The Tannhauser Gate
Chapter 2
Attention remains fascinating and mysterious. A gateway between the physical world and the human soul. Every awake moment, we apply it, and rely on it. Author, 2021
I had my daily walk at the Psychology Department. I was preoccupied with understanding what happens in the brain during the first few hundred milliseconds after visual information projects onto the retina. The experiments I ran tested how attention worked to select and retrieve relevant information from our surroundings. Participants would sit and identify certain letters from a stream of random letters flashing on the screen before them. It was exactly as tedious as it sounds, but the results of the experiment were powerful. It was possible to map out the time course and workings of attention by configuring the parameters of the experiment.
An essential tool in my research was EEG, electrophysiological measurements of brain activity recorded from electrodes placed on the scalp. The EEGs provided unparalleled data insight into the brain processes of attention with millisecond precision. During EEG studies, participants sat in a Faraday cage, a large metal cage intended to shield the electrodes from external noise that could corrupt the sensitive signals recorded from the brain. During the hour-long EEG experiments, participants often got tired sitting in the cage, and an essential part of running the experiments was to ensure that this did not happen as it also ruined the data. From the control room, the experimenter could monitor the brain recordings in real-time. Whenever participants would get tired, slow periodic cycles aka alpha oscillations increased to reveal this. At first, in the middle region of the brain, which indicates drowsiness and lack of focus. If not interrupted, the oscillations could increase in strength and migrate to the frontal regions. If this happened, the person was well on the way to dreamland, and the data would be useless.
On one otherwise ordinary test day, something very unusual happened. I found myself in the control room observing the brain waves of participant 13 disperse across the screen. I would usually have my students, Camille and Nick to help me out. But exams were approaching, and I had given them time off to study. Christmas was coming, and I wanted to collect the last data before the holidays. I was traveling to Boston in the new year to spend six months at MIT in a cross Atlantic collaboration to apply advanced analysis methods to the EEG data I was collecting. Thomas, the student who had signed up for the experiment as participant 13, sat in the box and typed away while the letters flickered before him.
I was following up on a pile of emails while watching the control screen with half an eye. In my search for an old email, I stumbled over a recent one from the National Research Council for Independent Research — the most prestigious funding agency in my area. It erroneously had been filtered to a social media mailbox that I did not check. I had applied to the funding agency to start a small research unit based on results I published the year before. It was not groundbreaking results, but enough to give me a shot at the funding agency.
The application was rejected at first but put on a waiting list in case additional funding should be available — as if that ever happened. Along with the rejection came an extensive letter on what I could do to improve the application. I decided against it because I was losing faith in the project. Reading through the email, I now learned that against all odds, I was granted 3.5 million to carry out the project over the next three years. I forgot all about Thomas sitting in the cage sifting through the letters and called the funding agency to confirm my continued interest. I told the whole story to the receptionist before he kindly directed me to the funding officer. Afterward, I leaped the four flights of stairs down to Emmet’s office. Emmet was sitting in his chair, focused and reading a scientific paper. I recognized it as the Neuron paper from the other day. He was a colleague and friend, and now recently got appointed Head of Department.
“I thought those days were over,” I said. “Reading scientific literature?”
Emmet looked up. He had been a rising star as a scientist and the youngest ever to take the seat of his newly appointed position.
“Well, between expense reports and moderating department meetings, I need this to keep me going.”
“Have you read this?” he continued. “I did my Ph.D. with Alain at Cambridge, talented guy…” Alain was the first author on the paper, and like Emmet, one of the few truly brilliant people you encounter in life.
“Listen,” I said, “I just learned that I received funding for the project I applied for last year, remember?” Emmet nodded eagerly while taking off his glasses and looking straight at me.
“That is great news, congratulations!! We should celebrate, go out and have a beer… and talk more about this paper I am reading.”
It was in the middle of the conversation with Emmet that I remembered Thomas. I ran up the stairs, and as I opened the door to the control room, I saw the all too familiar alpha waves swaying back and forth on the monitor as delicate as a pendulum over Thomas’ frontal cortex — he was fully asleep in the cage. Thomas excused himself when he half-sleeping staggered out of the cell, saying how he had been up all night reading for exams. I wished him good luck when we said goodbye. Due to the events with the funding agency, I was distracted and did not get to write in the log that participant 13’s data was invalid after 1 hour and 41 minutes into the experiment.
As I wrapped up my things that day, my thoughts were on the project I got granted and the future research stay at MIT. I had contacted the group at MIT through the Human Brain Project (HBP), which had the ambitious purpose of uncovering the function and interconnections of all brain processes by 2050. The group worked on developing highly advanced mathematical methods to analyze precisely the type of data I was collecting from my EEG studies, so the fit was perfect. I had too little time and lacked the expertise to analyze the data extensively enough, and they had too little data to develop and test their models — a perfect marriage. Now I finally had collected the last piece of data and was ready to take off. Things were looking good…
Update: Title changed from The Phenomological Recorder to the Tannhauser Gate July 20th 2022
