Lex Fridman Interview - Karl Friston

Karl Friston is one of the greatest neuroscientists in history, cited over 245,000 times, known for many influential ideas in brain imaging, neuroscience, and theoretical neurobiology, including the fascinating idea of the free-energy principle for action and perception. ~ from LexFridman.com

This is a very mind-expanding video interview. Why was that the case was I am not that familiar with neuroscience. Karl Friston being very well-established and experienced in the field was sharing a lot of things in their technical jargon form. So there were lots of pauses and searching to understand better (an understatement) and how to put what he discussed together to form a larger and hopefully more detailed picture of the brain.

Over here in this post, I am just going to share some of the brain structures mentioned and hope the audience may use it for their study of neuroscience. I cannot say much about Free-Energy Principle because I am still grappling with it though. I will try to come back and write out with better understanding but for now...the mind continues to boggle on it. :)

Brain Structures to Keep In Mind

At the start of the interview, there were many discussions about how brain imaging has helped with the understanding of the brain, especially the structure. One description that was striking, was Karl described the brain as hierarchical and recurrent. The analogy he used to describe it is that the brain is like an onion.

How "onion-like"? Later in the interview, Karl mentioned gray matters, which is the visual cortex, wrapped around the neurons and white matters (fatty sheets) known as the myelin sheath.

Karl also mentioned that given brain imaging, borns a study of neurovascular coupling, how parts of the brain are activated. Is it through the micro-vessels sending the blood and nutrients to the "correct" area of the brain, resulting in activation? More details are needed to understand better.

There was also some discussion on functional areas of the brains, i.e. part of the brain "light up" when it is performing certain functions, but it was also found that the "Equipotentiality" (aka Lashley's Law of Mass Action) does happen in the brains as well.

Conclusion

Apologies for the short study note. This was a very interesting interview and unfortunately, my knowledge of neuroscience is found lacking but I will continue looking at it and hopefully have a better understanding of the brain and its related science. :)

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