**3. Modulating dynamical element stabilities across time scales: constructing the self percept during development**

Inferences about neuroplastic changes to the self percept during dementias concern a construct that has itself been structured according to a pattern of organizational processes that together generate its mature form. Developmental events leading to the construct's mature expression can therefore be expected to inform not only mechanisms underlying its orderly developmental assembly, but also how it is deconstructed in etiologies whose progression may be variable and irregular. Driving the developmental events and constitutive of their mature expression are again the twin needs of operational stability and flexibility that are the hallmarks of the dynamical systems used in complex neural operation. How are these needs met in development?

Understood systemically, global supervision implies that the whole of brain dynamical activity is accessible for a distributed oversight, which by extension means also that a smaller suite of behavioral repertoires are evoked for motor planning and motor activation. This oversight appears to involve the regulation of localized assemblies that are continually monitored by the global/self percept [15, 17]. The subordination of dynamical elements comprised of multiple neuronal units, in fact, is not unique to humans. *C. elegans* also exhibits a globally evoked dynamical operation in the form of coordinated sleep behaviors. Underlying this ability in humans and a number of other mammalian species, is a capacity for synchronizing activation of smaller subsets of dynamical elements, apparently regulated by a globally distributed

Governing how these assemblies become responsive, and thus regulating how dynamical units assemble into larger functional aggregates, are the relative free energy differences between units that regulate their assembly into the larger wholes along a descending free energy gradient [34]. In other words, higher order brain activity is organized naturally through energetic constraints that govern pattern assembly, an organizational strategy that is commonly used in biological systems in numerous other contexts. Such organized assemblies characterize numerous macromolecular events such as those of enzymatic catalysis. The combination of lower order monomers into combined polymer patterns yield novel cooperative effects that enhance function beyond a strict linear relation to the monomer alone, that is one greater than the sum of the parts. For example, cooperativity effects exhibited in hemoglobin multimers enhance oxygen binding to hemoglobin over and above a strict linear dependence on hemoglobin concentration,

Indeed, it is within the context of free energy efficiency that the selection of assemblies can be framed, that is, as a general principle determining brain responsivity. To permit information flow to exit attractor motifs, basins of attraction in attractors must be sufficiently shallow to overcome energy barriers dividing stabilized zones. This means that a key feature in creating and modifying assemblies is that of the intrinsic instabilities within the attractor space that can be accessed for egress. As with patterned assemblies that can form higher organizational layering, instabilities can form constituent features of stabilized zones at multiple levels that include motifs only, or higher levels that may be made of multiply clustered motifs including, for example, the exit from single attractor motifs that may occur at an instability creating a bifurcation, or in complex fields that may be composed of multiple single attractor states, such as, for example, dynamic neural fields, where field instabilities can be leveraged to generate a

oscillatory activity [33].

114 Neuroplasticity - Insights of Neural Reorganization

a feature critical to physiological performance.

uniquely different field feature with a new output [12].

**constructing the self percept during development**

**3. Modulating dynamical element stabilities across time scales:** 

Inferences about neuroplastic changes to the self percept during dementias concern a construct that has itself been structured according to a pattern of organizational processes that together generate its mature form. Developmental events leading to the construct's mature expression can therefore be expected to inform not only mechanisms underlying its orderly developmental The phenomenologist Merleau Ponty [35] was among the first to suggest that repetitive interaction between the body and environment structured a habitual, posturally determined perception of the world. This observation is germane for suggesting several features of the performative self that are needed for its generation. First, it underscores the importance of the body as a stable reference point for interaction; thus, a fundamental goal of the developmental process is the achievement of this functional objective. Second, it is from the perspective of the body that the self engages the world; hence, it is necessary to also situate the body in spatiotemporal terms to understand how this engagement occurs. As suggested by Merleau Ponty this is a process likely to develop only through interactions requiring significant repetition, of the sort that has been identified in Hebbian-like mechanisms of synaptic activity induced strengthening.

