The Brain from Inside Out

by György Buzsáki

Is there a right way to study how the brain works? Following the empiricist's tradition, the most common approach involves the study of neural reactions to stimuli presented by an experimenter. This 'outside-in' method fueled a generation of brain research and now must confront hidden assumptions about causation and concepts that may not hold neatly for systems that act and react.

Gy�rgy Buzs�ki's The Brain from Inside Out examines why the outside-in framework for understanding brain function has become stagnant and points to new directions for understanding neural function. Building upon the success of 2011's Rhythms of the Brain, Professor Buzs�ki presents the brain as a foretelling device that interacts with its environment through action and the examination of action's consequence. Consider that our brains are initially filled with nonsense patterns, all of which are gibberish until grounded by action-based interactions. By matching these nonsense "words" to the outcomes of action, they acquire meaning. Once its circuits are "calibrated" by action and experience, the brain can disengage from its sensors and actuators, and examine "what happens if" scenarios by peeking into its own computation, a process that we refer to as cognition.
The Brain from Inside Out explains why our brain is not an information-absorbing coding device, as it is often portrayed, but a venture-seeking explorer constantly controlling the body to test hypotheses. Our brain does not process information: it creates it.

Genres: Neuroscience, Science, Nonfiction, Psychology, Biology, Brain, Medicine

464 pages, Hardcover

First published April 18, 2019

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

See book club notes https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t...

[Matthieu Thiboust · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Brain from Inside Out" is a very enlightening book.

Experimental results make more sense when interpreted within the inside-out rather than the dominant outside-out framework.

It is misguided to think of the brain as a complex device that sequentially collect sensory inputs, process information, and then decide whether and how to act. Thinking from inside-out, the brain hosts internally generated and self-organized patterns that acquire "meaning" through actions, which becomes what we call "experiences". Action is a prerequisite of perception (the expression "active sensing" makes it explicit). This primacy of action is in line with the brain's main job of controlling complex behavioral activities.

Before reading this book, I already had the fuzzy intuition that action-grounded experiences provide the ultimate source of knowledge. By revisiting the interpretation of an impressive number of experimental results, György Buzsáki helped me to transform this intuition into a conviction with a clear inside-out framework to progress further. Now, my main interrogation is the progressive transition from perception to cognition: how do symbols get detached from their sensorimotor interaction while preserving their grounding? No doubt that brain-inspired artificial intelligence will benefit from the inside-out framework.

[Graeme Newell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave up on this one after about 75 pages. I just kept waiting for it to get started and it never happened. Unfortunately the writing is quite cumbersome and he keeps creating sentences that would be verbose even in a doctoral thesis. There may be some good stuff in here, but I just never got to it.

[Kinga Farkas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a remarkable book about neuroscience. Every chapter and subchapter contains tons of information, summarize knowledge from whole fields, often add interesting scientific and personal details about scientists and so on. Actually it mesmerizes me, with its scientific accuracy and entertaining language at the same time. I'm sure there is something in it for everyone, and for everyone for each read (I think it is not a one time reading type book), but there were three illuminating point for me: a chapter devoted to the autistic behaviour of AI and the need of self reflection and feeling the bodily sensations evoked by ourselves (emotional and self reflective nature of human beings), second, the log-normal distribution of resources (in micro and macro scales) and finally, that "acknowledging that things are the way they are but do not have to stay that way in human societies is what we should strive for."

[Kayson Fakhar · Rating 4 out of 5]

So it took a long time for me to finish this one, not because it's boring or something, but because there's a lot to unpack. The key idea sounds controversial to me since it's undermining a large portion of neuroscientific works. But it's a very nice read, detailed, coherent, simplified enough, and comprehensive. Whether you accept to look at the brain from an inside-out perspective or an outside-in is up to you but I found the arguments to be quite strong. Totally recommend. Even if this is your first book on the brain.

