.png)
Online ISSN 2653-4983
Online first articles
Articles not assigned to any issue
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Deciphering anxiety: Neural circuits across multiple scales in neuroscience
Lleuvelyn A. Cacha
Anxiety arises from intricate interactions among neural processes that operate across various spatial and temporal scales, ranging from molecular signaling and synaptic transmission to large-scale brain network dynamics. This review explores how the multiscale integration of neural activity within anxiety-related brain circuits influences emotional regulation and maladaptive fear responses. We concentrate on key structures involved in anxiety, including the amygdala, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, examining how their dynamic interactions coordinate threat detection, stress responsivity, and behavioral adaptation. Special emphasis is placed on the role of neurotransmitter systems, neuroendocrine signaling, and oscillatory network dynamics in linking cellular-level mechanisms with systems-level functional connectivity. Dysregulation across these interacting scales is discussed as a fundamental mechanism underlying persistent anxiety and related psychopathology. By integrating findings from affective neuroscience, neuroendocrinology, and cognitive neuroscience, this review underscores emerging multiscale frameworks that enhance the understanding of anxiety as a distributed, dynamic brain process and identifies future research directions aimed at improving translational and clinical outcomes.
​
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
On the Nature of Information Flow During Cognitive Dynamics
Onur Pusuluk​
This work introduces a conceptual framework in which cognitive information flow arises from thermodynamically organized and partially delocalized networks of correlations within the brain. Extending the notion of the thermocoherent effect—where quantum coherence facilitates entropy-aligned energy and information transfer—we adopt a resource-theoretic perspective to argue that not only quantum discord–like coherence, but also entanglement and even classical correlations, can function as operational resources depending on interaction geometry. We further propose that biological substrates, including π-electron systems, proton transport networks, and vibrationally coupled protein domains, may sustain such correlations in neural tissue, thereby shaping entropy flows that dynamically interact with conventional neural signaling. These correlated reservoirs may influence or even initiate electromagnetic fields, suggesting that CEMI-like binding fields could both organize neural information and emerge from deeper correlation structures that constrain them. Overall, the model presents a hybrid account of cognition in which classical electrical and chemical processes are coupled to entropy-sensitive, delocalized information structures, offering a physically grounded route toward addressing the binding problem through energy–information coherence. Finally, we outline experimentally testable pathways for detecting such dynamics in neural systems and emphasize their consistency with principles from quantum thermodynamics.
​
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Quantum Potential Geometry: a framework for ontophysical processes underlying
phenomenality
Roman R. Poznanski
Quantum Potential Geometry (QPG) is a process-based framework for modeling delocalized information systems in the brain. It is formulated within a Weyl-like geometric setting, where phase relations are encoded as scale connections, and the effective quantum potential (Q* ) specifies geometric curvature rather than probabilistic amplitudes. QPG conceptualizes neuropil microcavity–supported quasipolaritons as forming a discrete relational lattice, arising from diachronic boundary conditions, which constitutes the ontophysical substrate of the framework. When coherence extends across many microcavities through Q*, this discrete lattice undergoes a transition: its local relational structure generates a globally coherent phase configuration, whose effective curvature manifests as an emergent functional manifold at the macroscopic scale. QPG employs the Heisenberg formulation because quantum-delocalized informational dynamics arise not from nonlocal operators but from the intrinsic physical nature of quasipolaritonic modes, which cannot be simultaneously localized in complementary observables. Operators themselves are local mathematical objects; it is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that imposes delocalization constraints on the modes. These constraints allow coherence to span microcavities, enabling long-range phase coupling and the formation of an extended functional geometry. Phase information is an ontophysical process, biophysically instantiated, it describes how local phase relations among domains are modulated to sustain coherence via a selection mechanism that restricts global phase patterns to those consistent with the Weyl-like scale connection and satisfying functional holonomy.
​
.png)
COMMENTARY
Upgrading the Turing Test for Consciousness
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton​
In Where is the Definition of Consciousness? (WdDoC), it was argued that the traditional Turing Test requires significant revision to address a broader and more inclusive definition of consciousness—one that applies not only to humans, but also to non-human animals, synthetic biological constructs such as xenobots, and potentially other emergent systems. Under this expanded framework, updating the Turing Test becomes largely redundant, particularly given its anthropocentric bias. Using a proposed definition of consciousness that closely parallels definitions of learning, this article asserts that the degree of consciousness expressed by any given entity may vary in sophistication or simplicity according to its architecture and resources. However, the core criteria used for assessment remain constant: (1) Advaita Vedanta-inspired Boolean-algebraic discrimination capability, (2) memory, (3) imagination/creativity, and (4) the ability to act upon predictive insights and learn from past errors. Under these criteria, even Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control systems qualify as minimally conscious, highlighting both the difficulty and rigor required in establishing a meaningful test—comparable to the exhaustive certification standards used in safety-critical engineering. While it is acknowledged that evaluating only a single entity (or a very small sample) introduces statistical risk, this paper challenges the assumption that testing groups is the only viable mitigation approach. Group-level testing is subject to the same limitations in statistical generalisation unless sample sizes are sufficiently scaled. Ultimately, testing for consciousness in an individual is functionally equivalent to administering a sophisticated variant of the classic behavioural challenge: “Can you run and catch a moving ball?”
​
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Intracellular Calcium Dynamics in Starburst Amacrine Cell Dendrites:
The Onset of Cardinal Direction Selectivity and Speed Tuning*
N.L. Iannella
​Detecting moving objects is crucial in the animal kingdom and is fundamental to vision. In the vertebrate retina, starburst amacrine cells are directionally selective in terms of their calcium responses to stimuli that move centrifugally from the soma. The mechanism by which starburst amacrine cells show calcium bias for centrifugal motion is still to be determined. Recent morphological studies using fluorescent microscopy and immunostaining have shown that the endoplasmic reticulum is omnipresent in the soma, extending to the distal processes of starburst amacrine cells. Electron microscopy for ChAT SAC in adult rat retina unequivocally proves the presence of local endoplasmic reticulum. The submicron in diameter dendrites implies that the endoplasmic reticulum is not luminally connected between the soma and the distal tips. We construct a computational model of SAC dendrites with ER to simulate the Ca2+-induced Ca2+ release (CICR)-based calcium waves in the presence of unsaturated buffer to test the hypothesis that CICR mechanism can sustain constant calcium wave propagation in the centrifugal direction. The veto mechanism with a 100msec delay for the operation of retinal direction selectivity. is a working hypothesis, in which a CICR mechanism in the presence of local endoplasmic reticulum underlies speed tuning for directionality and propagation failure in the centripetal direction due to a build-up of calcium hyperexcitability in the distal regions of starburst amacrine cells. Modeling the heterogeneity of calcium endoplasmic reticulum in simulated starburst amacrine cells sheds light on a possible explanation for the cause ...
​
