Developing this argument, but to be consistent within the current model we’d need to have two completely different types of engrams which fed both systems. The immune/vascular side would need to have very short encodings to support increased production rates and these “microengrams” are decodable by nervous system clusters throughout the body. So the brain and vascular system cross signaling exists in every region of the body, rather than just the head. These microengrams likely serve as the building blocks that the developing hippocampus will use to create ever more complex engrams. A disruption in the ability to adequately create these microengrams would have fairly severe developmental effect, by limiting how complex of a scaffold the dentate gyrus can draw from. Those longer, more complex engrams come online in humans around the 2 year mark when more dorsal stream systems come online.
The top down mechanism is subservient to the bottom up mecahnism in brains, however two separate signaling streams allow them to respond to environment in a much more interdependent way avoiding some of the fragility of a more rigidly established control scheme.
Edit: The necessity for decoding by nerve clusters is that it allows a really gross level of response to stimuli to be established while the necessary nervous system mechanics for fine tuning are still developing.
Just had a thought… what if our chemical drugs work by mimicking bits of microengrammatic memory (like antibodies). The reason for so much heterogeneity of effect is that that memory is dependent on genetic construction which is unique.
Edit 2: Okay, so if we can establish this construct, holy shit. It means that there is probably a microengram which represents “pure happiness” or whatever the metaphor for that might be within the brain stem. If these base emotions are innate, we may be able to look at someone’s DNA and see exactly what “happiness”, or “sadness” looks like for them. Imagine a custom crafted “Pure Joy” or “Pure Satisfaction” drug? Pheeeew.
Edit 3: Okay, so this same mechanic works down through all vertebrates at least. Huh, what if what we think of as “neurotransmitters” are representative of our preprogrammed base salience states?
Edit 4: Under this construct it’s pretty easy to describe exactly when the body begins both recording any engrams (b cells differentiate enough to create antibodies), and for complex engrams when an activation threshold is reached for particular hippocampal circuits.
Hah, the idea that there is a minimum level of fucks that must be given in order to form an engram is funny.
I have to admit I quite enjoy this concept of dual systems in bodies, it seems to parallel nicely with mitochondria and the nucleus in cells, where the mitchondria and nucleus have interdependent signalling mechanisms.
Are astrocytes the bridge between the systems or the master control system for both?