[Benji · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saint-Just was the first neuro-economist who realized civilisation should go to sleep and wake up with a much narrower and sharper log-normal curve than before sleep.
Unfortunately, it woke up in a nightmare, so it's up to us to dream up a societal version of the homeostatic compensatory mechanism of non-REM sleep!
Unfortunately, history shows that such compensatory mechanisms are exceptionally rare. Inequality is still reduced suddenly only by natural disasters, plagues, wars, and revolutions.

[Viacheslav Osaulenko · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book VERY interesting! Though, it will be difficult for a reader who is not familiar with neuroscience. Sometimes, it seems that the book is a collection of papers with a brief "easy" intro and outro for each chapter. Buzsáki is a very well-known neuroscientist and has many great ideas about how the brain actually works. Recommend for advanced readers, and definitely to leave for later for beginners.

[Molly Baumhauer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started this book for postbac book club back in February and finally finished it now. It made me rethink a lot of neuroscience concepts and I loved the opportunity to challenge the current state of the field. However, I very much felt like I was combing through a thick textbook which was not much of an enjoyable experience.

[Maris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This man is a genius. Highly enjoyable book. If you want to be amazed by the brain but already know some things about it, this is your book!

[Movie Goer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads more like a text book with mostly disconnected topics presented one after the other. The topics themselves are or can be interesting depending on your interests in the field

[Michael Fischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

György Buzsaki

The Brain from Inside Out - Kapitel 1 bis 5

Ein absolut faszinierendes Buch. Buzsaki wagt es, sein Wissen in einer Theorie zusammenzufassen. Ich sage, er wagt es, weil zumindest in wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten das Formulieren von interpretierenden Theorien nicht gerne gesehen wird. Was, wenn die Theorie falsch ist? Nun, ohne Theorien, die auch falsifizierbar sind, gibt es kein Weiterkommen. Und gleichzeitig ist es natürlich so, dass man darauf achten muss, nicht zu spekulativ zu sein. Buzsaki gelingt der Spagat aber hervorragend. Auch ist immer klar, was Fakten sind und was Modell ist. An dieser Stelle fasse ich die Kapitel 1 bis 5 zusammen, weil in denen das Titelthema “The Brain from Inside Out” behandelt wird, eine Sichtweise, die auch in meine zwei letzten Beiträge zum Bayesianischen Gehirn bzw. zu Closed Loops beim Neurofeedback eingeflossen ist.

Die Kernaussage seines Buches ist, dass das Gehirn ein selbstorganisierendes System ist, welches die Aufgabe hat, Handlungen zu generieren und dann anhand die vorhergesagten Konsequenten zu analysieren. Dies eben die „inside-out“ Strategie im Gegensatz zur verbreiteten „outside-in“ Strategie, die davon ausgeht, dass das Gehirn Sinneseindrücke empfängt, mit Hilfe dieser die Welt repräsentiert und dann entscheidet, wie darauf reagiert werden kann. In Kapitel 1 zeigt er die Geschichte des „outside-in“ Denkens auf.

In Kapitel 2 - Causation and Logic in Neuroscience - untersucht Buzsaki den Begriff der Kausalität. Ein Pfeiler der Naturwissenschaften ist, dass Kausalitäten aufgedeckt werden, um Voraussagen über das Verhalten eines Systems machen zu können. Bei selbst-organisierenden Systemen wie dem Hirn ist der Begriff der Kausalität aber heikel, weil diese Systeme mit verstärkenden und hemmenden Feedback-Loops arbeiten. Aktivitäten solcher Systeme werden weniger verursacht sondern „emergieren“ durch zirkuläre Interaktionen seiner Teilsysteme.

In Kapitel 3 - Perception from Action - stellt er sein Modell vor: Gegenstände und Ereignisse in der Welt können nur Bedeutung erlagen durch „brain-initiated“ actions. Das Gehirn generiert ein Modell der Welt durch die Resultate seiner Handlungen und aufgrund der Beziehungen der Ereignisse untereinander. Als wichtigen physiologischen Mechanismus nennt er die Tatsache, dass bei allen motorischen Befehlen Kopien an einen Vergleichsschaltkreis weitergeleitet werden. Nur dadurch kann unterschieden werden, welche Anteile der danach registrierten sensorischen Änderungen Folge der eigenen z.B. neuen Kopfhaltung oder aber der Beschaffenheit der Welt sind.

