 --> 00:10:28.620 typicals, if you will, which live mostly here 00:10:28.620 --> 00:10:37.220 with a little spike into low gamma. So with the 00:10:37.220 --> 00:10:42.610 sensory processing, for instance, vision, okay? 00:10:42.970 --> 00:10:48.710 So you have the retina to lateral geniculate 00:10:48.710 --> 00:10:51.570 nucleus, and this is a little relay station on 00:10:51.570 --> 00:10:54.769 the thalamus. All vision will hit here, and from 00:10:54.769 --> 00:10:58.110 here, it kinda just branches off. So each stop 00:10:58.110 --> 00:11:01.789 is just recruiting more and more brain regions, 00:11:01.909 --> 00:11:03.750 essentially. It's a good way of looking at this. 00:11:06.059 --> 00:11:09.120 So from here, we can go from to the superior 00:11:09.120 --> 00:11:11.440 colliculus. We've covered that in the Autism 00:11:11.440 --> 00:11:13.759 in Eye Movements episode. This is a very cool 00:11:13.759 --> 00:11:16.740 region. It's a very fascinating, powerful region. 00:11:17.220 --> 00:11:19.659 We'll talk about the inferior colliculus soon 00:11:19.659 --> 00:11:25.480 with auditory. And then V1, the visual cortex, 00:11:25.799 --> 00:11:29.779 V1 through V4, making sense of what is being 00:11:29.779 --> 00:11:34.539 seen. And then things like the amygdala for the 00:11:34.539 --> 00:11:38.809 low row. and also the thalamus. It'll hit the 00:11:38.809 --> 00:11:42.389 thalamus. But it hits these regions. So let's 00:11:42.389 --> 00:11:50.889 say the eye, the retina here sends it back to 00:11:50.889 --> 00:11:54.649 the thalamus. And on the back part is the lateral 00:11:54.649 --> 00:12:02.149 geniculate right here. That will geniculate and 00:12:02.149 --> 00:12:04.370 then the superior colliculus is down here It's 00:12:04.370 --> 00:12:07.250 like a little noodle shape and the midbrain the 00:12:07.250 --> 00:12:11.169 mesencephalon is here. Okay, so we kind of have 00:12:11.169 --> 00:12:16.289 the pons The brainstem it's at the top of the 00:12:16.289 --> 00:12:19.330 brainstem And this is the thalamus kind of in 00:12:19.330 --> 00:12:22.610 the middle of the brain so it will also go to 00:12:22.610 --> 00:12:26.870 the superior colliculus will Recruit back up 00:12:26.870 --> 00:12:30.009 to the frontal eye fields which are up here So 00:12:30.009 --> 00:12:38.190 if we had the brain here, cerebellum, sorry, 00:12:38.370 --> 00:12:40.690 Dr. Reza Shatner, that's a bad drawing of the 00:12:40.690 --> 00:12:44.889 cerebellum, right? And then if we just outline 00:12:44.889 --> 00:12:47.789 the brain here, the temporal lobe, we're coming 00:12:47.789 --> 00:12:52.429 in here like this, so forth. And then back here 00:12:52.429 --> 00:12:57.629 is the occipital lobe, right? So V1 through V4, 00:12:57.669 --> 00:13:01.090 it's kind of hitting here really fast. And then 00:13:01.090 --> 00:13:04.769 up through here is the parietal. And remember 00:13:04.769 --> 00:13:07.750 the visual thinking episode, there's a little 00:13:07.750 --> 00:13:11.110 nucleus here about right here called the pretenus. 