AllatRa by Anastasia Novykh 2 www.allatra.org

AllatRa by Anastasia Novykh
frequency of 1-4 Hz appears, spindles are generated in the nuclei of the thalamus (optic
thalamus, the main part of the betweenbrain), and, more precisely, in its reticular cells…
Anastasia: In other words, in the betweenbrain. Yes, taking into account what you have
recently said about the betweenbrain while explaining the meditation on the four
Aspects, the comparison looks very interesting. After all, the thalamus, being the
betweenbrain’s primary part, is the main subcortical centre, into which impulses from all
the sensitivity types come and where, basically, their analysis and synthesis and later
their redistribution to various parts of the brain takes place. For example, the thalamic
reticular nucleus is connected with the new, old, and ancient cerebral cortex and with
other thalamic nuclei. The name is also special – thalamus, from the Greek word
“thalamos” meaning “a bed-chamber, a room”. They called it as if they had known in
advance about a place in the brain where one condition changes to another one, so to
say, where subtle energies are transformed into a coarse wave. Well, the reticular
formation in general (from the Latin word “reticulum” meaning “netting” and
“formatio” – “formation”) is quite a universal system. It is called “a brain within a
brain” for a reason. It is connected with both the cerebrum and the spinal cord.
Rigden: Moreover, other rhythms are being studied, which operate at the same
frequency as the alpha rhythm but which have a different waveform; they are observed
in other areas of the brain. For example, the frequency range of the so-called by
scientists mu rhythm is 7-11 Hz (the waveform in the electroencephalogram resembles
the Greek letter μ (mu)). Interestingly, today’s science is already considering the
assumption that the mu rhythm in a way reflects the activity of teamwork of mirror
neurons…
Anastasia: Yes, I remember that memorable conversation with you in mid-90s about
mirror neurons. But no matter how hard I tried to find this information in libraries back
then, it wasn’t available. And only much later, after a few years, did the media report
about these unique experiments which you had mentioned. This is when scientists used
monkeys to study the work of command neurons, which activate when the animals do
certain actions, and accidentally discovered the so-called mirror neurons, which
responded also when the apes just visually saw a familiar action. In other words, mirror
neurons got activated as if the monkey itself, for example, would take peanut off the
table and eat it, although actually at this time the monkey was just looking at another
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