Volume transmission as a key feature of information handling in the central nervous system possible new interpretative value of the Turing's B-type machine

Publisher Summary In the chapter, aspects of the information handling in the central nervous system (CNS) are analyzed in the frame of the so called volume transmission (VT)— that is, of a widespread mode of intercellular communication that occurs in the extracellular fluid (ECF) of the brain and in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Five aspects are examined, the first three on the basis of deductions from the available evidence and from the characteristics of the VT, the fourth on the basis of recent experimental evidence gathered in the laboratory, and the last one on the basis of the analogy between VT communication channels and the connection devices in the B-type unorganized machine. The chapter concludes that learning in the CNS networks can take place not only by instructions acting on the cells (classically by changing the weights— that is, efficacies of the synapses in the circuit, but also by changing the characteristics of the extracellular matrix, for example, by focal changes in its capability of transmitting or destroying a signal flowing through it.