Evidence for the creation of this 'stable' and coherent self image indicates that it is mediated by afferent input from various modalities of the body that is qualitatively greatest in development, but nevertheless also achieved experientially throughout the life of the individual. For example, neuroscientific studies of monocular deprivation in kittens show that ocular dominance columns fail to form when deprivation occurs during a critical phase of synaptic organization during development [36]. In effect the kittens become permanently blinded because of the absence of cortical network structures that would otherwise have been properly ordered by light stimulation during this critical phase. Similarly, experience also shapes neural order, as demonstrated in adult rats where navigational forays establish topographical map relating the spatial environment to bodily structure, a posturally determined aspect essential for planning future maneuvers [8, 9].

A significant aspect of such mapping is its reliance on dynamical systems mechanisms to create stable processes that persist and can be used over time. The Traves and Rolls memory model, for example, relies on the use of attractors to encapsulate mapped memories for such planning [10]. By means of such repeated, environmentally interactive events the neural architecture is developmentally shaped [37] into the global dynamical organization of the self.

#### **3.1. Neuroplastic shaping of the self image through reciprocal brain body exchange**

As Merleau-Ponty observed, interaction of the body with the environment is, in fact, the fundamental feature shaping the self percept during development, up to and within the boundaries of the genetic envelope [38], meaning that the synaptic architecture of the brain is not wholly prespecified in the genetic code but is, rather, a product of development, learning and experience, a premise invoked in the epigenetic model of development. Sensory reception, in particular, extends the point of perception to its bodily mooring and is the key determinant in shaping the dynamical operation of the brain. By modulating information content both quantitatively and qualitatively, the body shapes the brain's perception of the world. The choice of sensory modality and the degree to which it ultimately activates brain neural fields is thus immediately influenced by the positioning of the body as it moves through the world [39]. For example, somatotopic zones that experience frequent contact are abundantly innervated, which seems to indicate that the body regulates the information delivered to the brain according to the degree of interaction that the body experiences; in other words, the body shapes the brain's perception according to the demands imposed upon it.

**3.2. Modulating performance elements during development**

for a variety of neural trajectories.

activities and of identifying them.

**systems**

Key to autonomous behavior, further, is the ability to initiate and respond to environmental variation, meaning that the neural and bodily architecture must be made subject to suitable control. Thus, while the stable self percept forms the ground from which this performative dimension can emerge, action initiation must itself be open to a wide range of responses that are recognized as one's own; hence, another objective of the developmental process is the conferal of the ability to flexibly and selectively engage dynamical elements that can be accessed

Brain Dynamics and Plastic Deformation of Self Circuitries in the Dementia Patient

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.71054

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Functionally meaningful events thus require that the selection and coordination of dynamical motor processes be amenable to self recruitment and capable of being disengaged when the motor plan has been executed. Importantly, functional behaviors must be reproducible, meaning that the coordinating network be sufficiently determinate that it can reliably account for metastable, multistable, and multifunctional patterns. Current work indicates that global brain networks, such as those likely to belong to the performative self, engage and disengage dynamically [15], that is, they are fundamentally required to be dynamical solutions. This sort of relation implies an operational configuration in which a global brain state entrains a localized network through the leveraging of local instabilities of the sort that have been described in large scale models of global dynamic density control [45] that are robust with persistent levels of activation that can assure delocalized and regionally distributed engagement [15]. However, it leaves open the question of the manner of eliciting local networks that govern various motor

Developmental studies that implicate the need to evoke a coherent self image [27] as an a priori dimension of motor planning suggest that this elicitation of localized attractor assemblies occurs in relation to a sustained global brain state, against which they are framed; that is, they are recognized as constitutive actions emanating from the self. Critically, the activation of localized units in their mature stage must process through a stable trajectory, that is, there must be stable information flow that effects the motor plan. The origin of such information flow, however, cannot be wholly predetermined, but instead, as Merleau Ponty has observed and as can be seen from developmental sensory deprivation studies, is shaped by experience through empirically assessed corrective input to the flow path. The developmental process, accordingly, assembles the envelope within which the basic dynamical elements are structured through an initial activity dependent ordering, which is then later experientially refined via sequential, parallel, and hierarchically clustered patterns of activity strengthening. Accordingly, this developmental ordering suggests that the principle mechanism for evoking motor elements is through their developmen-

tally defined, experientially sharpened, and regionally distributed, dynamical fields [31].