Kapitel 4 - Neuronal Assembly - untersucht, wie innerhalb des Gehirns Information sicher übermittelt wird. Dass nicht einzelne Neuronen sondern nur Assemblies Informationen weitergeben, ermöglicht einerseits die Stabilität gegenüber Fehlern und andererseits auch die Verarbeitung von Wahrscheinlichkeiten.

Kapitel 5 - Internalization of Experience - erachte ich als sehr zentral. Hier untersucht Buzsaki, wie die Entkopplung von Hirnnetzwerken und externem Input nützlich für die Kognition sein kann. Handlungspläne werden - ohne sie motorisch umzusetzen - an sensorische Areale weitergegeben und auf ihr mögliches Resultat hin untersucht. Daraus kann dann neue Kenntnis gewonnen werden, einzig durch selbst-organisierte Hirnaktivität. Diese selbst-organisierten, internen Operationen entsprechen der „Kognition“.

Ausgehend von dieser inside-out Grundannahme befasst sich Buzsaki dann in den Kapiteln 6 bis 13 mit Themen wie der inneren Organisation der Hirnaktivität, Externalisierung der Kognition (Technologie), Raum und Zeit im Hirn und spannt dann im Epilog den Bogen bis zu Themen der Psychiatrie und künstlicher Intelligenz. Diese Kapitel werde ich in einem späteren Beitrag zusammenfassen.

[Barry Karlsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Move it. György Buzsáki discusses how higher cognitive functions and consciousness do not arise in an isolated vacuum inside an isolated brain, but in interaction with neurophysiological movement. He discusses alternatives to both inherited systems and tabula rasa - the blank slate models. These are aspects of movement and change in which all living things have a body with a physiological and electrobiological evolutionary development. Buzsáki is very cautious theoretically about the complicated electrophysiology of the brain, which he discusses in detail. I think this is brilliant and opens up many new possibilities for how the biochemical action potential might eventually interact with parallel electromagnetic systems between individual neurons - a neural 69.

According to Buzsáki, the brain is a self-organising system whose main task is to predict meaningful activities for survival. Although he does not completely reject the old reactive learning paradigm (US-CS; etc.), he notes that the brain is not primarily a reactive device, but a predictive one. In self-adapting algorithmic mechanisms (with predictive errors) it is a kind of search engine, which in a psychologising context might be called "curiosity" - which is a fundamental survival mechanism. As a psychotherapist, one looks at when, where and how a patient's positive curiosity is triggered ("motivation").

Buzsáki describes the brain as a predictive device that interacts with the environment to control our future decisions. The hypothesis is that our brains are born with a myriad of nonsense patterns, and by synchronising these nonsense patterns into cognitive or motor activities, they are shaped for meaningful learning.

Is time perception just an illusion, relative to our perceived internal and external motion? Perhaps it is enough to think about a boring memory to realise this? Or that time perception varies between different ages and different experiences.... Buzsáki presents preliminary findings suggesting that hippocampal place and grid cells may have multiple sets of modalities that can also be understood simultaneously as "time cells" and thus encode memories as "memory cells" based on three aspects: distance, duration and "what system". He discusses how the distinction between place cells and time cells is actually irrelevant to the thinking brain, instead it is "how downstream reader mechanisms classify hippocampal messages". He sees the hippocampus as a general-purpose generator, encoding, sequencing and thus structuring the limited amount of ordinal-scale information available, heuristically covering the spaces between the various events that need to be ordered to provide a comprehensible context - albeit sometimes entirely contrived: compare how we try to make sense of various optical illusions. The hippocampus, in this context, is a repetitive apparatus, blindly doing the same thing over and over again in order to be encoded by frontal mechanisms.

