Predictive Processing

links: Cognition reference:

• György Buzsáki - The Brain from Inside Out 5-7-2021

Predictive processing #

• Bayesian Inference:
  • The brain computes a posterior probability/new hypotheis by considering the prior probability, which is the old hypothesis, and the previously computed likelihood of what is now the given ’new evidence'.
    • Mechanistically, paying attention to a particular sensory event is proposed to increase the synaptic gain (‘volume’) of the cells that are encoding the prediction error.
  • Counterfactual cognition: How the past could have been, or how the present could be, different.
  • Dr Shamil Chandaria: The Bayesian Brain and Meditation
• The Radically Embodied Conscious Cybernetic Bayesian Brain: From Free Energy to Free Will and Back Again (Safron 2021)
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  • Altered beliefs under psychedelics: SEBUS, REBUS, ALBUS?
    • Presentation on Strengthened beliefs under psychedelics (SEBUS)? A Commentary on “REBUS and the Anarchic Brain: Toward a Unified Model of the Brain Action of Psychedelics (Safron 2020)
    • Commentary on Carhart-Harris and Friston’s REBUS and the Anarchic Brain: Toward a Unified Model of the Brain Action of Psychedelics (2019)
• Ketamine: WD-40 for the Bayesian brain - what an amazing QRI-like site.
  • The WD-40 aspect is by removing stucked/trapped priors. Traumas that don’t change over time, poisoning your perspective on perfectly safe stimuli and so on. No more cringing or clenching.
  • Glutamatergic Model Psychoses: Prediction Error, Learning, and Inference (Corlett et al. 2011) pretty tightly related to the Cortical Hierarchy:
    • NMDAR communicates top-down priors.
    • AMPAR is bottom-up: any mismatches between expectancy and experience are conveyed upward through the hierarchy via rapid AMPA and GABA signaling
      • It came to me during my 2nd 10 day retreat that TAK-653 (at least (especially) in high doses like 4-6mg+. Maybe there’s a U-shaped curve somewhere like in the 1mg range? Or does that make it even worse?) makes it super hard to not think and get distracted and it kind of came to me that perhaps signal vs. noise = Shamatha vs. Vipassana = DMT (solidification) vs 5-MeO-DMT (dissolving(?) reality into its true nature). This would be a really good question to ask Andrés. I was on 6-8 mg of TAK-653 coming up with this and it seemed profound. I think it’s the move for blogging.
    • This paper is talked about in https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/28/why-are-transgender-people-immune-to-optical-illusions/. The raw sensory input is AMPA, and in NMDA hypofunction, predictive processing (“that’s a face!”) is low.