Consciousness is a mongrel concept: there are a number of very different “consciousnesses.” Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state. The mark of access-consciousness, by contrast, is availability for use in reasoning and rationally guiding speech and action. These concepts are often partly or totally conflated, with bad results. This target article uses as an example a form of reasoning about a function of “consciousness” based on the phenomenon of blindsight. Some information about stimuli in the blind field is represented in the brains of blindsight patients, as shown by their correct “guesses.” They cannot harness this information in the service of action, however, and this is said to show that a function of phenomenal consciousness is somehow to enable information represented in the brain to guide action. But stimuli in the blind field are both access-unconscious and phenomenally unconscious. The fallacy is: an obvious function of the machinery of accessconsciousness is illicitly transferred to phenomenal consciousness.

The neurophysiological evidence from the Miyashita group's experiments on monkeys as well as cognitive experience common to us all suggests that local neuronal spike rate distributions might persist in the absence of their eliciting stimulus. In Hebb's cell-assembly theory, learning dynamics stabilize such self-maintaining reverberations. Quasi-quantitive modeling of the experimental data on internal representations in association-cortex modules identifies the reverberations (delay spike activity) as the internal code (representation). This leads to cognitive and neurophysiological predictions, many following directly from the language used to describe the activity in the experimental delay period, others from the details of how the model captures the properties of the internal representations.

Block's distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness is accepted, and it is agreed that one may be found without the other, but his account of the distinction is challenged. Phenomenal consciousness is perceptual consciousness, and it is a matter of gaining information of a detailed, nonverbal sort about the subject's body and environment. Access consciousness is good, old-fashioned introspection.

To understand how the photoreceptor protein rhodopsin performs in its role as a receptor, its structure needs to be determined at the atomic level. Upon receiving a photon of light, rhodopsin undergoes a change in conformation that allows it to bind and activate the C-protein, transducin. An important future goal should be to determine the structure of both the inactive and the photoactivated state of rhodopsin, R*. This should provide the groundwork necessary for experiments on how rhodopsin achieves its signaling state R*, and how R* functions to activate transducin. To do this, the crystal structure of both rhodopsin and R* must be determined. Few membrane proteins have been successfully crystallized, so this is not a trivial undertaking. Two- or three dimensional crystals of rhodopsin must be prepared that are well ordered, to produce a high-resolution structure. Rhodopsin must be purified to homogeneity and the appropriate detergent(s) selected for crystallization experiments. Long-term thermal stability of the rhodopsin-detergent complex must be achieved in the presence of a precipitant. Two-dimensional crystals may offer advantages in investigating the structure of R*, but the structure obtained may be limited in resolution. It is necessary to work with rhodopsin in the dark, unless suitable light-stable retinal derivatives are developed. Protein engineering of rhodopsin offers attractive opportunities to improve its ability to crystallize, but is presently hindered by the absence of a high-yielding expression system. Knowledge of the structure of rhodopsin will have general importance. Because rhodopsin is a member of the family of C-protein-coupled receptors, knowledge of the structure and the mechanism of action of rhodopsin suggests by analogy how other members of the receptor family may function.

This target article describes the current state of global gene replacement in the brain using viral vectors and assesses possible solutions to some of the many problems inherent in gene therapy of the central nervous system (CNS). Gene replacement therapy in the CNS is a potential means of producing a stable expression of normal human proteins in deficient cells and thus curing certain genetically inherited enzyme deficiencies and metabolic diseases as well as cancers. The two major issues to be addressed in CNS gene replacement are the delivery of genetic material to the brain and the expression of recombinant genetic material in target cells within the CNS. Focal inoculation of recombinant virions or other genetic vectors has limitations in global CNS disease. A new approach is the blood-brain barrier (BBB) disruption technique developed in this laboratory, in which hypertonic mannitol transiently shrinks the BBB endothelium, allowing passage of high molecular weight compounds and even viruses. Gene therapy of the CNS will require a viral vector system that allows long-term, nontoxic gene expression in neurons or glial cells. Retroviral vectors have limitations in CNS gene replacement, although they are suitable for expressing recombinant genes in intracerebral grafts, or toxic genes in brain tumors. Using mutant neurotropic viruses with reduced neurotoxicity (such as defective herpes simplex virus type I [HSV-1], the HSV-1 amplicon vector system we have developed, or adenovirus mutants) has potential for direct treatment of neurons. Injecting these vectors into rodent brains can lead to stable expression of foreign genetic material in postmitotic neuronal cells. We discuss our BBB disruption delivery technique, our defective HSV-1 amplicon vector system, and our feline model for the neuronal lysosomal storage disorder Gm2-gangliosidosis (Sandhoff disease), which may prove to be a useful model system for CNS gene therapy.

