Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:08:56.108Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Codes are for messages, not for neurons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2019

Bjorn Merker Open the ORCID record for Bjorn Merker [Opens in a new window]
Bjorn Merker*
Affiliation:
Fjälkestadsvägen 410-82, SE-29194Kristianstad, Sweden. [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

My commentary draws on extensive arguments against “coding in the brain” developed by my neuroscience mentor, the late Eugene Sachs, who summarized them as follows: “[T]he energy in the signal is the only code there is for information…. The code is the same for each cell, but each cell's location is different, and location is the only basis for significance” (p. 13).

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 42 , 2019 , e236
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Merker, B. (2013b) The efference cascade, consciousness, and its self: Naturalizing the first person pivot of action control. Frontiers in Psychology 4:Article 501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pascual-Leone, A., Walsh, V. & Rothwell, J. (2000) Transcranial magnetic stimulation in cognitive neuroscience – Virtual lesion, chronometry, and functional connectivity. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 10:232–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Passingham, R. E., Stephan, K. E. & Kötter, R. (2002) The anatomical basis of functional localization in the cortex. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 3:606–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schmolesky, M. T., Wang, Y., Hanes, D. P., Thompson, K. G., Leutgeb, S., Schall, J. D. & Leventhal, A. G. (1998) Signal timing across the macaque visual system. Journal of Neurophysiology 79:3272–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed