waves oscillating at 40 hz. the information was extracted from a study using the cat visual cortex. it was shown that the cortical neurons responded differently to spatially different objects. these firings of neurons ranged from 40–60 hz in measure and when observed showed that they fired synchronously when observing different parts of the object. such coherent responses point to the fact that the brain is doing a kind of coding where it is piecing certain neurons together in the works of making the form of an object. since the brain is putting these segmented pieces together unsupervised, a significant consonance is found with many philosophers (like sigmund freud) who theorize an underlying subconscious that helps to form every aspect of our conscious thought processes. in order for these multiple firings from multiple areas to be combined into a specific extrinsic event, there must be help from the dorsal thalamus. it is not proven whether the dorsal thalamus is the primary organizer, but it does fit the specific profile for collecting neuronal activity and rapidly coordinating between what is happening in the brain and outside of it. the space in and around the dorsal thalamus, the thalomocortical area, is able to generate fast voltage-dependent membrane potential oscillations which allow it to react quickly to received messages. the types of channels that cover this area are presumed to be gabaergic. since sensory awareness needs to be quick, the threshold for sodium and potassium in this area is quite low. cognitive francis crick and christof koch proposed that specific neural activity can stimulate short-term memory, forming a continuous and dynamic consciousness. cognitive binding is associated with the different states of human consciousness. two of the most studied states of consciousness are the wakefulness and rem sleep. there have been multiple studies showing, electrophysiologically, that these two states are quite similar in nature. this has led some neural binding theorists to study the modes of cognitive awareness in each state. certain observations have even led these scientists to hypothesize that since there is little cognition going on during rem sleep, the increased thalamocortical responses show the action of processing in the waking preconscious. the thalamus and cortex are important anatomical features in cognitive and sensory awareness. the understanding of how these neurons fire and relate to one other in each of these states (rem and waking) is paramount to understanding awareness and its relation to neural binding. in the waking state, neuronal activity in animals is subject to changes based on the current environment. changes in environment act as a form of stress on the brain so that when sensory neurons are then fired synchronously, they acclimate to the new state. this new state can then be moved to the hippocampus where it can be stored for later use. in the words of james newman and anthony a. grace in their article, "binding across time" this idea is put forth: "the hippocampus is the primary recipient of inferotemporal outputs and is known to be the substrate for the consolidation of working memories to long term, episodic memories." the logging of "episodes" is then used for "streaming", which can mediate by the selective gating of certain information reentering sensory awareness. streaming and building of episodic memories would not be possible if neural binding did not unconsciously connect the two synchronous oscillations. the pairing of these oscillations can then help input the correct sensory material. if these paired oscillations are not new, then cognitively these firings will be easily understood. if there are new firings, the brain will have to acclimate to the new understanding. in rem sleep, the only extreme difference from the waking state is that the brain does not have the actual waking amount of sensory firings, so cognitively, there is not as much awareness here, although the activity of the "brain’s eye" is still quite significant and very similar to the waking state. studies have shown that during sleep there are still 40 hz oscillation firings. these firings are due to the perceived stimuli happening in dreams. " learning/memory opitz argues that the binding of different brain areas is mediated by the hippocampus. relational bindings, or relationships between separate objects, concepts, and memories, are very flexible because the targets can be combined in so many different ways to deal with the present situation, and the hippocampus ensures that these parts are arranged into a coherent whole. particularly, the hippocampus has been implicated in binding that is involved with episodic memory, working memory, and language acquisition. according to opitz, this is viable because the hippocampus meets all criteria to be suitable for the regulation relational binding and, based on its patterns of activity, it is likely that it is involved. clinical implications autism a young boy with autism who has arranged his toys in a row several researchers have suggested a clinical link between difficulties in neural binding and autism spectrum disorders. it has been postulated that there is a level of underconnectivity between certain areas of the autistic brain, specifically those areas that involve social cognition. they also hypothesize that there may be overconnectivity within certain neuronal cell assemblies. researchers have suggested that these issues with coherence of neural networks give rise to the hallmark autistic symptoms, namely, impaired social cognition/interactions and repetitive behaviors. there is one major piece of evidence suggesting that abnormal connectivity occurs in autism. autistic brains are known to develop very rapidly early in life, and this could cause problems in the development of cortical connections. it has been suggested that this early overdevelopment may be a cause for the impaired connectivity in autism. diffusion tensor imaging studies of autistic brains are consistent with this idea, as they show reduced myelination (see:myelin) in the areas of the brain that deal with social cognition and theory of mind, or one’s ability to comprehend what another person may be thinking. this provides further evidence for underconnectivity of the autistic brain. schizophrenia it is also possible that problems with binding give way to the fractured mental state that is characteristic of schizophrenia. schizophrenic patients experience a “disintegration of consciousness” which involves hallucinations, delusions, and generally disordered thinking. it is hypothesized that this mental disorganization is caused by underlying neural disorganization due to disordered binding, which is then further complicated by the occurrence of complex mental processes in this disordered state. this can essentially be viewed as a pathological rise in the neural complexity of the brain. the dissociative symptoms and disorganized speech associated with schizophrenia are consistent with this idea. it is also possible that disordered binding between the regulatory mechanisms of the brain gives rise to a lack of synchronized activation of its neural networks. anesthesia a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying consciousness on the biochemical level has practical implications which extend to the development of more effective and reliable anesthetics. this method is especially useful for the study of consciousness because of anesthetic's well-known ability to elicit unconsciousness. this often happens in a single moment, giving the impression of a collapse of conscious coherence. stuart hameroff is a notable anesthesiologist who promotes this method in the development of a science of consciousness.