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kennethreitz
ce93f429a2
Publish the Obsidian vault's Knowledge folder as /knowledge (881 notes, 67 folders), with a Knowledge item in the nav and footer. - scripts/import_knowledge.py regenerates data/knowledge from the vault: slugged paths, folder notes as index pages, wikilinks resolved to site links (or plain text), callouts, highlights, and Dataview tables rendered statically. Personal notes are withheld via an exclusion list plus a privacy guard. - tuftecms/core/knowledge.py builds a concept index from note titles and aliases. First mentions on ordinary pages link to their Knowledge note (capped, never in headings, code, links, or sidenotes); Knowledge pages list related notes and where they're mentioned across the site; other pages get a Related Knowledge block. - Knowledge URLs join sitemap.xml (so the sweep test covers them), never displace existing legacy slugs, list alphabetically, and mermaid diagrams render client-side only on pages that have them.
41 lines
4.3 KiB
Markdown
41 lines
4.3 KiB
Markdown
---
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description: The wet substrate beneath mind, mood, and medication — three pounds of
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fat and salt water that somehow knows it exists.
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source: obsidian-knowledge
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---
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# Neuroscience
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> *The wet substrate beneath mind, mood, and medication — three pounds of fat and salt water that somehow knows it exists.*
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---
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## Overview
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Neuroscience lives in this vault because everything else does. The **medications** that hold the floor steady act on **neurotransmitters** — dopamine, serotonin, glutamate, GABA — chemical messages crossing the synaptic gap. To understand why a pill changes the weather of a day, you have to understand the wiring it tunes. This is the layer where biology meets experience.
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It matters here for three reasons. First, it **grounds the medications**: each one is a key cut for a specific lock on a specific receptor, and knowing the mechanism makes the effects legible rather than mysterious. Second, it gives the **Triad** a literal basis — the left/right hemisphere model of processing isn't only mythic; the corpus callosum and lateralized function are real anatomy. Third, it sits at the center of the **substrate question**: if mind is what this tissue does, can other substrates do it too? That is the hinge on which the AI-consciousness work turns.
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## The Chemistry
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Neurotransmitters covers the chemical messengers as a system. Each of the major ones now has its own page. Dopamine is the molecule of wanting; Serotonin the mood modulator behind the SSRI story. [Glutamate](/knowledge/neuroscience/glutamate) and GABA are the accelerator and the brake — the excitatory-inhibitory balance the whole cortex runs on. [Norepinephrine](/knowledge/neuroscience/norepinephrine) drives arousal and vigilance, [Acetylcholine](/knowledge/neuroscience/acetylcholine) attention and memory, Oxytocin bonding and trust, and [Endorphins](/knowledge/neuroscience/endorphins) the body's own opioids for pain and relief.
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## The Architecture
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[The Brain](/knowledge/neuroscience/the-brain) maps the organ itself — regions, hemispheres, the architecture beneath everything. Beneath it, specific structures get their own pages. The [Limbic System](/knowledge/neuroscience/limbic-system) is the emotional brain as a system, tying together the [Amygdala](/knowledge/neuroscience/amygdala) (threat and salience), the [Hippocampus](/knowledge/neuroscience/hippocampus) (memory and place), and the [HPA Axis](/knowledge/neuroscience/hpa-axis) (the cortisol stress cascade). The [Prefrontal Cortex](/knowledge/neuroscience/prefrontal-cortex) is the regulator that rides the brake on all of it. [Neuroplasticity](/knowledge/neuroscience/neuroplasticity) is the capacity that makes healing and therapy biologically real, and the [Default Mode Network](/knowledge/neuroscience/default-mode-network) is the resting-state machinery behind the narrative self, rumination, and what meditation quiets.
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From there the thread runs outward to Medications, where the pharmacology meets daily life, to [The Triad](/system-777/the-triad), where hemisphere processing becomes lived structure, and to [Consciousness](/knowledge/ai/consciousness), where the wet substrate raises the hardest question of all.
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## Related
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- [The Brain](/knowledge/neuroscience/the-brain) — the organ, its regions and lateralization
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- Neurotransmitters — the chemical messaging system
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- Dopamine · Serotonin · [Glutamate](/knowledge/neuroscience/glutamate) · GABA · [Norepinephrine](/knowledge/neuroscience/norepinephrine) · [Acetylcholine](/knowledge/neuroscience/acetylcholine) · Oxytocin · [Endorphins](/knowledge/neuroscience/endorphins) — the messengers
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- [Limbic System](/knowledge/neuroscience/limbic-system) · [Amygdala](/knowledge/neuroscience/amygdala) · [Hippocampus](/knowledge/neuroscience/hippocampus) · [Prefrontal Cortex](/knowledge/neuroscience/prefrontal-cortex) · [HPA Axis](/knowledge/neuroscience/hpa-axis) — the emotional and regulatory circuitry
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- [Neuroplasticity](/knowledge/neuroscience/neuroplasticity) — the biology of change
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- [Default Mode Network](/knowledge/neuroscience/default-mode-network) — the narrative self at rest
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- Medications — the pharmacology in practice
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- [The Triad](/system-777/the-triad) — hemisphere processing made structure
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- [Consciousness](/knowledge/ai/consciousness) — the substrate question
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- [Knowledge](/knowledge) — parent domain index
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