Causation from an Evolutionary Perspective

Abstract

In the beginning of this book we have focused on answering the question: what normally stimulates the brain, especially the frontal lobe? We have traced the path of environmental stimulation of the brain through specific and nonspecific pathways. We have noted that all perception, information processing, as well as motor and autonomic activity is based on the specific pathways for information. It has also been shown how a decrease in arousal or activation has been documented to produce cognitive, emotional, perceptual, sensory, motor, and autonomic symptoms. We have demonstrated that baseline arousal and synchronization appear to arise to arise primarily from thalamic nuclei that are superimposed on possible intrinsic cellular activation and oscillations. The thalamus receives its activation primarily from slowly adapting somatosensory receptors are found mostly in antigravity postural, slow twitch muscle fibers. The greatest concentrations of these receptors are found in the upper cervical spine. It appears that these receptors primarily transducer gravitational forces, which is the most frequent and only constant environmental stimulus available. Gravity, which provides the force that postural muscles are called upon to continually resist, provide the power supply to the brain. Stimulation and “nutrition” to the brain is generated by the movements of the spine as a windmill generates electricity.