[Greta Sokoloff · Rating 2 out of 5]

So this book should be right up my alley. I read it with lab mates for a spring semester book club. We have our last meeting (aka zoom) tonight. The thesis is provocative - we have spent so much time focusing how outside experiences affect the brain (development, learning, etc.) that we have hampered our ability to move forward in the field of neuroscience. So, instead of outside - in, let's look at the brain from inside - out. Straightforward, but ultimately not written to be as compelling as it could have been. It's the potato, patato, feature of science that sours me toward wanting to read more theory. Sad.

[Ben Zimmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The "Brain from Inside Out" discusses György Buzsáki's ideas about how to accelerate progress in neuroscience and applications of neuroscience in healthcare and artificial intelligence. Buzsáki's overarching thesis is that neuroscience research is stagnating because we are so tied down by what he calls the "Outside-In framework", which assumes that the goal of the brain is to truthfully represent features of the outside world. In this framework, in order to learn what the brain does, researchers typically go about manipulating features of stimuli in the outside world, and observing how the brain behaves in response to those manipulations. Instead, inside-out framework, which he advocates for, proposes treating the brain and its dynamics as the independent variable, and exploring how those mechanisms give rise to action or measurable performance in perception, emotion and cognition. Particularly, there should be an emphasis on how an animal's actions influence incoming signals in the brain because this comparison is how the brain generates meaning.

I really loved this book. If someone asked me for a general book about what we know right now about how the brain works, I might suggest this book. It's not an introduction to the brain, but includes so much of the important modern findings that frame what we know. We obviously have an enormous amount to learn about how the brain works still, but it always rubs me the wrong way when people say that we "don't have any idea how the brain works" or similar sentiments. This book does a wonderful job drawing the outline of what is known and what is not known, uses experiments well to justify the knowledge, and I never feel like it oversteps. Buzsáki is conservative and thoughtful, and says things like, "we only completely mapped this in two mammalian species, so it seems like it might be conserved, but we need to do more research." That might seem obvious to some readers, but is refreshingly cautious to me, when I see so many scientists discuss general truths about neuroscience or biology that are based only on data from one strain of mouse or, worse, yeast, often without even bothering to mention the source of the knowledge.

While the book is ambitious and compelling, I think that it could have been made a bit more coherent in a few ways. First, the main thesis of the book is clear, but I think that there are maybe three sub-theses that pop-up in multiple chapters and their connection is hard to fully synthesize. The book meanders and feels almost conversational, like we're having a long lunch date together. It's extremely pleasant and interesting to read. But there are a lot of ideas that take time to unpack, and I think I would have preferred a little more scaffolding. I'm also a neuroscientist myself, and so I felt like if I was a layperson, I probably would have felt a bit lost in understanding the point at times. I think the book could have been structured in a better way - like maybe an introduction with the overall idea, and then Part I - about philosophy, history, and our historical lexicon of psychology words and why that's problematic. Part II - about the importance of action grounding. Part III - about how the brain uses action ground to attach meaning to already existing brain dynamics. And then a synthesis showing how they're all connected and lumping a bunch of examples of how to do inside-out experiments and how useful they are.

Second, there are numerous examples throughout the book justifying the inside-out framework, and other examples of research within the inside-out framework that Buzsáki is advocating for. I didn't count, but it felt like most of the information was more on the "justification" side - what might just be called the "inside" framework. For example, Buzsáki describes the log-normal distributions of many features of the brain. Great; this is really interesting stuff! Then he describes psychometric experiments showing log-normal distributions in sensory thresholds. Also, very cool! We can call psychometrics the "outside" framework, since it doesn't measure the brain at all. And then he hypothesizes that the two are connected - that the "inside" observation causes the "outside" observation. I'M ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT! I'm thinking of experiments that could connect them, but they're all outside-in because I'm a foolish, brainwashed human neuroimaging person. I would try doing silly things like measuring the intensity of brain activity, while manipulating sensory stimuli features. Then if I saw that the intensity of brain activity increased as a function of log-intensity of the stimulus, I would feel like I was on the right track. So I'm waiting to hear how to do the experiment the inside-out way. But it never comes in the book. I'm not saying that it doesn't exist. I just feel like Buzsáki holds my hand very nicely when describing the outside-in approach, which I know pretty well and actually don't need too much help to understand, but then he assumes that I'm smart enough to come up with the inside-out approach on my own (which I'm not).