00:13:11.850 --> 00:13:15.850 Pretenus. In visual thinking, this is lit up. 00:13:16.029 --> 00:13:18.649 In the default mode network, this is lit up, 00:13:19.110 --> 00:13:22.409 especially in the autistic phenotype. And here 00:13:22.409 --> 00:13:26.899 are the frontal eye fields. It's right here with 00:13:26.899 --> 00:13:29.759 the sensory motor, but the front, the anterior 00:13:29.759 --> 00:13:32.700 part of the sensory motor. So the superior colliculus 00:13:32.700 --> 00:13:35.679 here has to reach all the way up to here. And 00:13:35.679 --> 00:13:37.899 that's a distal connection. And that's what I'm 00:13:37.899 --> 00:13:40.820 talking about. This is where we lose eye gaze. 00:13:41.980 --> 00:13:44.379 Eye contact and eye gaze for the autistic phenotype 00:13:44.379 --> 00:13:48.100 is not that difficult to understand because remember 00:13:48.100 --> 00:13:50.779 the analogy. If we have a destination and there's, 00:13:50.820 --> 00:13:54.139 let's say there's five stops. From point A to 00:13:54.139 --> 00:13:56.759 point B, you make five stops, and essentially 00:13:56.759 --> 00:13:59.820 this is what this is. Stop one, stop two, stop 00:13:59.820 --> 00:14:02.940 three, stop four, and so forth. The autistic 00:14:02.940 --> 00:14:06.879 phenotype hits these early spots really fast, 00:14:07.220 --> 00:14:10.879 much faster than normal processing because that's 00:14:10.879 --> 00:14:14.600 the the high and low gamma in comparison to the 00:14:14.600 --> 00:14:19.320 beta and alpha. So the autistic phenotype is 00:14:19.320 --> 00:14:21.820 just getting blasted with these early sensory 00:14:21.820 --> 00:14:25.740 processes and then by the time it has to recruit 00:14:25.740 --> 00:14:30.559 these distal areas which is more cortical it's 00:14:30.559 --> 00:14:33.639 challenging because there's the delay now because 00:14:33.639 --> 00:14:36.139 of this myelination here that connects these 00:14:36.139 --> 00:14:38.799 so right here is the medial prefrontal cortex 00:14:38.799 --> 00:14:42.820 we talk a lot about that this is huge this is 00:14:42.820 --> 00:14:45.980 adaptive responses when you're navigating the 00:14:45.980 --> 00:14:48.799 world and you're making good decisions and healthy 00:14:48.799 --> 00:14:52.980 decisions and you can fit in with the ever -changing 00:14:52.980 --> 00:14:56.580 flow of society your medial prefrontal cortex 00:14:56.580 --> 00:14:59.919 is leading the way and also the dorsal lateral 00:14:59.919 --> 00:15:03.240 which is more up here and the orbital prefrontal 00:15:03.240 --> 00:15:07.000 which is right here just right here so orbital 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:09.600 kind of medial in the middle and then this outer 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:14.779 surface is the dorsal lateral this leads the 00:15:14.779 --> 00:15:19.269 way and it will instruct the subcortical areas 00:15:19.269 --> 00:15:22.649 on what to do how to respond and so forth okay 00:15:22.649 --> 00:15:24.929 that's a long wind about the sensory processing 00:15:24.929 --> 00:15:30.289 but the thing to know here is these early regions 00:15:30.289 --> 00:15:35.090 of the sensory inputs coming in are just so fast 00:15:35.090 --> 00:15:38.230 for the autistic phenotype in comparison to so 00:15:38.230 --> 00:15:41.509 -called the normal or the typicals okay that's 00:15:41.509 --> 00:15:45.090 a big thing and that's one of two things that 00:15:45.200 --> 00:15:48.240 is about this accelerated learning type of thing. 