Persistent activity can be the product of mechanisms other than attractor reverberations. The single-unit data presented by Amit cannot discriminate between the different mechanisms. In fact, single-unit data do not appear to be adequate for testing neural network models.

Cognitive deficits were produced in rats by different methods of damaging the brain: chronic ingestion of alcohol, causing widespread damage to diffuse cholinergic and aminergic projection systems; lesions (by local injection of the excitotoxins, ibotenate, quisqualate, and AMPA) of the nuclei of origin of the forebrain cholinergic projection system (FCPS), which innervates the neocortex and hippocampal formation; transient cerebral ischaemia, producing focal damage especially in the CA1 pyramidal cells of the dorsal hippocampus; and lesions (by local injection of the neurotoxin, colchicine) of the granule cells of the dentate gyrus. Following chronic alcohol or lesions of the FCPS, transplants of cholinergically rich fetal brain tissue into the terminal areas (neocortex and/or hippocampus) restored performance almost to control levels, with a time course consistent with growth of the transplants and integration with host tissue; transplants of cholinergically poor fetal tissue (hippocampus) were without effect, as were transplants of cholinergically rich tissue into the region containing the nuclei of origin of the FCPS. Grafts of primary cells enriched in glia and cultured neuroblastoma cells into the terminal areas of the FCPS were equally effective, suggesting that there are multiple mechanisms by which neural transplants can restore cognitive function following diffuse cholinergic damage. In contrast, after ischaemia- or neurotoxin-induced damage to CA1 or dentate granule cells respectively, cholinergically rich fetal transplants into the damaged hippocampal formation were ineffective in restoring performance. After ischaemic damage, however, performance was restored by suspension grafts of CA1 cells but not by transplants containing CA3 pyramidal cells or granule cells; and after colchicine damage it was restored by solid grafts containing granule but not CA1 pyramidal cells. Furthermore, electrophysiological evidence has demonstrated functional, graft type-specific host-graft functional neuronal connectivity. Thus, restoration of cognitive function by neural transplants is possible after damage to either diffuse (cholinergic) or point-to-point (intrahippocampal) forebrain systems, but the transplant must be appropriate to the damage to be repaired. Because the different types of brain damage studied provide analogues of human alcoholic dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and heart attack, these results are encouraging with regard to the eventual application of neural transplant surgery to the treatment of cognitive deficits in humans.

Interpreting the Miyashita et al. experiments in terms of a cellassembly representation does not adequately explain the performance of Miyashita's monkeys on novel stimuli. We will argue that the latter observations point to a compositional representation and suggest a dynamics involving rapid and reversible binding of distinct activity patterns.

This article evaluates each of the reactions known to be involved in visual transduction as a potential site for the regulation of light adaptation. Extensive evidence suggests that calcium acts as a feedback messenger at several different points and recent work suggests a role for cGMP in regulating the primary excitatory pathway. A conclusion is that adaptation is likely to be regulated by multiple and redundant mechanisms. The goal of future experimentation will be to determine the relative importance of each of these.

Although information-processing theories cannot provide a full explanatory account of P-consciousness, there is less conflation and confusion in cognitive psychology than Block suspects. Some of the reasoning that Block criticises can be interpreted plausibly in the light of a folk psychological view of relation between P-consciousness and A-consciousness.