Basically, I wish that my attention was explicitly drawn to how to do inside-out research. I understand that part of the purpose of the book is to inspire neuroscientists to think critically about inventing new paradigms or approaches to do inside-out research, but it would be nice to have clear directions. And there are examples of the inside-out framework in action throughout the book, but Buzsáki doesn't explicitly say, "Now pay attention here, buddy-boy, because this is how you should be doing it."

Finally, I think that György Buzsáki frames neuroscience as a whole as if it is shackled by the Outside-In Framework, while only he has freed himself from this imprisonment. I think the reality is more complex and differs based on what subfield of neuroscience you are looking at. Computational neuroscience, reinforcement learning people, motor people, and some memory people will probably not find Buzsáki's thesis too contentious or novel, but they would recognize Buzsáki's major role in the shifting perspective and themes of investigation. A lot of behavioral neuroscience and human neuroimaging research is characterized by the outside-in framework, but even this is shifting. For example, in functional human imaging, there is a huge push towards understanding spontaneous internal dynamics, and in EEG, there is an exploding interest in the 1/f characteristics of oscillatory power. There are widespread conversations about how to refine the definitions of the words that think map onto real cognitive processes in the brain. The inside-out framework, where you treat the brain as the independent variable, is hard to do in human neuroimaging research because our best tools for manipulating the brain are invasive. I don't think that Buzsáki would argue with this point either. I just wish that he would have contextualized his thesis as a slowly changing perspective in neuroscience research that he has been a major part of, and that the point of the book was to explicitly outline this experimental change and to provide examples of how to set up your experiments within this framework.

[Sequoia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the audio book over multiple doctors' appointments and short road trips. And I'm not good at listening to an audiobook -- my attention would be constantly drifting. Yet I still enjoyed parts of the book.

The proposal is not new (for me) -- Nowadays I don't think many neuroscientists still hold a strict "outside-in" approach -- our brain is passively processing the external information -- rather, the brain is quite actively making and testing various predictions/hypothesis. I particularly enjoyed the discussion about fast-updating and slow-updating neurons, and how their distribution may follow a power law -- I was thinking, "oh well this could be related to Daniel Kahneman's system I and system II" -- then the author exactly said that someone else told him the same thing and he ended up reading "thinking, fast and slow" with dread -- fearing that whatever he thought had already been discovered and discussed by others but he just didn't know; or worse, maybe he himself picked up the idea from others but didn't realize it :) But of course Kahneman's research is more on economics and cognition; it's not at the same grainy level as his work (more biological). And then the coincidence is actually a good thing -- sometimes the very beauty of science comes from the resonances across different levels and disciplines.

[Dhananjay Tomar · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the first five chapters, followed by 1-2 more chapters and just the summary of the rest. The book read like a jumbled technical document. The writing lacks structure within a chapter. I just kept waiting for a section in each chapter where everything read so far would be brought together to make a point, but that never happened. The chapters also never started with a broad overview to make the rest of the chapter easier to follow. I guess the book was written primarily for neuroscientists, but I wonder if they found it easy to read or not.
Anyway, don't read the book if you don't have a degree (or a very strong background) in neuroscience. If you do have a degree, then see if you like the first few chapters because the book doesn't get any better later.

[Petter Wolff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This took some time to digest, as can be seen from started/finished dates. But this is in a good way; Buzsaki has really presented an excellent case for why we should view the brain and what goes on in it - what it does - in a very different light.
To me this book is only a beginning. I expect lots and lots of research to be done from this perspective, or from one inspired by it.
Now - the book was difficult for me for a variety of reasons, so I'm going to have to return to it for second and probably third reading to capture a few more things and reach somewhat higher levels of intuition regarding these concepts. But I'm really looking forward to doing that!

[Ali Khaledi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just finished the book. I am a neuroscientist myself so I hoped to learn a lot from this book. While the author is a well-known neuroscientist the book is not the best and still in requires more work.