00:15:48.919 --> 00:15:50.460 And the second thing is going to be the many 00:15:50.460 --> 00:16:01.159 layers or the many columns. So remember the myelination 00:16:01.159 --> 00:16:04.600 is a problem with the autistic phenotype. Huge 00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:07.279 problem. Things like speech and language with 00:16:07.279 --> 00:16:10.179 the arcuate fasciculus. We also have another 00:16:10.179 --> 00:16:15.370 fasciculus called superior longitudinal. fasciculus 00:16:15.370 --> 00:16:19.009 so now research is kind of thinking that the 00:16:19.009 --> 00:16:22.529 arcuate is just a type of superior longitudinal 00:16:22.529 --> 00:16:28.850 fasciculus but regardless fasciculi are nerve 00:16:28.850 --> 00:16:32.590 fibers that connect distal regions okay and with 00:16:32.590 --> 00:16:35.830 autism you just think about myelination right 00:16:35.830 --> 00:16:39.429 we've talked about the comparison of driving 00:16:39.429 --> 00:16:44.299 on an interstate versus a gravel road Good myelination 00:16:44.299 --> 00:16:46.899 is like an interstate where you can have optimal 00:16:46.899 --> 00:16:52.039 rates of speed. The gravel road from point A 00:16:52.039 --> 00:16:54.440 to point B is going to be different. And that's 00:16:54.440 --> 00:16:59.080 a big part of this. So the many columns. Let's 00:16:59.080 --> 00:17:01.200 talk about the many columns. And we have many, 00:17:01.200 --> 00:17:06.099 many columns. These are layers in our cortex. 00:17:06.359 --> 00:17:10.019 And our cortex is layered, kind of like crepes. 00:17:11.700 --> 00:17:16.160 So they just kind of they just kind of stack 00:17:16.160 --> 00:17:25.579 onto each other like this This is exactly what 00:17:25.579 --> 00:17:30.559 they they kind of are layer 1 2 3 4 5 and 6 Which 00:17:30.559 --> 00:17:33.059 is I have laid out here because they all have 00:17:33.059 --> 00:17:41.460 different roles So we can draw this out They 00:17:41.460 --> 00:17:48.779 will look like this This is just a representation 00:17:48.779 --> 00:17:52.579 of it there's different areas of many columns 00:17:52.579 --> 00:17:55.259 have different amount of cells so like the cortex 00:17:55.259 --> 00:18:02.680 has So I don't 100 neurons per this a little 00:18:02.680 --> 00:18:08.160 slice of area like within microns So we'll draw 00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:11.940 it like this as well see We'll go like this, 00:18:11.940 --> 00:18:13.900 because two and three is going to be crucial. 00:18:14.819 --> 00:18:17.019 Layer four is going to be something like standalone 00:18:17.019 --> 00:18:23.440 thing. And layer two and three are full of pyramidal 00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:31.480 neurons. They look like pyramids. Remember? They 00:18:31.480 --> 00:18:33.539 look like pyramids. This is our goal signal. 00:18:33.839 --> 00:18:38.599 These are excitation. And then also in here, 00:18:39.039 --> 00:18:42.519 you have parvalbium. So they're kind of stopping 00:18:42.519 --> 00:18:47.299 unwanted signals too. There's this PARP albium 00:18:47.299 --> 00:18:52.119 here. Layer four is huge, because this is the 00:18:52.119 --> 00:18:57.619 input area. These are stellette neurons. They 00:18:57.619 --> 00:19:00.259 look like stars. We also have them in the pancreas 00:19:00.259 --> 00:19:02.160 and liver, but they have different functions. 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:08.279 So these kind of star -like things right here. 00:19:09.039 --> 00:19:11.720 And then layer five and six as we're working 00:19:11.720 --> 00:19:26.240 down, it kind of looks like layers two and three. 