Abstract

“Chemistry is the only physical science which offers a pathway to understanding animate biology” Medawar [1] (1967).
Chemistry has been used to clarify most aspects of biology including metabolism, structure and reproduction. However, current neuro-biological descriptions of animate life are incomplete, as they have not “grasped the nettle” of mentality.
The outstanding issue: How do neural nets instigate experiential mental states, such as emotions and memory?
Most chemical approaches to neural memory were skewed to pharmacology, which did not address how neurons and the neural net remember, but focused on physiologic effects of drugs.
We have proposed a biochemical tripartite mechanism of neural memory, whereby neurons interact with their surrounding polysaccharide extracellular matrix (nECM), by deploying dopants (metal cations and neurotransmitters (NTs)) to encode cognitive units of information (cuinfo). Each NT elicits a unique set of physiologic responses entangled with psychic states, which it also signifies in emotive memory. The ~80 NTs can induce a multiplicity of subjective dimensions, far greater than the binary reality of the computer.
As validation of the tripartite mechanism, we review the chemo-electric performance of glass electrodes that were coated with either a NT (oxytocin) or an oligo-saccharide analogue of the nECM (sulfated tetra-saccharide). They could selectively detect various metal cations (Cu+2, Zn+2, etc.) at physiologic levels. Such chemo-electrodes are “neuro-mimetic” analogues of the many NT-sensitive sensors (GPCR, acetylcholine R, integrins) embedded in the neural membrane.
Thus, the discipline of chemistry provides access to the complex totality of physiologic reactions entangled with mental experience.

Keywords: Neurotransmitter; Feelings; Emotive Memory; Mentality

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Citation

Citation: Gerard Marx and Chaim Gilon. “Chemical Aspects of Emotive Memory”. Acta Scientific Neurology 4.1 (2020): 40-49.

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Copyright: © 2020 Gerard Marx and Chaim Gilon. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.