In part of the book he mentioned that the author has read “thinking fast and slow” over a weekend. This seems unrealistic as the book. That book is like 500 pages, and it is filled with so much uneasy material. Specially because the author said he has never heard of the book before.

With that in mind; I like the idea of inside out thinking about the brian; also this is not a novel idea and people have been working on this for years.

[Stephanie Herrlinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

yeah this was a grind. I figured it would be somewhat easy to follow and good to gather more background on Buszaki’s work as I dance into the world of SWRs… but honestly it was clunky, verbose, and full of bizarre (and sometimes purposefully emotive?) analogies, that didn’t seem primarily inserted for clarity. I certainly learned a lot and appreciate the thesis, it makes sense, although I’m not sure how controversial this really is. Props for giving me some experimental ideas, but it seemed like a missed mentorship opportunity to not mention the trainees that fueled much of this work (and the ideas) in his lab and the studies he discusses. It may have made it even more digestible too.

[Hal · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's novel. It's extensive. It's dense. It's worth reading if you have a strong interest in the structure and operation of the brain. It's a lot like a textbook.

Buzsáki allows you to delve into the detail if you want, the book is heavily footnoted with the specification that you can ignore the footnotes and still get the basics of the book. The footnotes either expand or substantiate the material presented.

It is definitely a book for those with a deep interest in the brain, and I recommend it if that is your interest,

[Leo Juhlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

While having an intriguing narrative and being written by an author deeply engaged in neuroscience research, I find the book very esoteric and hard to understand. Furthermore, I think the book streches out a bit too much and tries to cover all of the author´s interest, even though they may not share the strongest connection.

With that being said, the book is very interesting and unique, which compensates for its weaknesses.

[Paul Buehrens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neuroscience for the science literate

I liked this book, but it was quite difficult, even for this physician. The author's piece in Scientific American prompted me to get the book. On the plus side, it is a paradigm shifting work, and shows very deep understanding of the state of the science. I learned a lot!

[Hardly Halley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Time will come when this will be considered the fundamental book.

It straddles the line between popular science and science; The level is great for anyone who's into science, but not a neuroscientist. It may also be good "general" reading for someone who's deep in some neuroscience niche.

[Leo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really like the new ideas and framework present in the book on how we should study neuroscience.

[Antonio · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exciting book, with an interesting hypothesis : the brain as a hypothesis testing tool. Great, if you ignore the occasional political diatribe and propaganda against socialism

[Alison Sin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Devoured in one sitting. Really liked it.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent. great story, great detail, great topics, very convincing. immediately read it again

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Way, way over my head most of the time. But clearly brilliant and a good sketch of what's out there waiting to be understood

[Thomas Sonnenberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Required reading for Philosophy 2820: Minds, Brains, and Machines.

[P K · Rating 3 out of 5]

We read this for a neuroscience book club I co-run. Comment if you want our notes :)

In this book, Buzsáki advocates for neuroscience to adopt what he calls an "inside out" framework, as opposed to its current mode, using an outside-in framework. He thinks we got on this track accidentally, because we inherited terms and ways of categorizing things from psychology models, before we knew much about the brain. My favorite example of this was that we consider episodic memory and spatial navigation as distinct, and pretty different, cognitive tasks. But the same brain mechanism seems to underlie both. He also thinks of the brain primarily as a system whose main job is to generate actions and examine and predict the consequences of those actions, rather than how we think of it now, which is a system that suggests the brain's job is to perceive and represent the world, process information, and then decide how to act.

So basically, he's saying that when studying neuroscience, we should start with a mechanism in the brain and explore how those mechanisms give rise to the things we call perception, action, emotion, and cognition. Rather than starting with a construct we call, lets say semantic memory, and finding the mechanisms from there.

It seems like there are some really great and perhaps revolutionary ideas in here, but they were completely buried in the dense and cumbersome execution. I'd love a TLDR version with:

1. How to improve my experiments according to his framework and what tangible gains are possible
2. A summary of this main points

As is, I was mostly pretty bored reading this book, though my interest was periodically piqued.