**4. Alzheimer's dementia: the progressive loss of dynamical, global self** 

Although the etiological basis for AD has been studied from many different perspectives no single theory yet encompasses its neurological origin nor, correspondingly, have the many

It is, in fact, by building upon the body's molding of the brain's perception through the reciprocal and perceptual dynamics of body brain neural exchange, that the unitary and performative dynamic of the self is generated, and wherein the individual is both perceived and actively engaged with the world [30]. Varela, Thompson, and Rosch propose, accordingly, a fundamental unity between perception and action

*"By using the term action we mean to emphasize once again that sensory and motor processes, perception, and action, are fundamentally inseparable in the lived condition"*

which emphasizes the body's initiation of the brain's subsequent and reciprocal response, that is, a perception action loop that relates the perception of the individual to his actions. Esther Thelen proposes that the circuits participating in this cycle emerge from the activities that the loop generates [40]. Supporting these conclusions, the perceptual influence of body on brain has been demonstrated in studies on the perceptual and dynamical interaction with the environment in developing infants [41], acquired habitual motor abilities [42], biodynamic studies showing that movement and proprioception are intrinsically related to perception [43] and appears to relate to the need to construct a unitary construal of the body that can be used for action planning [8, 27].

Critical to the creation of this construct is the ability to relate the whole of ourselves to its performative role; thus, our holistic bodily perception is fundamental to the understanding of ourselves in an interactive context with the world, a developmental transition for this acquired ability that appears to take place around age three to four [8]. Existing evidence strongly suggests that before this time the self percept has not been sufficiently ordered to enable its use to guide the individual. This absence and the behavioral consequences that ensue nonetheless reveal its fundamental necessity to performance.

The objective of such development involves, necessarily, the recognition that we occupy a unique spatiotemporal location, that is, our recognition that we are the same individual in different places and at different times, as John Locke expressed. This holistic perception is achieved through a progressively entangled and dynamic framework that represents, as it were, a prototype and platform of peripherally initiated and increasingly complex integration of inwardly and outwardly directed exchange. Each interactive experience is recorded as a dynamic incident mapped to its respective body locus that yields a temporally successive series of individually contextualized events [7]. Building on this prototypical perceptual platform the performative and neural self construction extends inward and outward to its various peripheral sightings to assimilate this common representation, that is, a physical entity of which the representation is indicative. The performative self thus constitutes an ontological feature needed to confer individual unity that is employed not only performatively, but also for social and homeostatic viability [44].

#### **3.2. Modulating performance elements during development**

immediately influenced by the positioning of the body as it moves through the world [39]. For example, somatotopic zones that experience frequent contact are abundantly innervated, which seems to indicate that the body regulates the information delivered to the brain according to the degree of interaction that the body experiences; in other words, the body shapes the

It is, in fact, by building upon the body's molding of the brain's perception through the reciprocal and perceptual dynamics of body brain neural exchange, that the unitary and performative dynamic of the self is generated, and wherein the individual is both perceived and actively engaged with the world [30]. Varela, Thompson, and Rosch propose, accordingly, a

*"By using the term action we mean to emphasize once again that sensory and motor processes, percep-*

which emphasizes the body's initiation of the brain's subsequent and reciprocal response, that is, a perception action loop that relates the perception of the individual to his actions. Esther Thelen proposes that the circuits participating in this cycle emerge from the activities that the loop generates [40]. Supporting these conclusions, the perceptual influence of body on brain has been demonstrated in studies on the perceptual and dynamical interaction with the environment in developing infants [41], acquired habitual motor abilities [42], biodynamic studies showing that movement and proprioception are intrinsically related to perception [43] and appears to relate to the need to construct a unitary construal of the body