Recoverin is a 23 kDa Ca2+binding protein that has been detected primarily in vertebrate photoreceptors. The role of recoverin in phototransduction has been investigated using a variety of biochemical methods. Initial reports suggesting that recoverin regulates photoreceptor guanylyl cyclase have not been confirmed. Instead, recoverin appears to determine the lifetime of lightstimulated phosphodiesterase activity, perhaps by regulating rhodopsin phosphorylation. Retinal recoverin is heterogeneously fatty acylated at its ammo-terminus. The amino-terminal fatty acid appears to be involved in the interaction of recoverin with photoreceptor membranes.

Grafts of embryonic neural tissue into the brains of adult patients are currently being used to treat Parkinson's disease and are under serious consideration as therapy for a variety of other degenerative and traumatic disorders. This target article evaluates the use of transplants to promote recovery from brain injury and highlights the kinds of questions and problems that must be addressed before this form of therapy is routinely applied. It has been argued that neural transplantation can promote functional recovery through the replacement of damaged nerve cells, the reestablishment of specific nerve pathways lost as a result of injury, the release of specific neurotransmitters, or the production of factors that promote neuronal growth. The latter two mechanisms, which need not rely on anatomical connections to the host brain, are open to examination for nonsurgical, less intrusive therapeutic use. Certain subjective judgments used to select patients who will receive grafts and in assessment of the outcome of graft therapy make it difficult to evaluate the procedure. In addition, little long-term assessment of transplant efficacy and effect has been done in nonhuman primates. Carefully controlled human studies, with multiple testing paradigms, are also needed to establish the efficacy of transplant therapy.

Block seems to propose untested answers to empirical questions. Whether consciousness is a “mongrel problem,” rather than a single core fact with many facets, is an empirical issue. Likewise, the intimate relationship between personal consciousness and global access functions cannot be decided pretheoretically. This point is demonstrated by the reader's private experience of foveal versus parafoveal vision, and for conscious versus unconscious representation of the many meanings of common words.

Amit's work addresses a critical issue in cognitive science: the structure of neural representations. The use of Hebbian cell assemblies is a positive step, and we now need to consider its role in a larger cognitive theory. When considering the dynamics of a system built out of attractors, a more limited version of reverberation becomes necessary.

Additional experiments show that P-consciousness and A consciousness can be empirically dissociated for the theoretically so phisticated observer. Phenomenal consciousness can have several degrees that are indirectly measurable.

The cell assembly as a simple attractor cannot explain many cognitive phenomena. It must be a highly structured network that can sustain highly structured excitation patterns. Moreover, a cell assembly must be more widely distributed in space than on a square millimeter.

The lesion and transplantation data cited by Sinden et al., when considered in tandem, seem to harbor an internal inconsistency, raising questions of false localization of function. The extrapolation of such data to cognitive impairment and potential treatment strategies in Alzheimer's disease is problematic. Patients with focal basal forebrain lesions (e.g., anterior communicating artery aneurysm rupture) might be a more appropriate target population.

Evidence from invertebrate systems including Aplysia and Drosophila, as well as studies carried out with mammalian brain, suggests that Ca2+-sensitive adenylyl cyclases may be important for long-term synaptic changes and learning and memory. Furthermore, some forms of long-term potentiation (LTP) in the hippocampus elevate cyclic AMP (cAMP) signals, and activation of adenylyl cyclases and cAMP-dependent protein kinase may be required for late stages of LTP. We propose that long-term changes in neurons and at synapses may require synergism between the cAMP and Ca2+ signal transduction systems which regulates transcription and synthesis of specific proteins required for long-term synaptic changes. During LTP, protein kinase C is activated and intraccllular Ca2+ increases. We hypothesize that the calmodulin (CaM)-regulated adenylyl cyclases may be activated during LTP because of increases in intracellular Ca2+, release of free CaM from neuromodulin, activation by protein kinase C, release of neurotransmitters, or a combination of these events. Synergistic activation of CaM-sensitive adenylyl cyclases may produce a robust or prolonged cAMP signal required for transcriptional control. Furthermore, the coupling of the Ca2+ and cAMP systems may provide positive feedback regulation of Ca2+ channels by cAMP-dependent protein kinase