Memory, Emotions, Language & Mind

Abstract

Is “mind” universal to all neural creatures or is it unique to homo sapien, whose talent for language greatly enlarges his/her ability to recall and enunciate past experience. Philosophers have wrestled with the concept of “mind” but have not delineated whether it emanates from body or spirit. Physicists have called on quantum mechanics to provide an explanatory rationale for mental states. Unfortunately, one cannot employ the metrics of physics to formulate emotions. Computer scientists aspire to emulate the workings of the brain with binary coded algorithms. Though capable of programing a memory function in robots, they too have been hampered by an inability to encode emotions. Upon consideration, “emotions” and “memory” must be integral to the cognitive process implied by “mind”. We biochemists review two proposed processes for the formation and recall of memory. The popular neurological concept is based on “synaptic plasticity”, the ability of neurons to scupt their shape and thereby modulate their signaling functions. It suggests that morphologic and functional modifications of the synapse follow a learning experience, recalled as memory. An alternate biochemical tripartite mechanism is based on interactions of neurons with their surrounding extracellular matrix (nECM) and dopants (metal cations and neurotransmitters (NTs)). Such a chemodynamic process seems physiologically credible in that it involves materials available to the neuron. It invokes a chemical code comprising metal-centered complexes representing cognitive units of information (cuinfo); with emotive states elicited and encoded by neurotransmitters (NTs). The neural chemical code, which evolved from primitive signaling modes of bacteria and slime mold, retained the identical signaling molecules, though augmented with additional neuropeptides. The evolved neurons became organized into ever more complex neural nets instigated a new dimension (phase) of metabolic energy, a mental state characterized by emotive memory, manifest in homo sapien as language and “mind”.