Critical to the creation of this construct is the ability to relate the whole of ourselves to its performative role; thus, our holistic bodily perception is fundamental to the understanding of ourselves in an interactive context with the world, a developmental transition for this acquired ability that appears to take place around age three to four [8]. Existing evidence strongly suggests that before this time the self percept has not been sufficiently ordered to enable its use to guide the individual. This absence and the behavioral consequences that

The objective of such development involves, necessarily, the recognition that we occupy a unique spatiotemporal location, that is, our recognition that we are the same individual in different places and at different times, as John Locke expressed. This holistic perception is achieved through a progressively entangled and dynamic framework that represents, as it were, a prototype and platform of peripherally initiated and increasingly complex integration of inwardly and outwardly directed exchange. Each interactive experience is recorded as a dynamic incident mapped to its respective body locus that yields a temporally successive series of individually contextualized events [7]. Building on this prototypical perceptual platform the performative and neural self construction extends inward and outward to its various peripheral sightings to assimilate this common representation, that is, a physical entity of which the representation is indicative. The performative self thus constitutes an ontological feature needed to confer individual unity that is employed not only performatively, but also

brain's perception according to the demands imposed upon it.

*tion, and action, are fundamentally inseparable in the lived condition"*

ensue nonetheless reveal its fundamental necessity to performance.

fundamental unity between perception and action

116 Neuroplasticity - Insights of Neural Reorganization

that can be used for action planning [8, 27].

for social and homeostatic viability [44].

Key to autonomous behavior, further, is the ability to initiate and respond to environmental variation, meaning that the neural and bodily architecture must be made subject to suitable control. Thus, while the stable self percept forms the ground from which this performative dimension can emerge, action initiation must itself be open to a wide range of responses that are recognized as one's own; hence, another objective of the developmental process is the conferal of the ability to flexibly and selectively engage dynamical elements that can be accessed for a variety of neural trajectories.

Functionally meaningful events thus require that the selection and coordination of dynamical motor processes be amenable to self recruitment and capable of being disengaged when the motor plan has been executed. Importantly, functional behaviors must be reproducible, meaning that the coordinating network be sufficiently determinate that it can reliably account for metastable, multistable, and multifunctional patterns. Current work indicates that global brain networks, such as those likely to belong to the performative self, engage and disengage dynamically [15], that is, they are fundamentally required to be dynamical solutions. This sort of relation implies an operational configuration in which a global brain state entrains a localized network through the leveraging of local instabilities of the sort that have been described in large scale models of global dynamic density control [45] that are robust with persistent levels of activation that can assure delocalized and regionally distributed engagement [15]. However, it leaves open the question of the manner of eliciting local networks that govern various motor activities and of identifying them.

Developmental studies that implicate the need to evoke a coherent self image [27] as an a priori dimension of motor planning suggest that this elicitation of localized attractor assemblies occurs in relation to a sustained global brain state, against which they are framed; that is, they are recognized as constitutive actions emanating from the self. Critically, the activation of localized units in their mature stage must process through a stable trajectory, that is, there must be stable information flow that effects the motor plan. The origin of such information flow, however, cannot be wholly predetermined, but instead, as Merleau Ponty has observed and as can be seen from developmental sensory deprivation studies, is shaped by experience through empirically assessed corrective input to the flow path. The developmental process, accordingly, assembles the envelope within which the basic dynamical elements are structured through an initial activity dependent ordering, which is then later experientially refined via sequential, parallel, and hierarchically clustered patterns of activity strengthening. Accordingly, this developmental ordering suggests that the principle mechanism for evoking motor elements is through their developmentally defined, experientially sharpened, and regionally distributed, dynamical fields [31].
