Interview with Bjorn Merker
This post-lecture interview was conducted during the BCBT Summerschool held at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, september 2010.
Somehow, when we turn our head we know that the world stands still, and it is us who turn our visual perception of it. But what brain structures are precisely involved in such complex understanding? Brain anatomist Bj\xf6rn Merker discusses his studies of the multi-modal sensori-motor system, and the possible brain structures and mappings that facilitate control over it. He introduces his idea of a multiple, convergent funnel structure, and discusses with Paul Verschure the notion of some functional 'bubble' that produces a best estimate for both sensory and motor sides, within the time window of an eye's saccade.About the lecturerBj\xf6rn Merker lives in Sweden and has published several papers and books both autonomously, and affiliated to academic institutes like the Royal University College of Music. Stockholm, and the Institute for Biomusicology at Mid Sweden University, \xd6stersund. He is known in the field as a strong advocate of a neural architecture producing consciousness in other areas than the thalamo-cortical one (the forebrain). Besides the neural substrate of consciousness, his interest are in the biological basis of music in humans and other primates, large scale neuronal theories of brain function, and countercurrent modeling of cortical memory.