Thread

1. paimapi · 1790798924 · focus · HN ↗

   Bit of a sensationalist title - EEG/iEEG measurements have led to worthwhile clinical outcomes but also are an avenue for bunk pseudosccience so it pays to be careful whenever you see the words 'brain waves' paired with some large claim.

   More accurate, much less sexy title: Intracranial Recordings Uncover Spiral and Concentric Brain Waves During Memory Tasks" (study completed only on small cohorts of epilepsy patients performing constrained memory tasks).

   No inner workings revealed or laid bare, just another piece of evidence contributing to a small part of the debate in cortical electrophysiological studies on whether or not some data measures can be discarded as the downstream, messy noise of the neurons firing or actual, high-fidelity signals of activity

   1. pedalpete · 1790812234 · focus · HN ↗

      I work in neurotech and specifically with EEG, some would find it surprising that I 100% agree with this take.

      When we understood the world of fluid-dynamics, we looked at the body as blood going through a pump delivering materials (oxygen, minerals, etc) to different parts of the body. We though to ourselves "we know how this works!".

      Then we discovered electricity, slapped our collective foreheads and said "oh! It's electrical!" now I get it.

      We still don't.

      Let's learn what we can from what we can and use this knowledge to our benefit, but let's not assume we understand the underlying mechanisms just because we can find correlations.

      1. randomImmigrant · 1790827297 · focus · HN ↗

         Well put!

         We’re finding out though that the brain is, yes, a fluid dynamic system, an electromagnetic system (though we know way less about the magnetism that we’d like), AND a mechanical system. Wonder how many more ands we’d have to add by the time we figure it out.

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