This was shown by Ishai and Ungerleider early in the century. This is not to disparage a good modern demonstration which tackles the issue more directly.

The problem is that the results of experiments with tDCS are often difficult to replicate.

Really important work.

I think we should try. We should be able to find alternatives for the safety of drugs. We can now record cellular activity in the human brain and combine information from patients with electrode arrays in different locations. And deep ultrasound can be used on the human brain 5o prove causation.

I actually hate the term ‘default system’. I think the better way of putting it is that it supports thoughts that are generated internally rather in response to external task demands.

Isn’t this unexpected? TMS over dorsal PF is used for depression and the amygdala shows abnormal activity in depression. Perhaps the reason was that your subjects were not depressed.

Isn’t the difference that rumination is stuck on particular worries, whereas mind wandering shifts from one thought to another? what is in common is that both involve the default system.

To what extent does Trump and his circle decide this, whatever congress might say? There is clealy a war on science coming from the White House.

Yes, luck plays a considerable part in careers in science.

Did you not have any patients with electrodes in the amygdala (implanted prior to surgery for temporal lobe epilepsy)? That might say more about why the TMS had an effect.

The question is whether the distinctions matter for empirical science, ie do we get wrong results or interpret them wrongly if we are unaware of the distinctions that can be drawn.

Agreed.

An ideological attempt to restrict scientific practice, as the result of politicians interfering with what scientists do.

Interesting as it confirms the difficulty that those with ADHD have in sustained attention. But those with depression ruminate.Do you draw a distinction between mind wandering and rumination?

There is little work on NHPs now. Instead almost all the work is on mice. I can understand that this can tell us about human metabolism. But cognition depends on complex neural circuitry. We need to know what cognitive capacities we share with mice and what capacities are unique to primates or us.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. It is convincing. I should have read the paper in detail.

Seems to be good work. And the results are of obvious importance. The assumption is that immature cells will undergo neurogenesis. How reliable is that assumtion?

I would probably only repeat myself. That is the lot of aged scientists. It is fresh minds that are needed.

Can’t attend as on dialysis. Would love to be there.

How sure are you that the cerebellar activations reflect meaning as opposed to articulatory activity?

It is critical that this was a test not of STM but retrieval. Dorsal PF does not provide the substrate for STM but for the retieval of information. STM of locations is supported by parietal lip.

I prefer 1. That is what we do when setting up hypothesis A and hypothesis B and testing them against each other in future experiments.

So why am I grousing? I suppose I’m looking for computational model A that makes a different prediction to computational model B and is powerful enough to make predictions for future experiments.

Having read it (!} you are right.They test if ADS is before FOF and find slightly more information in FOF. They inactivate FOF, but they didn’t need a model to think of that.They produce a RNN model and it accounts for the data, both with and without the inactivation (predictions).

Indeed I need to read the paper. The problem with social media as we all know is the temptation to respond impulsively. I plead guilty. I have a bugbear that many computational models are produced without making and then testing predictions. I repeat this ad nauseam and am tripped up.

I agree so long as the computational models make predictions that other models do not, and those predictions are then tested.

We have long known that there is similar activiry in the prefrontal cortex of macaques and the striatum. But the frontal activity occurs slightly earlier.

We need more evidence burbit is what I think.

I suspect that the key to prefrontal is actually the developmebt of parietal.

My response was therefore not appropriate.