00:19:33.059 --> 00:19:36.019 Okay, and there's also some part of albumium 00:19:36.019 --> 00:19:40.369 here. There's also other types of GABA. Um, somatostatin 00:19:40.369 --> 00:19:42.569 is a little bit. Remember, those are the second 00:19:42.569 --> 00:19:47.430 most dense. They're kind of here. Uh, carotidin 00:19:47.430 --> 00:19:51.089 can be here, but these many columns are found 00:19:51.089 --> 00:19:53.569 all throughout, like the each cortex, like the 00:19:53.569 --> 00:19:56.769 visual cortex, the auditory cortex, the somatostatin 00:19:56.769 --> 00:20:00.430 cortex, all of these things. The cerebral cortex 00:20:00.430 --> 00:20:02.630 has their own and they all have different roles. 00:20:03.710 --> 00:20:07.470 So there are some inhibitory neurons down here 00:20:07.470 --> 00:20:15.109 as well. then these are columns so they're like 00:20:15.109 --> 00:20:20.269 this and you can just stack different columns 00:20:20.269 --> 00:20:23.930 together so you can also have I mean these are 00:20:23.930 --> 00:20:34.329 just spatially represented like the same okay 00:20:34.329 --> 00:20:41.980 then you have this starlet And then down here, 00:20:42.220 --> 00:21:00.480 same thing. Some inhibitory, okay? So each one 00:21:00.480 --> 00:21:03.180 of these, this is one mini column. And as you 00:21:03.180 --> 00:21:06.859 stack some, if you just have a slice or splice, 00:21:07.049 --> 00:21:09.769 That's called macro columns, but we're just talking 00:21:09.769 --> 00:21:12.410 about one. But I also want to talk about the 00:21:12.410 --> 00:21:16.430 space in between. Nerve pill. This is where there's 00:21:16.430 --> 00:21:19.569 no cell bodies here. There's actually no cell 00:21:19.569 --> 00:21:22.769 bodies here. These are all axons and fibers and 00:21:22.769 --> 00:21:28.369 so forth. OK, for the connections. With the autistic 00:21:28.369 --> 00:21:33.609 phenotype, this is big. This space here. Let 00:21:33.609 --> 00:21:37.029 me clean this up a little bit. This space right 00:21:37.029 --> 00:21:40.029 here, if you ever look at drawings, diagrams, 00:21:40.309 --> 00:21:43.049 blueprints, or so forth, you might see some measurements 00:21:43.049 --> 00:21:46.390 that kind of look like this. This inside diameter, 00:21:46.730 --> 00:21:54.490 okay? In autism, this is smaller versus typicals. 00:21:55.069 --> 00:21:59.210 The density of these macro columns because of 00:21:59.210 --> 00:22:02.390 the stacked and close together of the many columns 00:22:02.390 --> 00:22:07.890 is so dense. you can just find research articles 00:22:07.890 --> 00:22:11.890 and images just having a spice and it's just 00:22:11.890 --> 00:22:15.829 full. The autistic phenotype is just loaded here 00:22:15.829 --> 00:22:19.549 with different cells and remember there's a decrease 00:22:19.549 --> 00:22:23.190 in inhibitory and that's a big part of this as 00:22:23.190 --> 00:22:25.630 well so there's massive amounts of pyramidal 00:22:25.630 --> 00:22:29.170 neurons here for the autistic phenotype and this 00:22:29.170 --> 00:22:33.869 closeness together It makes it hard to kind of 00:22:33.869 --> 00:22:37.289 shut off and remember the the role of the so 00:22:37.289 --> 00:22:40.930 excitation to go and then the inhibition the 00:22:40.930 --> 00:22:44.170 the thing that pulls us back down into healthy 00:22:44.170 --> 00:22:49.109 states healthy ranges Keeps us out of GABA and 00:22:49.109 --> 00:22:54.769 so forth. This is huge in autism The density 00:22:54.769 --> 00:22:59.130 here with the autistic phenotype a lack of cell 00:22:59.130 --> 00:23:03.849 pruning remember The Autism, Century Map, and 00:23:03.849 --> 00:23:07.349 Serotonin episode. Serotonin's role in development 00:23:07.349 --> 00:23:12.109 is pruning the thalamus and these cortical areas 00:23:12.109 --> 00:23:15.730 of dendrites. And also in the autistic phenotype, 00:23:16.089 --> 00:23:19.730 the dorsal striatum has massive amounts of dendrites. 