Aramis D. M. Valverde
J.D. Candidate at American University Washington College of Law
M.A. in Bioethics Candidate at New York University
M.S. in Cognitive and Information Sciences, University of California Merced
The literature on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has come to characterize ASD as multifarious in both its etiology and its presentation. Here I disambiguate the structure underlying this heterogeneity by examining one genetic and two environmental precipitants of ASD, along bio-molecular and mechanistic lines. Along the way I also examine factors which influence the individual presentation of ASD attributable to those three precipitants, and outline three novel bio-molecular pathways which could help treat the causal mechanisms underlying ASD development and its treatment for those particular sub-types. I further describe and provide evidence for a causal mechanism which explains why Lithium administration reverses SHANK3 haploinsufficiency induced catatonia.
The visual system is often treated as a sequence of cortical stages, however, this approach does not straightforwardly predict or adequately explain perceptual aberrations such as blindsight and aphantasia. A mechanistic explanation of visual perception demands a model that captures how sensory representations become integrated into the broader perceptual apparatus. In this paper, I review the central white-matter and grey-matter networks and anatomy necessary to understand typical and atypical processing, and further present a systems-level framework unifying retinal and subcortical preprocessing, geniculostriate and tectopulvinar pathways, and a minimal cortico–basal ganglia–thalamic loop necessary for reportable perception. I characterize visual perception as a temporally extended process emerging from reciprocal interactions among anterior temporal semantic hubs, prefrontal evaluative systems, basal ganglia valuation circuitry, and thalamic global modulatory control. Using this architecture, I outline how perceptual phenomena like visual imagery arise from top-down propagations initiated in prefrontal cortex, routed through fronto-temporal fasciculi, and resolved as recurrently stabilized patterns in early visual cortex. I then examine how selective failures of pathway-specific integration generate distinct impairments: in blindsight, where preserved subcortical routes drive behavior without entering the global perceptual loop, and in aphantasia, where frontal and temporal representations cannot successfully entrain visual cortex despite intact conceptual structure. These cases demonstrate that access to visual information alone is insufficient for perceptual awareness; what matters is whether the information participates in the system-wide dynamics that constitute perception. This is important not only to discussion within cognitive science concerning the nature of visual perception, but may also serve the needs of clinicians and neurologists, by providing a framework potentially utile in allowing practitioners the ability to characterize lesions based on perceptual deficits. This framework provides a coherent computational and anatomical account of normal vision, imagery, and their dissociations. It also clarifies what these conditions imply, and do not imply, about the structure of perceptual experience, the functional role of feedback in the visual system, and the conditions under which neural activity becomes available to report.
Working Manuscript on the neuroscience and philosophy of brain death, how the law defines brain death, and the necessity for policy based on neurologically informed best practices.
An argument against time perception solely as either accumulatory or periodic within the mind. I argue there is a third option implied by a micro-circuit examination of time-telling in mouse striatum, rolling accumulatory window aggregation, which has been sparsely examined and which, in conjunction with the other modes of time-telling, answers some of the confounding questions relating to time perception on the scale of minutes to hours.
The human brain remains the only system which is known to exhibit and report consciousness. Given how little is known about consciousness outside of its instantiating strata, an account of the nature of conscious report ought to be informed by the function and structure of the system that gives rise to it. In this talk I will outline a general neuro-biologically and mathematically informed framework for a system for conscious report. The system is composed of three interconnected sub-functions, a directed hyper-graph like representational space instantiated by directed hyper-graph neural networks and propagations through them, a change detection mechanism, and a self-modifying evaluation mechanism. I demonstrate how these systems can possibly instantiate a series of functions on representations which together account for the perceived ineffability of consciousness and the separability of representations. Philosophic and experimental implications are also considered.
A basic introductory overview of a model of representation in the mind, which accounts for such varied phenomena as mental rotation of objects, temporal flow of stories, and binding.
People are not doing well, an understatement by any measure. Psychological practice cannot be limited to adjusting a patient’s outlook or habits while leaving untouched the economic, political, and social conditions that are driving much of their distress. Therapeutic frameworks must be permitted, and institutionally supported, to enable practitioner guidance of patients toward concrete, materially relevant actions, particularly when their suffering is directly produced by structural forces rather than personal failings or dysfunctional thinking patterns. This expansion of scope is increasingly necessary in an environment where many turn to conspiratorial narratives simply to make sense of a world that has become incoherent. Patients need help understanding their circumstances accurately and resisting the steady stream of propaganda that leaves individuals disoriented, alienated, and susceptible to irrational or even dangerous modes of thought. Such a shift will not be easy. It requires systemic changes in training, expectations, and professional norms. Yet, given the worsening outlook for economic and societal stability, the project of enabling clinicians to address both psychological and structural realities is not optional. It is a prerequisite for preventing deeper harm to individuals and to the society which depends on their well-being.