I really enjoyed this piece and think it’s an important topic.
The question of how the brain implements priors, and how they can become maladaptively ‘trapped’, is an open question. I suggested last year that we could combine the “hemo-neural hypothesis” that bloodflow regulates the dynamic range of nearby neurons/nerves, with the “latch-bridge mechanism” where smooth muscle (inclusive of vascular muscle) can lock itself in a closed position. I.e. vascular tension is a prediction (Bayesian prior) about the world, and such patterns of microtension can be stored in a very durable form (“smooth muscle latches”) that can persist for days, weeks, months, years, decades.
This paints psychological release, releasing a trapped prior, and vasomuscular release as the same thing.
I really enjoyed this piece and think it’s an important topic.
The question of how the brain implements priors, and how they can become maladaptively ‘trapped’, is an open question. I suggested last year that we could combine the “hemo-neural hypothesis” that bloodflow regulates the dynamic range of nearby neurons/nerves, with the “latch-bridge mechanism” where smooth muscle (inclusive of vascular muscle) can lock itself in a closed position. I.e. vascular tension is a prediction (Bayesian prior) about the world, and such patterns of microtension can be stored in a very durable form (“smooth muscle latches”) that can persist for days, weeks, months, years, decades.
This paints psychological release, releasing a trapped prior, and vasomuscular release as the same thing.
https://opentheory.net/2023/07/principles-of-vasocomputation-a-unification-of-buddhist-phenomenology-active-inference-and-physical-reflex-part-i/