00:23:20.410 --> 00:23:23.170 Dr. Hannah Stevens at University of Iowa has 00:23:23.170 --> 00:23:31.779 studied that. She's a previous guest. I was going 00:23:31.779 --> 00:23:37.700 to say something, but I know what I was going 00:23:37.700 --> 00:23:41.640 to say. So you would think how the brain functions 00:23:41.640 --> 00:23:46.480 and how Mother Nature just allows us to evolve 00:23:46.480 --> 00:23:49.720 to be optimal. You would think these would be 00:23:49.720 --> 00:23:53.119 linear, either starting from one to six or six 00:23:53.119 --> 00:23:58.460 to one. Okay, that's not the case. Inputs come 00:23:58.460 --> 00:24:04.740 in to layer four. These are mostly inhibitory, 00:24:05.079 --> 00:24:07.339 depending on where you are. Definitely in the 00:24:07.339 --> 00:24:10.880 cerebellum, they're all inhibitory. All stellate 00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:13.940 neurons are inhibitory. In other areas, the different 00:24:13.940 --> 00:24:19.119 visual, auditory, somatosensory, I should say, 00:24:19.420 --> 00:24:21.660 and the cerebral cortex, they're a combination 00:24:21.660 --> 00:24:24.319 of excitation and inhibition. Now you probably 00:24:24.319 --> 00:24:28.309 know that autistics have fewer. inhibitions here 00:24:28.309 --> 00:24:32.630 so it's hard to kind of dictate and determine 00:24:32.630 --> 00:24:36.869 where signals go and that's the big part so after 00:24:36.869 --> 00:24:40.309 inputs come in to layer four inputs are sent 00:24:40.309 --> 00:24:48.349 up to layer two and three and then so one two 00:24:48.349 --> 00:24:55.609 three essentially this is the process so why 00:24:55.609 --> 00:25:00.700 two and three Why not go here and down? Layers 00:25:00.700 --> 00:25:23.000 two and three is where you can say This is where 00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:26.710 our intelligence our memory our ability, our 00:25:26.710 --> 00:25:30.789 experiences live. So inputs come in from the 00:25:30.789 --> 00:25:34.309 thalamus. It will check layers two and three 00:25:34.309 --> 00:25:37.750 so that the specific living organism can draw 00:25:37.750 --> 00:25:41.789 from its database and go down to layers five 00:25:41.789 --> 00:25:46.690 and six. Now you notice there's a 5a and 5b and 00:25:46.690 --> 00:25:53.339 a 6a and 6b. 5ab is mostly regular spiking. We've 00:25:53.339 --> 00:25:56.019 talked about tonic, phasing, and burst firing. 00:25:56.640 --> 00:25:58.779 This is a lot to do with the brain waves mentioned 00:25:58.779 --> 00:26:07.220 earlier. Layer 5A is regular spiking. 5B is intrinsically 00:26:07.220 --> 00:26:11.380 burst firing. Where we need to really activate, 00:26:12.380 --> 00:26:16.319 we burst fire. So these action potentials will 00:26:16.319 --> 00:26:21.920 burst like this. Let's just draw this out right 00:26:21.920 --> 00:26:26.099 now. So this is tonic. This is just your baseline, 00:26:26.160 --> 00:26:32.339 okay? And this is also time. Time and baseline. 00:26:33.740 --> 00:26:36.819 So this is activation. This is like gamma, way 00:26:36.819 --> 00:26:40.740 up here, way up here at the top. So burst firing 00:26:40.740 --> 00:26:44.660 will go boom, boom, boom, and then drop off, 00:26:44.779 --> 00:26:49.750 boom, boom, boom, spike. Drop off boom boom boom 00:26:49.750 --> 00:26:55.750 like such Now the Delta is if there's more increase 00:26:55.750 --> 00:26:58.950 than decrease. It's going to stay higher Now 00:26:58.950 --> 00:27:02.950 as you relax calm down time passes and so forth 00:27:02.950 --> 00:27:11.549 The burst firing can start to drop You see that's 00:27:11.549 --> 00:27:14.250 how that's our molecules work essentially things 00:27:14.250 --> 00:27:17.150 like dopamine and so forth. Dopamine nation is 00:27:17.150 --> 00:27:25.309 good on this from Dr. Anna Lempke. It's easy 00:27:25.309 --> 00:27:27.450 to read information. If I can read it, you can 00:27:27.450 --> 00:27:33.849 read it. I promise you. So this is what layer 00:27:33.849 --> 00:27:41.130 five is doing. Regular and burst firing. Layer 00:27:41.130 --> 00:27:45.759 six, or it's kind of the output area, okay? Layer 00:27:45.759 --> 00:27:57.740 6a is corticothalamus. This is huge for the thalamic 00:27:57.740 --> 00:28:00.819 reticular nucleus. Remember, remember the thalamus 00:28:00.819 --> 00:28:04.579 is a shell over it and it's all GABA. And a large 00:28:04.579 --> 00:28:12.599 part, it's part of albium. So 6a is speaking 00:28:12.599 --> 00:28:17.839 back corticothalamus. Thalamus. 6b is cortex 00:28:17.839 --> 00:28:26.039 to cortex. Cortico... Oop. Cortex. So it's just 00:28:26.039 --> 00:28:27.920 speaking back and forth throughout the areas 00:28:27.920 --> 00:28:35.819 of the cortex. So the thalamus is huge. Every 00:28:35.819 --> 00:28:38.799 sensation runs through there and all of our models, 00:28:39.059 --> 00:28:42.160 how the living organism acts and lives, will 00:28:42.160 --> 00:28:45.119 run through the thalamus. because that's our 00:28:45.119 --> 00:28:47.819 sensory information. It's recruiting. Remember 00:28:47.819 --> 00:28:53.319 the basal ganglia. Maybe we'll do a drawing of 00:28:53.319 --> 00:28:56.259 basal ganglia, too, and more detail about the 00:28:56.259 --> 00:29:00.079 sensory processing. But just a side note, at 00:29:00.079 --> 00:29:02.900 Stanford, Karl Deisseroth and a neurosurgeon 00:29:02.900 --> 00:29:06.640 named Jamie Henderson, this isn't autism -related, 00:29:06.700 --> 00:29:11.980 but they found in humans that when people disassociate, 00:29:12.200 --> 00:29:14.859 or, you know, they're having seizures or, you 00:29:14.859 --> 00:29:17.940 know, people that have bad trauma will disassociate. 00:29:18.119 --> 00:29:22.259 They found that the timing from these layers 00:29:22.259 --> 00:29:27.039 and information coming into layer five is off. 00:29:28.539 --> 00:29:31.920 Layer five and timing looks like to be the spot 00:29:31.920 --> 00:29:36.420 for when and why people disassociate. Remember, 00:29:36.539 --> 00:29:41.019 all of this is about time, space time. We covered 00:29:41.019 --> 00:29:44.599 space -time so much in this little rant that 00:29:44.599 --> 00:29:47.839 I'm doing in these awful drawings, maybe. I hope 00:29:47.839 --> 00:29:51.259 you can follow along. But these are many columns. 00:29:51.299 --> 00:29:53.579 I think I'll do a solo episode just about many 00:29:53.579 --> 00:29:56.240 columns now that we've talked about the excitation 00:29:56.240 --> 00:29:59.740 inhibition in more detail. And we've covered 00:29:59.740 --> 00:30:03.799 a lot about the sensory processing because the 00:30:03.799 --> 00:30:06.660 many columns are huge because of the amount of 00:30:06.660 --> 00:30:10.700 density. and the inability to shut off. But there's 00:30:10.700 --> 00:30:15.900 huge benefits to that with learning. Much different 00:30:15.900 --> 00:30:21.200 than other people. So, many columns.